English
Critical Evaluation of Non-Fiction
Student Support Materials
[INTERMEDIATE 2;
HIGHER]
John Lawson
abc
The Scottish Qualifications Authority regularly reviews
the arrangements for National Qualifications. Users of all
NQ support materials, whether published by LT Scotland
or others, are reminded that it is their responsibility to
check that the support materials correspond to the
requirements of the current arrangements.
Acknowledgements
Learning and Teaching Scotland gratefully acknowledge this contribution to the National
Qualifications support programme for English.
The author and publisher acknowledge with thanks permission to reprint passages from
the following copyright sources: ‘Life is the Clay’ by John Byrne, and ‘Showing Off’ by
Janice Galloway, from Spirits of the Age, ed. Paul H Scott (Edinburgh: Saltire Society,
2005); ‘Letter to Daniel’, from Letter to Daniel: Despatches from the Heart (BBC), by
Fergal Keane (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1996); ‘From Factory to Firing Line: the Story
of One Bullet’ by David Pratt, from the Sunday Herald (Seven Days Magazine, 9 October
2005). The quotation on page 8 is taken from the website of the University of Oregon,
USA (http://www.uoregon.edu/) and that on page 6 comes from Writers in Scotland, by
Fiona Norris (London: Hodder & Stoughton).
First published 2005
© Learning and Teaching Scotland 2005
This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part for educational purposes by
educational establishments in Scotland provided that no profit accrues at any stage.
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders but if any have been
inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary
arrangements at the first opportunity.
ISBN-13: 978-184399-115-1
ISBN-10: 1-84399-115-2
CONTENTS
Preface
4
Introduction: Why study non-fiction?
5
Tutor notes
– Non-fiction at Higher and Intermediate 2, paper 2
– Notes on student materials
– Further reading: non-fiction texts currently used, or
suggested for use at Higher and Intermediate 2, in English
departments in Scottish schools
18
Text 1: ‘Life is the Clay’
– Text
– Student activities
20
23
Text 2: ‘Letter to Daniel’
– Text
– Student activities
28
32
Text 3: ‘Showing Off’
– Text
– Student activities
37
41
Text 4: ‘From Factory to Firing Line: The Story of One Bullet’
– Text
– Student activities
45
53
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
13
15
3
PREFACE
Early in 2005, Learning and Teaching Scotland engaged in a small-scale
research project into the study of literary non-fiction at Higher and
Intermediate 2 English. This project was initiated partly in response to
the concern expressed by the Scottish Qualifications Authority that,
historically, only a very small minority of students offer responses to this
genre in examinations, and partly to anecdotal evidence that a
significant number of English teachers would welcome support in this
area.
A questionnaire was sent out to every secondary school in Scotland and
returns appeared to confirm the impression that very little study of nonfiction (as a literary genre rather than as preparation for close reading)
is taking place in schools. English teachers appear to lack confidence in
this area and have indicated that they would welcome resources to help
develop and support its teaching in the upper secondary school.
Returns seem to suggest that this lack of confidence is due to a selfperpetuating tradition of creative texts being studied in schools and
universities, combined with a lack of confidence in the suitability of
texts, which elements of the writer’s craft students are expected to
study, and what the national standards for such critical essays are.
This is a representative selection of responses.
• ‘Historical preference for fiction and lack of confidence in identifying
genre markers for non-fiction.’
• ‘Lack of support materials for teachers and lack of time for us to make
them up ourselves . . . No tradition of using such texts for exam
courses in our school, so we don’t have enough support materials.’
• ‘Staff are not as confident about teaching non-fiction as fiction for
external examinations.’
• ‘Lack of expertise/advice on what SQA are looking for.’
This resource sets out to offer support in these areas.
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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
INTRODUCTION
Why study non-fiction?
The simple answer to this is really, ‘Because it’s good for you!’
Study of a variety of non-fiction – whether it be quality journalism, travel
writing, essays, history, letters, autobiographical / biographical works –
will expose students to a range of issues, informing them, challenging
preconceptions, raising awareness . . . making them think.
Through biography, autobiography and travel writing, for instance, the
reader is invited into other people’s lives and ways of life. By asking our
students to study these texts, we hope that they will increase their
knowledge and understanding of the human condition and of the world
they live in. We would hope that they will become more tolerant of
cultural diversity, more considerate of others’ differences and, as a
result, become better citizens.
Of course, the same claims can be made for reading fiction. Harper Lee,
F Scott Fitzgerald, Arthur Miller, all expose the weaknesses of American
society while Lewis Grassic Gibbon chronicles the destruction of a
Scottish community and the end of a way of life by showing the
destructive power of ‘civilisation’ when it manifests itself as war and
encroaching technology. And who wouldn’t be moved by that image of
a poor ‘dwarf with his hands on backwards’?
So, how is non-fiction different? Essentially, it is in its actuality. By
definition, it is not ’made up’, it doesn’t ask us to suspend our disbelief:
in fact it frequently demands that we don’t suspend our belief. Its
power is in the understanding of the reader that this has actually
happened, or is actually happening, and that we can’t dismiss it as ‘only
a story’. At the same time, however, in our critical evaluation of a work
of non-fiction, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that it is one person’s
version of the truth.
The impact of this reality is often demonstrated through the strength
and genuineness of students’ responses to non-fiction. Responses to a
text such as A Boy Called It frequently do far better in terms of
evaluation than responses do to, say, The Catcher in the Rye. In the
former, students are genuinely moved by David’s plight: in the latter,
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
5
INTRODUCTION
they frequently offer a guided tour of Holden’s psyche without
appearing to have any real engagement with his plight.
Finally, there are good pragmatic reasons for studying non-fiction.
Reading, analysing and talking about non-fiction – written from a variety
of points of view, in a variety of contexts, for a variety of purposes – can
only contribute to making our students better writers. Additionally, in
terms of developing reading skills, who could deny that there is a
symbiotic relationship between studying non-fiction as a genre and
developing close reading skills?
It is well worth remembering that interpretations are there to test
students’ achievement in reading: they are not there to develop their
reading skills. We develop our students’ reading skills when we invite
them to engage with a text and discuss it with others in a structured way
which supports understanding, analysis and evaluation.
The final ‘test’ of how good they’ve become – of how successful we’ve
been in developing their reading skills – comes in paper 1 of the exam.
And it’s always non-fiction.
What is ‘literary non-fiction’?
‘Whatever you call it, it is a form of storytelling as old as the
telling of stories. The genre recognises both the inherent power of
the real and the deep resonance of the literary. It is a form that
allows a writer both to narrate facts and to search for truth,
blending the empirical eye of the reporter with the moral vision –
the I – of the novelist.
In a culture saturated by data without context, facts without
insight and information without enlightenment, literary nonfiction holds a special and vital place.’
(University of Oregon)
In, essence literary non-fiction – or creative non-fiction – is a genre
which engages the reader in a narrative based on the real, rather than
on the imagined. In this genre, the writer asks the reader to accept the
factual veracity of what has been written, rather than to suspend
disbelief. However, to what extent the real is recorded accurately and
faithfully and to what extent it is massaged in order to create a good
story or provoke a stronger reaction, are questions which have to be
6
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
INTRODUCTION
addressed when engaging with non-fiction and which might well form an
element of any critical analysis of the genre.
For example, a non-fiction text popular with Higher and Intermediate 2
students for Personal Study is Angela’s Ashes. We accept that it is
‘autobiographical’ but, if this passage were being used for an
interpretation, one of the questions might well ask, ‘Comment on the
author’s use of quotation marks at ‘autobiographical’.’
We accept the story’s basis in reality, we accept that it’s probably a
reasonably accurate account of the author’s early years – but do we
believe all of it? It is most likely that the literary aware reader will accept
the work as being autobiographical but will assume some poetic licence
in the telling of it.
Similarly, among the few non-fiction texts used regularly at Higher are
George Orwell’s essays. No one would dispute that they are non-fiction,
no one would dispute that they are literary; but we might ask ourselves,
to what extent they are creative. We accept that the events happened,
we accept the author’s physical and emotional involvement in them, we
are provoked to consider issues of colonialism and we sympathise with
the plights both of the colonised and of the young officer. But did it
happen exactly like that?
Another favourite is Bill Bryson’s travel writing – let’s take Notes from a
Small Island as an example. Having read this text, we might believe
implicitly that the journey from Settle to Carlisle takes one hour and
forty minutes, covering a distance of seventy-one and three-quarter
miles, but do we believe – or accept – that there’s nothing ‘remotely
adorable about Aberdeen’? And what about the writer’s point of view?
Here we have an American writer who has lived in England for more
than twenty years and who is a self-confessed raging anglophile – would
we see the same British Isles from the point of view of, say, an immigrant
farm-worker?
It could be said, then, that good literary non-fiction sets out to engage
its reader in the real but, in order to underpin that reality and sustain
engagement, the writer frequently relies on a synthesis of the actual and
the empirical with the creative. Additionally, it is important to consider
whose version of reality we are reading; through whose eyes, opinions,
preferences and prejudices this reality is being mediated.
In order to achieve this synthesis, techniques such as the use of
evidence, anecdote, stance, examples, close detailed description
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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INTRODUCTION
all contribute to the writer’s craft and help ground the writing in the
reality of its subject matter; while the use of many of the techniques
found in the writing of fiction such as effective characterisation,
point of view, convincing dialogue, setting in place and time,
theme, structure . . . all contribute to the literary effect created,
sustaining engagement and heightening the pleasure of reading.
The writer Alan Spence recalls watching Alastair Gray being interviewed
on television:
I saw Alastair Gray being interviewed on T.V. one time about
‘Lanark’ and the interviewer asked him if it was autobiographical
and Alastair said, ‘Yes, but distorted.’ And that just sums it up
beautifully: it’s what you do, you take your own experience and
you shape it and change it, muck around with it . . .
(Writers in Scotland)
Ultimately, the writer – or perhaps even the publisher – will classify a
piece as being fiction or non-fiction. We, the reader, might feel that one
work is a classic of the genre while having our reservations about
another. Being capable of making that judgement, and being capable of
providing evidence to substantiate it, is where our students’ skills in
understanding and, importantly, analysing and evaluating non-fiction
texts comes in.
The materials in this resource are offered to help you begin to focus
your teaching of this genre at post-16 levels.
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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TUTOR NOTES
Non-fiction questions in Higher and Intermediate 2, paper 2
The most obvious difference between recent Higher and Intermediate 2
critical essay papers is that at Higher, out of seven questions, three are
specifically directed towards answers on non-fiction, whereas at
Intermediate 2, one of three questions invites a response based on a
work of fiction or of non-fiction.
