I.D. Roberts’s second adventure, For Kingdom and Country, featuring Kingdom Lock was published 2015; it is a direct sequel of Kingdom Lock (2014), alrI.D. Roberts’s second adventure, For Kingdom and Country, featuring Kingdom Lock was published 2015; it is a direct sequel of Kingdom Lock (2014), already reviewed.
We’re in Basra, Mesopotamia, in 1915, with the British against the German and Turkish forces.
Wilhelm Wassmuss, Lock’s German nemesis from the first book, is plotting to incriminate our hero in the crime of assassination. He is also financing a far-reaching network of spies…
Lock’s involvement with rich nurse Amy is thrust against the rocks, it seems, despite their earlier throes of passion. Lock is supported by his faithful comrade Siddhartha Singh (‘Sid’). Lock and his men are sent on a Commando mission to spike the enemy mines on the Tigris.
Throughout, the period details and the terrain come across as genuine. The map is useful and an improvement on the map in the first book. We continue to empathise with Lock and Sid.
Certainly, some of the storyline seems contrived, notably where coincidences are concerned, but it’s still good Boys’ Own adventure stuff.
Annoyingly, other characters are not developed much; for instance Sergeant Major Underhill and Petty Officer Betty Boxer, both of whom are interesting.
In conclusion, I suspect the book was probably rushed. The final confrontation is confusing, inadequately described. And many threads are left dangling, possibly intentionally with an eye on another follow-up.
Entertaining, but could have benefited from tighter editing.
Editorial comment These comments may prove useful to writers…
As before, the name Lock is used too often when ‘he’ would suffice.
When only two characters are in a scene, it is not necessary for them to constantly refer to each other by name/rank, and the worst offenders are Lock and Sid conversing. Too many instances to itemise, but, for example: ‘Don’t be daft, Sid… I’m fine, Sid… Nothing, Sid…True, Sid… Yes, Sid…’ (all on p278)
It’s grating to repeatedly encounter ‘was sat’ instead of the perfectly correct and simpler ‘sat’ in the narrative. Again, too many instances to itemise, here’s one, for example: ‘He was sat shoulder to shoulder…’ (p211)
‘Though still a sergeant major, Lock had gained a rare mumble of gratitude from Underhill when he presented him with his promotion to RSM...’ (p179) Of course this is wrong, implying Lock is the sergeant major! The editor should have deleted ‘Though still a sergeant major’.
Both Indian’s were shirtless… (p191) There shouldn’t be an apostrophe!
Over-use of the word ‘up’, often when it is not necessary. An example: ‘… peering hard up at the sky.’ (p280) We know the sky is up… A single page has too many ups and downs, for example. (p377)
Similar, here: ‘… the pinking sky above them…’ (p284)
And: ‘… shadow cast from the moonlight up above,’ (p314)
At least three instances of the misuse of the word ‘populous’ when it should have been ‘populace’ (I noted two: pp331, 348)
‘a sound lost in the aeroplane’s noisy engine’ (p376) This should be ‘a sound drowned by the aeroplane’s noisy engine’, perhaps.
‘Without his shako on, Lock could see that the generaloberst had a head of thick snow-white hair’ (p397) Of course, the shako belongs to the white-haired chap, not Lock!
This next instance is a common conundrum for writers. If you’re riding a horse, you are not galloping but the horse is, yet we tend to say ‘He galloped…’ So it is here: ‘Lock puttered along trying to estimate how far he needed to travel before he should go ashore.’ (p407) It’s the motor launch that putters, not Lock. We know Lock is in the launch, so why not attribute the puttering to the boat? ‘The motor launch puttered along while he tried to estimate…’ ...more
Frederick Forsyth’s return after a fiction hiatus of five years sees his thriller The Fox published before it’s really ready. It seems rushed, for reaFrederick Forsyth’s return after a fiction hiatus of five years sees his thriller The Fox published before it’s really ready. It seems rushed, for reasons I’ll go into soon, and is sadly unsatisfactory, and I believe the blame can be shared equally between Mr Forsyth and the publisher.
The publisher should do better. The list of books by Forsyth is impressive, with The Outsider following on from The Kill List, below which are two Non-fiction books listed, The Biafra Story and Emeka. Don’t Bantam Press know that The Outsider is non-fiction, being his autobiography?
The story is about a young man, Luke Jennings, with Asperger’s Syndrome who has hacked into the US security system. Together with his family (mother, father, brother) he is arrested and sequestered in a safe place. Rather than prosecute him, both the Americans and the British decide to utilize his considerable gifts to tilt the balance of power – to interfere with Russian, North Korean or Chinese computer-linked weapons systems.
Forsyth’s page-turning ability is apparent as he peppers the story with facts and details about the clandestine and political world, even including most recent events, such as the Skripal poisonings in Salisbury and the summit meetings with North Korea. As usual, Forsyth employs his omniscient third person narrative, creating that immediacy of a reporter viewing events unfolding. Unfortunately, that technique here leaves little room for emotion. In truth, I felt that the book reads more like a film treatment than a novel.
It’s a quirk of mine, but I find it annoying when a character is referred to in two different ways. The putative hero is Sir Adrian Weston. Most of the time, we get Adrian or Sir Adrian. But then he drops in Weston. Bond was always Bond; end of.
