Some thoughts about Jo Nesbø’s Macbeth

I liked the book, but I know three other people who read the book: they would have preferred a normal criminal story of Harry Hole style. Apparently the publisher had asked a number of authors to write a book placing some old masterpiece to the modern time. Nesbø took the challenge.

            I will not describe the plot of the book as knowing the plot makes reading the book less exciting. Nor will I comment the characters: there appears for instance a personification of evil, which can only be killed with a silver bullet, or blade, as in this case. I will also refrain from commenting the technical devices, though personally I would have used miniguns instead of age old Gatling guns, but fine, there are restrictions in buying miniguns and a Gatling may be available from some gun collector.

            This book is not about a realistic plot or realistic characters, nor about a realistic description of the modern world, which is the strength of Scandinavian crime novels. This book is all symbolic and refers to our time and Shakespeare’s Macbeth in world plays, names, allegories and similar ancient tricks.  Just to give two examples: the strongest drug is power and in Nesbø’s book a train has a particular importance. In Shakespeare’s play the word train is also mentioned often: the world originally does not refer to a vehicle but to a piece of clothing dragging behind, like bride’s train, and later to the followers. It is a reference to the plotters in the Gunpowder plot. Nesbø simply plays with this allegory.

Shakespeare’s play has many such symbolic references. For instance, prophesies of the witches in Shakespeare refer to Jesuit equivocation: saying only a part of a sentence aloud and thus misleading the listeners. Jesuit Henry Garnet used it while hiding his knowledge of the Gunpowder plot. Shakespeare makes this connection clear in many places.

            Shakespeare’s play seems to simply describe how power corrupts, but it was written soon after the Gunpowder plot. Shakespeare lived in the time of an attempted regicide in England and the plotters were Catholics. The words he used in the play had a double and current meaning to the audience of his time. Unfortunately, scholars of our time do not any more understand what the play wants to say: does it support the absolute rule of James I and condemn the Jesuits, or is it more ambiguous. My feelings after reading Nesbø’s book were similarly confused: does Nesbø claim that Macbeth was a good man corrupted by power, or even that good men make the worst tyrants? Duff is said to be the opposite of Macbeth. Duff kills innocents while Macbeth saves many innocents in the book; Duff is an egoist while Macbeth only wants to do good for others. What did the author want to say? I know that many people are fed up by the question what, it anything, the author wanted to say and in this particular book I really do not know what the author wanted to say, but I will comment it in this post in just a while.

            Shakespeare’s play is placed on the old history of Scotland, to around 1000 AD, but it does not follow the old chronicles. Nesbø seems to have studied this old history as he gives the name of the police chief as Kenneth.  Kenneth II of Scotland was one of King Duncan’s ancestors. So, from everything I conclude that Nesbø had done his studies and whatever one thinks of the book it was not written without thinking. There is a message: it is only to find it.

            Let me first look at the witches. In Nesbø’s book they are drug dealers. This is a very appropriate analogy. The source of religious experiences in human history has often been magic potions, that is, drugs, isolation or various trance techniques, anything that can modify the ordinary consciousness. But we know that Shakespeare’s play resonates with the Gunpowder plot and the drug is religion. Hekate in Nesbø’s book may be compared with Henry Garnet. Garnet was selling the Catholic faith while the rivals, the Norse riders, might have been the Puritans, another pain in the ass for James I. And then James I was there in the middle, a place where Clint Eastwood would have made lots of money in the Fistful of Dollars. But obviously this is not the way to read Nesbø. In Shakespeare’s time the Catholic Church was the world ruler, but in Nesbø’s book Hekate is the Invisible Hand. Sometimes in the book the Invisible Hand is described as capitalism: Hekate talks about supply and demand, but you do not kill capitalism with a German hand grenade. This hand grenade was from the time when the Nazi party was created and Macbeth burns two bodies: one being collateral damage, a child of a Norse rider, and another being his disobeying subordinate. In the latter case there is even a reference to a gold tooth being melted in the furnace. So, maybe Nesbø does not mean capitalism by the Invisible Hand.

            I am not so interested in such conspiracy stories, though Macbeth is all about plots and conspiracies. I am more interested in prophesies. Hekate’s witches make two prophesies and they are filled in a surprising way. That is the old way. Prophesy is a puzzle, entertainment of a time when there was not better entertainment. Prophesy must be fulfilled, but it is seemingly impossible and this is the puzzle. How can a virgin give birth to a child? I do not mean today when many children are born in vitro, but in ancient times. It can be made in many ways: being baptized is dying and being reborn. If a virgin is baptized, the new person is born from a virgin. How can the death be awoken? Because it is said that let the dead bury the dead, thus those who do not see the truth are dead and if they repent their sins they are awoken and become alive, for the truth and the life are the same. Yet for those who do not understand symbolic though you have to perform miracles and be raised from death, maybe with some help from Thomas the Twin, whose twin?