In terms of literary technique, Higher prompts (In your answer you
must refer closely to…) frequently refer to techniques which we would
associate, predominantly, with non-fiction; for example, ideas,
anecdote, evidence – as well as to techniques which can also be found
in fiction such as structure, setting, narrative voice.
At Intermediate 2, however, the prompts tend to refer to techniques
such as theme, structure, language, setting, which can be employed
in both genres.
It is likely, then, that one area of discrimination between the two levels
is the comparative requirement to understand and recognise a range of
literary techniques, and to be able to analyse and evaluate these.
Over the past few years, the following techniques have been prompted
in the prose section of paper 2 at Higher and Intermediate 2:
Higher
Structure
Plot
Theme
Characterisation
Setting
Climax
Dialogue
Key incident(s)
Narrative stance
Narrative voice
Conflict
Imagery
Int 2
Structure
Plot
Theme
Characterisation
Setting
Climax
Dialogue
Key incident(s)
Narrative stance
Narrative technique
Conflict
Imagery
Tone
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TUTOR NOTES
Higher
Point of view
Mood
Symbolism
Ideas*
Evidence*
Selection of information*
Choice of detail*
Anecdote*
Organisation*
Examples*
Description*
Language*
Style*
Int 2
The asterisked techniques, all at Higher, are those which have appeared
only in non-fiction questions and it would be reasonable to expect our
students to understand and be able to use these appropriately in critical
evaluations of non-fiction texts.
At Intermediate 2, most candidates could probably choose to refer to
two techniques from say, theme, structure, language, setting but the
more able candidate might also – under . . . or any other appropriate
feature – make reference to some of the features identified as ‘Higher’
techniques.
Remember, non-fiction questions are framed in the same way as prose
fiction questions – indeed, at Intermediate 2, they are the same
questions. The technique for answering these questions is the same but
students must show, at least implicitly, that they are aware of the
difference between fiction and non-fiction and, where appropriate, try
to make reference to techniques which are predominantly found in nonfiction.
The simple advice frequently offered at Higher markers’ meetings still
holds true for assessing responses to non-fiction:
When deciding if a response deserves to pass, ask yourself these
questions:
– Is it literate?
– Does the student know the text?
– Does the student select from what he/she knows in order to
answer the question?
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TUTOR NOTES
Notes on student materials
I’ve used four short – but, for exam purposes, complete and acceptable
– texts here. This is pragmatic in terms of copyright and offering you a
complete resource. There is no intention to suggest that the study of
non-fiction should always be limited to short texts, any more than the
study of creative fiction would exclude the novel, and I would
encourage you to include longer non-fiction texts in your courses.
A list of texts currently in use in Scottish schools is included as an
appendix on pages 18 and 19.
REMEMBER: for exam purposes, students must study a complete text:
you can’t use an extract or an edited version.
The four texts included in this resource are offered in order of difficulty
and demand – as I see it.
• Life Is the Clay seems to me to be a reasonably straightforward and
amusing narrative – although idiosyncratically written – which should
engage Intermediate 2 students, challenge them but not frighten
them off.
• Letter to Daniel and Showing Off, I feel, have more emotional texture
with Showing Off making greater demands in terms of empathy and
technique.
• From Factory to Firing Line: The Story of One Bullet is a substantial
piece of quality journalism which will make significant demands on
able students’ abilities to follow a complex line of thought, take
account of detail and evidence and appreciate the literary quality
which is sustained throughout.
The activities offered to support the study of the texts are intended to
provide a basic framework for learning and teaching. I have assumed
that students will be working in pairs or in groups and that feedback
leading to whole-class discussion to develop and consolidate ideas, will
allow teachers to ‘do their own thing’ within – and beyond – the areas
I’ve focused on. Consequently, I’ve avoided dissecting each text line by
line: rather, I’ve attempted in each case to focus on basic understanding
of the ‘message’ while taking account of how this is conveyed through
the writer’s experience, attitude, tone, use of language – and creativity.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TUTOR NOTES
In order to encourage discussion, debate, thinking, I’ve frequently
provided lists of possible ‘answers’ to questions, asking students to
consider which, they think, is the most appropriate in the context.
Obviously there are no absolutely ‘right’ answers here – although there
may be some which are difficult to justify. I think this sort of question is
far preferable to those which seem to invite students to guess the tone,
attitude, purpose that’s in the teacher’s head.
Finally, the ‘suggested levels’ are just that and the activities are not
intended to be prescriptive. You know your own students: use these
resources – texts and tasks – as you will.
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TUTOR NOTES
‘Life is the Clay’
Suggested level: Intermediate 2/Higher
This autobiographical sketch by John Byrne covers a 20-year period in
his life from the age of 18 to his emergence as a writer with his first play,
Writer’s Cramp, in 1977.
At first glance it can appear to be an easy read: the humour and latent
surrealism of his story is very engaging and should provide an enjoyable
first read for Intermediate 2 students. However, under closer scrutiny,
it’s really quite demanding and, as a result, I’ve built in a lot of support
and a fair number of basic understanding tasks. I do feel, however, that
there’s some mileage in this text for Higher students as well.
Overall, having studied the piece, students should come to an
understanding of what shaped Byrne’s life over these years, leading to
his successful career as a writer and artist. I’d like them to get a sense of
the character himself and to get the ‘message’ contained in the final
line, ‘Life is the clay – Art is the vessel’.
In terms of writer’s craft, I’d like them to be aware of how very specific
detail grounds Byrne’s story in reality, while some ‘invention’ and
informal use of language contribute to an overall light-hearted tone
encouraging us to perceive the author as being likeably modern,
unconventional, slightly eccentric, unstuffy. (For a 65 year old from
Paisley?)
The last task, ‘Finally’, might be one that you would use only with
Higher students, or one that you could use at a more basic level – for
example, the number of sentences which, technically aren’t; or the
double question marks at ‘ What to do now??’
In terms of the detail, the first thirteen lines of paragraph 2 are
significant. It gets a bit complex/muddled and I’ve tried to walk students
through it in Activity 4, which looks at the detail crammed into the
multiple parentheses contained in these lines.
In terms of providing a context, it would obviously be useful if students
could see some of Byrne’s work: his self-portrait and his Billy Connolly
portrait would be a good start.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TUTOR NOTES
Your students will probably need a working definition of ‘naïf style’: I
decided not to get into this in the activities. I’d suggest something along
the following lines:
‘Naïf’ style is a style of painting which appears to have been done
by someone who is untrained: it might seem primitive or to be the
sort of pictures young children would paint.’
Artists would probably regard this as a very ‘naïf’ definition but, for our
purposes, it should do fine.
(Health warning! Some daft boy is going to start an answer in the exam
with, ‘An autobiographical piece, written in the naïf style, is….’ Stop
him now!)
Additionally, some explanation of the expression ‘stinking fish’ is
required.
Apparently, this expression comes from quite a famous legal ruling
which basically says that you can advertise fresh fish as ‘fresh fish’ but if
it’s not fresh, you can only advertise it as ‘fish’. However, you are not
legally bound to advertise it as ‘stinking fish’. That is, you are not
required, by law, to belittle your own wares – and, of course, the
precedent in law extends to any applicable situation.
(There’s a much more ‘earthy’ Elizabethan provenance for the phrase
but you’re on safer ground with this one!)
In the context of Byrne’s story then, the exhibitions in the London
galleries are maybe not as trendy, avant garde, freshly minted as they
might imply – but they’re not bound to admit to this.
He also uses the phrase to belittle his own earliest work.
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TUTOR NOTES
‘Letter to Daniel’
Suggested levels: Higher/Intermediate 2
The ‘letter’ should be accessible to students at both levels. At its most
basic it is a father’s expression of joy and hope at the birth of his first
child. At deeper levels, it considers how fatherhood has changed the
writer’s perceptions of the ‘rat-race’, the horror he has witnessed as a
war correspondent and the relationship – or lack of it – with his own
father.
There are three sections to the letter, each with its own mood and tone.
The opening section (paragraphs 1–5) is full of hope and joy at the birth
of this precious son.
The next section reflects on the desolation visited upon children in wartorn countries – as witnessed by Keane reporting for the BBC from
various war zones. In this section he expresses his feelings of fear for,
and protectiveness towards, his son.
In the final section he tells a ‘story’ which is clearly about his own
origins – but from an omniscient narrative stance. This section should
allow you to consider the issue of the real and the imagined in nonfiction, perhaps agreeing that, in non-fiction it is the facts that are
conveyed which matter, regardless of how the descriptive or narrative
detail might have been manipulated to creative effect.
In the final paragraph, the letter reverts to its opening mood of love and
joy, as well evoking a powerful mood of hope and reconciliation.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TUTOR NOTES
‘Showing off ’
Suggested level: Higher
This autobiographical piece by Janice Galloway is a real tour de force in
terms of documenting her development as a writer and her triumph
over barriers of class, sexism and self-esteem – many of these barriers
being shored up by her mother and older sister.
She begins by telling us about a quiet but determined wee girl who
loved to read and quietly got on with her life. In her teenage years she
finds a form of liberation through music and this leads to the anticlimax of a sterile university career and on to teaching. Eventually, after
years as a teacher, she comes to the liberating realisation that she is
allowed a voice – and so becomes a writer.
If you have heard Janice Galloway speak, then you will hear her voice
come at you from the page. She speaks directly to the reader in a voice
which combines idiom, wit, irony, pathos and great humanity;
hammering home the message that everyone has a right to a voice and
no one, or no orthodoxy, should have the right to suppress it.
‘the right to listen, to think; even godhelpus to join in.’
I think the activities here will speak for themselves. Essentially, I’ve tried
to focus on the issues of gender and social class, the author’s ‘message’
and how this is conveyed in terms of her attitude to her experiences.
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TUTOR NOTES
‘From Factory to Firing Line: The Story of One Bullet’
Suggested level: Higher
This piece of quality journalism tells the ‘story’ of a bullet’s journey from
a nondescript factory in Russia, via the hands of illegal arms dealers, into
human flesh. It is also, inevitably, the story of the bullet’s partner in
death, the AK-47 assault rifle.
The article documents the ubiquity of the AK-47 and the enormity of the
international illegal arms trade. It seems to me that it asks us to reflect
on the extent to which we’ve become accustomed – perhaps even
inured – to stories of human rights violations and of violent death in faroff countries and it highlights the apparent stasis of Western
governments, and of the UN, in terms of attempting to wipe out the
illegal arms trade – a multi-billion dollar industry.