The utilization of Luke is serious wishful thinking, breaking down foreign firewalls virtually at the drop of a hat. Luke’s technical shepherd who directs the lad’s hacking activities is Jeremy Hendricks, who (to tick a box) ‘was gay but made no mention of it, choosing a quiet life of celibacy’ (p13).
As for characterization, we don’t really get to know Sue Jennings, Luke’s mother, or even Luke, ‘The Fox’ for that matter. We learn a little about Sir Adrian, even delving beneath his skin. But that’s all. The majority of characters – and there are over 30 listed (with organizations too) beginning on p303 – are ciphers. There is no emotional content, so as a reader I didn’t experience any tension when threats were described to silence Luke. Really, Luke is the main character, the reason for the story, Hitchcock’s McGuffin, yet he does not come alive, so then the threat of his death falls flat: it should create concern at least.
Since reading the book, I’ve looked at the reviews. They fall into two categories: excellent thriller, couldn’t put it down and the obverse, highly disappointing with a cop-out ending. I regret to concur with the naysayers.
An aside I was fascinated to read about a sleeper agent: ‘The agent … masqueraded as a shopkeeper in the West End of London whose British name was Burke. His real name was Dmitri Volkov.’ (p73)
In my Tana Standish psychic spy novel Mission: Tehran (originally published 2009, re-published 2017) states:
Yuri – cover-name Neil Tomlinson – had hired the light cargo aircraft for the day and filed all the flight-plan papers at the nearby airport. He landed in a field a couple of miles away from Fenner House and picked up ‘agent Burke’. Lieutenant Aksakov had already concealed the Escort behind a hedge and a cluster of trees and thrown the blonde wig and business clothes into the boot. She was wearing the more familiar hard-wearing green cotton tunic and trousers. For this mission she’d left behind in the car’s boot her water flask, the folding stock version of the Kalashnikov automatic AKM, three hundred 7.62mm rounds and the P351-M radio set with scrambling and high-speed transmission apparatus. The vehicle was detonated to explode should she be unable to retrieve it. Instead, she carried her spring-loaded knife, spare blades, a Makarov pistol and thirty-two rounds. Six grenades and plastic explosive completed her weapons load. (p184) Glossary: Burke - Code-name chosen because Aksakov specialized in throttling people without leaving a trace and this transitive verb stems from a nineteenth century murderer’s name. (p275)
Co-written by Daisy Goodwin (the series’ excellent screenwriter) and historian/novelist Sara Sheridan, the book covers in 303 pages the relationship bCo-written by Daisy Goodwin (the series’ excellent screenwriter) and historian/novelist Sara Sheridan, the book covers in 303 pages the relationship between the two royals and the many individuals who came into their orbit. It is complemented by many still photographs from the two seasons of Victoria and the Christmas special.
The TV series is not a historical documentary but a dramatised rendering of Queen Victoria, her husband Albert and others, and as such it does tinker with historical fact for dramatic effect; and the book highlights these divergences – whether that’s the close bond between Victoria and Lord Melbourne, the actual age of the Duchess of Buccleuch (Victoria’s contemporary, not as depicted by Diana Rigg), or the good Dr Traill (Goodwin’s great-great-great-grandfather, in fact) who didn’t actually meet the Queen, and so on...
There are several behind-the-scenes insights, whether that’s the sets, the language used, the costumes or the food
In addition there are articles on all manner of aspects Victorian: Sex for Sale, Racy Victorians behind closed doors, the language of flowers, pregnancy and childbirth, drug use, corsets, drinks, etiquette, beards, the railways, poverty, the Corn Laws, the Chartists, and the Irish potato famine.
In my view there is only one blemish, which a vigilant editor could have excised: a misguided statement by Goodwin. ‘One thing I feel quite sure of is that Victoria would have been appalled by Brexit. Victoria and Albert tried to create their own informal European union through strategic marriages of their children. Victoria may have been English to her fingertips, but she understood the value of a family of nations.’ (p247)
I would suspect that the truth would be the opposite. Victoria was proud of her Empire and would have loathed the fact that her country’s sovereignty had been discarded due to Prime Minister Major’s infatuation with the Maastricht Treaty in the 1990s. And of course Britain already had a family of nations – the Commonwealth – whose trade had to be adversely affected by membership of the European Union.
A superb book for anyone who has enjoyed the Victoria series....more
Vanity Fair’s sub-title is ‘A novel without a hero’. However, as Thackeray writes, ‘… at least let us lay claim to a heroine. No man in the British arVanity Fair’s sub-title is ‘A novel without a hero’. However, as Thackeray writes, ‘… at least let us lay claim to a heroine. No man in the British army which has marched away, not the great Duke himself, could be more cool or collected in the presence of doubts and difficulties, than the indomitable little aide-de-camp’s wife.’ [i.e. Becky] (p353)
The term “Vanity Fair” is adopted from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, suggesting a never-ending fair along the pilgrim’s route, loosely a playground of the idle and undeserving rich: a microcosm of several nineteenth century lives. ‘Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.’ (p116)
Rebecca (Becky) Sharp is penniless, cunning and attractive: ‘Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal development…’ (p235) ‘She gave a sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much out of her gown…’ (p734) She is also ‘a hardened little reprobate’ (p763) To begin with, she is determined to make her way in society. On leaving school (under a cloud) Becky joins her friend Emmy (Amelia) and stays with her family in London. Emmy is good-natured but naïve, and ‘the consummate little tragedian’ (p765). Her brother Jos is visiting and is attracted to Becky, but the potentially fruitful courtship is stymied by George Osborne, the suitor of Emmy, after an outing at Vauxhall. George’s best friend William is secretly in love with Emmy, but appreciates that she does not consider him in any kind of romantic light; he seems doomed to sustain unrequited love.
