(no subject)

[skygiants]

Having spent some time already today talking about Naomi Mitchison in good company, it seems a good day to post about Blood of the Martyrs, the only Mitchison I was able to find in the wild on our trip to Scotland.

I should note that the copy I acquired, unlike the copy I'm linking here, does NOT have "How the Slaves in Rome Found Victory In Christ" in large letters on the front. Instead it has a list of dramatis personae on the inside cover, beginning with ROMAN CITIZENS, Emperor Nero first of course, and then gradually crawling down through the social classes until, at the very end, there's a short list of slaves. Then there's an epigram: "Is it a god or a king that comes? Both are evil and both are strong."

You can see why I was slightly startled to find that, indeed, this book is about How The Slaves In Rome Found Victory In Christ -- though both choices are of course very deliberate.

The first chapter is from the point of view of Beric, a young man in a wealthy and politically important Roman household -- he's not technically a citizen, technically he's the barbarian son of a barbarian king who was taken to Rome as a prisoner, but as a child he was given to a Roman family to raise up and has been treated with affection more or less as the son of the house ever since. His future seems bright! But on the night in question, a small racist incident occurs that suddenly reminds him that to a large number people in Rome he is not in fact a person, but a barbarian; that suddenly for a brief moment puts him more in solidarity with the household slaves than with their Roman guests.

And from here we switch focus entirely to other real protagonists of this book: the household slaves, as individuals and humans, and how each of them happened to enter slavery, and how they ended up becoming Christians.

This is perhaps my favorite part of the book -- and I really liked a lot of the book, much more than I thought I would when I realized I, A Jew, had just started reading a historical novel about Finding Victory In Christ. Primarily, this is a narrative about people who have been dehumanized finding solidarity in each other. Mitchison is very clear and specific in her portrayal of the kind of Christianity she wants to write about and that is meaningful to her characters: it's a radical, revolutionary force of pacifist socialism. Paul is hanging around in this book, increasingly towards the end, and increasingly the book very kindly and gently suggests that Paul, an educated man of privilege, has perhaps fundamental misunderstanding of the Christianity from which the slaves are finding their strength. Its power doesn't come from a vision of the afterlife, but from the promise of a better world here, love and equality and fellowship here, empires and hierarchical social orders toppling in the here and now. Are there lessons to be taken from this to the modern day? God, Naomi Mitchison hopes so!

I said a couple times to various friends while I was reading that occasionally reading this book felt to me like a 1930s version of the kind of mildly didactic contemporary novel where everyone is always analyzing their own traumas in order to try and interact with each other in a perfectly ethical fashion. However, because it's the 1930s version and not the 2020s version, and also because this is a book specifically about the hope and potential for an ethical society, I find it endearing rather than annoying ... this comes out most in the relationship between Beric and his personal slave, Argas, two young men of around the same age who are trying to figure out how to treat each other as equals for the first time, and are also (explicitly, textually) attracted to each other sexually with all the additional complications that brings to the already fraught dynamic. The book is not a romance -- even aside from the fact that it's very much an ensemble novel, Mitchison would perhaps like to suggest that these two lads are really both madly and headily in love with the Radical Solidarity Of Christianity as refracted through each other -- but it's a major thread and worth mentioning.

As the book goes on, we hit the Great Fire of Rome and subsequent Christian purges, and it became increasingly clear that 'BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS' is a title that should be taken seriously. Things Get Bad. Then They Get Worse. People are offered points where they could turn aside, and don't, and there's a lot of stirring discussion of how their death might inspire others to really think for a moment about what's wrong with this world, about the new vision for what a different world might look like, and then in fact it does! The book, I think, does unironically want you to feel that the titular Christian martyrs are heroes -- inspirational in the Enjolras vein, allowing themselves to die for a new world embodied by Christ that would rise up like the sun, etc. etc. -- and here Mitchison and I must agree to disagree; I see the narrative power of claiming victory in the arms of death but I believe pretty strongly that it's pretty much always better to try and make change as a living person than a dead one.

And yet also Mitchison is not subtle, either, in the fact that she is writing from the future, and the Christianity that she and we know is not the Christianity that she's writing about. "Wouldn't it be awful if the state suborned the power of this movement and used it strengthen itself instead?" "No, it couldn't possibly!" "When will this new world come?" "SURELY it must be soon; how could anyone not see what's so self-evidently necessary!"

