Friday Five: Books Read in March

1. Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall (Elliott and Thompson Ltd) - To see how nations and cultures behave the way we do, we often look to history. In this fascinating work, Tim Marshall posits that past actions may have more to do with geography; natural rivers and mountains as boundaries (France was a successful nation because it has the most kilometres of navigable rivers of any country in the world, thus facilitating movement of goods and ease of trade), and artificial partitions (the arbitrary division of East and West Pakistan has caused unrest and volatility in the subcontinent for the past eighty years). For example, the USA and Russia had communication and unification issues purely due to their physical magnitude; Egypt didn't become a colonialist power because it had no trees with which to build ships; and China seeks expansion to secure warm water seaports. Control of ports, seas, exclaves, canals and straits are of crucial geopolitical importance. Marshall wrote this book in 2015, and this is a revised version published in 2025. With recent global conflicts, including the war to control the Strait of Hormuz, he has plenty to include in his next update. 
2. Cunning Women by Elizabeth Lee (Windmill Books) - Of course I was going to read this book set in 1620 Lancashire, at the height of the persecution of women condemned as witches. In a small hamlet abandoned since the plague, the only people who live there are the Haworth family: Sarah, her little sister Annie (who is practically feral), her brother John and their mother, who is losing her wits (increasingly conversing with her familiar, Dew Springer) potentially due to lack of contact with the local community. It's sort of a love story as Daniel falls for Sarah but cannot explain why, so naturally others say it's because she has bewitched him, particularly the pretty May Queen who wants him for herself. It is also an exposé of hypocrisy as the villagers like the family and use their knowledge when it suits them, but blame and condemn them when that is more convenient.
3. The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersch (Harper Collins) - There is a romantic view of JFK, enhanced in part by his assassination. If that's the way you'd like to preserve your idealisation, I would recommend steering clear of this book. From his serial womanising (he had people to procure him prostitutes and warn him when Jackie was returning to the White House so he could get them out of the pool), to his evident connections with the Mafia and organised crime, via his complete and callous incompetency over the Bay of Pigs incident and the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was something very rotten in the state of D.C. As part of his personal feud with Fidel Castro, Kennedy authorised to the CIA to lace Castro's cigars with toxins, poison his milkshakes, prepare contaminated diving suits and rig brightly-coloured explosive seashells in the areas where he commonly went skin diving, not to mention bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. He made deals with Russian politicians, which have only come to light since the declassification of documents and personal correspondence in the late 1990s, escalated the Vietnam War and approved the use of chemical weapons. He was also on multiple drugs (including opioids, anaesthetics, steroids, tranquilizers and stimulants) to manage his back pain - naturally this toxic cocktail would have affected his judgement as much as the corset he wore to straighten his posture prevented him from slouching in the seat on that fatal day in Dallas. The tone of the book is very serious and wordy, so don't expect light relief, but then again, you might consider that the hagiography of an arrogant, misguided misogynist to be no laughing matter.
4. The Shortest History of Australia by Mark McKenna (Black Inc.) - The 'Shortest History of' series began with Europe in 2012. It has since expanded to include titles on Japan, Greece, Ancient Rome, India, Democracy, The Crown, War, Economics and Innovation. The premise is that they offer 'clear and concise accounts of broad-ranging topics from the world's leading subject matter experts [that] can be read in an afternoon and will transform your perspective for a lifetime.' At over 250 pages and packed with facts and information, I dispute the idea that this could be read in an afternoon, but I do agree that it is fascinating and illuminating. Perhaps the main theory behind this treatise is that the history of Australia is neither linear nor consequential but that many strands can co-exist consecutively. Indigenous Australia, the penal colony, the gold rush, Federation, WWI and the formation of the Anzac legend (Australia being "the only modern nation-state to create an origin myth not located on its own soil"), WWII, the Cold War, and waves of non-British migration are all necessary to the shaping of the country, and all are essential to understand Australia as it is now.  
5. Strange Houses by Uketsu (Pushkin Vertigo) - In this Japanese horror/ mystery, housing floor plans and family trees take up half the book. Much of the text is written as play dialogue, which contains all the exposition, so there is very little description. The tale deals with dismembered bodies, family curses, murderous children, blackmail, and the importance of succession. Despite being pretty far-fetched and exhuming some standard tropes, the creepy thriller is certainly different in style. There is an element of Edgar Allen Poe's short stories, which can be read in a day or two, but leaves a lasting impression.

Both a Womb and a Brain in Tudor Times: The Witch of Eye

The Witch of Eye by Mari Griffith

Accent Press Ltd

Pp. 383

This historical fiction about the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Humphrey and Eleanor, and her dealings with Margery Jourdemayne, known as the Witch of Eye, is told through the tale of Jenna, a made-up character, and her romantic involvement with Margery’s husband, William. The language is modern and the storytelling easy to follow, but it is engaging and throws out several titbits about contemporary customs and costumes.

Eleanor wants a child – her husband is next in line to the throne, and if anything should happen to his sickly nephew, Henry VI, then she would be queen, and a child would secure the succession. Eleanor is desperate and she turns to herbs and decoctions from Margery, image magic and also involves high-ranking priests in using astrolabes to cast horoscopes, and mirror magic to descry the lifetime of the current monarch.