Throughout, Thackeray intrudes as the author – or puppet-master. He can be forgiven, for usually his asides are amusing or even insightful. ‘The novelist, who knows everything...’ (p389) And sometimes he has to pull himself up – ‘… But we are wandering out of the domain of the story.’ (p453)
‘… my readers must hope for no such romance, only a homely story, and must be content with a chapter about Vauxhall, which is so short that it scarce deserves to be called a chapter at all. And yet it is a chapter, and a very important one too. Are not there little chapters in everybody’s life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?’ (p88)
Thackeray discloses his intent more than once, sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly: ‘Such people there are living and flourishing in the world – Faithless, Hopeless, Charityless; let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main. Some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and fools: and it was to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that Laughter was made.’ (p117)
Thackeray employs omniscient third person point of view and author intrusion with good effect. (Though I was surprised he used the phrase ‘thought to herself’ (p229): the ‘to herself’ is superfluous, after all.)
Having failed to land a husband in Jos, Becky takes her leave of Emmy and finds employment at the dilapidated stately home Queen’s Crawley as a governess of the two daughters of Sir Pitt Crawley, a rather crude fellow; this character is the father of two sons, the cleric Pitt (to confuse matters!) and Rawdon. ‘The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley were, like the gentleman and lady in the weather-box, never at home together – they hated each other cordially.’ (p129)
Their aunt, spinster Miss Matilda Crawley, is rich and they all lust after her wealth so seek her favour… Her favourite appears to be Rawdon, however. Unfortunately, when she discovers that Rawdon has secretly married Becky, she turns against them both.
In the meantime, Amelia’s father has hit hard times and becomes bankrupt. When Dobbin encounters him, it is a sorry sight: ‘His face had fallen in, and was unshorn; his frill and neckcloth hung limp under his bagging waistcoat.’ (p240) There are many instances where the writing evokes sympathy and empathy: ‘He covered his face with his black hands: over which the tears rolled and made furrows of white.’ (p631)
I was amused to see that there was a Mrs Captain Kirk in the story… (p320) Long before Star Trek, of course! And later, we have none other than Reverend Silas Hornblower, ‘who was tattooed in the South Sea Islands.’ [A painful area of the anatomy, I imagine!] (p392)
With the help of William Dobbin, George marries Amelia but is disinherited as a result. When called to battle, he is grateful to be gone from her side [the cad!] (p355)
With the conniving help of Becky, George lived well (from his gambling prowess and by not paying his debts). Thackeray castigates his kind, who take advantage of honest traders, always promising payment, never paying it. ‘I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by great practitioners in Crawley’s way? How many great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums, and cheat for a few shillings? … When the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed.’ (p438)
There are many memorable turns of phrase used: ‘Time has dealt kindly with that stout officer, [Colonel Sir Michael O’Dowd] as it does ordinarily with men who have good stomachs and good tempers, and are not perplexed over much by fatigue of the brain.’ (p506) Another – ‘If sarcasm could have killed, Lady Stunnington would have slain her on the spot.’ (p601) And he has fun with names, too: Mr Wagg, Duchess of Stilton, Duc de la Gruyere, Marchioness of Cheshire, Comte de Brie and so on… (p589) and Rev. Felix Rabbits (whose wife birthed thirteen sisters! (p697)
The relationship between Amelia and Dobbin is laid bare, finally. ‘She wished to give him nothing, but that he should give her all. It is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love.’ (p776)
Despite her ‘wild and roving nature’ (p755), Becky gave Rawdon a son (though she could not bear to be with the poor boy). Amelia too had a son, named George, whose teacher was a Mr Veal: ‘And whenever he spoke (which he did almost always), he took care to produce the very finest and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use; rightly judging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous epithet, as to use a little stingy one.’ (p655)
Thackeray was aware of women’s plight in the man’s world he inhabited. ‘What do men know about women’s martyrdom? We should go mad had we to endure the hundredth part of those daily pains which are meekly borne by many women. Ceaseless slavery meeting with no reward; constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as constant; love, labour, patience, watchfulness, without even so much as the acknowledgement of a good word; all this, how many of them have to bear in quiet, and appear abroad with cheerful faces as if they felt nothing…’ (p659) Later (p663) he alludes to the ‘women for the most part who are … hospital nurses without wages…’ – in short, family carers. Still topical today, even…
Political leaks are nothing new, either. ‘When one side or the other had written any particularly spicy despatch, news of it was sure to slip out.’ (p732)
And perhaps Thackeray was cognisant of those who are easily offended (the nineteenth century sort, not the twenty-first century snowflakes): ‘… it has been the wish of the present writer, all through this story, deferentially to submit to the fashion at present prevailing, and only to hint at the existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody’s fine feelings may be offended.’ (p738) [My italics.]