All of the quick summaries I can find on the internet for this book seem to be talking about it with a primary focus on Nero as a metaphor for Hitler and the rise of fascism, and that's certainly present -- the book was written in 1939 -- but to me (a person who is, admittedly, not a reader in 1939) that is much, much less present in the text than the really explicit call that Mitchison is making to overturn the whole corrupt global social order and re-envision the world in a new shape. Nero persecutes the protagonists, but they are already slaves. The whole thing has got to go.

Comments

[sovay]

"Is it a god or a king that comes? Both are evil and both are strong."

I know that couplet has a legitimate Decadent origin, but that's a great way to say "no gods, no masters" without explicit anarchism, which it sounds like the rest of the book in any case supplies.

[skygiants]

Honestly I keep quoting it in describing this book to people, just for the sheer pleasure of saying it.

[passingbuzzards]

This definitely sounds like one of those books that is made doubly fascinating by reading it through a modern lens rather than the one it was written for! Thank you for writing it up, added to the list for later...

[skygiants]

Yeah, it'd be a compelling book in any case but coming to it with the bonus distance of time, plus the knowledge that Mitchison was an ardent socialist who had complex feelings, PLUS the weirdness of the fact that it seems from later printings that the Evangelical movement immediately went to go on to try and co-opt the book in the same way that state Christianity took over anti-state Christianity ... Much To Consider Here.

[luzula]

I remember enjoying this one, especially the ensemble and community aspects!

Although the cover of my copy features a manly Roman man protectively holding a woman. Both of them look like they're rich. In the background there are some martial scenes and also Jesus on the cross. So it didn't really prepare me for the content either...

[skygiants]

At least I can feel pretty sure that the ways in which I was unprepared are the ways that Mitchison intended and expected me to be unprepared!

(The ensemble/community stuff is so good, it's just so clear that she really wants us to think about all these people as individuals who are coming from specific distinct circumstances and there's a kind of magic in the kindness that they are able for this particular moment to extend to each other ....)

[kate_nepveu]

hmmm, fascinating! I see it is one of the whole five available as ebooks, too -- but more importantly the other is Among You Taking Notes!

[skygiants]

frankly FASCINATING that this is one of the ones available in digital format when I had never heard of it whatsoever before finding it on a shelf! but I'm betting some of the Very Christian Reprints may have something to do with that

(and DELIGHTED to hear that Among You Taking Notes is!)

[osprey_archer]

I can't decide if this sounds right up my alley or entirely too heavy. So much death! Literally the title is Blood of the Martyrs so why am I surprised, but still: so much death.

I always find it interesting that sometimes martyrdom works, in the sense that people go "Gosh, if people are willing to die for this, there must be something in it," and other times people are just like "Meh." And of course sometimes it "works" in the sense that "Christianity catches on and spreads like wildfire, just like you wanted it to! Except somehow in the process almost everything that drew you to it is lost?"

[skygiants]

Some people do survive! >.> or alternately you could stop reading after book 2 ..... I'd offer you our copy if you want it once Beth's done but I've already promised it to sophia_sol first.

It's a REAL GAMBLE, this martyrdom gambit, IMO. And like so much else you've got to have both charisma and chance on your side.

[osprey_archer]

Perhaps I will pick it up next time I visit during our Great Mitchison Exchange. I'll be bringing When the Bough Breaks and one of the stories is perhaps even more interesting in conjunction with this book, as it is about the early Christian church in conjunction with other belief systems in the Roman empire - Mithraism, Stoicism, the pagan beliefs of a newly-taken Scythian slave, etc.

Re: the gamble of martyrdom, it reminds me of the White Rose, a group of mostly college students in Munich who were executed for promulgating anti-Nazi leaflets. On the one hand, they weren't actually trying to die, but on the other hand, they must have known it was possible/likely. And this leads me to my question: when you say, "it's pretty much always better to try and make change as a living person than a dead one," what does this mean for someone who is in a situation where trying to make change is likely to result in death?

[skygiants]

Yes, from all you've said about When the Bough Breaks I'm definitely very excited to compare/contrast! Barbarian Stories seems relevant, too, if one of us can manage to get hold of it.