The article makes reference to (and was possibly prompted by?) a
forthcoming Hollywood blockbuster, Lord of War, which stars Nicolas
Cage as an ‘amoral but charismatic’ arms dealer. David Pratt sets out in
his article to deglamorise the concept by documenting the grim reality.
This grim reality is recounted in factual terms. Apart from some
euphemism, the occasional ironic comment and the unavoidable use of
pejorative or emotive language in the final two sections, Pratt tells the
story straight.
Evidence of the amount of research which has gone into the writing of
this article permeates the whole piece and Activity 9 reflects this, asking
students to identify all the ways in which Pratt grounds his story in fact.
This should, in terms of genre markers, highlight the distinction for
them between this non-fiction ‘story’ and creative fiction. In fact, as they
should realise in Activity 3, the ‘story’ is a device to provide a structure
and a line of thought for the article.
In Activity 9, students are asked to identify how Pratt uses personal
experience, statistics, detail, interviews and quotations from other
sources, to underpin the veracity of his argument.
(Students might point out that ‘ TDF’ in the third section doesn’t work
out as telephones, dollars and daughters: it does in French with the F
representing ‘filles’.)
Good luck!
John Lawson
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TUTOR NOTES
Further reading: non-fiction checklists
These non-fiction texts are currently used – or suggested for use – at
Higher and Intermediate 2, in English departments in Scottish Schools
(based on responses to Learning and Teaching Scotland, spring 2005):
Angelou, Maya
Armstrong, Lance
Bauby, J D
Bryson, Bill
Cook, Alastair
Dahl, Roald
Eames, Andrew
Ferris, Stewart
Gray, Muriel
Hawks, Tony
Keane, Fergal
Keeble, Alexandra
Lee, Laurie
MacArthur, Ellen
McCourt, Frank
Moore, Michael
Orwell, George
Paulsen, Gary
Pelzer, David
Reid, Piers Paul
Ridley, Matt
Simpson, Joe
Seierstad, Asne
Stephenson, Pamela
Szpilman, Wladyslaw
Yen Mah, Adeline
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
It’s Not About the Bike
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Notes from a Small Island
Down Under
Notes from a Big Country
America’s Days of Terror
Letters from America
Going Solo
The 8.55 to Baghdad
Don’t Mention the War! A Shameful
European Rail Adventure
Sandstone Vistas
Various
Spiritual Damage
Che Guevara: the Motorcycle Diaries
Cider with Rosie
Race Against Time
Angela’s Ashes
’Tis
Downsize This!
DUDE: Where’s my Country?
Essays, various
Pilgrimage on a Steel Ride
A Boy Called It
Alive
Genome
Touching the Void
The Bookseller of Kabul
Billy
Bravemouth
(both of these with ‘health warnings’)
The Pianist
Falling Leaves
A slightly older checklist of possible Scottish titles for consideration was
published as Section 5 (‘Non-fictional prose’) of Using Scottish Texts:
Support Notes and Bibliographies, ed. David Menzies (Scottish CCC,
1999).
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TUTOR NOTES
Here is a further list of non-fiction suggestions:
Adie, Kate
Amis, Martin
Brittain, Vera
Burchill, Julie
Diamond, John
Fiennes, Ranulph
Fry, Stephen
Holloway, Richard
James, Clive
Keane, Fergal
Keenan, Brian
Keenan, Brian and
McCarthy, John
Kennedy, Helena
Kureishi, Hanif
Morrison, Blake
O’Rourke, P J
Pilger, John
Robertson, James
Scott, Paul H (Ed)
Self, Will
Snow, Jon
Theroux, Paul
Thubron, Colin
Nobody’s Child
From Our Correspondent
Experience
Testament of Youth
On Beckham
C: Because Even Cowards Get Cancer
Beyond the Limits
Living Dangerously
Moab is my Washpot
Looking in the Distance: The Human Search
for Meaning
The Meaning of Recognition: New Essays
2001–2005
Snake Charmers in Texas
Even as We Speak
Unreliable Memoirs
All These People: A Memoir
An Evil Cradling
Between Extremes: A Journey Beyond
Imagination
Just Law
Dreaming and Scheming: Reflections on
Writing and Politics
When Did You Last See Your Father?
If
Peace Kills
Holidays in Hell
Eat the Rich
Heroes
Tell me no Lies: Investigative Journalism and
Its Triumphs
A Scots Parliament
(in Scots from Itchy Coo Publishers)
Spirits of the Age: Scottish Self-Portraits
Junk Mail
Feeding Frenzy
Shooting History: A Personal Journey
The Old Patagonian Express
The Great Railway Bazaar
Riding the Iron Rooster
Behind the Wall
In Siberia
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
19
TEXT 1
Text 1: Life is the Clay
John Byrne
John Byrne is a playwright and artist who was born in Paisley in 1940.
His best known play is The Slab Boys, set in Stoddart’s carpet factory in
Elderslie and based on his own experiences working there before, and
after, going to the Glasgow School of Art. His best known work for
television is probably Tutti Frutti – the story of a Glasgow rock band
torn between fame and self-destruction – which starred Robbie
Coltraine as the lead singer and Richard Wilson as their manager.
Byrne is well known internationally as an artist and his work can be
found in major galleries both in Britain and abroad. Perhaps the John
Byrne painting which most people recognise instantly is the portrait of
Billy Connolly which can be seen at the People’s Palace Museum in
Glasgow.
In the following short autobiographical sketch, Byrne reflects on his
development as an artist and playwright over a period of about twenty
years from the ages of 18 to 37.
It was 1958 and I was in London, living in Harlesden and working
undercover as a Counter Clerk (Temporary Grade) at the Labour
Exchange in Medina Road, Holloway. It was the dullest job in
Christendom but it did allow me the opportunity to trawl the galleries of
Cork Street and its environs in search of that ladder of legend upon
which I could set a toe. Prior to my unlucky break in securing that
position with the Civil Service I had borrowed enough money from my
pal Peter O’Neil to purchase a tin box of ‘watercolours’ from the toy
shop underneath his mother’s flat in Harlesden High Street and with the
help of a tin of boot polish, a small rectangle of plywood prised from the
skirting board of their bathroom, and some Brasso, managed to paint a
circus scene of such glowing intensity that I had no qualms about
hawking it around the fashionable galleries of Mayfair on my Saturdays
off from work in the certain knowledge that not only would I get a
foothold on that first rung but I would be scaling the ladder at such a
rate that there was a definite danger that I might disappear into the
clouds and be celebrated only after my death. I was 18.
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TEXT 1
Ten years later the penny dropped. I was working as a Carpet Designer
with my old sparring partner A F Stoddard & Co in Elderslie, having
gone through Glasgow School of Art, been to Italy on a scholarship, got
married and had two small children, been accepted for the Painting
School at the Royal College of Art (I was to share accommodation with a
chap called Henk Onrust at their Halls of Residence) but hadn’t gone – I
discovered years later that the then Director of Glasgow School of Art, H
Jefferson Barnes, had paid me the huge, albeit back-handed, compliment
of informing the Bursar at the RCA, when asked to provide me with a
letter of recommendation for a College grant that would see my family
and me through the Painting School, that ‘… there is nothing more that
you can teach him’, thus putting the kybosh on that particular source of
revenue (for which I say a prayer of thanksgiving each night) – and was
not enjoying it one bit. What to do? I had by this time realised that
those London galleries I’d visited my little circus upon were but shops,
each with a particular clientele to be catered for with a particular kind of
painting. I’d been back and forth to the metropolis in the intervening
years and the glowing reviews I read in the art columns of the Sunday
Times and the Observer never squared for me with the stuff on the walls.
The smell of stinking fish? I thought I’d give it another go and set about
making another little picture. Under the desk in the Design Studio in
the Carpet Works. Of course, nowadays, it probably would be stinking
fish but then it was a little painting of a man in a panama hat holding a
bunch of flowers in the ‘naif’ style. I’d come across a feature in one of
the colour supplements about ‘the Innocent Eye’ – self-taught painters
and primitives – and recognised that what one needed was a ‘hook’. If
you could say that you were an ex-prisoner or a one-legged Trappist
monk this was a hook the gallery could hang the show on. We had all of
us while at Art School subscribed to the ridiculous notion that if one
hadn’t made it by the time one was 25 that was it – oblivion and Hell
mend one. I was already 27 by this time. My days were numbered and
then some. Six months on and I was dead meat. Never mind how it was
accomplished. Never mind to what lengths one had to go. Better a One
Hit Wonder than a Nobody, right? I picked the Portal Gallery in Mayfair.
Wrote them a covering letter with The Man in the Panama Hat (in the
‘naif’ style), said it was painted by my 72 year-old father, an ex-busker,
signed it with his name ‘Patrick’. Got a letter by return. Rather a dry
letter but they were ‘interested’ to know how to get in touch with my
father and whether he had produced any other paintings. I wrote back
saying that he was at his beach hut in Dunoon and that I was acting on
his behalf and yes, he did have more paintings. Quite a lot of them.
Enough for a show, certainly. My father was summoned to Mayfair. I
went in his stead. Confessed to the ruse. The gallery said they’d already
twigged but I could tell from the wheelchair that had met me off the bus
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
21
TEXT 1
and the uncorked bottle of Sanotogen Tonic Wine on the reception
desk that they were fibbing. In the interests of fame and commerce we
arrived at an understanding – if I didn’t say too much to the press then
they wouldn’t either. ‘Patrick’s’ debut show was a sell-out – bought by
the rich and famous, reviewed in the pages of Apollo (in exchange for
two tickets for ‘Oh, Calcutta’, the hit show of the moment), celebrated
in Vogue with a photograph by David Bailey, and eventually undone in
the Letters page of the Observer where the Registrar of Glasgow School
of Art, on the instruction of my nemesis, the aforementioned H Jefferson
Barnes, revealed the true identity of the guilty ‘innocent’. Again, the
trademark backhanded compliment – ‘… the most sophisticated student
to pass through the Mackintosh building since Joan Eardley … winner of
the coveted Bellahouston Award ...’ but the damage was done, my cover
blown. I had fallen among thieves. Sold my birthright for a mess of
potage. What to do now??
