The Adversary: A Must Read

The Adversary is a dystopian vision of a world, not in the future, but in 1700’s Newfoundland. It is a compelling illustration of Hobbes’ vision of life without law and government – nasty brutal and short

The other protagonist, Abe’s sister, “the Widow Caines”, is his mortal enemy and their rivalry shapes the narrative. The Widow, unlike Abe, is well able to master herself. She is smart, hard-working, practical and thrifty. But the siblings are alike in their greed and lack of human feeling. They are both driven to own as much of Mockbeggar as they possibly can.

Bullying, misogynistic, violent and mean, they are only smart enough to get what they want through force. So they surround themselves with gangster henchman to do their dirty work.

The Widow is the type that works hard to build wealth and standing, using her native cleverness, and grasping any opportunities that arise. She represents the type of commerce that accumulates wealth by outsmarting the competition and obsessive drive. If an analogy to the US is extended, the widow represents the Democratic party’s supports for an unregulated market. In both a poverty stricken Newfoundland outpost and the USA today, the dominant paradigm is that unhindered trade creates wealth that trickles down to lesser folk.

The fact is that in both scenarios wealth does not trickle down, and a substantial portion of the population struggles with poverty and hardship. So in the interests of maintaining the existing social order, Democrats in the US support social services and a limited distribution of wealth. In the early Newfoundland version, the Widow takes orphans and runaway slaves into her orbit to use for her own purposes, in exchange for providing them with sustenance.

The siblings are similar in that they both got a head start in commerce through inherited wealth, then increased their holdings through favourable market conditions and buying up weaker enterprises. Their allegiance is to accumulation and self-interest rather than any moral code or social values. They are dissimilar in their approach to commercial activity. Abe, like the imperialists, ignores the rule of law and accepted behaviour and acts with impunity because there is no one to stop him. The Widow, like the Democrats, prefers to work within the law because the laws serve her interests. But when imperialists have the upper hand and ignore the law, as is the case today and in Mockbeggar 300 years ago, free-enterprisers like the Widow are at a disadvantage.

Abe Strapp’s manager, The Beadle, is the archetypal middleman. He represents the middle powers and the middle class. While not having power himself, he does the bidding of the tyrant and ignores the morality or even legality of his actions. He is beholden to the despot and shares his misogyny and lack of empathy, so is not inclined to oppose him. Though he is the spiritual leader of the community, like the siblings, his allegiance is to Mammon, not God.

So The Adversary works on many levels. It is a disturbing image of a dystopia, and a study of the two sides of commerce – the irrational, destructive, violent side in brutal rivalry with the hard-working, logical, self-interested side.

The story is also a timely allegory of the present day in which these two sides are locked in battle. Trump personifies the lawless, violent imperialist side as the US attacks Venezuela, kidnapping its president and his wife, killing its defenders then stealing its oil. Trump is facilitating the most brutal genocide in recent memory, while attacking any Middle Eastern country that opposes their occupation.

By attacking Iran, he is willing to risk an uncontrollable escalation of war and world-wide disruption of trade and no one seems willing or able to stop him. Now that Canada and Greenland are also on the US menu, Canadians and Europeans are being forced to rethink their complicity in US imperialism.

Like the Beadle these middle countries and their middle classes have complied with US aggression because it served their interests. Their hope is that the world will return to the unregulated free trade regime of the Democrats by which at least their middle and upper classes benefited. They prefer to ignore the fact that, as in Mockbeggar, the poor never benefit from the wealth created by the acquisitive merchant class, but suffer the most during hard times.

So who is the adversary? Aubrey, the Widow’s head man, and one of the very few with integrity in the community, says, “The Fortress walls are useless… The adversary is already within”. This dire prediction comes after the Widow made sure her late husband’s Will disinherited a cousin who helped build the business ,so that she alone inherited. The adversary is not one type of commercial activity or the other, but avarice itself.

The book is consciously, egregiously grotesque and not a light or easy read. Passages like the scene of drunken louts in a contest that involves eating a live Sparrow are almost too revolting to bear. But these images reflect our willingness to witness horrific behaviour that we tacitly endorse though our silence. We are bombarded by images of a real-time genocide: children shot at close range by soldiers, the torture of prisoners, the destruction of homes and livelihoods and the herding of refugee into camps that are then bombed from the air. We resign ourselves to mass species extinction, wildfires, flooding and drastic climate variability because we have become deadened to suffering and cowed by propaganda. Toward the end of The Adversary, the berserk tyrant has a helpless youth beaten almost to death before the villagers finally rise up to stop him. Crummey’s work asks us when we will finally have the courage to rise up.

The Adversary is well written and a compelling novel, though it is not without flaws. There are too many characters and it is sometimes difficult to keep track of them. But such a minor quibble is irrelevant given the challenging and highly relevant message Crummey has delivered. The Adversary is a must read.