BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S & THE GRASS HARP

Author: Truman Capote
Year: 1972 (1951 & 1958)
Publisher: Czytelnik
Language: Polish (Translator Bronislaw Zielinski)

In 1868, shortly after the civil war, the American journalist and writer John William DeForest coined the term “the Great American Novel” and delineated it as “the picture of the ordinary emotions and manners of American existence”. Without too much effort, some contenders for this esteemed distinction naturally spring to mind. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is one. Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer another. The Old Man and the Sea, On the Road, Moby Dick, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin are but a few more monolithic examples of novels that catch defining aspects of Americanism, and I have argued elsewhere that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby might potentially edge ahead of them all in the race for this prestigious title.

One book of equally unassuming proportions but comparable gravitas is Truman Capote’s “Sniadanie u Tiffany’ego” (“Breakfast at Tiffany’s”). It narrates the tale through a first-person male protagonist who happens to reside in the same New York apartment building as a rather frivolous, egocentric, and seemingly irresolute young woman by the name of Holly Golightly whom he gets to know as she repeatedly rings his doorbell when she returns from her nocturnal activities, having forgotten or lost her keys. While other tenants in the building grow irritated and tired of the reckless woman, the narrator develops a liking, akin to fascination, for her.

As the story progresses, the narrator, and the reader through him, bit by bit assemble the puzzle that is Holly Golightly. Through observations, conversations with her associates, the gifts she offers and her distinctive behaviour, the character is incrementally explored and new perspectives and dimensions uncovered. We learn about her humble origins and the driving force behind her erratic behaviour in the metropolitan environment.

In Holly Golightly, the new America, or more precisely a re-invented American dream, takes form. As the post-World War America underwent rapid transformation ultimately extricating itself from the aftermath of its Civil War trauma, society was subjected to considerable stress. Holly Golightly embodies the pursuit of material success and social mobility, the bedrock of the American Dream. Everybody can make it big. And to make it big means accumulating monetary wealth. But she also experiences the solitude of the transition between social classes. A country girl traying her wings in an unforgiving and unfathomable metropolis, Holly seems to reject authority and conformism but at closer scrutiny, she is just as entangled in the web of society as her new self as she was before. Only she lacks the tools and experience to control it.

A comparative analysis with the aforementioned The Great Gatsby may prove useful. Both novels are of modest proportions and although they were published three decades apart, they found their audience at about the same time in the years following the Second World War. Both stories grapple with the issues of identity as each of them portrays a character that arrives to the big city from the countryside to confront the frenzy of material pursuit, posturing, and competition that make up the American Dream.

While I somewhat enjoyed Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I was surprised to find the second story in the volume, “Harfa traw” (“The Grass Harp”) significantly more gratifying. By all standards it is a silly tale about two elderly sisters, Verena and Dolly Talbo, embroiled in a dispute over the commercial exploitation for a medication that Dolly has concocted. As a result of their rift, Dolly leaves the house where Verena and she have lived together since forever and takes refuge in a tree house in the woods not far from the town. Her maid and her and her sister’s nephew, who is also the narrator of this story accompany her.

SPOILER ALERT

Before long, they are joined by others who for one reason or another find it prudent to move in with them in the tree house, despite its unsuitability as a permanent settlement. Verena, always the authoritarian of the two sisters, calls upon the sheriff to track down her eloped sister and bring her back home again. Law enforcement, of course, translates the mission into something they can understand and after a confusing and wildly entertaining scene by the tree house, arrests the maid.

“Harfa traw” is a heartening tale of rebellion and personal integrity but also about reconciliation and the futility of quarrel. Predating “Sniadanie u Tiffany’ego” by several years it exudes a tone and environment entirely distinct. The characters are diverse and intriguing and their interaction consistently entertaining. Although some may find the ending somewhat anti-climactic, to me it harmonises with the story’s overall tone and glides into the sunset with just enough sentimentality to make it touching and enough screech to not make it sentimental. A sheer delight.  