In 1977 I sent off a theatre script to the doyenne of play agents, Peggy
Ramsay. It was called Writer’s Cramp and featured one Francis Seneca
McDade, a self-styled author with a big hit for himself whose lack of
success in the literary world, despite his obvious genius, resulted in
penury, forcing him to turn his hand to painting (at which he was that
‘rara avis’, a genuine primitive) under the ‘nom de pinceau’ Sconey
Semple, a one-eyed illiterate whose seminal work ‘George the Baptist’ –
painted on the inside of a kettle using specially-designed brushes – was
bought for the nation and is now on display at the McDade Memorial
Archive, Shoogly Walk, Barrhead.
I was once told by Robin Philipson the then Head of Painting at
Edinburgh College of Art where I’d transferred for my Third Year from
Glasgow, that once I’d rid my work of its vulgarity I might have the
opportunity of becoming a ‘proper painter’. I hadn’t the gumption then
to tell him that ‘vulgarity’ and ‘life’ were to me synonymous. I have
acquired that gumption now, though. I would never have become a
playwright nor, in my own estimation at least, a better painter (i.e. a
painter from the ‘life’), had I not been something of a vulgarian. My
work is suffused with the vulgar. I have no time for ‘ivory-tower-ism’.
The worthy – the dead hand. What is Art if not the embodiment,
distillation, and celebration of Life itself? We are born with gifts and
weaknesses – the great triumph as I see it is to turn our weaknesses, our
foibles, our failings, through our work as artists into something other.
Life is the clay – Art is the vessel.
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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 1
‘Life is the Clay’ – Student activities
Activity 1
(a)
Having read John Byrne’s account of his career development over
20 years, which of the following words do you think describe the
character who comes across in the writing. You may choose more
than one but you must be prepared to justify your opinion by
reference to the text.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
(b)
Interesting
Conventional
Unconventional
Dull
Big-headed
Manic
Adventurous
Bohemian
Chancer
Talented
Independent
Other?
Do you like and/or admire the character?
Whether you do or don’t, be prepared to justify your opinion by
referring to the text.
Activity 2
(a)
Writers of non-fiction often include some very specific detail in
order to emphasise the fact that they’re writing about real events
rather than just making up a wee story.
Identify three examples of this in Byrne’s writing. What makes it
real for you?
(b)
Sometimes writers of non-fiction embellish the truth with wee
imaginative add-ons. One well-known Scottish writer has said that
the minute you start using personal experience in your writing,
you start ‘inventing’.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TEXT 1
• Are there any bits of John Byrne’s story which you think might
have been ‘invented’?
Why do you think this?
• What effect is created by these ‘inventions’?
Activity 3
Re-read the first paragraph.
(a)
Byrne says that, when he was 18, he was ‘working undercover’ in a
Labour Exchange.
What do you think the phrase ‘working undercover’ tells us about
how he saw himself at the time?
(b)
In the course of this paragraph, Byrne uses an extended metaphor.
Can you identify this metaphor and explain why – combined with
his notion of being ‘undercover’ – it is effective in describing the
author at 18?
(c)
John Byrne was in his sixties when he wrote this piece. Bearing
this in mind, which of the following – and you can choose more
than one – do you think he is implying in the final short sentence
of this paragraph, ‘I was 18’?
• That he wishes he still had the drive to get ahead that he had
then.
• That he can’t believe how naive he was back then.
• That he thinks he was just plain daft.
• That he is nostalgic for his youth.
• That he envies young people their youth.
• That he sees youth as a time of innocence and freedom.
• That it’s amazing he’s made it into his sixties.
• Other?
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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 1
Activity 4
The second paragraph is very long and, for the first half at least, quite
complex. This is because Byrne packs in a great deal of detail about his
life in the ten years between the ages of 18 and 27. (During which he
didn’t become a legend!)
He begins by saying, ‘Ten years later the penny dropped.’ (When
someone says this they usually mean that they’ve finally realised
something.)
Several lines later we find out that what Byrne had realised was that he
wanted to get on with his life as an artist and to do this he needed a
‘hook’, some sort of gimmick, which would get people interested in his
paintings.
Let’s look at the summary of the ten years, focusing on how John Byrne
felt about his life at the time and how he feels about events looking back
on them.
(a)
He tells us that he had gone through Glasgow School of Art and
then got a job as a Carpet Designer with A F Stoddart & Co in
Elderslie, describing this carpet firm as his ‘old sparring partner’.
What do you think the phrase ‘old sparring partner’ tell us about
his attitude to his job?
(b)
A feature of Byrne’s writing style is his use of parenthesis.
Parenthesis is when a writer adds additional information – which
isn’t strictly necessary – into a sentence to help make things
clearer. If you remove a parenthesis, the sentence should still
make sense without it.
(In passing, which part of the above paragraph is the parenthesis? If
you take the parenthesis out, does the sentence still make sense?)
Sometimes parenthesis is signalled by using commas, sometimes by
using dashes and sometimes by using brackets.
The second sentence of paragraph 2 is 13 lines long and contains
one huge parenthesis. Without this parenthesis, the sentence
would still make sense and would read like this:
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TEXT 1
I was working as a Carpet Designer with my old sparring
partner A F Stoddart & Co in Elderslie and was not enjoying
it one bit.
When you take the parenthesis into account:
‘, having gone to Glasgow School of Art . . . thanksgiving each
night) –’
you realise that Byrne has used this to pack in a lot of extra detail
about his life over the period of the ten years he’s referring to.
In fact, when you look more closely at this giant parenthesis, you
realise that there are several smaller parentheses inside it.
• How many smaller parentheses can you find?
• List all the extra things that we find out from the parentheses.
• How does this extra information add to our understanding of
the character?
There are several more examples of parenthesis in the text.
• Identify at least one of these and comment on what it
contributes to Byrne’s story.
Activity 5
(a)
Not getting a grant to go to the Royal College of Art, actually
brought about a turning point in Byrne’s life and that is why he is
‘thankful’. He asked the question – ‘What to do?’ and came to the
conclusion that he needed that ‘hook’.
• What ‘hook’ did he come up with?
• Why did he think this was a good ‘hook’?
• What does this tell you about his views of the art ‘establishment’
at the time?
(b)
His ‘hook’ worked for a while until, for the second time in his life,
his nemesis – H Jefferson Barnes – intervened and brought about
another turning point – ‘What to do now?’
• Do you know – or can you find out – what a nemesis is?
• What did Byrne ‘do now’?
• Can you see any parallels here?
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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 1
Activity 6
In the final two paragraphs, Byrne reflects on what he calls ‘the vulgar’
being at the heart of his art – both his painting and his writing.
(a)
Read the second last paragraph, the one which begins ‘I was once
told by Robin Philipson . . .’
• Explain, with close reference to the text, why John Byrne sees
being ‘something of a vulgarian’ as being so important.
• Can you see any links between this point of view and what he’s
told us about himself earlier?
(b)
The final paragraph is a single metaphor which sums up John
Byrne’s message:
‘Life is the clay – Art is the vessel.’
• Can you explain this metaphor?
• How does it connect with the previous paragraph?
• How effective do you find it in terms of the piece as a whole?
Finally
Byrne talks about painting in the ‘naif’ style. It could probably be said
that he also writes in a ‘naif’ style.
How many examples of this can you find in his writing?
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
27
TEXT 2
Text 2: Letter to Daniel
Fergal Keane
The following letter by Fergal Keane to his newborn son was broadcast
on the BBC Radio 4 programme, ‘From our own Correspondent’. As a
BBC foreign correspondent, Keane has reported, first hand, from various
international crisis areas including Northern Ireland, Southern Africa
and Asia. His reporting has been honoured with an Amnesty
International Press award and an OBE for services to journalism. His
book on Rwanda, Season of Blood, won the George Orwell Prize for
political writing.
Hong Kong, February 1996
Daniel Patrick Keane was born on 4 February, 1996.
My dear son, it is six o’clock in the morning on the island of Hong Kong.
You are asleep cradled in my left arm and I am learning the art of onehanded typing. Your mother, more tired yet more happy than I’ve ever
known her, is sound asleep in the room next door and there is a soft
quiet in our apartment.
Since you’ve arrived, days have melted into night and back again and we
are learning a new grammar, a long sentence whose punctuation marks
are feeding and winding and nappy changing and these occasional
moments of quiet.
When you’re older we’ll tell you that you were born in Britain’s last
Asian colony in the lunar year of the pig and that when we brought you
home, the staff of our apartment block gathered to wish you well. ‘It’s a
boy, so lucky, so lucky. We Chinese love boys,’ they told us. One man
said you were the first baby to be born in the block in the year of the
pig. This, he told us, was good Feng Shui, in other words a positive sign
for the building and everyone who lived there.
Naturally your mother and I were only too happy to believe that. We had
wanted you and waited for you, imagined you and dreamed about you
and now that you are here no dream can do justice to you. Outside the
window, below us on the harbour, the ferries are ploughing back and
28
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 2
forth to Kowloon. Millions are already up and moving about and the sun
is slanting through the tower blocks and out on to the flat silver waters
of the South China Sea. I can see the trail of a jet over Lamma Island
and, somewhere out there, the last stars flickering towards the other
side of the world.
We have called you Daniel Patrick but I’ve been told by my Chinese
friends that you should have a Chinese name as well and this glorious
dawn sky makes me think we’ll call you Son of the Eastern Star. So that
later, when you and I are far from Asia, perhaps standing on a beach
some evening, I can point at the sky and tell you of the Orient and the
times and the people we knew there in the last years of the twentieth
century.
Your coming has turned me upside down and inside out. So much that
seemed essential to me has, in the past few days, taken on a different
colour. Like many foreign correspondents I know, I have lived a life that,
on occasion, has veered close to the edge: war zones, natural disasters,
darkness in all its shapes and forms.
In a world of insecurity and ambition and ego, it’s easy to be drawn in,
to take chances with our lives, to believe that what we do and what
people say about us is reason enough to gamble with death. Now,
looking at your sleeping face, inches away from me, listening to your
occasional sigh and gurgle, I wonder how I could have ever thought
glory and prizes and praise were sweeter than life.
And it’s also true that I am pained, perhaps haunted is a better word, by
the memory, suddenly so vivid now, of each suffering child I have come
across on my journeys. To tell you the truth, it’s nearly too much to bear
at this moment to even think of children being hurt and abused and
killed. And yet, looking at you, the images come flooding back. Ten-yearold Andi Mikail dying from napalm burns on a hillside in Eritrea, how his
voice cried out, growing ever more faint when the wind blew dust on to
his wounds. The two brothers, Domingo and Juste, in Menongue,
southern Angola. Juste, two years old and blind, dying from
malnutrition, being carried on seven-year-old Domingo’s back. And
Domingo’s words to me, ‘He was nice before, but now he has the
hunger.’
