Mike Shawcross had only two or three days to spare, and so we set out to see something of the nearby villages. We had a guide and two mules and a pony, though it was not clear whether these latter made our journey any the easier. Unused to riding, at the end of several hours in the saddle my thighs ached and my buttocks felt like those of a masochist after a good night out. But it was worth the travail a hundred times over, for the steep and muddy mule tracks over which the beasts fastidiously picked their way, at their own pace and no other, passed through scenes of astonishing loveliness, always to the accompaniment of the sound of running water. The dark green coffee bushes on the more accessible slopes were hung with crimson berries. From the sides of ravines grew huge and noble trees, ceibas with hundred foot trunks that suddenly opened up into broad canopies of foliage. All around were wild dahlias, tall as a man standing on another man’s shoulders, bearing mauve flowers; and white trumpet lilies, perfect in form, that seemed to call for the loving work of a Victorian flower painter to capture them on the page of an exquisite volume. Vistas opened up of green mountains against blue sky. I drew my mule up sharply just so that I could drink with my eyes.

….

And we continued, too, until we reached a mountain meadow of great size and lushness, where horses and cattle grazed. At the far end of the meadow ran a river, of limpid water crushed into foam by rocks. On the banks of the river hosts of brilliant butterflies played in the sun, as if for joy of living. If ever there were an earthly paradise, I thought, this was it. 

Across the river was slung a suspension bridge of wire and wooden slats. Many of the slats were broken or missing, the wire was worn and looked as though it might snap at any moment. When one stepped on to the bridge, it began to oscillate with considerable violence, like a dog shaking off water. To reach our destination, the village of La Estrella (the Star), we had to cross the river, but the animals clearly could not use the bridge and we sent them across what we mistakenly thought was a ford. But the water was deep and the current strong, and within a couple of minutes the terrified animals were struggling for their lives. One of them would neither go forward nor return, and when at last he tried to go up river, it was into deeper water still. His eyes stared wildly, as in a painting by Gericault, and we thought we had lost him, but, with what seemed his very last strength, he managed to drag himself ashore. I watched the drama from the bridge, to the centre of which I had gone to conquer my fear, and so absorbing was the drama that I did not notice until it was over that the bridge swung with almost every breath I took. 

So we did not reach La Estrella, but it happened that we met a few men from there on their way to La Perla. We sat by the riverside and talked to them. Oh yes, they had known disaster: the army had attacked their village, burned their houses, killed scores of people. 

They had gone to live in the mountains until it was safe to return. They were no longer afraid of the army, but before . . . We heard similar stories in other villages. One of them had once consisted of more than 600 households but now there were only 97. It was true that people were still coming down from the mountains, but it would never return to its former size. 

Whenever I heard these stories, what struck me was the great dignity with which they were told. The people were neither self­-pitying, nor asking for pity. Neither were they thirsting for revenge, at least to all outward appearances. Yet they were not apathetic either: there was something about them more positive than that, as though they were in possession of a philosophy that put them above the world of dreadful appearances. Perhaps it was the old Mayan idea that all that happens goes in cycles. At any rate, something must have given them the strength, the desire, to go on living, the ability still to laugh after having witnessed the scenes that their laconic descriptions of events implied. Still they wanted children. And they even took part in village football matches with enthusiasm. I remembered my rage at life when a telephone number I had rung was busy, and was ashamed.

Monday Books blogs another entertaining excerpt from their excellent Dalrymple collection Second Opinion:

Recently while travelling on the London Underground, the opening words of Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte ran through my mind like a refrain:

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world historic events and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Why, you might ask, did this passage insinuate itself into my brain on the District Line between West Brompton and Earl’s Court?

Standing opposite me was a young man badly dressed in black, on whose baseball cap was inscribed the word ‘Victim’. On his black T-shirt were the words, ‘I wish I could be you’, which implied self-pity on an industrial scale. On his right forearm (from which, Sherlock Holmes-like, I inferred he was left-handed) were a series of parallel scars from self-inflicted injury. On his right forearm was tattooed a simplified reproduction of a picture by Gustav Klimt. All paintings appear twice: the first time as art, the second time as kitsch.

A new, very short Dalrymple book, Mr Clarke’s Modest Proposal: Supportive Evidence from Yeovil, has been published by the Social Affairs Unit. In truth, it seems to be more of a pamphlet – measuring 26 pages and costing only $2.99. This link offers access to both the paperback version (although it is already showing up as “Out Of Print–Limited Availability”) and the Kindle version, as converted by the good folks at Monday Books.