 

CRIME AND SOCIETY

Author: Jerzy Sarnecki
Year: 2010
Publisher: Studentlitteratur
Language: Swedish

Crime, especially organised crime and gun violence, stands as the preeminent political concern in Sweden today. As always when a subject engages a significant audience, facts and data quickly succumb to guesses, prejudice, and bravado.

Motivated by this, I picked up a book that had been standing for a couple of years untouched on my bookshelf; “Brottsligheten och samhället” (not available in English but roughly translatable as “Crime and Society”) by Swedish criminologist Jerzy Sarnecki. As this particular edition was already out of print by the time I acquired it, I acknowledge its obsolescence and its obvious inability to address recent developments in Swedish crime. However, dismissing it as irrelevant would also be misguided as its methodology, models, and theories remain applicable rendering the insights into global and national trends, processes, and dynamics in criminal behaviour enduringly pertinent.

Across 9 chapters, Sarnecki’s book offers a broad, comprehensive, and basic overview of the field of criminology intended as an entry level textbook for Swedish university students.

Chapter 1: What is criminology?
Chapter 2: The starting points of criminological thinking
Chapter 3: The scope and characteristics of crime
Chapter 4: Socioecological and learning theories
Chapter 5: Strain, sub-culture theories, gangs, and criminal networks
Chapter 6: Symbolic interactionism, conspiracy to commit crime, postmodern criminology, conflict theory, and critical criminology.
Chapter 7: Theories of control, routine activities, and structures of opportunity
Chapter 8: Crime levels and societal flux
Chapter 9: Penalty

All chapters are characterised by the accessibility expected of an introductory textbook, while still being able to delve into certain theories and models with some depth. However, as a layman, I am immediately confronted with two problems.

1.      Sarnecki introduces criticism sections for some but not all the theories he presents and even where they are included, they seem cursory and superficial. Moreover, in some cases, he injects his own personal preferences and convictions arguably misplaced in a textbook intended for impartiality. Argumentation and propositions of this sort would be more appropriately saved for articles and seminars.

2.      Acknowledging the book’s tendentious inclinations, readers are left uncertain whether Sarnecki includes all the relevant research in this book or omits some for personal reasons.

Even so, the book is highly instructive, showing the complexity of the area of criminology and the wealth of knowledge researchers have accumulated. Chapters 4 and 5 in particular caught my attention, given the fierce debates and heavy politicisation surrounding the origins of criminal behaviour in contemporary Swedish public discourse. Sarnecki maintains, that introducing biology or ethnicity into the discussion of criminal behaviour is unhelpful and cites well-documented and repeated findings by the Chicago school and various socioecological studies as compelling evidence.

When reading about criminology, it is important to bear in mind that the discipline does not, and probably never will, possess the precision to predict who will commit a crime on an individual level. Nor does it claim to possess such ambitions. Its utility lies in providing tools to identify risk factors and to suggest countermeasures to remove the risk factors, not the individuals exposed to them.

In conclusion, I would advise anyone professing to know anything about crime and criminology to familiarise themselves with the works of any recognised criminologist. While many of the theories and conclusions that Sarnecki brings up have been and continue to be contested, fully in compliance with the very nature of academia, no one who is moderately literate and possesses at least a rudimentary capacity for rational thought, will accept “look around” or “my neighbour’s niece’s bike was stolen two years ago” as valid arguments. In the contemporary information society, where knowledge and facts are available at a keystroke, ignorance is a choice.

 

TYNNER

Author: Ulrike Längle
Year: 1996
Publisher: Collection S. Fischer
Language: German

Ennui. That frozen prison of aimless inanity. That subtle whisper of misery in the theatre of existential despair. That “feeling of being bored and mentally tired caused by having nothing interesting or exciting to do”*. It is a state all too familiar to most of us who have survived the slings and arrows of adolescence and entered through the gates of broken promises into the desert of mundanity.

