Love, Oil and the Fortunes of War

The basis of this book is the story behind the urgent search by Britain prior to World War I for its own direct source of oil, free from the tight controls of other businesses such as America’s Standard Oil or the Dutch company Shell. The three principal characters involved in bringing this about were all fringe-dwellers, or misfits, in the social order of the day.

Jacky Fisher was born in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and often snidely thought to have Indian blood due to a dark complexion that was actually caused by illness. By sheer determination and skill, he rose up through the ranks of the Royal Navy to become First Sea Lord. He wanted to modernise and use new technology to improve the Navy, to have ships powered by oil rather than continuing to rely on the dirtier and unwieldly coal. It was inevitable that this passion for innovation would get up the noses of the conservative factions in the armed forces and politics.  

Gertrude Bell was likewise unique, a single and adventurous woman who had cultivated profound knowledge of the languages and culture of the Middle East, and became a mediator between the local inhabitants and the posturing European powers. Depending on the viewpoints of those whom she encountered, she was either despised or admired for her audacity, intelligence and perceptiveness.

The lesser-known of the trio, the rotund self-serving, William Knox D’Arcy, made and lost fortunes in gold mining in Queensland before venturing into oil exploration in Persia. He struggled to shake off the erroneous tag of being an Australian as he strove for acceptance in the English upper classes. It galled him that, in spite of his Anglo-Irish heritage and friendship with those in high places, he still couldn’t crack the glass ceiling.

The book is marketed as adventure and/or historical fiction, but it lacks cohesiveness in its construction that results in a disjointed combination of factual historical and/or biographical snippets interspersed with imagined conversations and scenarios. In the middle of discussions, we are abruptly diverted by asides into miscellany. All such facts might be interesting in their own right, but they take away the immediacy and focus that drives all good fictional narrative.

Jacky Fisher has been extensively written about, as has Gertrude Bell. She was even fictionalised in a recent movie (Queen of the Desert starring Nicole Kidman) that concentrated more on her unrequited love life than her political manoeuvres. Perhaps the best thing about this book is that the reader might become curious about the true stories of these two extraordinary individuals and seek out better-articulated non-fiction.

D’Arcy, on the other hand, has few redeeming features, is shallower and less-attractive and as the Australian Dictionary of Biography notes: “He had few, if any, ideals, his main aim being to win and then maintain wealth and social esteem.” (Not unlike many business entrepreneurs in our modern time.)

Three stars.

amazon.com

Bookdepository

Dymocks Australia

---