Last October, in Afghanistan, when you were growing inside your
mother, I met Sharja, aged twelve. Motherless, fatherless, guiding me
through the grey ruins of her home, everything was gone, she told me.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TEXT 2
And I knew that, for all her tender years, she had learned more about
loss than I would likely understand in a lifetime.
There is one last memory, of Rwanda, and the churchyard of the parish
of Nyarubuye where, in a ransacked classroom, I found a mother and
her three young children huddled together where they’d been beaten
to death. The children had died holding on to their mother, that
instinct we all learn from birth and in one way or another cling to until
we die.
Daniel, these memories explain some of the fierce protectiveness I feel
for you, the tenderness and the occasional moments of blind terror
when I imagine anything happening to you. But there is something
more, a story from long ago that I will tell you face to face, father and
son, when you are older. It’s a very personal story but it’s part of the
picture. It has to do with the long lines of blood and family, about our
lives and how we can get lost in them and, if we’re lucky, find our way
out again into the sunlight.
It begins thirty-five years ago in a big city on a January morning with
snow on the ground and a woman walking to the hospital to have her
first baby. She is in her early twenties and the city is still strange to her,
bigger and noisier than the easy streets and gentle hills of her distant
home. She’s walking because there is no money and everything of value
has been pawned to pay for the alcohol to which her husband has
become addicted.
On the way, a taxi driver notices her sitting, exhausted and cold, in the
doorway of a shop and he takes her to hospital for free. Later that day,
she gives birth to a baby boy and, just as you are to me, he is the best
thing she has ever seen. Her husband comes that night and weeps with
joy when he sees his son. He is truly happy. Hungover, broke, but in his
own way happy, for they were both young and in love with each other
and their son.
But, Daniel, time had some bad surprises in store for them. The cancer
of alcoholism ate away at the man and he lost his family. This was not
something he meant to do or wanted to do, it just was. When you are
older, my son, you will learn about how complicated life becomes, how
we can lose our way and how people get hurt inside and out. By the
time his son had grown up, the man lived away from his family, on his
own in a one-roomed flat, living and dying for the bottle.
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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 2
He died on the fifth of January, one day before the anniversary of his
son’s birth, all those years before in that snowbound city. But his son
was too far away to hear his last words, his final breath, and all the things
they might have wished to say to one another were left unspoken.
Yet now, Daniel, I must tell you that when you let out your first
powerful cry in the delivery room of the Adventist Hospital and I
became a father, I thought of your grandfather and, foolish though it
may seem, hoped that in some way he could hear, across the infinity
between the living and the dead, your proud statement of arrival. For if
he could hear, he would recognise the distinct voice of family, the
sound of hope and new beginnings that you and all your innocence and
freshness have brought to the world.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TEXT 2
‘Letter to Daniel’ – Student activities
Audience and purpose
When writers plan their work, there are three basic questions they have
to consider:
Who am I in this piece, myself or some other character?
Who am I writing for?
What effect do I want my writing to have on the reader?
Persona
Audience
Purpose
The answers to these questions help authors determine which form of
writing or which genre they should adopt.
‘Letter to Daniel’ is a non-fiction text and in non-fiction we would
normally expect authors to write as themselves – rather than to adopt a
different persona.
However, audience and purpose in non-fiction will vary and are
extremely important. So, whether we are reading an extract from a
longer piece in order to answer interpretation questions, or whether we
are studying a complete work of non-fiction we should be thinking, as
we read:
Who is this aimed at?
Why has the author written this?
Activities 1 and 2 which follow, are designed to get you thinking about
purpose and audience and, in doing so, come to an understanding of
what Fergal Keane set out to achieve in his writing. You’ll work in pairs
or groups to begin with, before whole-class discussion on the issues.
Activity 1
The piece is addressed to ‘My dear son’ and the narrative technique is
that of a letter, speaking, at all times, directly to Daniel – yet it was
broadcast to the nation on a BBC radio programme. Discuss the
following statements about the audience for the letter, decide which
one you agree with most and be prepared to report your conclusions.
•
•
•
•
32
The letter isn’t really aimed at his son.
The letter form is a device to get the attention of the general public.
The letter is aimed both at his son and the general public.
Other?
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 2
Activity 2
Consider the following possibilities and decide which one you think is
Fergal Keane’s main purpose for writing this letter. Referring closely to
the text, you should try to offer at least three reasons for your choice.
Fergal Keane wrote this letter in order to:
• express his feelings of pride and joy at having a new-born son;
• express wonder and delight at how his life has changed as a result of
becoming a father;
• reflect on the world his newborn son has entered;
• use the letter as a sort of ‘time-capsule’ for his son to open and read
when he reaches maturity;
• express his regret about never having known his own father;
• other?
Activity 3
The mood in the first five paragraphs is one of love and joy.
• Read over these paragraphs and identify all the ways in which Keane
conveys his love for his new son and his joy at becoming a father.
(When doing this you should consider techniques such as word
choice, use of imagery, use of setting . . .)
• Choose one feature which you particularly like: be prepared to talk
about this feature and explain why you feel it is effective.
Activity 4
Your coming has turned me inside out. (Opening of paragraph 6)
Daniel, these memories explain some of the fierce protectiveness I feel
for you, the tenderness and the occasional moments of blind terror
when I imagine anything happening to you. (Opening paragraph 11)
Between these sentences, Keane reflects on his life and experiences as a
war correspondent.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
33
TEXT 2
(a)
Look at the ideas, the imagery and the word choice contained in
paragraphs 6 and 7.
Be prepared to explain how, in your view, Keane tries to convey
the way his outlook on living has changed.
(b)
Look at the use of setting and at Keane’s choice of detail in
paragraphs 8, 9 and 10.
• What do these examples have in common?
• Why, for Keane, are these memories ‘suddenly so vivid now’?
(c)
Which one of the following, do you feel, best describes the mood
of these paragraphs? You may choose more than one.
•
•
•
•
Horror
Anguish
Depression
Helplessness
•
•
•
•
Despair
Fear
Desolation
Other?
List all the examples of word choice which you feel help convey
the mood which you have identified.
Activity 5
(Paragraph 11 continues) But there is something more, a story from long
ago that I will tell you face to face, father and son, when you are older.
This sentence acts as a turning point, with Keane telling Daniel that
another reason why he feels so protective towards his son is that he
never really knew his own father who had died, an alcoholic, separated
from his wife and family.
(a)
Look at paragraphs 12–15.
• How does the narrative stance change in these paragraphs?
• What effect do you think the author is trying to create here?
(b)
34
In paragraphs 12 and 13, for the only time in the letter, Keane is
writing about something of which he has no first-hand experience.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 2
• Do you believe the facts conveyed in these paragraphs?
• Do you think the detailed description is accurate? If so how
could Keane know?
• If the facts are accurate but the detail faulty, does this make
these paragraphs less reliable as a non-fiction account?
(c)
Look at the final paragraph. It’s no great revelation for it to be
confirmed – when Keane seems to just slip in the phrase, ‘I
thought of your grandfather’ – that his story has been all along
about himself and his parents.
Consider which of the following effects Keane might have been
trying to create by telling the ‘story’ in the way he does and by
playing down his revelation.
You may choose more than one effect and you must be prepared
to explain and justify your choice(s).
• He wants to suggest that he didn’t really care about his father.
• He wants to suggest that it was all in the past and that he’s
forgiven his father.
• He wants to suggest that he has left his origins and upbringing
far behind.
• He wants to suggest that he wishes his father had been around
for him, the way he is determined to be around for Daniel.
Activity 6
Look at the final paragraph. The tone here returns to one of love and
joy but added to it is a sense of hope for the future.
• What is this hope that Fergal Keane has found in the birth of his
son?
• Keane uses powerful, positive language to express his hope.
Work carefully through the final paragraph and list as many
examples of this language as you can.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
35
TEXT 2
Finally
Look back at your answer to Activity 2.
• Do you still stand by the choice of purpose you made there? If so,
what additional evidence can you now offer to justify this choice?
• Have you changed your mind about the purpose of Keane’s writing? If
so, explain why and give your reasons for the change.
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TEXT 3
Text 3: Showing Off
Janice Galloway
Janice Galloway was born in Saltcoats, North Ayrshire, in 1956. After
attending Glasgow University, she went back to Ayrshire, where she
taught for ten years. On leaving teaching, she made her living from
writing and reviewing music. Her first novel, The Trick is to Keep
Breathing, was published in 1990, and today Janice Galloway is widely
regarded as one of the foremost contemporary Scottish writers.
In this autobiographical essay, Janice Galloway reflects on the various
influences which inhibited – or encouraged – her development as a
writer. This piece is an extended version of an article for the Edinburgh
International Book Festival publications, republished in A Scottish
Childhood, 1998.
When I was very wee I didn’t read at all. I listened. My mother sang
Elvis and Peggy Lee songs, the odd Rolling Stones hit as they appeared.
These gave me a notion of how relationships between the sexes were
conducted (there were no men in our house), the meaning of LURV (i.e.
sexual attraction and not LOVE which was something in English wartime films that involved crying); a sprinkling of Americanisms (to help
conceal/sophisticate the accent I had been born into and which my
mother assured me was ignorant and common) and a basic grounding in
ATTITUDE (known locally as LIP). This last, was the most useful one. In
fact, the only useful one. The words to BLUE SUEDE SHOES are carved
on my heart.
I was reading by the time I went to primary school. I know because I got
a row for it. Reading before educationally permissible was pronounced
SERIOUSLY DETRIMENTAL TO HER IN CLASS. This was true because I
had to do it again their way, with JANET and JOHN and THE DOG with
the RED BALL. Books were read round in class i.e. too slow, and you
got the belt if you got carried away and keeked at the next page before
you were allowed by the teacher. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
she’d roar, SOMEBODY SPECIAL? Dulling enthusiasm, or at least not
showing, became an intrinsic part of my education. This did not trouble
me. I was a biddable child. Most are.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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At home, I read OOR WULLIE and THE BROONS, the BEANO and
BUNTY. BUNTY was best because it had girls in it. There was Wee
Slavey (the maid with the heart of gold) and the Four Marys (who went
to boarding school) amongst others. They had spunk. Only the former
seemed a role model, however. I also read Enid Blyton Fairy Tales and
Folk Tales of Many Lands, a whole set in the local library. When the
Folk Tales were finished, I began fingering the Mythology Religion books
on the adult shelves whereupon the librarian (Defender of books from
the inquiry of Grubby People and Children) smacked my hands and told
me I wasn’t allowed those ones: I would neither like nor understand
them and was only Showing Off. This was another lesson in the wisdom
of hiding natural enthusiasm because it sometimes annoyed people in
authority. I ran errands to the same library for my nineteen-year-old
sister who read six books a week and hit me (literally) if I brought back
books by women authors. WOMEN CANNY WRITE, she’d say: CAN YOU
NOT BLOODY LEARN? She was afraid, I think, of Romance. Other
hitting offences included asking to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
keeping a diary and, mysteriously, ‘reading too much’. Words, it
seemed, carried pain, traps, bombs and codes. They were also, alas,
addictive. Nursing bruises, welts and the odd black eye, I blamed myself.