Many classic works of fiction have grappled with the concept of ennui. Albert Camus’ “The Outsider” (see my review from April 2023) examines the most extreme forms of complete indifference and other famous novels such as “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald explore the lengths to which the affluent go to fill the gaping hollow of an existence effectively devoid of pursuit. In non-fiction, Victor Frankl’s monumental body of work on the subject is second to none and is frequently cited among books that will change your life.

Ulrike Längle, an Austrian literary critic, university lecturer, and author, contributes to the contemplation on ennui through her concise novel, "Tynner." The narrative unfolds around Tynner, a middle-aged university reader in literary studies. Socially inept and markedly aloof, his limited engagements extend to perfunctory meetings with Mynner, a companion with whom connections seem sustained more by obligation than genuine affinity, and an awareness of his cleaning lady's presence, discernible solely through the sounds of her labour while he remains cloistered in his bedroom. Tynner’s ongoing project is the book that he is writing on the rift in the fabric of society.

As the layers of Tynner's existence unfold, we as readers realise that the greater his perceived discontent, the more enviable and gratifying his life becomes to external observers. He travels to foreign lands, engages in stimulating conversations, he dines at excellent restaurants and savours exquisite wines, he commands the allegiance of a friend ever-ready to avail himself for meetings, enjoys familial care, boasts robust health, and maintains financial prosperity. Paradoxically, he remains gripped by an overarching sense of misery, ensnared in the web of ennui.

There are several humorous episodes in the book wherein Tynner endeavours to liberate himself from his imagined malaise, yet paradoxically recoils when his miserable condition is jeopardised by the interventions of friends and family. It is only when he takes his fate in his own hands that he is finally saved. And salvation seems to have been on his doorstep the entire time.

Längle's novella appears to convey a subtle yet profound message: in the privileged landscapes of the Western world, many possess the prerequisites for happiness, or at least contentment and ease, only to grapple with some variation of self-imposed melancholy. Could it be that individuals, ourselves included, bear a burden of perceived failure, overlooking the myriad blessings that life bestows and which, if absent, would fundamentally change the nature, and our experience, of our unhappiness?

Längle's prose is as simple as it is straightforward and encapsulates an almost maternal sentiment for the protagonist. While not a pivotal piece of literature, and despite Längle's respectable role as the custodian of the Franz-Michael-Felder Archives in Bregenz, her personal contributions, including "Tynner," appear to occupy a relatively modest niche in the annals of 20th-century literature. Hesitating to diminish the significance or craftsmanship of "Tynner," it stands as a work of ordinary, albeit entertaining, literary quality suited for casual perusal. This may sound depressing in the ears of an author, and yet more than three decades after the book was published in Austria, somewhere in far off Scandinavia a banker is reading and pondering on it and inviting the readers of this blog to discuss its content. And that is more than most aspiring authors ever accomplish. Tynner may never have, but at least his creator actually finished her book on the rift in the fabric of society.

* The Cambridge Online Dictionary

TARTUFFE

Author: Molière
Year: Unknown (1664)
Publisher: Wydawnictwo "Klasyka"
Language: Polish (translator Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński)

In the English-speaking world, Molière is sometimes said to be the Shakespeare of France. Although Shakespeare predated Molière and for that reason may have some precedence, this comparison fails on two fronts. First, Shakespeare, although writing some comedies, mostly excelled in tragedies whereas Molière almost exclusively wrote farces and satires. Second, Molière holds a far more prominent status in France than Shakespeare does in England. In fact, the French language itself is traditionally referred to as “la langue de Molière”.

One of Molière’s most famous plays, and the one that nearly cost him his career and his good standing with King Louis XIV, was “Świętoszek” (“Tartuffe”). On the off chance that someone is reading these words and the even slimmer chance that that person is unfamiliar with this play, I suppose a spoiler alert is appropriate at this point.