The book has endured as a true classic, for many reasons, but not least because Thackeray made his characters seem real, complete with their faults. Nobody is wholly likeable, none are actually evil, but several are driven by greed, lust, or prejudice. In effect, he has shone a light on the human condition. ...more
Flora is a ballerina with back trouble who, having failed an audition, goes off to Portugal to claim the village cottage left to her by her late fatheFlora is a ballerina with back trouble who, having failed an audition, goes off to Portugal to claim the village cottage left to her by her late father. It has all the ingredients to keep the reader turning the pages: interesting and varied characters, an exotic setting, mystery, corruption, humour and conflict.
While waiting for her flight from London to Lisbon, she finds herself in an overcrowded airport lounge, ‘so she sat on the floor and whiled away the time watching knees go by, trolleys bashing into each other, and braiding pieces of her hair, a habit she’d had from childhood. If she did it for long enough she ended up looking like she’d plugged herself into a light socket, and she was halfway there now’ (p18). Here, she meets a handsome Portuguese man, Gil Morais, the darling of daytime TV in his country. ‘Latin Lothario, she decided.’ (p19)
We will meet Gil again, frequently, as he evolves a crackpot plot to ensnare Flora…
Flora’s arrival at the cottage is a surprise to the people who are living there: Dina and her young daughter Raquel. Reluctant to turf them out, Flora finds accommodation at a nearby bed and breakfast place run by an English woman, Elizabeth. The only other resident is Sally, an old widow with a pet blue bird, Boris, who is partial to biting the columella of people’s noses – enough to bring water to the eyes!
Another person of interest is Marco, a strong silent type working as a Forestry Commission warden. He’s not keen on men in Armani suits, particularly if they’re investigating the viability of setting up a fracking plant in the forest. An Armani suit: ‘First sign of a villain, in his opinion.’ (p23)
Apparently, there’s a saying in ballet: ‘Work to impress. Dance to express.’ (p121) And Flora does just that, taking on the task of teaching the local school children to dance in a tableau that involves protesting against the proposed fracking.
Gil’s crazy ideas about the local standing stones suggest a threat to Flora but in fact provide light amusement instead. Raquel is endearing and her plight, when revealed, is touching.
Inevitably, Flora and Marco are drawn to each other, yet misunderstandings and deceit muddy the waters for most of the book; and thus keep the reader turning the pages!
I enjoyed the humour and the affectionate descriptions that brought the characters and the village alive. ...more
Joseph Barnaby is an engaging romance set on Madeira. It begins with a prologue flashback to March 2016 when Joe Barnaby is offered a lucrative job asJoseph Barnaby is an engaging romance set on Madeira. It begins with a prologue flashback to March 2016 when Joe Barnaby is offered a lucrative job as a farrier to a successful trainer, Bobby Shaw. The chapter ends with a friendly warning by an acquaintance for Joe to ‘watch his back’…
The story then shifts to August 2017 and we meet Sofia who lives with her aunt and uncle on a small island off Madeira itself. She’s twenty-six, sure-footed like a goat on vertiginous cliff faces, tends a number of bee hives, is beautiful, and is deaf. She communicates with her family by sign, though she can speak; her affliction was as a result of contracting meningitis when she was eight.
Working on the island as labourer and general helper is Joe, who has escaped from England for some reason still to be revealed…
For several months Joe had worked in a bar in the Madeiran town, quickly learning Portuguese. He proved popular with the regulars and made the acquaintance of a distinctive lady called Lua: ‘Her hair had always looked like unruly red serpents as if she used the same hairdresser as Medusa’ (p110). And then Joe was hired by Sofia’s uncle.
The scene is set. Gradually, and enchantingly, the pair get to know each other – the reticent Joe and the strong-willed Sofia. A fly in the ointment is Dário, who wants Sofia as his sweetheart. But he doesn’t like to hear her speak, and would rather she stuck to gestures, though he never bothered to learn sign-language. Sofia wasn’t comfortable with using basic gestures ‘because it amused onlookers and made her feel like an amateur Marcel Marceau.’ (p14)
Dário is deluded, however, even as he wondered why Sofia would be reluctant when he was such a good catch. ‘They were made for each other, soul-mates, kindred spirits. She’d soon realise her mistake, he was sure.’ (p106)
There are light-hearted moments and humour as well as mystery and suspense. When Joe is being driven by a local doctor with a car-load of deaf passengers, he foolishly asks a question. Whereupon the doctor takes his hands off the steering wheel to sign to his passengers! ‘Joe decided that if he valued his life on this twisty road, then he wouldn’t ask any more questions.’ (p186)
It’s also a book about relationships – not just the Joe-Sofia pairing. The Joe and Lua scenes are at turns mysterious and amusing. The fondness of Sofia’s aunt and uncle for Joe is exhibited subtly, with a light touch.
The accomplished storytelling of Sue Roebuck is bolstered by her strong affinity for Madeira and its people which shines through in descriptive passages that put you in the scene. And as a result I definitely cared about the characters.
Anthony Powell’s sixth volume in his Dance to the Music of Time sequence, The Kindly Ones, was published in 1962 and is the best so far, covering the Anthony Powell’s sixth volume in his Dance to the Music of Time sequence, The Kindly Ones, was published in 1962 and is the best so far, covering the periods 1914, the late 1920s and the late 1930s.
Possibly it grabs interest because Powell begins by relating Nick Jenkins’s childhood in Stonehurst; this goes some way to personalise the first-person narrative, which hitherto seems to have been lacking in the earlier volumes.
