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The Dream of the Celt
In this long narrative we find that one by one almost all the dreams of Roger get shattered. First fell in his esteem his childhood ideal—Henry Morton Stanley, the renowned explorer. With him tumbled the "holy trinity of the three Cs" that had until then "justified colonialism: Christianity, civilisation, and commerce". Atrocities committed on the skeletal bodies of the poor natives of Congo and Amazonia, who failed to bring their quota of rubber "the black gold" did humanise Roger, "if being human meant knowing the extremes that could be reached by greed, avarice, prejudice, and cruelty". In both the Congo and Amazonia, Beelzebub seemed to be "winning the struggle with the Lord". The ears, noses, hands, feet and penises of the defaulters were chopped off. They were put in sacks soaked in gasoline and set on fire. Their children were sold or drowned. The reports submitted to the British government by Roger caused immense resentment in international circles and brought about the downfall of rubber barons in the Congo and Amazonia. For this service, the gratified England crowned Roger with knighthood.
Friends of Roger submitted a petition to the English Parliament for commuting the death sentence. Roger was dismayed that although G.B. Shaw had signed the petition in his support, Joseph Conrad had refused to do so. G.B. Shaw had signed in spite of his conviction that "Patriotism is a religion the enemy of lucidity. It is pure obscurantism. An act of faith". Why did Conrad refuse? Were the experiences of both Conrad and Casement not the same? Perhaps their conclusions differed. Alice Green, a historian explained to Roger that Conrad’s Heart of Darkness "is a parable according to which Africa turns the civilised Europeans who go there into barbarians. Your Congo Report showed the opposite. That we Europeans were the ones who brought the worst barbarians there". When the British intelligence discovered a diary from Roger’s premises detailing his gay life, the government launched a vilification campaign casting a shadow on his character. This caused the ultimate turning down of the clemency petition. The glee of Sheriff at the Pentonville prison summarised the general prevalent attitude of the masses and politicians towards Roger: "A traitor and pervert at the same time. What garbage! It will be a pleasure to see you dancing at the end of a rope, ex-Sir Roger". This work may not merit a second reading if it is to be read exclusively as a novel. If read as a fictionalised or semi-fictionalised biographical sketch we find it informative. It moves generally at an even pace which could easily have become stultified had it not been saved by some morsels of vivid scenes, philosophical insights and the disclosure of the system of exploitation under colonial regimes. Comments on the idiosyncrasies of some important literary personalities and rebels active during the Easter Uprising also usher in some elements of interest. No doubt a huge and meticulous research has gone into the making of the novel but that is normal in the works of such ambitious scale. Some of the recent reviewers of the work have enthusiastically claimed that this work alone would have been sufficient to win the Nobel Prize for Llosa. That to me does seem a far-fetched — even ridiculous — claim. However, the work celebrates the memory of a true philanthropic, selfless and almost a forgotten hero and for that reason alone it is certainly worthy of praise.
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THE Dream of the Celt
by Mario Vargas Llosa is a fictionalised biography of Roger Casement
— an Irishman, who spent many years in Africa and Latin America as a
British consul. The original Spanish version of this work appeared
just after the announcement of 2010 Nobel Prize for Llosa.
Later, Roger Casement
focused his attention on the plight of his native country Ireland.
England herself was a culprit now. Roger put a question to himself:
"Why would what was bad for the Congo be good for Ireland? Hadn’t
they incorporated it into the Empire by force, not consulting those
who had been invaded and occupied, just as the Belgians did with the
Congolese?" Roger became a thorough nationalist and visited
Germany to enlist an armed support. On being captured, subsequently he
was sentenced to death.