The play opens with Orgon’s mother Madame Pellier chastising everybody in Orgon’s household, extolling Tartuffe’s piety and deriding her family’s inadequacies. She then declares that she will not stay for one more minute in the wretched place her son calls home. Orgon’s family tries to dissuade her and to convince her of Tartuffe’s fraudulent intentions, but to no avail. Orgon arrives and inquires about Tartuffe. He is told about the different accidents, ailments and misfortunes that each family member has suffered during his absence but is preoccupied with the well-being of Tartuffe alone, exclaiming “poor fellow!” at every bit of news about him, even though he is repeatedly told that Tartuffe has never been better. Tartuffe, who for a long time remains unseen in the play, is a self-proclaimed holy man who has obviously convinced Orgon that he is his path to righteousness and salvation.

This sets the stage for the play’s first half. The more Orgon’s wife, son, daughter, brother-in-law, and servants strive to expose Tartuffe’s deceit, the more Orgon defends him, even bestowing his estate and his daughter’s hand in marriage upon him. Moreover, he entrusts Tartuffe with a potentially incriminating secret letter.

A turning point presents itself when Tartuffe endeavours to seduce Orgon’s wife, Elmire. Although Elmire initially conceals the incident, Orgon’s son Damis, who has monitored the scene from a hiding place, exposes the truth. Forced to protect her own honour as well as that of Damis, Elmire tells her husband to hide underneath a table while she encourages Tartuffe to make advances toward her a second time. Seeing with his own eyes how Tartuffe has deceived his confidence, Orgon confronts him and commands him to leave his house at once. Tartuffe, however, retorts that by Orgon’s own decree Tartuffe is now the Master of the estate and he commands everyone to leave what he now considers his house. When they refuse, Tartuffe calls the authorities. The king’s soldiers arrive at the house and to everyone’s surprise arrest Tartuffe for fraud and deceit, a testament to the king’s astute judgment.

Already a celebrated playwright and actor with the king’s favour, Molière penned the play in 1664. Although it was met with acclaim from the audience at the premiere and even with the approval of the king himself, the Catholic Church took offence at its criticism of religious zeal and Tartuffe’s deceit. It swiftly moved to ban the play and pressured the king to withdraw his support. Molière revised the play to make it less controversial but that version, too, was banned. It was not until 1669 that a third and heavily revised version received the king’s approval and the Church’s acquiescence. This is the version we know today as the previous manuscripts were either lost or destroyed.

It is tantalising to imagine what the original “Świętoszek” might have contained that drew the Church’s ire. In a letter to the king, it appears that Molière sought to clarify that he was by no means criticising the Church or churchly people but rather the evildoers who take advantage of the king’s devout subjects. It is not entirely unreasonable to propose that the deus ex machina ending was added to flatter the king, but this is an unsubstantiated guess and it is even more uncertain if it contributed at all to tipping the scales in Molière’s favour.

Another speculation might be that Madame Pellier had a bigger role in earlier drafts. Either that, or she was not in them at all. For it seems that after she disappears after the opening scenes, she reappears only after Orgon has become aware of Tartuffe’s betrayal. Still being convinced of Tartuffe’s virtues she admonishes her son Orgon for having lost his faith in him. Orgon is furious that his mother refuses to believe him when he tells her about the true intentions of Tartuffe and to drive the point home, the maid Dorine says

“This is fair payment, sir, for what we received.
You wouldn't believe us; now you're not believed.”*

It is not unlikely that Madame Pellier’s naïveté was part of what sparked the vehement protests by the clergy, but it is also possible that Molière, after having removed most of the controversial material from the manuscript added a sweet and pious little lady to serve as a backdrop to Orgon’s awakening. We will probably never know.

On a higher level, Molière’s critique is not as much directed at the Church as at the gullibility of the general public. It is a curious quirk of the human mind that makes us prone to have faith on words alone but will ignore reality until we see it with our own eyes. Some would say that appealing to emotions is the easiest way to fool the masses. “Wenn du lügst, dann lüge gründlich, und vor allem bleibe bei dem, was du gelogen hast”**. Others would claim that faith comes directly from God and transcends the need for evidence.

Molière warns us against closing our eyes when we open our hearts.