We’re first introduced to Albert, the Jenkins’s manservant/butler, a fascinating creation, ‘an oddity, an exceptional member of the household’…’Albert shook off one of his ancient bedroom slippers, adjusting the thick black woollen sock at the apex of the foot, where, not over clean, the nail of a big toe protruded from a hole at the end. (p10)
Albert was not enamoured of the suffragettes, referring to them as ‘Virgin Marys’. Nick recalled his house tutor Miss Orchard telling him about the Greeks who feared the Furies, which they named the Eumenides – the Kindly Ones – using such ‘flattery to appease their terrible wrath’ (p6) and supposed Albert employed similar flattery, since he feared these emboldened women.
Other servants in the household include Billson, fostering unrequited love for Albert and young Bracey, subject to ‘funny turns’. Billson claimed she’d seen a ghost more than once, and Nick’s mother commented, ‘It really is not fair on servants to expect them to sleep in a haunted room, although I have to myself.’ (pp60/61) Later, Billson suffers a mental breakdown, partly due to the persistence of the ghosts and also due to the fact that Albert had declared his love elsewhere, to a woman in Bristol: she appeared nude in the dining room in front of Mr and Mrs Jenkins and their guests, General Conyers and his wife. This is a poignant scene, where Conyers acted swiftly and snagged a shawl and ‘wrapped the shawl protectively round her.’ (p64)
The interaction between the members of the household proves amusing and intriguing. ‘As a child you are in some ways more acutely aware of what people feel about one another than you are when childhood has come to an end.’ (p22) This is shrewd observation, and is emphasised by ‘I was aware that I had witnessed a painful scene, although, as so often happens in childhood, I could not analyse the circumstances.’ (p47)
We also get to know Nick’s father, at least a little. ‘For my father all tragedies were major tragedies, this being especially his conviction if he were himself in any way concerned. (p30) Mr Jenkins made the observation, ‘I like to rest my mind after work. I don’t like books that make me think.’ (p40) He ‘really hated clarity.’ (p48)
What is surprising is how echoes from this period (in the novel) or from the time of its creation, there resonates observations that still hold true in the twenty-first century: ‘… the light of reason or patriotism could penetrate, in however humble a degree, into the treasonable madhouse of the Treasury, did not answer.’ (p58)
As the Conyers are about to leave Stonehurst, two individuals make their appearance, both unexpected: Uncle Giles who observes about the General’s automobile, ‘Not too keen on ’em. Always in accidents. Some royalty in a motor-car have been involved in a nasty affair today…’ (p72) The assassination of Franz-Ferdinand and his wife, no less... The other person arrived while running with his pupils, Dr Trelawney, who espoused that ‘The Essence of the All is the Godhead of the True.’ (p66)
We leap ahead in time, when Nick admits his ‘more modest ambition… is to become a soldier.’ This is quite a revelation, I don’t recall any indications of this before. He befriends Mortimer (who we have met in an earlier volume) and they have shared likes and dislikes: ‘There were also aesthetic prejudices in common: animosity towards R.M. Ballantynes The Coral Island…’ (P85) [Well, sorry, Nick or Mr Powell, I read this as a youngster and thought it was a gripping and exciting adventure story and hold no animosity towards it at all! It’s a book of its time.]
Later, when Trelawney is discussed, there’s an amusing aside: ‘… he must have moved further to the Left – or would it be to the Right? Extremes of policy have such a tendency to merge.’ Another shrewd observation! Lock up or eliminate the opposition… That’s why they’re extreme? At one point, he pontificates: ‘There is no death in Nature, only transition, blending, synthesis, mutation.’ (p197)
We’re in the time of ‘Munich’, the appeasement. And Nick’s wife Isobel ‘was starting a baby. Circumstances were not ideal for a pregnancy. Apart from unsettled international conditions, the weather was too hot…’ (p150) Strange, to take into consideration the international state of affairs when deciding on having a family; he’s being humorous, of course.
Fellow writers might be amused at Nick relating details about his career to Duport, a man he cuckolded: ‘writing; editing, reviewing… never, for some reason, very easy to define to persons not themselves in the world.’ (p169) Nick learns that Duport’s wife Jean had not only cheated on her husband but also betrayed Nick as well… Certainly, one of the underlying themes in the books is the duplicitous nature of women and wives. ‘The remembered moaning in pleasure of someone once loved always haunts the memory, even when love itself is over.’ (p183)
As we approach the end of the book, we’re in the company of Kenneth Widmerpool and his mother again. Nick refers to Widmerpool as a Happy Warrior (p243), alluding to a Wordsworth poem; among other things, it’s also the title of an excellent graphic biography of Churchill drawn by Frank Bellamy.
Powell injects a number of enlightening truisms, usually through other characters’ speech, some highlighted already. Here’s another: ‘One of the worst things about life is not how nasty the nasty people are. You know that already. It is how nasty the nice people can be.’ (p247)
There were more humorous and poignant moments than hitherto in the series. And the neat ending, where it’s contrived that Nick will, against the odds, be signed up in the Infantry, works very well; so well, in fact, that the reader wants to move on to the next book (which must have been frustrating, since that – The Valley of Bones – didn’t appear for two years). I’m glad I’ve persevered with the series. ...more
Anthony Horowitz’s prequel to Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, Forever and a Day (2018) starts with M making the observation, ‘So, 007 is dead.’ Of courseAnthony Horowitz’s prequel to Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, Forever and a Day (2018) starts with M making the observation, ‘So, 007 is dead.’ Of course it isn’t James Bond who is deceased but the unnamed previous incumbent with that Double-O number. A neat touch, that.