The conjuration scene from Henry VI, Part 2, illustrated by John Opie

Margery Jourdemayne was accused of ‘false belief and witchcraft’ and burned at the stake at Smithfield Market in 1441. In this novel, she tells Jenna, “I often think a woman’s main problem is that she has both a womb and a brain. Society dictates that her womb is the more important of the two. But I’m not sure that’s true.” Jenna is a simple milkmaid, so she regards this cynical viewpoint with disbelief, as it allows the author to propound her feminist leanings.

Jenna, meanwhile, is merely a cypher, and her story, although it has a happy ending and delivers her from a life of domestic abuse and drudgery, is not particularly colourful or arresting. There is a further Huckleberry Finn moment where a character (in this case Jenna) is not told some life-changing information (that her abusive husband, from whom she is hiding, has died) because the male protagonists enjoy being able to control the reveal.

The ongoing battle between Beaufort and his nephew Gloucester wrangling over strategy and kingship forms a backdrop to the narrative. This is an interesting novel if the reader is already aware of these individuals and this particular period. Otherwise, it is somewhat lacking as a romance and there are probably much better-written works about these historical characters.

International Women's Day: Reclaiming Hekate

At the end of last year I went to the National Museum of Australia to see the excellent exhibition, Feared and Revered: Feminine Power through the Ages. The collection of treasures from the British Museum is touring until 27 August 2023, and I would thoroughly recommend attending if you get the chance. A highlight for me was the marble statue of Hekate from Italy (161-200 AD).

In her book, Feminine Power: The Devine to the Demonic, which accompanies the exhibition, Belinda Crerar writes, "The goddess Hekate is one of the most enigmatic deities of the classical world. Her reputation as the infernal 'goddess of witchcraft' has become cemented in modern popular culture and stretched back to classical belief, but it is a narrow characterisation of a complex and multifaceted ancient divinity. To the Greeks and Romans, Hekate was associated with liminal times and places, and, importantly, stood between life and death at the entrance to the underworld; yet her powers encompassed protection and guidance." 

Hekate's famous triform image appears in Greek art from the fifth century BC onwards. The statue in this exhibition shows her with three bodies and three faces, each young, with flowing hair and crowned diadems. In her six hands she holds a roe and the handles of torches and daggers. Her flaming torches, common attributes in both sculpture and painting, situate her in darkness, but associate her with guiding light, and she is often also shown holding keys to illustrate her power to open or bar the way.

As a goddess of transition, Hekate is often represented in statues set up in entranceways to private and sacred spaces or at road junctions, where each of her three faces looks down a different path. 

Last year in Romania at the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, I encountered a very similar statue in the courtyard of the Altemberger House. The attached plaque claims it is a Hekate Triformus Statue from the 2nd-3rd centuries, 'Probably Salinae (Ocna Mureș, Alba Country)'. 

Hekate's earliest and fullest description is found in Hesiod's epic poem, Theogony of the seventh century BC, which contains an extended hymn in praise of Hekate just before the birth of the Olympian gods. In Hesiod's account, she is not an underworld deity but is said to hold dominion over the earth, sea and sky. She appears to stand apart and distinct from the gods who follow, as if she is more ancient and more honoured than they are, and Hesiod is keen to stress that even Zeus, king of the Olympians, pays Hekate special respect above all others.

The reason for this reverence is made clear when Hesiod explains that success or failure is determined by Hekate's will: she can stand protectively in harm's way or step aside as she chooses. A primordial but ambivalent force, Hekate was given the epithet kourootrophos, the 'nurse of the young' by Hesiod, and the contemporary but unknown author of the Hymn to Demeter describes her as 'tender-hearted'. 

In some later Greek, but particularly Roman literature, Hekate's underworld associations become more pronounced, and she is portrayed as a more sinister force. Her approach was said to be heralded by howling dogs and she is no longer honoured by Zeus but now by Circe, Medea and Erichtho, the sorceresses and witches of classical literature who make sacrifices to her and vows before her altar for aid in their magic. 

The shift in the conception of Hekate in literature may have been influenced by actual magical rituals of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. A Greek prayer found in a handbook of incantations and magical formulas from Egypt (dated c. 275-375 AD) describes her in demonic terms as bull-faced, having snakes coiled across her brow, stalking graveyards and consuming the dead. 

As is often the case, female power is subverted by those who fear it and made to seem evil. Some male observers cannot cope with women being multi-faceted, so they cast them as two-faced as though that is a bad thing. To modern audiences, Hekate is largely known through being the 'leader' of the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth. She is presented as a sadistic, controlling and merciless commander of the coven, angry to have been excluded from previous plots and determined to control the prophecies and apparitions in order to maximize their manipulative affect and contribute to Macbeth's downfall. Naturally this has particular relevance for me as I played Hecate in a 2016 production of Macbeth by Canberra Repertory Society. 

"I am for the air; this night I'll spend

Unto a dismal and fatal end:

Great business must be wrought ere noon:

Upon the corner of the moon 

There hangs a vaporous drop profound;

I'll catch it ere it come to ground

And that distill'd by magic sleights

Shall raise such artificial sprites

As by the strength of their illusion

Shall draw him on to his confusion; 

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear

He hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:

And you all know, security

Is mortals' chiefest enemy." - Macbeth (Act III, scene v), William Shakespeare

As Hecate in Macbeth (2016)

In keeping with reclaiming mythical and magical female figures from history to embody more empathetic, inclusive and complex interpretations, it is worth noting that since the late 19th century AD, Hekate's relevance has been revived and her spiritual importance has been incorporated into religions such as Wicca and Modern Paganism. 

As a lady in Macbeth (2016)