The Good Terrorist (original 1985; edition 1985)

author recommeded by dad

The story follows Alice, a 36-year-old revolutionary in 1980s London. She and fellow members of a loosely-organized, far-left organization squat in a large, dilapidated house. Alice serves as the under-appreciated care-taker of the group by cooking, cleaning, fixing up the house, and dealing with the utility boards. With few exceptions, the rest of the characters come across as hateful, stupid, selfish, and immature. They are essentially two-dimensional negative stereotypes of young radicals. The group is apparently tired of painting slogans on bridges and wants to branch into something more exciting. Someone comes up with a plan to work with the IRA, but the IRA rejects them. Nevertheless, they decide to branch into terrorism on their own with predictably disastrous results.

I must admit, I am completely baffled by this novel. Last year, I read the Grass is Singing, thought it was wonderful, and considered doing a Doris Lessing author read this year (I went with Coetzee instead…thankfully.) This novel reads like it was written by a different human being. While the story holds my attention, the prose is artless and at times clunky and awkward. I keep wondering if that was her intention, but then I can’t figure out why it would be. I can understand using a sparse, linear narrative style when dealing with this particular subject matter, but this simply leaves me slightly embarrassed for the author. I think exploring the occasional tendency for those involved in radical or fringe ideology to lose sight of their original humanitarian goals is an interesting and worthwhile pursuit, but it doesn’t work here. ( )

Alice Melling is 37 and a revolutionary. She and her gay boyfriend move from squat to squat and attend rallies, pickets and demonstrations. Her boyfriend even goes to Ireland to offer their services to the IRA but were refused. Alice is like a mother hen or like her mother says "an all purpose female drudge" who loves housework, cleaning and mending and is the go to girl when the squat has to made livable. The group in an amateurish attempt to bomb a prominent hotel lose a comrade.

The author has beautifully described the naivety and the danger of half baked ideas in youths. This is not a fast paced novel but very interesting. ( )

ספר יוצא מן הכלל. בקפדנות אין קץ ובעושר פרטים של צ​17 נבנית דמותה של אליס, הטרוריסטית הטובה. בריה אבודה​, רגישה והרוסה החיה בעולם המטורף של אנשי שמאל השול​יים בבריטניה. פורטרייט מדהים של המהפכן כמקרה פסיכי​אטרי. חשבתי רבות על בן דודי האומלל פטר. כל מה שלא ​למדתי עליו בחייו למדתי מהספר הזה.​ ( )

This is a scary book about the banality of terrorism - how easy it is to slip into, how far away the ideals supposedly underpinning it become, the practical arrangements and paranoia that go along with acts of violence. Alice is manipulative and manipulated; she works the system for her ends, leaving casualties and corpses in her way. Deep unhappiness suffuses the book; there is a sense that other narratives are going on in other places, but Alice's monomania and ruthless focus brushes them aside. But what is she trying to achieve? Perhaps the main achievement of the book is to show how pointless fanaticism ultimately is...