            Prophesies are simple to understand, yet they have the power to manipulate minds. The more essential topic in Nesbø’s book is whether a good man, who does not kill unarmed and only wants good for the city, can become the worst tyrant. Initially I would say that no, cannot, but then what about Caligula and Nero, two of the worst tyrants? I have for a long time been uncertain of these two. It is because Caligula had as a friend and a mentor Herod Agrippa, yet he tried to place his statue to the Temple in Jerusalem. I would think that Caligula has consulted Herod Agrippa of this plan, he must have, and Agrippa approved the plan. The thing is that Herod Agrippa was very well versed in Hebrew prophesies. Placing a statue of the Roman Caesar to the temple was the abomination of desolation in the Book of Daniel, the sign of the end of the times. I think this Caligula got this idea from Herod Agrippa, but the comet did not appear as Herod expected and his plans were ruined.

            That is, Caesar’s comet appeared in 44 BC. Jewish Rabbis knew of a comet that is seen about every 70 years and very possibly though that a comet would be seen around 25 AD: there was no year zero, so 70 years is from 44 BC to 25 AD. But there was no great comet in around 25 AD. Therefore a comet was expected in Judea any year from that time on. Jesus was most probably crucified in 30 AD and was expected to come again in heavens, that is, there was to appear a comet. In 66 AD The Halley comet finally appeared and the First Jewish War started. Based on what is told of the death of Herod Agrippa in Josephus and in the Acts it seems correct to assume that Herod Agrippa I wanted to be the King Messiah. Notice that there are two different genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The one in Luke featured Jannai. He was Alexander Jannaeus, the King of Israel.You also find variants of the name Mattathius. Look at the list in Luke 3: 23-24. Herod Agrippa was the grandchild of Mariamne I and Herod the Great suspected that Mariamne had an affair with Joseph, his servant. Thus, it was thought that Herod Agrippa’s father Aristobulus was the child of Joseph. But let us see: Jannai’s son was Melki. Melki means the King. Melki’s son was Levi, the Priest. Alexander Jannaeus had two sons. Aristobulus II rebelled and become the king, while Hyrcanus II was the high priest. The two sons of Aristobulus II were Alexander of Judea and Antigonus Mattathias. In Luke there are Mattatias and Eli. They would be Antigonus Mattathias and Alexander. Mariamne I was the daughter of Alexander and the grandmother of Herod Agrippa. Mariamne I as a woman could not be mentioned, and she was though to have had an affair with Joseph. So, this is where the genealogy in Luke ends. The King Messiah could have been Aristobulus IV, but Herod the Great killed him, so the son of Aristobulus IV was Herod Agrippa I. Luke gives the father of Jannai as Joseph. The father of Jannai was John Hyrcanus. The father of Joseph is Mattai. The father of John Hyrcanus was Simon Maccabeus but he was the Wicked Priest, so omitted, his father was Mattathias. Then the list in Luke gives small prophets, who foretold the new Davidic lineage. In this reading the genealogy in Luke is not paternal ancestors but more like the king list of rebelling Hasmonean kings.

Essenes expected two Messiahs: the prophet and the king. I consider it virtually certain that the king was to be Herod Agrippa and Jesus was the prophet, a Samaritan Taheb. In John Rabbis say that Jesus was a Samaritan and John the Baptist is associated with Sebaste in Samaria. 

            The case with Nero is equally obscure. Paul in his Roman letter sends greetings to Christians in Caesar’s court and one of them seems to be a notorious freed slave who helped Nero in his suicide, or murdered Nero depending on what we believe. Paul met Nero and discussed with him. Paul called Gentiles to Christianity and did not want them to convert to Judaism because if they did so, they would be under the law and their sins would be counted, but as long as they were not under the law, they were without sin. Then why to save them if they were without sin? It is so that Paul, who probably was an Idumean and kin to Herod Agrippa, thought that dying as a martyr was the only way a Gentile could get to the Heaven. I consider it quite possible that Nero burned Christian on stokes on the suggestion of Paul. The other alternative is that the suggestion came from Poppaea Sabina, who was influenced by the Jews. I do not think the reason was cruelty at all: the act was meant to start the end of the times. 

            But these are ancient examples, and I do not know if Caligula and Nero were good men wanting the best for the citizens who turned into tyrants. There is a better example: these are certainly good men who turned into tyrants. I mean the X Club in Victorian England. This club was a gentlemen dining club by eight eminent members of the Royal Society. None of these men were Freemasons, yet the X Club was referred to as Darwinian Masonic Lodge. See for instance what http://leedugatkin.com/files/8614/1364/5803/clark.pdf writes of John Lubbock, a member of the X Club: „because he intended to use it, verbatim, for a lecture at the Athenaeum Club. He held no compunctions about delivering one of his avowedly ‘popular’ lectures before the ‘metaphorical lodge of the intellectual freemasonry’ of late Victorian Britain.” The quotes seem to refer to statements by John Lubbock.

