Something New

  We feature each fortnight Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.   

 “OUTCAST – The Extraordinary Life and Death of Etienne Jean Brocher” by Brian Stoddart (Quentin Wilson Publishing, $NZ 35.00)

 

            In 1896, a married couple Mr and Mrs Jones were murdered in Petone in the Hutt, just a little north of Wellington. Stephen Bosher came to their house to collect some goods, but when he knocked on their door there was no reply. He asked a woman he knew, Mrs. Atkinson, to help him wake up the Joneses. She quickly found that there was a back door. Bosher said he had never known there was a back door. She went in, and found the Joneses, dead, their necks slashed by a knife. They alerted the police. The police brought in many officers, searched around the house and raked through the town, apparently incompetently. They could find no trace of anybody who might have been the culprit. When questioned, Bosher was able to explain to the police what he had been doing for the last few days, and his movements when the murder had happened. The police found him credible. Bosher said that he had seen two tramps lingering about the Joneses store the previous night, and he was able to describe them. The police did catch up with the tramps whom Bosher had described, but it was quickly proven that they had not committed any crime. There was a drunken young man, Jim Shore, who had got into a brawl in a local pub, and for a while newspapers suggested that he could have committed the crime. But then a better policeman got to work, a real detective, Peter Pender, who was able to gradually pull apart Bosher’s narrative. It became more and more probable that it was Bosher himself who had committed murder; and as his life was made known, Bosher was not whom he seemed to be. French born, he was Etienne Jean Brocher.

            All this we learn in the first part of Brian Stoddart’s non-fiction story Outcast. Does that mean that Stoddart has simply given us the story of a murder? Not a bit of it. Brian Stoddart’s aim is to tell us the whole story of Etienne Jean Brocher’s life. He does so by scrupulously using police files, newspaper reports, what was said at the bench and in trial, and accounts of the many crimes Brocher had committed.

            Born in 1857 in France on a border with Switzerland, Etienne Jean Brocher came to New Zealand as a teenager. He worked as a labourer in the South Island. His first [petty] crime was theft, for which he was fined. He did time in the Lyttelton  jail. Moving to the French settlement in Akaroa, he married Josephine Libeau, got on well with the people of Akaroa, and was almost seen as a model settler. But he found it hard to find work. He tried to be a photographer, but he got few appointments. So he abandoned his wife and child, left all his debts behind him, and headed for Sydney. Later he went back to France. He was to tell tall-stories about his life in France, but the fact was he committed crimes in France and [according to what was then French law] he had not done his Military Service… So, as a known criminal, he was put in the army, but in the toughest battalion in Algeria, the Bat.F. [French Battalion], known to be made of thugs and criminals. In comparison, the rough men in the French Foreign Legion were gentlemen. When he’d done his time [five years], he made it back to Akaroa. He lied about working on a ship which had run aground, and had taken all his assets with it. He claimed [untruthfully] that he had been wounded in the riots in Paris just after the Franco-Prussian War; but he said this because he had been involved in a criminal enterprise and he had been slightly hurt. He moved up north to Wellington and in 1892 he married Mary Ann Reece, without noting that he was officially already married. The record called him John Nathan Stephen Bosher. He joined the Salvation Army and, surprisingly, he proved to have great skill in playing instruments in their band… but he had hardly enough money to feed his wife and child.

            Now suspected as a murderer, the police ramped up their examination of Bosher’s house and they kept finding many incongruous things… and all this time Jim Shore, brawler  and drunkard, was still locked up in jail. The police were able to bring Bosher’s first wife, Josephine Libeau, up from Akaroa, who showed that Bosher was a bigamist. So Bosher was on the way to face a trial for bigamy and possibly a trial for murder. The bigamy was easily proven. Finally on 11 January 1897 he faced the Magistrate’s Court, which was simply to assess whether there was sufficient evidence to send Bosher to trial. However the magistrate was very biased and little had time for the defence. What many people found odd was that Bosher, even though  he was facing death, throughout the examinations he was neither angry nor aggressive, but was quiet, reposed, and sometimes laughed. Brian Stoddart notes [p.126] “Those behaviours  would surely attract commentary now, because, as a general reading suggests, he might well have suffered from some form of  anti-social personality disorder, as indicated by: a bloated  self-image; a highly developed sense of his own significance; little or no empathy for those he dealt with; constant disregard for the social rights of others; observing social norms only when it suited his purposes; a long-term disregard for the rights and feelings of others and at the expanse of his own condition, needs and demands.”

            And at this point, dear readers, I’m going to annoy you by not giving you all the details that follow. The fact is, Brian Stoddart makes it clear that the moment Etienne Jean Brocher went to trial in the Wellington Supreme Court, he had little chance of being acquitted. The judge was biased against foreigners anyway, and whenever the defence pointed out flaws in the prosecution’s arguments, the judge would draw into question what the defence had said. Stoddart never says that Brocher was innocent, but he also makes it clear that there was no definitive clue or discovery that could really damn him. Still, Brocher went to the gallows and a sadistic hangman. At the most, the outcome was ambiguous.