I think for me there's an incredibly significant difference between 'high risk of death' and 'certain death'. Sometimes it's necessary and worthwhile to take extremely risky action and it's up to anyone's conscience (and their strategists I suppose) to assess whether the risk is worth it; sometimes there's no way to avoid death without compromising one's conscience beyond repair. But to deliberately decide that Death Is The Statement and walk into a situation where that will inevitably be the outcome -- to deliberately turn away from opportunities to escape or avoid it, because of the lure of the Statement -- that one's hard for me to imagine endorsing.

[osprey_archer]

Someday we will find a copy of Barbarian Stories! SOMEDAY.

But to deliberately decide that Death Is The Statement and walk into a situation where that will inevitably be the outcome -- to deliberately turn away from opportunities to escape or avoid it, because of the lure of the Statement -- that one's hard for me to imagine endorsing.

*nodnod* Sometimes you gotta be Danton, but Danton tried as hard as he could to escape execution.

[brownbetty]

Linked cover made me go "Who is James S. Bell Jr.?" and he seems to have been an middling evangelical celebrity who has schools named after him now. Thinking of this book as a historical artifact, of course it would be embraced by the evangelicals. I wonder if Moody didn't publish an edition.

ETA: I see that the linked version *is* republished by Moody Bible in 1995, which is later than I would have thought! Mad that copyright nofun police won't let me read James S Bell's intro, which I think might be fascinating!

[skygiants]

Would LOVE to know what James S. Bell thought of the fraught gay kissing scene! or the scene where Lalage, the most heroic and protagonist-y of the women, has helpful charity sex with an enslaved man who otherwise probably wouldn't be able to have any sex, and then everyone gets into a kerfuffle about it, and she's like 'well ... I still think this was the appropriate Christian thing to do ..... but I guess I will not do it again if everyone's going to be weird about it. Too bad though."

[regshoe]

I was reading this review thinking, oh wow, this sounds like an absolutely fascinating bit of religious-historical fiction, I must read it; and then I got to the bit about there being canon m/m too, and well, I really must read this :D I think this might be what finally gets me to go and acquire some more of Mitchison's books... *goes off to search second-hand bookshop websites*

[skygiants]

Good luck!! kate_nepveu has also turned up the fact that for some reason this is one of Only Five Mitchisons available in ebook, so there's that option too ... looking forward to hearing what you think!

[evewithanapple]

. . . I need to track down this book.

[skygiants]

Would LOVE to hear your thoughts!

[chestnut_pod]

This sounds like one of those books which might even be better to read after decades have elapsed, with all these new lenses of history snapping down over the narrative to give the reader something to chew over.

[skygiants]

This is always the way with Mitchison, I'm finding, or at least all the Mitchison I've read -- she's responding so sharply to history and to her present moment and beliefs that she just accumulates interesting layers with all the decades that pass.

[ambyr]

The book, I think, does unironically want you to feel that the titular Christian martyrs are heroes -- inspirational in the Enjolras vein, allowing themselves to die for a new world embodied by Christ that would rise up like the sun, etc. etc. -- and here Mitchison and I must agree to disagree; I see the narrative power of claiming victory in the arms of death but I believe pretty strongly that it's pretty much always better to try and make change as a living person than a dead one.

I was just talking yesterday with another Jewish friend about how imbedded the Christian worldview is in so much fiction, with the particular trope example of Redemption Through Death, which never works for me but I guess lands well with more Christian audiences or else major franchises would stop doing it so much. Anyway, interesting to read about it being used in a context that's explicitly Christian instead of just generically, plausibly deniably so.

[skygiants]

It's true, though I think maybe Redemption Through Death is a slightly different strand than the Glorious Martyrdom of the Worthy being pulled on here -- Mitchison is much less interested in the idea of sin/redemption than in the concept of a cult of radical forgiveness. The martyrdom is much more in the 'let us by our sacrifice buy the redemption of the world' vein, which of course is DEEPLY present in Christianity but also an older thread ... (Semi-relatedly, there's a really interesting minor subplot with a character who comes to Christianity by way of Mithraism.)

[qian]

This sounds so interesting in such a Mitchison way. I must read it!!!! After I have turned in this book ...

[skygiants]

I will be SO deeply interested in your thoughts when you do (after!!!!! 💪💪)

[labingi]

I'd never heard of this book. It sounds fascinating. Thanks for sharing your impressions.

[skygiants]

I really wanted to make sure to write about it, it was such an unexpected and compelling read!