Earlier than I learned to do the same thing with sex, I learned to look as
though I wasn’t doing it at all and became devious as hell.
Thrillers, adventures and war stories caused no ructions. They were the
things my sister liked. My mother read too, mostly biographies of film
stars, to learn how they’d escaped, I suppose. She also read the odd
novel from a stack on top of the cupboard shelf which I could not reach,
books that had pictures of women with their frock falling off on the
covers and the name ANGELIQUE featured on the spines. I knew
enough to understand, however, that she was not the author. My father
had apparently been a reader but he’d been dead for ages and not
around much before that either. His books – from a club – were stacked
at the bottom of a cupboard. The only one that had jokes was a big
black tome with gold letters on the side: THE COMPLETE PLAYS of
BERNARD SHAW. Without understanding much, I read it anyway. At
ten or eleven, I accidentally wrote a novel in blue biro and pencil. My
mother found it but didn’t tell my sister. She lit the fire with it.
Secondary school proved my sister uncannily perceptive. Women
couldny write. There were none, not one, not even safely dead ones
like Jane Austen, as class texts. On the plus side, they encouraged
reading, largely on the grounds you could pass exams with it. You
could only pass exams, though, with books from the school store, which
meant the aforementioned no women and not much that was Scottish
38
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 3
save Burns who had the added benefit of being useful for school suppers
which girls might attend if they served the food. This troubled me a bit,
but not oppressively. I was good at exams. I passed everything, though
what to do then seemed a mystery to all, especially Head of Girls who
told me I’d never get far with an accent like mine, and why I wanted to
go to University was anybody’s guess. Actually it was the Head of Music’s
idea. With treacherous speed, I fell away from books and fell in love
with MUSIC because nobody had told me (not yet anyway) that women
canny compose. The Head of Music became my Bodyguard and my
sister and the Head of Girls couldn’t say boo because he was a teacher.
He taught me Mozart was pronounced MOTZART and not as spelled on
the biscuit tin at home. He taught me lots of things. Through third to
sixth year, I hoovered up Purcell and Byrd, Britten, Warlock and
Gesualdo (my sister’s example meant I wanted nothing to do with
something called Romantic music, even if it was by men) and sang folk
songs. These were not pop songs. They had better words and led me
by a sneaky route to Opera. Opera! It was unbelievable! In my final
year, the Head of Music gave me a copy of The Prime of Miss Jean
Brodie, my first book by a living Scottish author. Read, he said. Learn.
And he talked my mother, mortified in her school dinner lady overall,
into letting me fill in the Uni forms. The day I left, I turned up at school
in trousers and got sent home. This did not trouble me. I was taking
the music and getting out. I visited Hillhead, peering out the filthy
windows of a 59 bus without apology or concealment. At last, I would
revel in Great Works of Music and Profound Literary Texts without
shame or concealment. I couldn’t wait.
In three years of MA I read less than two Scottish authors and two
women, all dead. My music list seemed not to know women or Scotland
existed at all. There were no folk songs. In my third year, I cried a lot
and everyone was very nice. They let me have a year out. I was, I
realised with intense embarrassment, suffering from a broken heart. I
went back and finished the fastest degree they had only because
someone called the Student Advisor said, GIRLS OFTEN GIVE UP, IT’S
NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF. Books were bastards. I could no
longer listen to music. There was only one thing for it. Teaching.
On teaching practice, I turned up at school in trousers and was sent
home. This troubled me a bit but it wasn’t new. I could handle it.
Eager as a squirrel, I taught happily for ten years. I got into trouble for
not taking my register seriously enough and teaching stuff outside the
syllabus to the ‘wrong’ age group sometimes, but the children were very
forebearing. I was a good teacher, the Head informed me one day, but
not promotion material. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe I needed my wings
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
39
TEXT 3
clipped. I thought he had a point. I wanted to stick with this job. I
enjoyed the children, their enthusiasm and inventive cheek. I did not
like the book shortages but teaching was fine. I still cried off and on and
took to writing the odd poem, but wary I was heading down the
primrose path of SHOWING OFF all over again, concealed them as much
as I could. Occasionally I caught myself gazing down the stairwell, at the
bland, blank walls. One day, a propos of nothing, I caught myself glaring
at a child. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? a voice roared, terrifying
from the back of the classroom. SOMEBODY SPECIAL? And the voice
was mine. This troubled me a lot.
Bizarrely, it led me to reading. I re-read the curious woman who had
written the equally curious BRODIE, then everything else I could run to
ground. I read Carver and Kafka. I read Duras and Carter. I read
Machado de Assis and Mansfield and Carswell and Borges and Woolf and
chewed up national anthologies of stories – any country’s – whole. I fell
over Gray’s big book about Glasgow that is also a big book about
everywhere, and something clicked, not just from Alasdair’s work but
from everybody’s. It was the click of the heretofore unnoticed nose I’d
just found on my own face. It was astounding, a revelation. For the first
time since I learned how to pronounce MOZART, I realised Something
Big. I had the right to know things. Me. I had the right to listen, to
think; even godhelpus to join in. A tentative glimmer of freedom
started squirming around beneath the sea of routine shame and I
remembered being another way. I remembered being wee. I
remembered the Saltcoats Library and the living room fireplace. I
remembered Elvis. And I knew three things. I knew:
(a)
(b)
(c)
that all Art is an act of resistance;
that the fear of SHOWING OFF would kill me if I let it; and
the words WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? stunk like a month-old
kipper.
My mother was dead.
I had not seen my sister for years.
Reader, I started writing.
40
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 3
‘Showing Off ’ – Student activities
Activity 1
Consider the following possibilities and decide which one you think is
Janice Galloway’s main purpose for writing this article. Referring closely
to the text, you should try to offer at least three reasons for your choice.
Janice Galloway wrote this article in order to:
•
•
•
•
•
encourage women to become writers;
encourage women and men to become writers;
to explain how she became a writer;
to explain why she became a writer;
to highlight the extent to which talented women in the arts – music,
literature, art, drama – were, in her day, ignored or dismissed by the
educational establishment;
• to demonstrate the value of reading in terms of personal
development.
Activity 2
In the late 1950s Elvis Presley sang:
You can knock me down, step on my face
Slander my name all over the place
Do anything that you wanna do
But uh uh honey lay off of them shoes
And don’t you step on my blue suede shoes,
You can do anything but lay off of them blue suede shoes.
(a)
Janice Galloway claims that this song contributed to her ‘basic
grounding in ATTITUDE’: The words to BLUE SUEDE SHOES are
carved on my heart.
What do you think she means by this?
• Was it the attitude conveyed by the lyrics that she found
attractive?
• Was it something about Elvis – who was seen by many of ‘the
establishment’ as a dangerous, immoral, rebellious influence on
50s and 60s youth – that she found attractive?
• Was it a combination of both?
• Other?
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TEXT 3
(b)
What do we learn from the opening paragraph about Janice
Galloway’s background and character?
Activity 3
Consider the title of the article, ‘Showing Off’.
(a)
Which of the following attitudes is usually implied when we accuse
someone of ‘showing off’?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Admiration
Dislike
Impatience
Envy
Intolerance
Other?
(b)
Given your understanding of Janice Galloway’s main purpose for
writing this article, what do you think – in this context – is her
attitude to showing off?
(c)
Early in the article, Janice Galloway uses two anecdotes to illustrate
instances of her ‘showing off’: the one about her getting into
trouble for being able to read before she started school, and the
one about the library.
• Looking at these closely, show how she injects humour into
them and identify the more serious underlying point that she is
trying to make. When doing this you should consider
techniques such as language, characterisation, dialogue,
sentence structure . . .
• Choose one feature which you particularly like: be prepared to
talk about this feature and explain why you feel it is effective.
Activity 4
(a)
It might be argued that the title of the article, ‘Showing Off’, is
ironic.
In the light of your discussion on Activity 3, do you agree or
disagree with this statement? Give reasons for your viewpoint.
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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 3
(b)
Janice Galloway goes on to sprinkle her article with ironic
statements and comments.
Identify as many examples of irony as you can and be prepared to
explain the effect created by their use.
Activity 5
Throughout the article, there are clear indications that the author has
always been a bit of a rebel.
Identify at least two of these and consider if these instances were just
‘showing off’ or if they tell us something more about Janice Galloway.
Activity 6
Among other things, Janice Galloway uses her article as a platform to
reflect on issues of gender and of social class.
(a)
• What points does she make about society’s views on women
writers?
• What evidence does she offer to substantiate these views?
(b)
• What points does she make about society’s views on women of
her social class?
• What evidence does she offer to substantiate these views?
(c)
Janice Galloway appears to have lived in a household with two
other women, her mother and her sister but she is clearly very
different from them.
• In what ways do her views on women and social class differ from
those of her mother and sister? What details does she choose to
illustrate these differences?
• In what ways were the three of them alike?
Activity 7
From secondary school onwards, there appear to have been four
significant turning points in Janice Galloway’s life:
• her falling ‘in love with music’;
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TEXT 3
• her disillusionment with university, ‘I was . . .suffering from a broken
heart’;
• her realisation that she might be turning into the kind of teacher she
disliked, ‘This troubled me a lot . . . Bizarrely it led . . .’;
• her realisation that she had a right to know things, ‘even godhelpus
to join in.’
(a)
How did each of these turning points shape her future?
(b)
Which of these turning points do you think was most significant for
her? Be prepared to explain your answer.
Activity 8
In her conclusion, the author talks about having ‘the right to know’.
She goes on to say ‘I knew three things. I knew: . . .’
(a)
Consider how each of the three things she ‘knew’ helped resolve
the issues which she had struggled with up until this point.
(b)
Which of the following, do you think, best describes the tone of
the final sentence?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Resolved
Cheerful
Elated
Relieved
Triumphant
Sad
Other?