This is Horowitz’s second foray into the James Bond universe, having earlier treated us to Trigger Mortis (2015) – reviewed here:
Where the earlier book took place in 1957, shortly after Goldfinger, this one takes us to early 1950s, the beginning of Bond’s career as the new 007; there are only three Double-O men – 008, 0011 and 007, it seems; M deplored using sequential numbers (p4). M’s Chief of Staff reveals that 007 was murdered in the south of France, in Marseille. He’d been investigating the Corsican underworld in the area. ‘It seems that there was a woman involved.’ To which M replies, ‘There always is.’ Dry humour, just the right note. The woman is called Madame 16 or Sixtine, a one-time worker at Bletchley Park and subsequently an agent in SOE. As 008 was still out of action (hospitalised) and 0011 was in Miami, it was deemed necessary to send the new 007 to dig around – James Bond.
Eventually, Bond finds himself in Monte Carlo, playing Vingt-et-un against Sixtine. An amusing aside when a croupier mutters, among other appropriate phrases, Carré, doubtless Horowitz’s nod to John Le Carré. (p59) This scene is also an homage to Fleming’s lengthy discourse in Casino Royale.
We’re made privy to the origin of Bond’s vodka martini being shaken, not stirred (p70); another nice touch. As for his cigarettes, he was introduced to Morlands’ coffin nails in preference to his Du Maurier ‘named after a minor British actor.’ (p122) Finally, we see how Bond acquires his trade-mark gunmetal cigarette case, which also masterfully explains the book title. (p169)
There are two villains, Scipio a grossly overweight Corsican and rich industrialist Irwin Wolfe. Scipio delivers Bond a trenchant speech via a translator: ‘… the arrogance of the British. You are a tiny island with bad weather and bad food also but you still think you rule the world… you are becoming irrelevant…’ (104) Maybe he was an early scriptwriter for the EU negotiators?
Inevitably, Bond is faced with grim ‘torture’, which is only to be expected. However, more than once he seems to escape through no guile of his own; I won’t say more. This didn’t spoil the book for me; I perhaps was hoping for more, which may be my failing.
Horowitz also adopts the Fleming style of chapter headings, often playing with words, among them Killing by Numbers, Russian Roulette, Not So Joliette, Shame Lady, Love in a Warm Climate, Pleasure… or Pain? and Death at Sunset.
Yet again he has captured the flavour and tone of Fleming while adding his own stamp to the proceedings. Initially,
I wasn’t impressed by the title, Forever and a Day, but it makes complete sense now that I’ve read the book. It’s also the title of a 1943 film.
The cover is excellent, the luxury yacht resembling a deadly bullet!
I ended my review of Trigger Mortis with the hope of seeing another Horowitz 007 novel, and despite a few caveats he has not disappointed. I look forward to the next. ...more
Anthony Powell’s 1960 novel Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant begins in the late 1920s and is again narrated by Nick Jenkins, and reveals in flashback hisAnthony Powell’s 1960 novel Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant begins in the late 1920s and is again narrated by Nick Jenkins, and reveals in flashback his first meetings with Mr Deacon (deceased in the previous book), Maclintick, Gossage, Carolo and Moreland. As before, there is little emotion in the narrative: ‘I listened to what was being said without feeling…’ (p29) – which could apply to the story so far, really.
His friends Maclintick, Moreland and Barnby are intent on going to Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant. Apparently, ‘there used to the New Casanova, where the cooking was Italian and the decoration French eighteenth century. Further up the street was the Amoy, called by some Sam’s Chinese Restaurant. The New Casanova went into liquidation. Sam’s bought it up and moved over their pots and pans and chopsticks, so now you can eat treasure rice, or bamboo shoots fried with pork ribbons, under panels depicting scenes from the career of the Great Lover.’ (p32)
Powell’s narrator doesn’t involve the reader greatly in the scenes: ‘Maclintick and Barnby ordered something unadventurous from the dishes available; under Moreland’s guidance, I embarked upon one of the specialities of the house.’ (p34) You have to wonder if Powell could actually name any Chinese dishes; and the phrase ‘from the dishes available’ seems superfluous, as would ‘from the menu’.
Following from these reminiscences, we move to the 1930s and Nick reveals he has been married to Isobel, ‘perhaps a year’. (p58) The scandal about Mrs Simpson is the talk of the town.
