Booker's Dozen @ Mark Hayes

Mark Hayes answers 13 questions in a Booker's Dozen.

TPQ: What are you currently reading?

MH: I usually have two or three books on the go. Just finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love In A Time Of Cholera. Seemed appropriate. I can’t say that I really enjoyed it. Although some of the writing was beautifully constructed, I thought the main character was a sad, obsessive plank. Maybe I am too obtuse to appreciate the subtle nuances. Also just read God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England by Jessie Childs. Exceptional. I am currently reading Emile Zola’s Germinal after a recommendation by my daughter. It makes for very bleak reading in many respects, but it is an extraordinary account of exploitation and the struggle for dignity.

TPQ: Best and worst books you have ever read?

MH: Maybe not the best (that’s a tough call), but my favourite book is Ralph Miliband The State In Capitalist Society because of the impact it had on me personally. It sounds dramatic but it opened up a whole new world for me - political theory. Without it I would have missed out on Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Connolly, Gramsci, Althusser, Badiou and all the other insightful accounts of the way the world works. I often wonder if Ralph’s sons ever read his book(s). Probably not. In terms of fiction Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists runs it a close second, and for much the same reasons.

There are plenty of terrible books around. The pressure on academics to publish is huge, and the quality has diminished. I could name quite a few, but I find the post-modern identity warriors particularly irritating – it’s about class, you fools! Anyway, having said that, the worst book I have ever read was probably Mein Kampf (I forget who wrote it). Self-serving, verbose drivel. On the plus side it does provide incontrovertible evidence that the narcissistic, racist maniac was off his nut. Anyone taking that toxic shite seriously should really be dumped in the sea. Master race my arse!

TPQ: Book most cherished as a child?

MH: My uncle gave me a couple of the Biggles books by W.E. Johns. I enjoyed them at the time, but they are shamelessly ideological. Public school chums saving the nation from the Hun and other inferior races. I remember wondering why no-one I knew was called Algernon!

TPQ: Favourite Childhood author?

MH: I didn’t really have one because there weren’t many books in our house (and probably fewer at my school) but as a young teenager I read most of the Bond books by Ian Fleming. I guess that might count. Tom Sharpe made me laugh.

TPQ: First book to really own you?

MH: I suppose Orwell’s 1984, which I also read as a teenager. Very insightful indeed, and harrowing. (Of course, I didn’t realize at the time that some politicians would eventually use it as a manifesto). Orwell was a brilliant writer, and a very complex character. Shame he was a tout.

TPQ: Favourite male and female author?

MH: I respect the work of Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine, and the historical work of Antonia Fraser (her work on the Gunpowder plot in 1605 was splendid). Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has hidden depths. However, it is difficult to look past Arundhati Roy. Her fiction is graceful and thought provoking - see The God of Small Things, but she has also tackled serious issues with factual accounts that are illuminating e.g. Walking with the Comrades and Capitalism: A Ghost Story. The integrity of her work is inspirational.

Obviously, there are classic male authors like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Steinbeck, Orwell and Wilde. I have read some of their books. However, in terms of contemporary authors I used to really look forward to reading Slavoj Zizek, but he has produced far too much lately, and the quality has suffered. I like reading Terry Eagleton (incidentally his autobiography is laugh-out-loud funny), and the philosopher Ted Honderich has a unique style of engaging with the reader. Indeed, there are some authors whose writing style is so captivating that it can almost transcend the subject matter. Michael Burleigh is a good example, as was (Lord) Ian Gilmour. Some authors are able to turn a phrase so that it catches the light, and the way they articulate themselves is so clever that it demands respect, even if the ideas are deeply suspect. However, I think I would settle on Noam Chomsky because what he has to say is usually very important.

A Berlin Book Tower in memory of the Nazi book burning.

TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?

MH: Fact always seems more interesting than fiction to me. Sometimes, when I read fiction, I have the sense that I am wasting my time. That erroneous perspective is probably a consequence of my “education” at school. My Comprehensive focused on woodwork and metal-work (what’s the point of exposing young lads from a council estate to the glorious heritage of literature, poetry and prose?). I have been trying to shrug off that kind of miserable functionalism all my adult life. I know I should read more fiction.

TPQ: Biography, autobiography or memoir that most impressed you?

MH: There are a few that spring immediately to mind. Primo Levi's If This Is A Man had a profound impact on me for obvious reasons. I would recommend Reza Aslan’s Zealot: Jesus of Nazareth. It’s a very thought-provoking account of Christ as an extraordinary person rather than the deity that was subsequently constructed and distorted by vested interests. It manages to capture the essence Christ better than any Catechism (at least that’s my experience). Albie Sach’s The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter is honest and compelling. Anne Somerset’s account of Elizabeth I is peerless in terms of the scholarship deployed. Isaac Deutcher’s trilogy on the life of Trotsky (The Prophet Armed --- The Prophet Unarmed --- The Prophet Outcast) is very good. I also recently read Fr. John Gerrard’s Diary of a Hunted Priest, which confirmed the impression (already firmly established in my own mind) that the Tudors were a set of evil, scheming, bastards. Finally, if you like your memoirs to be pointless, and laced with fantasy, Gerry Adams is your man.

TPQ: Any author or book you point blank refuse to read?

MH: Far too many to mention them all. Not only would I not read some authors, I would pay good money to watch them put in the stocks. I would also supply the rotten veg.

TPQ: A book to share with somebody so that they would more fully understand you?

MH: E.P. Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class. Brilliant. And it’s not like I had a choice.

TPQ: Last book you gave as a present?

MH: To be absolutely truthful it was The Trouble with National Action (written by some obscure, angry, unreconstructed Marxist). I gave it to a very good friend of mine, Eddie O’Neill. The book was dedicated to Eddie, so it seemed logical to inflict it upon him.

TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?

MH: Forgive me my parochial preoccupations but I am a life-long Saints fan (I have chosen to view the trauma that this inevitably involves as “character building”). Therefore, I think Matthew Le Tissier’s autobiography Taking Le Tiss would make a great film. I have never read the book (and do not intend to) but it would be a blockbuster. The fans of Portsmouth F.C. should be forced to watch it. Once a week. (I have just realized I support two teams, Saints, and whoever is playing Pompey. When you think of Pompey supporters, imagine Linfield fans, minus the tolerance and humanity).

TPQ: A "must read" you intend getting to before you die?

MH: As that prospect looms ever closer, I would like to read more stuff by Shakespeare. What little I have discovered about his literature has been extraordinary (not the comedies – they leave me a bit cold). I am not ashamed to admit that sometimes I have to read passages two or three times to work out precisely what is going on (and even then I don’t always succeed), but occasionally the insights are breathtaking. Check out Hamlet where there is a discussion about how a king may pass through the guts of a beggar. Awesome. More of that would be good, but I think but I might also add Dickens, Brecht and Beckett for good measure.

⏭ Mark Hayes has published widely on a variety of subjects. He is a republican and a Marxist, unapologetic on both counts.