Finally
Janice Galloway uses some very distinctive stylistic features, for example:
•
•
•
•
block capitals in place of quotation marks;
short sentences;
brackets
dialect
Choose at least one of these – or any other stylistic feature which you
find interesting. Say why you find it interesting and comment on the
effect you think she is trying to create by its use.
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TEXT 4
Text 4: From Factory to Firing Line: The Story of One Bullet
David Pratt
In this article David Pratt, Foreign Editor of the Sunday Herald, asks
how AK-47 bullets get into the hands of mercenaries and child soldiers.
He concludes that their journey tells us much about the modern world.
THIS is the story of a journey; one that begins in a drab industrial
complex, shifts to the splendour of luxury hotels and villas, then
ricochets across oceans and continents before its final stage is played
out in some beleaguered country. Though long and tortuous, it’s a trip
that invariably finishes swiftly – at roughly 700 metres per second – and
its ultimate destination is death.
This is the story of a 7.62×39mm copper-plated, steel-jacketed, high
velocity cartridge for the famous AK-47 assault rifle, the most commonly
used bullet around the world. The new film Lord of War – which stars
Nicolas Cage as amoral but charismatic arms dealer Yuri Orlov – opens
with a rapid-fire montage which tells the story of a bullet, from its birth
in a manufacturing plant, to its fatal impact on a child soldier. But what’s
the real story behind the Hollywood device?
As a war reporter, I have often come across AK-47 cartridges. I’ve seen
them stacked in foil-sealed wooden crates in the caves and jungle
hideouts of rebel armies. I’ve watched fighters shoving them into their
familiar 30-round curved box magazines, which in turn are slipped into
khaki green canvas pouches strapped to the bodies of the gunmen for
whom they are simply the stock in a deadly trade. Time and again I’ve
been around when they were fired, the discarded empty casings tinkling
to the ground then rolling underfoot in the dirt and sand of battlefields,
murder scenes and massacres, from Bosnia to Iraq, Congo to Angola.
I’ve even fired them myself. The first time was in the 1980s, while
travelling clandestinely as a reporter in the mountains of Afghanistan
with mujahidin guerrillas fighting the Russian invaders of their country.
‘Shoot, shoot, mister Daoud!’ insisted the commander of my rebel hosts
for the umpteenth time, as we rested in a remote craggy valley. With his
holy warriors looking on, the commander slotted a full clip of the boat-
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
45
TEXT 4
tailed bullets into a Soviet-made AK-47 and thrust the weapon towards
me. The time had long since passed for acceptable excuses about
journalistic ethics and my non-combatant status.
Judging by the looks of the fighters around me, this had simply boiled
down to an issue of initiation and acceptance; a very Afghan thing about
loyalty and brotherhood. To refuse now would have made my presence
at best uncomfortable, and at worst, untenable.
A battered plastic bottle was set up as a target. As I squeezed the trigger
and the first rounds cracked against some rocks reasonably close to the
bottle, the gawping bearded guerrillas who had clustered around began
to grin. It wasn’t a question of them ever expecting me to fire in earnest,
just about passing some strange macho muster.
After only minutes of instruction, the ease with which I was able to
handle the rifle was proof of the AK-47’s reputation as a so-called ‘userfriendly’ weapon. It’s the firearm of choice among mercenary suppliers
who know that those who end up shouldering this oddly toy-like
weapon – which fires 600 rounds a minute, each powerful enough to
punch a hole through a man’s chest from 100 yards – will have had little
or no proper military training. Put another way, it’s ideal for everyone
from Rwandan peasant farmers to Liberian schoolkids-turned-killers.
That afternoon, following my noisy initiation in the Hindu Kush
mountains, I picked up a few of the dark copper-coloured shells that lay
in the dust to keep as souvenirs. En route through Pakistan on my way
home from Afghanistan, I suddenly decided to throw them away,
ostensibly for fear of being pulled aside at airport security checks, but
also because of some lurking guilt about coveting a trophy of violence.
Pausing to drop them into a bin outside Islamabad airport, I couldn’t
help wondering where these bullets had first come from. How did these
rounds make their way from a high-tech manufacturing plant to the wartorn wilds of Afghanistan?
It was, of course, in Russia – Afghanistan’s mighty former communist
neighbour – that the AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947) rifle,
and those eight-gram bullets, were invented. The brainchild of a second
world war tank sergeant, Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, the AK-47
was the weapon favoured during the cold war years by non-Western
powers. Robust, simple, cost-effective, it was the mainstay of ‘military
assistance programmes,’ in which Russia supplied its communist allies
around the world – officially and unofficially – thus ensuring the AK-47’s
global proliferation.
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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 4
With 100 million AK-47s across the planet, the rifle’s familiar silhouette is
part of modern iconography, making its way onto the flag of the Islamist
Hezbollah movement and the Mozambique national coat of arms. In
other African countries, Kalash – a shortened form of Kalashnikov – has
even become a boys’ name.
Whatever we may think about the morality of arms manufacturing, vast
numbers of AK-47 bullets start life legally in Russia. In the grimy,
polluted city of Tula, 170km south of Moscow, bullet-making is a way of
life. This city – home to 550,000 people and hosting a military garrison
of airborne troops, a 16th-century kremlin as well as various oniondomed churches and cathedrals – manufactures only one other product:
the samovar, Russia’s answer to the teapot.
Since at least 1940, the Tula Cartridge Plant has been producing rounds
that fit the AK-47. Today it is the biggest domestic and export supplier of
the bullets, which are marketed abroad under the ‘Wolf’ trademark. At
the factory, which resembles a scene from a socialist realist painting,
7.62mm rounds trundle off the conveyor belt by the million in a choice
of either brass or bimetal jacket with a steel case. These are packed by
some of the 7000-strong workforce into handy boxes of 20, or crated in
larger numbers for bulk orders.
Many of the new rounds are likely to be sold through the Russian arms
export agency Rosoboronexport, which also deals in older bullets
sourced from cold war stockpiles. Ever since those tense years four
decades ago, Russia and other central and eastern European countries
have been sitting on billions of rounds manufactured for use in a fullscale war with the West that never came.
‘Much of this ammunition is 20 or 30 years old, all from the 1970s and
1980s, so it’s near impossible to check on where they come from, and
that’s just the start of the problem,’ insists Alex Vines, a human rights
and Africa analyst who has intensively researched the arms trade.
According to Vines, former Soviet republics desperate for hard currency
were only too happy to sell off their large surplus armouries in the wake
of the communist meltdown.
******
It’s at this point that our bullet, especially if it originates from an older
stockpile, can slip into a far more sinister channel, to become part of the
vast ordnance on offer to a new breed of east European racketeers.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TEXT 4
And what a breed they are. Gun-runners extraordinaire, like the
Ukrainian Leonid Minin, or the Russian Victor Bout. Many people say
that Yuri Orlov, the character played by Nicolas Cage in Lord of War, is
based on Victor Bout.
Indeed, the movie’s director, Andrew Niccol, is rumoured to have
rented the Russian-built Antonov cargo plane used in a fictional African
arms delivery scene from Victor Bout himself. In another case of fiction
mirroring fact, the thousands of AK-47s used by extras in the film were
bought by Niccol on the international arms market. Given that the
average going rate for an AK-47 in Africa is $30, it would hardly be
surprising. Niccol has said: ‘I actually did become an arms dealer in the
making of the film, or in the logistics of making it. I had to get hold of a
tank for a scene and 3000 Kalashnikovs. I bought real Kalashnikovs
because it was cheaper than getting fake ones.’ One can only assume
that Niccol was making a political point by showing just how easy such a
transaction is.
Men like Leonid Minin and Victor Bout are typical of the new breed of
racketeer. So it’s possible that, on its journey, our bullet was one of five
million catalogued in documents uncovered during a police raid on
room 341 of Minin’s co-owned luxury Europa Hotel in Cinisello
Balsamo, outside Milan, on August 4, 2000. Or perhaps it was among the
113 tons of 7.62 rounds the Ukrainian delivered by air into the west
African country of Ivory Coast just a few weeks earlier – a dispatch that
was revealed in a fax discovered during the same police operation.
Ironically, the Italian police weren’t there to arrest Minin on any arms
offences. When they crashed through his hotel room door at 3am that
August morning, it was because of a tip-off from an unpaid prostitute.
During the raid – in a scene one reporter described as ‘straight from a
Tarantino film’ – the leader of the so-called Odessa Mafia was found
freebasing cocaine, naked, while flanked by a quartet of call girls.
‘The Italian police arrested him for a minor offence and only later found
out who he really is. Then they started to take an interest in the case,’
complains Johan Peleman, a chain-smoking Belgian and one of the
world’s most prominent arms-trade investigators, who has served on
several UN expert panels.
To call Peleman’s task difficult would be the ultimate understatement.
The world in which ‘bullet detectives’ like him operate is characterised
by a complex array of international and local arms brokering syndicates,
clandestine air transport, money laundering, embargo busting and
48
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 4
ruthless regimes. It’s a shopping-in-the-shadows world, where
inventories of illegal arms – which could easily include our bullet –
circulate between traders and suppliers. Then, when a customer is
found (usually someone prevented from buying in the mainstream
government markets), our rifle round is shipped by civilian cargo
companies to a transit point, from where it is transported to its final
destination in a war zone.
Fake end-user certificates (EUCs) are the first line of camouflage for the
illegal arms dealers. In theory, these documents are provided by a
purchasing government to guarantee that that country is the ultimate
user of the arms being bought. But it is rarely this simple. ‘I have come
across countless fake EUCs,’ confirms arms analyst Alex Vines.
One such example was the Pecos company of Guinea in West Africa, a
front organisation that supplied a seemingly endless stream of
counterfeit EUCs to the arms smuggling network of Victor Bout
(pronounced ‘butt’ in Russian). A former KGB major, Bout has been
referred to as the ‘poster boy for a new generation of post-cold war arms
dealers’, who play an insidious role in areas where the weapons trade
has been embargoed by the United Nations. Though worldwide in
scope, Bout’s main trafficking beat is the volatile Central African Great
Lakes region, from Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda across the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) to Angola.
A specialist air transport fixer since the early 1990s, Bout has been the
overseer of a complex network of more than 50 aircraft, distributed
among several airline companies and freight-forwarding outfits.
Although the arms merchant – formerly based in the United Arab
Emirates and now rumoured to be in Russia – has been pursued for
years by bullet detectives like Johan Peleman, a positive visual ID only
became available when two Belgian journalists bumped into him at an
airstrip in remote rebel-held Congo in 2001. Bout was then working
with Jean-Pierre Bemba, the leader of the Mouvement Pour la Libération
du Congo.