A shoutout to the translator Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński whose Polish translation, despite being almost a century old, still feels fresh and current. It appears to serve as a testimony to the importance of the French language to and the elitism among the theatre-going population of Poland during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, that the play had to wait over 250 years before it was translated.

 

* Molière, “Tartuffe or the Hypocrite”, translated by Jeffrey D. Hoeper (2009)
** Goebbels, Joseph “Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik”, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel. Reden und Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1939–41, (1941)

THE DWARF

Author: Pär Lagerkvist
Year: 1995 (1944)
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag
Language: Swedish 

“The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies”. The poignant quote by the Jewish German philosopher Hannah Arendt serves as a chilling prelude to Swedish novelist and poet Pär Lagerkvist's penetrating exploration of the human psyche in his literary masterpiece “Dvärgen” (The Dwarf”). While Arendt referred to people who instead of acting as humans, choose to see themselves as cogs in a fictitious machinery that they imagine compels them to act in one way or another, Lagerkvist identifies misery, pettiness, and inferiority complex as the source of evil. From his vantage point as a non-Jew in the Nordic landscape, he delves into the heart of evil, meticulously dissecting its origins and manifestations as illuminated by the rise of Nazism and the tumultuous era that followed.

The plot is set in 15^th century Italy in one of the many small principalities which at the time is embroiled in a conflict with one if its neighbours. The narrative unfolds through the eyes of the titular dwarf who serves at the ruler’s court. The dwarf makes detailed notes in his diary about his observations of people and events around the court, and also about himself and his role, as he perceives it, in how matters unfold.

The dwarf is a notoriously unreliable narrator. Everything we read is filtered through his evil, petty, vindictive, and self-aggrandising mind. The text is rife with value indicators which describe his astonishment, contempt, disgust, and hatred. From his lowly perspective, we learn what the world looks like to a deficient, small, and insignificant individual who in his inability to be part of society learns to hate it and aims to destroy it.

We get to know different aspects of the dwarf through his relationships to other characters.

The only authority in his life, and the only person he honours and respects is the ruler. But the dwarf, of course, judges him and admires him from his own base perspective where concepts like honour, honesty, generosity, etc are unknown. In his powerless insignificance, he seeks to bask in the ruler’s glory by sticking close to him, and he maintains an inflated perception of his own usefulness to the ruler until the end of the novel as a way to associate himself with power. He admires the ruler the same way the weakest minds of our own time admire leaders in whom they mistake mendacity, connivery, and violence for strength. From their decumbent position, they are quite simply incapable of making the distinction.   

Another interesting character is Bernardo, who is clearly modelled on Leonardo da Vinci as a genius of art, science, and engineering. The dwarf understands neither him nor any of the things he does, but he hates him and fears him in equal measure. He is particularly upset when he is commanded by the ruler to undress so that Bernardo can study him. This symbolises the aversion that fascists worldwide feel toward art and science. The scene where the dwarf throws a tantrum when he is forced to undress and submit to scrutiny illustrates fascism’s reluctance to being studied by sociology, psychology, or history. He musters a glimmer of approval when he sees the efficiency of Bernardo’s war machines on the battlefield but that is all the value that he is capable of discerning in the work of the great master. The dwarf understands death and destruction but knowledge is beyond his grasp and he therefore considers it a threat.

Early on in his diary, the dwarf makes clear that his abhors and loathes the ruler’s wife on account of her sensuality and her love affair with the handsome and popular Don Riccardo. At times it appears as though the dwarf might deep down be in love with her himself but being, as he is, aware of his own inadequacy, he turns his desire into hatred and relishes in the mental and physical torture he is able to unleash upon her. The dwarf's transformation of desire into hatred and the ensuing sadistic torment mirrors the self-esteem issues prevalent in fascist ideologies, where scorn becomes the currency of interaction.

This pattern is magnified by his encounter with other dwarfs whom he also hates as an illustration of the self-hatred that the dwarf carries in his heart. This self-hatred is scantily masked by grandiose monologues about dwarves being a separate species of an ancient lineage predating humans and therefore superior to humans. A trope akin to the Nazi myth of Aryan supremacy in the 1930s.   