The founder of X Club, Thomas Henry Huxley, writes in a letter to Joseph Dalton Hookes in 1888: „But we have had a masonic bond in both being well salted in early life. I have always felt I owed a great deal to my acquaintance with the realities of things gained in the old Rattlesnake.” In https://archive.org/stream/lifelettersofsir02hookrich/lifelettersofsir02hookrich_djvu.txt

            Thus, we can say that in some sense the X Club was masonic. Probably in the sense that it was conspirational. These people pushed through darwinism and also social darwinism, later to guide Hitler. These eight eminent scientists were not all atheists or agnostics, but they opposed the Biblical creation story. I guess they considered the Old Testament stories as children’s tales, which is a very odd misunderstanding. The second creation story in the Bible is in my opinion a fairly accurate description of what pre-ancient people saw in the night sky: the Polar star moved from Deneb in Cygnus to Hercules, Adam and Eve were the Milkyway. I have written about this in a post of the Polar star. The first creation story is a rational, though somewhat incorrect, description in what order things were created using the rationale that what is needed must exist before it is used: thus plants need light, water and earth, while the sun and the moon are really not needed before animals are created as animals have eyes while plants do not have them. The lists of early patriarchs are taken from Sumerian king lists, while the stories of Israelian patriarchs are teachings how to cheat people outside the tribe. Finally the false histories were written to justify the taking over the land from peoples who had lived there earlier. None of these are any children’s tales: most of them have a political motive.

            Anyway, these eight members of the X Club pushed darwinism through and the opposition to the theory was manily from the religious circles. Sadly, one of the eight eminent scientists was a mathematician. I have no problem understanding how scientists from the lesser fields can be easily cheated, but even a mathematician. Naturally I am not denying that all life on the Earth seems to have one beginning and species have developed from other species, which is what the fossils show. The question is how did they develop, through what mechanims. These eight supported Charles Darwin in claiming that new species developed from old species though selection. That is, in sexual reproduction genes get suffled and selecting individuals having certain properties you can in a short time change the probabilities of genes in a population. You can even get some gene alleles fixed in the population and purge other alleles from the population. All of this only decreases the gene pool of the population. It cannot create new genes and therefore it cannot create new species, a fact that these gentlemen and Charles Darwin very well knew but decided to ignore. The present theory of evolution includes mutations. Mutations create new gene alleles and as a result they mostly cause diseases or unimportant differences. The theory is that sometimes, though very seldom, these mutations create something useful. Again, there are no calculations how probable it is that this theory works. I made some simple calculations and I doubt it works. The problem is how to create new protein coding parts, exons. You can make one or two mutations in an exon and it still does what it used to do, these are alleles and we see lots of them. But to create a new exon for some completely new task you need more mutations. As the way to get more mutations is to introduce them one by one over a long time, the mutated exon does not work for a long time. That means it must become pseudogene, nonworking DNA. As pseudogene exon can collect mutations but nothing, absolutely nothing, guides it. No natural selection guides the mutations since the exon does not work. Then, a simple question, how probable is it to get a working gene my totally unguided mutations? Very close to zero. This is why Charles Dawrin was so happy to have natural selection as a guiding mechanims. If there is no guiding mechanism, mutations should not lead anywhere.

            But this group of the eminent eight in their dining sessions did not worry about this issue. They most probably focussed on how to get the Royal Society to support darwinism as the ultimate truth that cannot be questioned. So, Nesbø may be correct: maybe the good willing are the worst tyrants.

            As I mentioned the X Club, let us not forget the Secret Ring society. Sigmund Freud gave signet rings to his followers. They had an inner circle, the Secret Ring. All but one were Jews, so as a result psychoanalysis got a clear ethnic character. The Secret Ring was targeting the competitors of Freud, and for a long time quite successfully. Naturally, today it is admitted that psychoanalysis is rubbish: none of the concepts of that theory have any validity and it cannot cure anybody: this is not to say that some people do not get cured, but the result would be the same if the psychoanalysist were replaced by a healer. Freud did not invent the basic underlying theory: he stole the concept of unconscious mind from another researcher. This reminds Einstein, who took the theory of Poincare’s and Lorentz and later it is called Einstein’s theory. Though, Einstein added something to the theory and what he added is false, the same story as with Freud. Such secret societies, like the X Club and the Secret Ring, can be quite efficient if supported by the media, which usually is the case. I read a book by the questionable Kevin MacDonald and he gave more examples, the Boaesian anthropology, the Frankfurt School. All his examples had some things in common. In order to take control of a field you need authorities. In the case of the X Club, the members were already eminent. In the later societies, you first create a genius. It is not so hard, it is just like creating a star. And then you control the field, but unlike in Nesbø’s Macbeth there will not be any defeat.

            Yes, Nesbø is an optimist, too much of an optimist. Right, I cannot recommend the book, it is unrealistic.