During that time, one of the journalists, Dirk Draulans, saw two of Victor
Bout’s planes, carrying the registration numbers 9T-ALC and MLC – both
unknown to international aviation authorities. Later, a Belgian
researcher verified that the aircraft had been flying between Uganda and
DRC at least until November 2001.
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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UN officials have accused Victor Bout of using many ‘flags of
convenience’ and subcontracting arrangements for his aircraft to
facilitate illegal arms and diamond smuggling activities, despite Bout’s
assertions that his aircraft were simply used to deliver supplies to
mining sites and take valuable commodities like coltan and cassiterite
out of places like DRC and Angola.
‘Landing heavy cargo planes with illicit cargoes in war conditions and
breaking international embargoes such as the one on Angola requires
more than individual effort,’ stated a UN report on Angola in December
2000. ‘It takes an internationally organised network of individuals, wellfunded, well-connected and well versed in brokering and logistics, with
the ability to move illicit cargo around the world without raising the
suspicions of the law. One headed, or at least to all appearances
outwardly controlled, by Victor Bout is such an organisation.’
As ever, the UN’s use of earnest rhetoric in pointing out the obvious is
masterful. Across Africa, bullets, guns and other weapons are delivered
with alarming regularity in illegal operations that are chastised in a
similarly feeble manner by global bodies, yet remain immune from direct
international legal action.
In response, campaigners against the arms trade are placing great
emphasis on the need for all states to mark shells and cartridges with
codes or marks denoting batch/lot number, manufacturer and country of
manufacture, year of production and a code identifying the original
recipient of the ammunition lot – such as a police or military force. All of
which would help in identifying the convoluted supply chain either back
to its original source or to its real end-user.
During many years of working across the African continent, I have stood
on countless dirt airstrips watching Soviet-era cargo planes being loaded
up with anything from gold and diamonds, to rocket-propelled grenade
launchers and mortars, much of which has little or no accompanying
‘paperwork’.
‘African conflicts are wasteful of ammunition and are always in need of
more. The guys who carry this stuff in are just flying truck drivers,’ says
Alex Vines. He has a point.
In August 2003, at the height of Liberia’s rainy season, I flew into the
capital, Monrovia, on the second humanitarian aid flight to have reached
the country since the upsurge of the civil war a few weeks before. The
aircraft was flown by a group of volunteer pilots who told me that days
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earlier, coming in to land on the first aid flight, they had almost collided
with an unscheduled incoming cargo plane. ‘Later we found out it was
flying in ammunition and guns for President Charles Taylor, which some
people said was coming from Libya,’ the 58-year-old Swedish pilot told
me. ‘It’s always the same across Africa, you never know who is flying
what.’ One member of the pilot’s own crew even admitted to having
‘ferried a few bullets’ in his time.
For arms dealers, it’s well worth the risk. According to Johan Peleman,
while it’s difficult to put an accurate figure on the profits men like Victor
Bout make, back in 2002 the Russian was sitting on a fortune. ‘The
Rwandan government alone owed Bout $21 million. That gives you
some idea of the sums involved in his business. But that doesn’t include
barter operations – arms for coffee or arms for diamonds,’ says Peleman.
******
There is, of course, an altogether different price to be paid for every
bullet that lands in those war-torn African lands . Take the Democratic
Republic of Congo, which has been the focus of Victor Bout’s activities
in recent years. Sustained by the easy availability of bullets and guns, war
crimes and other human rights violations have been widespread and
almost non-stop. Extra-judicial executions, unlawful killings of civilians,
torture, rape and other sexual violence, the use of child soldiers,
abductions, looting of villages and forced displacement are among the
atrocities to which bullet suppliers are callously indifferent.
How many rounds delivered by these international dealers in death
might have been used during May and June last year [2004] when
dissident elements of the RCD-Goma opposed to the transitional
government, took control of the city of Bukavu in South Kivu province
in Democratic Republic of Congo? During the terrible days that followed,
these dissident militias subjected the civilian population to systematic
human rights abuse until government troops retook the city. Many of
the guns and bullets they used were undoubtedly supplied illegally.
More than 60 people were killed and more than 100 women and girls
were reportedly raped, including 17 who were aged 13 or younger.
Some were raped as their parents watched helplessly. One victim was
only three years old. Extensive looting was also commonplace. The
abusive acts became known popularly among the militiamen as
‘opération TDF’ – operation [mobile] telephones, dollars, daughters –
because this is what the soldiers demanded at gunpoint after forcing
their way into civilian homes.
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Many of the killings took place during looting, often after the victims
had given all they had or simply because, as one informant told Amnesty
International, ‘they didn’t like the look on your face’. On more than one
occasion soldiers reportedly levelled their AK-47s at children’s heads to
extort money from householders, demanding dollars for the life of each
child.
The victims included Lambert Mobole Bitorwa, who was shot at home in
front of his children; Jolie Namwezi, reportedly shot in front of her
children after she resisted rape; Murhula Kagezi, a student killed at his
home while his father was in the next room fetching a mobile phone to
give to the soldiers; and 13-year-old Marie Chimbale Tambwe, shot dead
on the balcony of her home apparently because a militiaman believed
she had pulled a face at him while he was looting in the street below.
******
This is the bloody endgame in the story of our 7.62×39mm copperplated, steel-jacketed bullet. On arrival at its final destination, entering
the tissue of its victim, it usually travels forwards for about 26cm before
beginning to yaw. Ballistics experts and doctors speak then of ‘damage
patterns’ – a sanitised term for the way the bullet rips through
abdomens, legs, arms or brains, sometimes deflecting off bones before
exiting, leaving a gaping, bloody hole.
If all this is to stop, then tighter global controls are imperative. The
question is whether the political will needed to implement such
legislation exists against the murky backdrop of a lucrative business that
deals in genuine weapons of mass destruction. Just as the profiteering
has become a way of life for the dealers, so it is, too, for those who
dispatch the bullets by pulling the trigger.
Some years ago in Liberia, I met a 14-year-old soldier who called himself
J-Boy. He was sitting on a bridge overlooking the Po River, smoking a
joint and loading some of those familiar copper-coloured cartridges into
his rifle. Had J-Boy himself ever killed anyone, I asked.
‘Oh sure man, plenty, plenty,’ he assured me with a smile. ‘With this
good AK and these real fine bullets, it’s way easy.’
(Control Arms (a joint campaign between Amnesty, Oxfam and the
International Action Network on Small Arms) campaigns for tough
controls on the arms trade. See www.controlarms.org)
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‘From Factory to Firing Line: The Story of One Bullet’ –
Student activities
Activity 1
Which of the following reasons, do you think, sum up the author’s
purpose in writing this article? You may choose more than one.
• To make us aware of the vast amounts of money made by arms
traders.
• To help promote Nicolas Cage’s new film, Lord of War.
• To express his disapproval of Nicolas Cage’s new film Lord of War.
• To highlight the lack of international controls on arms dealing.
• To make readers aware of the atrocities being committed around the
world.
• To explain the history of the AK-47 assault rifle.
Activity 2
Which of the following do you think Pratt is trying to suggest in the
opening two paragraphs?
•
•
•
•
This is going to be an exciting article which will engage the reader.
The article is going to be about a glamorous topic.
Bullets are not glamorous, just deadly.
Films and television glamorise death and violence – but he’s not
going to.
• People of today are no longer shocked by the spectacle of violent
death.
Activity 3
This article is divided into four sections, (separated by ***).
• Briefly, what do we learn about the bullet’s ‘journey’ in each section?
• How does the idea of a journey contribute to the overall structure of
the article?
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TEXT 4
Activity 4
In the first section of the article, Pratt demonstrates the ubiquity of the
AK-47 rifle.
•
How does he do this?
•
How many examples can you find in this section of Pratt
juxtaposing the bullet with the ordinariness of every-day life? What
effect is being created here?
•
Overall, what is suggested here about attitudes towards the rifle
and the bullet?
Activity 5
(a)
The second, and longest, section of the text deals mainly with
international arms dealers and with Victor Bout in particular. How
is Bout characterised in this section? Is he portrayed as:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
heroic
sinister
anonymous
criminal
glamorous
shady
other?
You may choose more than one description but you must be
prepared to justify your opinion by close reference to the article.
(b)
What function do Bout and Leonid Minin fulfil for the author?
Activity 6
In the second section, Pratt also talks about the making of the film Lord
of War.
(a)
54
In what ways might it be said that the film seems to step over the
boundaries of fiction and into the real world?
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
TEXT 4
(b)
Pratt finishes the third paragraph of this section with the sentence,
One can only assume that Niccol was making a political point by
showing just how easy such a transaction is.
How are we meant to interpret the tone of this sentence? Is it:
•
•
•
•
•
•
ironic
serious
questioning
humorous
sarcastic
other?
Activity 6
As ever, the UN’s use of earnest rhetoric in pointing out the obvious is
masterful. (Six paragraphs from the end of the second section)
Pratt is clearly being ironic here and criticising the United Nations.
• What is the specific basis for his criticism?
• What wider issues are reflected here?
Activity 7
The first two sections of the article seem to be quite factual, dealing with
the cold reality of the bullet.
• How, in the third section, does Pratt change the focus of his article?
• What emotions does this section provoke in you?
• What techniques does Pratt employ to provoke these emotions? (In
answering this question, you should refer to aspects such as use of
language, sentence structure, setting, detail, statistics . . .)
CRITICAL EVALUATION OF NON-FICTION (INT 2, H, ENGLISH)
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TEXT 4
Activity 8
In the final section, the bullet reaches its destination – human flesh –and
Pratt paints a vivid description of the damage it inflicts.
• What, does he say, do governments need to do to stop the
distribution of arms on such a wide scale and what problems do they
face in trying to implement controls?
• How effective do you find the story of ’J-Boy’ as a conclusion to the
article as a whole?
Finally
As a serious journalist, Pratt goes to considerable lengths to anchor his
article in reality. He sets out to avoid any accusation of ‘making things
up’ and makes it clear that, as well as writing from personal experience,
he has engaged in substantial research on his topic.
Work through the article dissecting it and noting how Pratt convinces
the reader that he knows his subject and is dealing in indisputable fact.
You should work under the following headings:
•
•
•
•
•
Personal experience
Use of detail
Use of statistics
Interviews he has conducted
Quotations from other sources
The best way of doing this might be to use different coloured
highlighters for each heading. You would end up with a very colourful
article, clearly identifying all the different sources of evidence David
Pratt uses to ground his article in fact.
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