On a whole, the dwarf represents the swathes of failed and morally bankrupt individuals in our community who externalise their self-hatred onto others. It is the dwarf who supports Russia’s brutality in Ukraine. It is the dwarf who wants to dismantle democracy in the West and replace it with an order of autocracy and oppression. It is the dwarf who spews his vile hatred, execration, and bitterness on social media with the sole purpose of making others feel as bad as he is. It is the dwarf who, in his own inability to understand it, denounces art, science, and tolerance. It is the dwarf who rejects the rights of the LGBTQ-community. It is the dwarf who delights in the misfortunes of his compatriots while at the same time professing his dedication to the flag.

Lagerkvist implores us to identify the dwarf inside ourselves as well as around us, and to neutralise him before it is too late. He knew from experience what he was talking about. Let us learn from him lest we need to make the same experience ourselves.  

THE ANARCHIST BANKER & A VERY ORIGINAL DINNER

Author: Fernando Pessoa
Year: 1995 (1922)
Publisher: Bokförlaget Pontes
Language: Swedish (translators Lars Axelsson and Margareta Marin)

”There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that does not exist” is one of Fernando Pessoa’s most famous quotes and one that comes to mind when one reads his philosophical story “Den anarkistiske bankiren" (“The Anarchist Banker”).

It is not so much a story as a philosophical argument thinly veiled behind a simple dinner conversation between two friends. The essence of the discourse unfolds when one of them asks the other, who is a successful and prosperous banker, about his alleged past as an anarchist. The banker not only confesses to his anarchist roots but proclaims his current self the epitome of an anarchist.  The rest of the story is simply the banker explaining how it is not only possible to be a successful trader in stocks and currencies while at the same time being a practicing anarchist, but moreover why it is necessary.

The provocation presented by Pessoa is the apparent contradiction that a banker, whose entire business relies on a system of interconnected institutions based on an exchange of commonly agreed tokens of value which in turn is supervised by an authoritative regulator and enforcer, could possibly serve as a representation of a true anarchist. Still, Pessoa makes a compelling albeit not entirely unproblematic case for his anarchist banker. During the conversation, the banker shares his evolution from a young idealist who embraced anarchism over socialism or syndicalism to the revelation that radical anarchism cannot coexist with a collective. Society itself is by its very design, un-anarchic.

Pessoa has his banker make many interesting claims. The basic point of departure is that the anarchist rejects all structures which he claims to be imaginary and manufactured. Structures, by their very definition are limiting and therefore oppressive. One of the first consequences of this realisation is that anarchism must be superior to other forms of revolution or reform such as socialism as the latter presupposes some sort of government and value system. Since governments and money are in themselves oppressive, no matter how benevolent, socialism appears to be merely a variant of the unequal society it claims to want to do away with. On its best day, it will simply replace one type of government with another, hence one type of oppression with another. This is also the reason he early on in his political career decided to leave the group of anarchists that he had joined as a teenager, as that group, too, soon showed signs of hierarchy. It led him to the conclusion that true anarchism can never be achieved in cooperation with others. Society, therefore, at its very core is anti-anarchic and the only true freedom is consequently offered by a state of nature.

By this argument, Pessoa positions himself in stark contrast to philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes (see review of April 2022) who made the point that the state of nature is the basest form of human existence waging perpetual all-on-all war and that society in general, and a strong government in particular, are necessary for human well-being. Not quite as radically, but still in conflict, Pessoa rejects Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s teachings. Rousseau claimed that society was a necessary consequence of human nature and not, as Hobbes argued, in contradiction to it, but for Pessoa this is not the breeding ground for the benign social contract that Rousseau proposed. Even natural collective structures such as wolfpacks and herds of cattle require hierarchies and must therefore be rejected as oppressive regimes. The true anarchist lives independent of every other living being and does neither force his will upon anyone nor accept anyone to impose their will on him. The only situation where a person could become an adversary to an anarchist is if that person attacks him and his liberties. Two anarchists can never be a threat to each other. Therefore, the drive to dominate others by employing the advantages provided by nature (such as a higher energy level or a higher intelligence) is a perversion of nature, not a direct consequence of nature.