Lady Warminster is quite a character. She was ‘prone to fortune-tellers and those connected with divination. She was fond of retailing their startling predictions.’ (p74) Echoes of Nick’s Uncle Giles’s friend Mrs Erdleigh! One of her statements about the novelist St John Clarke: I always think one ought to be grateful to an author if one has liked even a small bit of a book.’ (p75) Clarke was ‘forgotten by the critics but remembered fairly faithfully by the circulating libraries…’ (p80)
Nick had lost touch with Widmerpool, primarily because his wife Isobel didn’t care for the man. ‘In any case I should never have gone out of my way to seek him, knowing, as one does with certain people, that the rhythm of life would sooner or later be bound to bring us together again.’ (p101)
When we do meet Widmerpool, he is more pompous than ever: ‘I regret to say that few, if any, of my school contemporaries struck me sufficiently favourably for me to go out of my way to employ their services… It is one of my principles in life to surround myself with persons whose conduct has satisfied me.’ (p122) And clearly he is not prescient: ‘Setting aside a European war, which I do not consider a strong probability in spite of certain disturbing features, I favour a reasoned optimism.’ (p123)
Maclintick is a sad figure, with a marriage that doesn’t work, he and his wife constantly arguing: ‘… for a moment I thought he was going to strike her; just as I had thought she might stick a dinner knife into him when I had been to their house…’ (p148)
There is a rare stab of emotion, however: ‘I suddenly felt horribly uncomfortable, as if ice-cold waer were dripping very gently, very slowly down my spine…’ (p151) when reminded of his old love Priscilla.
The narrator excuses his lack of emotional commitment in part: ‘... it is doubtful whether an existing marriage can ever be described directly in the first person and convey a sense of reality… if one has cast objectivity aside, the difficulties of presenting marriage are inordinate… I thought of some of these things on the way to the nursing home.’ (p96)
At the nursing home he meets Moreland and, of all people, Widmerpool. Here, Nick reveals to Moreland, an expectant father, that Isobel has just had a miscarriage. Moreland is not particularly sympathetic, bemoaning the fact that his wife Matilda’s constant false alarms were likely to make him bankrupt. (p98) These were the days before the National Health Service.
There’s a preponderance of names beginning with the letter ‘M’ – Moreland, Maclintick, Mona, Members, Milly, Magnus, Mildred (dumped girlfriend of Widmerpool), Mortimer, Matilda ( wife of Moreland)… Reminds me of the story ‘The Empty House’ in The Return of Sherlock Holmes: ‘My collection of M’s is a fine one…’ (p20) Though perhaps in this book’s case there’s an overabundance of names beginning with that letter. ...more
Early 1930s. As before, the narrator, Nick Jenkins seems cold and detached. ‘I always enjoy hearing the details of other people’s lives, whether imagiEarly 1930s. As before, the narrator, Nick Jenkins seems cold and detached. ‘I always enjoy hearing the details of other people’s lives, whether imaginary or not…’ (p211)
Nick has achieved some modest success with his writing: ‘Written a couple of novels, and moved from a firm that published art books to a company that produced second-feature films.’ (p16) Clearly heavily influenced by Powell’s own work at Duckworths, the publishers and his later stint as a scriptwriter for Warner Brothers in England. ‘I on what is called the “scenario side”. I help to write that part of the programme known as the “second feature”. For every foot of American film shown in this country, a proportionate length of British film must appear. The Quota, in fact.’ (p55)
When we last shared Nick’s life, he was romantically involved with Jean Duport. Now, that was over and he was ‘fancy-free’, aged twenty-eight or so, and open to his confederate Chips Lovell’s suggestion to visit his aunt –Molly Jeavons. Previously married to Lord John Sleaford, Molly lived in the mansion Dogdene; Sleaford died of Spanish Flu in 1919; she was now married to Captain Teddy Jeavons. ‘Molly remained a big, charming, noisy young woman, who had never entirely ceased to be a schoolgirl. When the Dogdene frame was removed, like the loosening of a corset of steel, the unconventional, the eccentric, even the sluttish side of her nature became suddenly revealed to the world.’ (p159)
Molly is quite a character. ‘… exceptionally kind-hearted. The house is always full of people she is doing good turns to. Children stay here while their parents are fixing up a divorce.. Penniless young men get asked to meals. Former servants are always being given help of one sort or another…’ (p164)
While at Lady Molly’s, Nick comes across Widmerpool who is in the company of an older woman, Mildred. Powell’s strengths are his character descriptions, such as this sighting of Widmerpool: ‘He was wearing a new dark suit. Like a huge fish swimming into a hitherto unexplored and unexpectedly exciting aquarium, he sailed resolutely forward.’ (p46)
In this fourth outing it is obvious that certain characters will continue to surface in Nick’s life. ‘Widmerpool was a recurring milestone on the road; perhaps it would be more apt to say that his course, as one jogged round the track, was run from time to time, however different the pace, in common with my own.’ (p47)
Nick is surprised to learn he is getting married to Mildred, which is quite shocking news…
Other news concerns the rumbling in Europe caused by the ascension of Herr Hitler. Widmerpool has a leaning towards the ‘socialist’ political spectrum. ‘People talk of rearming. I am glad to say the Labour Party is against it to a man – and the more enlightened Tories, too.’ (p66) This is another one of those lengthy speeches Powell’s characters indulge in. ‘What is much more likely to be productive is to settle things round a table…’ (p67) So, while the bohemians and businessmen enjoy their chatter over cocktails, all of Europe sleepwalks towards a world war.
Later, mention is made of the embargo on arms to Bolivia and Paraguay, the ‘Smash Fascism’ group, the worries about Mosley, and the independence of Catalonia, and free meals for schoolchildren. (p120) And, briefly touched on, the conflict between Japan and China (p203). Not a lot changes, really...