The book analyzes the prison reform plan proffered by British Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke. We haven’t yet read the book, and will do so this weekend. But from the Amazon description, it sounds as though Dalrymple praises Clarke’s attempt at reform, while criticizing some of its details:

The British criminal justice system taken as a whole, then, is not working very well. It is both costly and ineffective: the taxpayer gets the worst of both worlds. It therefore stands in need of reform and Mr Clarke has boldly seized the bit between his teeth. He thinks we ought to imprison fewer people and rehabilitate more. Dr Dalrymple recently spent six weeks in Yeovil, in Somerset, a normal English town. This is an account of what he found there, and how well it supported Mr Clarke’s reforming zeal. He discovered that there was indeed a need for reform; the system was not working. Whether Mr Clarke’s reforms are the right ones is, perhaps, another question. If Dr Dalrymple is right, they will at least have the merit of making sure that policemen, lawyers, probation officers, insurance loss adjusters, hospital casualty officers and trauma surgeons will have plenty to do for the foreseeable future. There will be full employment and an expanding market for them, if for no one else.

Word comes to us from Monday Books publisher Dan Collins that the second of Dalrymple’s 21 books, Fool or Physician: The Memoirs of a Sceptical Doctor, is now available as an e-book. It can be downloaded from Amazon to just about any e-reader.

SCRATCH THE SURFACE and there is always tragedy, mixed, of course, with wickedness.

Because of the economic crisis, I was waiting at the bus station: £2.80 for a bus instead of £28 for a taxi home. I had 50 minutes to wait and was reading a book by Richard Yates. I was wondering why the literature of so optimistic a country as America was so deeply pessimistic (awareness of death is the answer, of the bust after the boom of life from which there is no upturn), when a lady in her eighties sat down beside me. She was tired. Her cheeks puffed and her lips pouted as one with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

‘I prefer to take taxis,’ she said to me, ‘but I took one yesterday and I can’t do it all the time. I’ve got a little in the bank, but you never know how long you’ll last.’

Monday Books’s latest excerpt from Second Opinion begins: “I prefer alcoholics to drug addicts. They are more often people of character and are much more amusing.”

Dalrymple’s third book, Zanzibar to Timbuktu, offers an account of his 1986 journey across Africa, before returning to England after two years working in rural Tanzania. Here is a brief, lighthearted excerpt from his stay in Dar Es Salaam. We hope you find it as funny as we do.

Much of my time in Dar was taken up with my application for a visa to Zaire. Apart from a valid passport, current vaccination certificates for cholera and yellow fever, photocopies of one’s traveller’s cheques, a letter of recommendation from one’s embassy, an air ticket out, three passport photographs and a form to be filled out in triplicate without use of carbon paper, all one needs for a visa to Zaire is patience. A loss of temper would probably be fatal to one’s chances.

In all, I went to the embassy ten times. It was not an impressive place. It had been a respectable house once, but it had not been repainted and the windows were cracked and dirty. The eaves were disintegrating. The garden was mainly of gravel and dust, into which the garden boy poured a jet of water from a hosepipe. He aimed it at a single spot, creating a pond of mud. He kept his aim for minutes at a time. What was he doing? What, if anything, was going through his mind? I gave up the question as insoluble. Meanwhile, the ambassador’s Mercedes was polished and repolished until it gleamed.

I was interviewed by the consul. He seemed to find the whole idea of my going to Zaire faintly ridiculous. But he assured me my visa would be issued next day; but next day the embassy was closed. I was told to come back tomorrow, at two o’clock. I pointed to the notice stating that the embassy closed at one. Nevertheless, I should come at two. The embassy was closed.

When at last my passport was handed to me, on my tenth visit at the precise time stated the day before, there was not a flicker of recognition of my previous nine visits.

I felt as though I had achieved something so worthwhile, admirable even, that it almost made the journey itself superfluous.

Outside the embassy was a Frenchman, an aid worker in Mali, who had so far been to the embassy three times without even obtaining the application form.

Zaire’s national motto was inscribed on the wall: Peace, Justice, Work.

Good news for those of you who have enjoyed our excerpts of Fool or Physician, and indeed for all Dalrymple admirers. Dan Collins of Monday Books informs us that he will reissue the book sometime in the next few months. One of our readers (h/t Matthew W.) has pointed out that copies are selling online for more than $200, so anyone we have successfully browbeaten into wanting to read it will soon be able to do so for a reasonable price.

Furthermore, Monday Books will republish all of Dalrymple’s previous work as e-books.

It is too early to give timetables for any of this, as these decisions have only just been made, but if this brings the man’s life, output and ideas to a broader audience, so much the better for all of us. Monday Books describes its mission as publishing “strongly-written non fiction”, and the Dalrymple oeuvre certainly qualifies.

UPDATE: We originally misidentified the reader who alerted us to the steep prices the book is drawing online as Andrew W., rather than Matthew W. Sorry, Matthew.