[qian]

I really loved it and came back to reread your review! It was a little odd reading a book about early Christian martyrs in Rome on my beach holiday ... and yet it was exactly the book I wanted to read ... I want to write a novel about an uprising so tbh one of my main takeaways was wow that was a very useful lesson in how to write about horrible public tortures/executions while also focusing on the bits that interest me (the ideas and the feelings, not the gore). I was also entertained by how Mitchison sets up a Thrilling High-Stakes Rescue Scene when the Jerusalem Christian sister goes to Nero's Christian mistress to rescue her brother's wife from being burnt alive, and Mitchison just JUMPS RIGHT OVER THE SCENE and goes straight to the aftermath. I know it's because she wasn't writing present-day commercial fiction but it made me feel a bit wistful, I don't feel any editor I've had would let one get away with that.

I liked all the characters you'd expect to like but also found Beric's fake Roman dad (Crispus?) surprisingly compelling and his reaction to seeing Beric in the Arena so moving. IDK why, I know Crispus was part of the whole sick system, but he didn't have to love Beric and yet he did. He was very decent by the standards of his society, it's just that his society was fucked up ... but then so is ours ...

I thought how Mitchison was grappling with class/caste and this idea of a unifying ideology was so interesting, though I confess (having read one of her memoirs relatively recently) I did read Christianity as standing in for Socialism. I think it was the more interesting for reading it in Malaysia, where society is visibly stratified in a way that it isn't quite as much in the UK; in particular, having servants is much more widespread, so in that sense the society is more similar to what Mitchision would have known. I was disappointed by how she handled the one Black character, though perhaps I shouldn't have been -- but it's so marked how every other sympathetic character gets to be an intelligent, thinking, feeling individual, and he's a bundle of stereotypes.

[skygiants]

yessss I'm so glad you read it! Weirdly I also read most of it on a beach vacation [well, lakeside] and it was indeed the book I absolutely wanted to be reading at the time.

YES she jumps completely over it and yet it's so effective -- the warning to the sister beforehand that she Will be permanently changed by what she sees out there, and the way she very clearly is changed after, so you can read everything you need to read in the space in the middle. & yeah I also was really compelled by Crispus, and by the relationship between Crispus and Beric, and Beric very genuinely feeling not just duty but love towards Crispus; a simpler book would have been like 'well, fuck Crispus,' and I love that Beric does know that Crispus is doing the best for Beric that he knows at all how to do, and that this is a relationship and a responsibility that he is betraying in picking this other, bigger thing to be loyal to; the choice is difficult and the emotions are real!

It's so interesting reading this in context with the memoirs, too, where she herself is constantly grappling with her own position of privilege and her lifestyle with servants etc. ... it's also so so interesting to me how I feel she must in some way have meant it as sort of propagandish, well, if you're Christian, then look at what you ought to be believing in! check out your local Socialist meeting! and instead it seems to have gotten picked up and republished and propagandished in a completely different direction. It's still so surprising to me that the Wikipedia article doesn't mention Socialism once!

(& yeah it's VERY notable how much less interiority Niger gets than any of the others -- I think she's trying to humanize him but it just keeps falling immediately back on racist tropes of Look At This Good Simple Soul.)

[qian]

Yeah, Niger's entire representation was very "well-meaning white lady is just incapable of viewing Black people as being as fully human as people of other races, despite her best efforts" and in a way it was all the more tragic for that. Like wow, what an incredible mental block.

it's also so so interesting to me how I feel she must in some way have meant it as sort of propagandish, well, if you're Christian, then look at what you ought to be believing in! check out your local Socialist meeting! and instead it seems to have gotten picked up and republished and propagandished in a completely different direction.

I haven't read about its reception (beyond what you've said here) but am not surprised it got picked up by evangelicals. People are bad at reading IG, and very keen on things that reaffirm their worldview ...

I love that Beric does know that Crispus is doing the best for Beric that he knows at all how to do, and that this is a relationship and a responsibility that he is betraying in picking this other, bigger thing to be loyal to; the choice is difficult and the emotions are real!

Yeah, I found that clash of loyalties arising from a collision of incredibly different worldviews so compelling. Mitchison's thing in general of different worldviews/patterns of living encountering each other and how the individuals involve grapple with that is just so so interesting. You see it in The Corn King and the Spring Queen as well, though there it arises more from culture than class.

[jesse_the_k]

Thanks for this excellent review.

[skygiants]

I'm glad you enjoyed!