Brian Stoddart looks closely at the attitudes of New Zealanders in the 1890s with all their prejudices and all the sensationalism of the newspapers. He also examines the very-upper-class who were the judges - and the politicians of the time who often shaped popular views, including their comments on people at trial. And he tells us, in great detail, what happened to all the people who were involved in the case – the wives of Brocher, the police officers, the bench, the hangman,  In effect, Stoddart gives us a panorama of part of New Zealand.

Something Old

Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published year or two ago.      

“CLOSE QUARTERS” by William Golding (published in 1989)

 

As the second of part of what was to become a trilogy, Close Quarters has a very different style from Rites of Passage. It is still told in the first-person by Edmond Talbot, but it has almost thrown away any idea of his writing a journal for his aristocratic grandfather. Only at the very end of Close Quarters is the journal mentioned, where there is some talk about having his journal sealed up in a trunk should the ship sink. Given that Golding had taken up a new style, we no longer have all the flourishes of Latin and Greek that pretentious Talbot had used in Rites of Passage. As a result, Close Quarters is far more easily read. Of course there are many terms used that would be alien to most modern readers, but they tend to be terms related to the craft of seamanship and they are explained; and there is some of the badinage that the upper-classes use when they are chattering at dinner, and some of the slang of the sailors. Rites of Passage left Captain Anderson’s ship in the middle of the ocean, less than a third of the way to Australia. Close Quarters takes us as far as South America and heading for Cape Horn, so we are still far from the Pacific Ocean. Golding [or rather Talbot] hastily wraps up Close Quarters with a “Postscriptum” which more-or-less resolves some of the problems that have arisen, and apologises for not concluding the whole tale. He pompously tells us that he might probably continue his story later.

Anderson’s ship is a very old ship, originally a warship, even though its task now is to take emigrants to Australia. The ship still had gun-ports, cannons, powder and shot. But even by early 19^th  century standards, the ship has many flaws, which become more obvious as the novel continues. Of course (minus the parson Colley) the same characters are the same people as they were in Rites of Passage, although Edmond Talbot is still sometimes haunted by the death of Colley, and later chooses to move into the cabin where Colley used to sleep. There is also the mysterious disappearance of Talbot’s servant Wheeler who seems to have fallen into the sea… until he is later picked up by another ship, after being three days alone in the ocean, and resumes working as Talbot’s servant. There is the ongoing problem of Lieutenant Deverel, who is at odds with Captain Anderson. Deverel not only drinks too much but he was not on watch when he should have been, and did not prevent the crippling of the ship when one of the masts fell apart in a storm. Anderson wanted to clap Deverel in irons.

But the most important thing is the appearance of another ship in the ocean. Mist surrounds them. Could the ship coming towards them be a French warship? There is panic. Some of the passengers become hysterical. The gun-ports are opened. The cannons are readied…. And then it turns out that the ship, the Alcyone, is an English ship bound for India and with the news that Napoleon is defeated, the war with France is over, and the two ships join together to celebrate. But the most important fact – at least where Golding’s story is going – is that in the moments of panic, Edmond Talbot has accidentally smashed his head against a beam in the cramped quarters of the gun-port. He becomes disoriented, weeps sometimes and has many illusions buzzing though his head. When wealthy aristocratic people come aboard from the Alcyone, and there is a celebration and a party on the deck and when the upper-class people have a feast, Talbot finds himself falling in love with a young woman called Marian, also called Miss Chumley, ward of Lord and Lady Somerset. In his mixed illusions, he sees her as his ideal, the perfect young woman, something out of a dream [even though she is a giddy teenager]. He thinks he could marry her. He even says he will jump ship and go the India with her even though she is a giddy teenager. But he is brutally pushed away by her wards. Even when she has gone with the Alcyone, he dreams of her and (here come the flourishes of Latin and Greek) he tries to write classical poems about her… but he is no good at it.

This whole section of the novel is really the heart of the story. Remember that in Rites of Passage, Talbot was the man had no qualms of violently (virtually) raping an eager prostitute. Now his mind is going to the other extreme, idealising a young woman whom he does not really understand or know. This is where Golding is at his best, showing how the mind can be moved and contorted by physical trauma. Golding moves intelligently almost into the field of psychology. Ultimately, Talbot comes to his senses when a new officer onboard, Lieutenant Benet, who was swapped from the Alcyone to Anderson’s ship, is able to tell Talbot that young Miss Chumley was used for his pleasure by Lord Somerset. And to make matters worse, it was the raffish Lieutenant Deverel who was the one swapped over to the Alcyone, likely to chase any woman available. Talbot’s delusions fade away. He is cured... or at least he seems to be. Nothing romantic here…. But when Talbot is sick, he is still fed opium, a common 19^th  century cure and this can often make his brain buzz.