The banker goes on to explain that institutions are the oppressors; not the people who man the institutions. He substantiates his point by saying that if you kill a number of bankers or judges or politicians you will have accomplished nothing to tear down the institutions. But if you dissolve the financial or legal or parliamentary system, you can remove the institution without harming one single individual. The banker thus scoffs at his former anarchist friends who run around planting bombs and attacking people. He himself decided to go after the institution itself. And what better way than to attack it from the inside. But not for the collective. After all, each anarchist fights his own fight. The banker’s aim was to free himself from the institutions. After having identified money as the most important one, he decided to accumulate enough money to become independent of it. That is why he went into banking and his vast success and growing personal wealth proved him right. He is financially independent and therefore, in his mind, the ultimate anarchist.

A simple analysis helps to identify several problems with Pessoa’s reading of the human nature and anarchism.

First, Pessoa let’s his banker argue that hierarchies, such as those he identified in his group of anarchists, are the result of acquired social behaviours and are not part of human nature. Thinkers before Pessoa have conversely argued that the will to power is the most essential driving force in the human being. Where there is a will, there is a power relationship. Pessoa here makes an unsubstantiated claim and builds his continued argument on it. If this claim is shown to be false, and if our species is indeed a herding animal that creates social structures like other herding animals, the rest of the banker’s argument is effectively nullified.

The second problem is the banker’s understanding of his own role in proliferating anarchism. The aim of anarchism, as commonly understood by Pessoa and others alike, is to tear down all structures of oppression, including the state and all systems of government and society, including the monetary system. The failure to do away with the economy as such is in fact one of the banker’s main objections to socialism. By participating in the capitalist system to make himself financially independent, the banker claims to have defeated money. However, by his very participation, he has reinforced the institution of finance and capitalism. The argument that the banker seems to put forth is that he is doing what everybody should do. If all people everywhere would go into finance to become billionaires, the monetary system would collapse and so would the entire capitalist society. However, looking at it this way, the same would happen if everyone decided to be a postman or barber, too, and hence there is no connection between the banker’s choice of arena for his resistance and his goals.

The term resistance brings me to a third problem with Pessoa’s philosophy. If we accept Michel Foucault’s claim that power is a dynamic and not a one-directional force, then resistance becomes part of the definition of power. By agency alone, every individual becomes a participant in an ongoing and ever-present power interaction. By choosing a particular area of society to act within, and becoming an active player on that arena, the banker by his mere resistance makes himself a tool for power. By participating in the stock markets, even by resisting the rules and governance of it, one reinforces it. As Foucault argues, regime change is just replacing one form of power structure by another. On this backdrop, a truer form of anarchism might be advocated by Etienne de la Boetie in his short book “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude” (see my review of July 2021) where he argues that the best form of resistance is not active counteraction to the ruler, but rather the refusal to act at all. After all, once the two friends have finished their dinner, someone has got to pay for it.  

I largely omitted the second text in this small volume, “A Very Original Dinner”, which is one of Pessoa’s early works from when he was still a teenager and wrote in English. This is a very unremarkable story obviously inspired by Edgar Alan Poe, and although well-written and partly entertaining, it is not nearly as interesting as I am beginning to understand most of Pessoa's later output to be. 

In conclusion, Pessoa's thought-provoking discussion challenges preconceived notions of anarchy, society, and resistance. While not without its logical problems, his narrative invites readers to delve into the complexities of these topics, ultimately enriching their understanding of the enigmatic world of government and society. Exploring Pessoa's work was a delight, offering an unexpected literary journey, and an opportunity to become acquainted with Portugal's foremost writer since the days of Luis de Camões.