If all this is the most important sequence in the novel, there are other intriguing moments, especially chapters in which some of the officers, and some of the passengers, want to persuade Captain Anderson to change course and call into a harbour for repairs, because the ship often seems unstable and in peril of  falling apart. Much of this fear is partly caused by the possible damage that could be done by the drag-rope, which the sailors haul to clear off seaweed, which seems to be pulling thing off the keel. More vivid though, are the moments [especially in Chapter 13] when the ship rolls and sea-sickness is injuring nearly everybody aboard. Thus we fully understand that 19^th  century voyaging could be very miserable – and frightening. And yes, I forgot to tell you that Wheeler commits suicide with a bunderbuss. 

Footnote 1: Golding often deals with social classes.  It is rampant in the chatter of the upper class among the captains and the aristocrats as they eat their feast in a special dining room. At the very beginning of Close Quarters, there is a discussion Talbot has with Lieutenant Summers, who had risen from the ranks. They both agree, naturally, that only the best people – meaning the upper class -  should be the only ones to rule. One says that he will rise by seeking out a rotten borough. Talbot sees this as reasonable. This was some years before the rotten boroughs were abolished; and of course it was very many years later that the suffrage was expanded. Talbot, at the end of the novel, tells Summers that he is a good friend… even if he had risen from the ranks.

Footnote 2: Once again, Golding gives the title of his novel is a sort of pun as he did with Rites of Passage. Passengers naturally have “close quarters” literally, because they are squeezed  into very small cabins. But in much of the novel, there are two ships joined together at “close quarters”. And there are also the “close quarters” when Talbot tries to woo Miss Chumley.

 

 

 

Something Thoughtful

  Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.      

                                             SO I WENT TO THE MOVIES

            I know that you like me to give my opinions on what is wrong with the world, and what I think of the arts and how people should drive more carefully and the failures of many politicians and problems overseas; and my chief entertainment is reading and writing. But the fact is that, like you, I get much of my entertainment from television or the movies [o.k., picture-theatres or the cinema if you prefer]. So recently, my wife said let’s go to our local bijou picture-theatre and she booked us to see three films in the British and Irish Film Festival. We saw one on Friday early evening, one on Saturday afternoon and one on Sunday night. A very busy weekend.

            So, purely to amuse you, I give you a review of all these the films we saw.

            Friday, Jerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man, a documentary about one of the leaders of Sinn Fein in Northern Island [sometimes mis-called Ulster when part of Ulster is in the Republic of Ireland]. The film puts together interviews he gave over a number of years. He is an old man now and in some ways mellowed. To his credit he does acknowledge that the I.R.A. sometimes committed murder and he does agree that at least some English envoys did attempt to bring peace to this torn territory. But he makes a very strong case about his own republican views. Many newsreels and television documentaries do show the brutality of the British Army as they dealt with what were essentially Catholic ghettos, the fact that the official police in Belfast and elsewhere were always Protestant only, and walls were [and still are in some places] put up to segregate people. Much of this film we watched with horror, as any sane person would. Well worth seeing if ever it comes up again.

Saturday, The Choir, an amusing film written by Alan Bennett. The year is 1916. The First World War is raging in France.  In a northern English town, some soldier boys are coming home maimed and some are about to be sent off. The Mayor and corporation are getting ready for their yearly choir performance. They usually choose something by Handel, but the only conductor they can get [played by Ralph Fiennes] points out that Handel, and any composer they can think of, is German. Mayor and corporation won’t have that. So they decide to perform Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, though some are annoyed that the libretto was written by a Catholic [the Cardinal Henry Newman]… and might I pedantically add that Elgar was also Catholic, but apparently they didn’t know that. Anyway, most of the film is jolly enough with all the problems of getting the choir together, some romantic goings on, some saucy [maybe too much].  Always bear in mind that this is a work of fiction. There is [and was] no town with a name like this one. And I can be grumpy about two major things. One – as the story goes, the choir dress up as wounded and maimed soldiers wrapped in bloody bandages when performing, showing how horrible the war is… and if you believe any such event happened in 1916, you must be off your rocker. Two – in a brief visit, Edward Elgar is presented as a pompous twit, which I regard as a cheap insult. On the whole though, an entertaining film, even if the town looks too idyllic to be true.

And after two watchable films, there came a clanger on Sunday. The theatre was packed – mainly with older women who had probably come to see Emma Thompson – you know, that English woman who can do Shakespeare, can perform genteelly in many English films and even in some comedies. So they came to see Dead of Winter. But that was not what they got. Here was Emma Thompson performing with a broad American accent [or was it meant to be Canadian?] in what turned out to be not only a very violent thriller, with much gunfire and chases in the wilderness and over the ice lake. Implausible enough, but even more so were the many episodes wherein Ms. Thompson gets caught, gets tied up, gets threaten with death… and miraculously is able to free herself and win another day. Toward the end, not only I but other members of the audience started to laugh at what was meant to be a thriller. I couldn’t help seeing it as one of those old-time serials, where the hero turns up at the last moment and saves the day. Real twaddle.

What compensated us, a week or so later, was seeing David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky’s documentary about the artist Caravaggio, which carefully looked at his life and carefully examined nearly all his work. A breath of fresh air, especially in contrast with the largely sensationalist film about Caravaggio made by Derek Jarman some years back.