 

 

A SMALL CORNER OF HELL

Author: Anna Politkovskaya
Year: 2003 (2002)
Publisher: Ordfront
Language: Swedish (translator Stefan Lindgren)

Chechnya. 26th of March. The year is 2000. The Russian 160^th armoured regiment is stationed near the town of Urus-Martan, or Martanthi in the Chechen language, in the southwest vicinity of Grozny. The commander’s name is Colonel Yuri Budanov. Today is his daughter’s second birthday and Colonel Budanov has invited the senior officers of the regiment to a modest celebration. Before long they are all in a drunken stupor. As the clock advances toward midnight, Colonel Budanov decides that he wants to go to the nearby village of Tangi-Chu. He says he knows where to find pretty girls and takes four of his officers with him. They pull up outside the humble farmhouse of the destitute Kungayev-family and break inside. Colonel Budanov knows what he is talking about. The family’s eldest daughter, eighteen years old Elza Kungayeva, is an extraordinary beauty. To the sound of her parents’ and younger siblings’ tearful laments, anguished pleas, and futile resistance to protect her, the five soldiers roll Elza, kicking and screaming, up in a carpet and carry her off to their awaiting vehicle. Back at the regiment, Elza is repeatedly raped, beaten, and tortured. When Elza endeavours to break free in a bid to escape, Budanov grabs her by her throat and extinguishes her young life by strangulation. Her expired body is disposed of in a makeshift grave in a grove right outside the regiment’s encampment.

The singularity of this narrative does not emanate from the events themselves, for such atrocities were regrettably commonplace during the course of the second Chechen war, and conceivably during the preceding conflict as well. What makes Colonel Yuri Budanov stand out is that he was actually prosecuted for his deeds. The catalyst for this was that his superior officer, General Vladmir Shamanov, was on vacation at the time. Shamanov had garnered notoriety for shielding his subordinate from law enforcement, a prerogative facilitated by Russian law. Consequently, the next morning, instead of reporting to General Shamanov, the events form the night before were reported to General Valery Gerasimov*. General Gerasimov possessed a divergent disposition from Shamanov. Not only did he allow the police to enter the compound and apprehend Colonel Budanov, he attended in person to open the gates for them.

But Russia would not be Russia if the story ended there. Owing to the emergence of fabricated evidence and spurious testimonies, Budanov was acquitted by the judiciary. This triggered an unusual and widespread surge of public protests in Moscow and elsewhere, culminating in a re-evaluation of the case by a higher court. This time, the court adopted a somewhat different approach. It ordered Budanov to submit to a psychological evaluation. Conveniently, the results purported that Budanov had suffered a transitory psychosis in the exact moment the crime was committed but never before and never thereafter. This would mean that he could not be sentenced for his actions on the night of the 26^th of March, but there was also no reason to separate him from his command. Budanov was a free man. Elza Kungayeva’s remains were returned to her grieving family - for an ‘administrative fee’.

These chronicles and many others, about corruption, abuse, lies and deceit, politics and money, children whose eyes turn black when they hear the Russian language, and a whole people being all but wiped out by its own government without a word being spoken in their defence by the international community, can be found on the pages of Anna Politkovskaya’s book “Tjetjenien” (“A Small Corner of Hell”). It is a scathing assault on Russian politics and a detailed account of the bestiality and savagery that the Russian army unleashed on the Chechen population. Politkovskaya tells the story of people who otherwise would never have been heard. I knew it would be a harrowing read and still it was worse than I had imagined. If you are surprised by the reports from Mariupol, Bucha, and Bakhmut you just have not been paying attention.

Four years after this book was published, on the 7^th of October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in her own home. Perhaps it was a coincidence that the assassination took place on Vladimir Putin’s birthday. Maybe it was not. But the fact remains that one of the most dangerous voices challenging the Kremlin had to been silenced. And that no matter how badly we want it in the West, Russia is not about to change.

*This is the same General Valery Gerasimov who in 2023 would become the supreme commander of the Russian war effort in Ukraine.