Again, Nick meets Quiggin and the Tolland family, notably Erridge. The arrival one evening of Susan and Isobel Tolland is quite seismic for Nick: ‘The atmosphere changed suddenly, violently. One became all at once aware of the delicious, sparkling proximity of young feminine beings. The room was transformed.’ (p136) Powell doesn’t go in for emotion. The books are observational, dealing with manners, pomposity, venality, and the narrator is virtually invisible. ‘Would it be too explicit, too exaggerated, to say that when I set eyes on Isobel Tolland, I knew at once that I should marry her?’ (p137) There’s much about marriage – and divorce, too. Nick’s friend Peter Templer said, ‘Women may show some discrimination about whom they sleep with, but they’ll marry anybody.’ (p187) And Nick himself contemplated that blessed union, too: ‘I, too, should be married soon, a change that presented itself in terms of action rather than reflection, the mood in which even the most prudent often marry: a crisis of delight and anxiety, excitement and oppression.’ (p201)
While there are no great laughs, despite this being described as a humorous novel, there are moments that raise a smile. One of these is Erridge’s butler, Smith. An alcoholic who imbibed from the cellar, he was shaken when asked if there were any champagne in the cellar.
‘Champagne, m’lord?’ ‘Have we got any? One bottle would do. Even a half-bottle.’ Smith’s face puckered, as if manfully attempting to force his mind to grapple with a mathematical or philosophical problem of extraordinary complexity. His hearing suggested that he had certainly before heard the word “champagne” used, if only in some distant, outlandish context; that dvotion to his master alone gave him some apprehension of what this question – these ravings, almost – might mean… After a long pause, he at last shook his head. ‘I doubt if there is any champagne left, m’lord.’ (p143)
Nick’s friend Stringham seems dominated in some manner by Miss Weedon, Tuffy, who may have designs on curing Stringham of his affection for alcohol. Nick ‘found her a trifle alarming. She gave an impression of complete singleness of purpose: the impression of a person who could make herself very disagreeable if thwarted.’ (p163) We shall see more of her in volume 5.
Molly’s sister Lady Warminster is a widow and a hypochondriac, and ‘awe-inspiring. Something of the witch haunted her delicate, aquiline features and transparent ivory skin: a calm, autumnal beauty that did not at all mask the amused, malicious, almost insane light that glinted all the time in her infinitely pale eyes. When young, she must have been very good-looking indeed.’ (p205)
The book begins with recollections of Nick’s family’s distant relation, General Conyers and almost ends with him in the flesh, paraphrasing Foch: ‘War not an exact science, but a terrible and passionate drama? Something like that. Fact is, marriage is rather like that too.’
If I’d been reading these books when they were first published, I may well have lost the thread and interest, waiting a year or more between each ‘episode’. Being able to read them in close proximity (even if interspersed with other books), the characters do tend to live – even if essentially uneventful lives. ...more
This book covers the period 1931-1933. Nick Jenkins begins with a visit to his Uncle Giles who is ensconced in a private hotel in Bayswater. The placeThis book covers the period 1931-1933. Nick Jenkins begins with a visit to his Uncle Giles who is ensconced in a private hotel in Bayswater. The place is ‘tarnished by the years and reduced to ignoble uses like traffic in tourists, pilgrims, or even illegal immigrants; pervaded – to borrow an appropriately Conradian mannerism – with uneasy memories of the strife of men. That was the feeling the Ufford gave, riding at anchor on the sluggish Bayswater tides.’ (p7)
Here, we also meet Mrs Myra Erdleigh, another resident, who ‘seemed to glide rather than walk across the carpet, giving the impression almost of a phantom, a being from another world…’ (p12) Great description in these scenes, notably when she uses playing cards to look into Nick’s and his uncle’s future. And perhaps she has it right when she tells Nick, ‘You are thought cold, but you possess deep affections, sometimes for people worthless in themselves… You must try to understand life.’ (p21)
One acquaintance of Nick’s is the novelist St. John Clarke. Unlike we struggling authors, it appears that his ‘sales did not depend on favourable reviews, although, in spite of this, he was said to be – like so many financially successful writers – painfully sensitive to hostile criticism.’ (p29) Nick’s old school friend Manners was the novelist’s secretary.
Widmerpool, another school friend, crops up again; he’s changing jobs, becoming a bill-broker – joining the ‘Acceptance World’, possibly an early version of futures dealing. There’s talk of goods to sell to a firm in Bolivia, for example, but don’t touch the money until the goods arrive, yet certain houses will ‘accept’ the debt and ‘advance the money on the strength of your reputation’… Of course it might be shaky business, what with a vacillating exchange rate or even a revolution…! Thus, Nick can see that some old friends and acquaintances are moving on, while he isn’t…
Nick meets Jean again, having both been invited to the Templers’ house. Now, she’s married. ‘There was still a curious fascination about her grey-blue eyes, slanting a little, as it were caught tightly between soft, lazy lids and dark, luxurious lashes.’ (p64) He kids himself he no longer felt he would lose his head over her, as he had in the past; his observation and reignited memory give the lie to that belief. And when they’re pushed against each other in the back seat of the car on their way, he ‘took Jean in my arms.’ On arrival, they arrange a secret assignation in her room…
Mrs Erdleigh’s observation seems amiss: certainly, we’re not privy to any strong emotions from Nick: ‘… my own violent feelings about Jean which had to be reduced inwardly to some manageable order.’ Later, he observes, ‘There is always an element of unreality, perhaps even of slight absurdity, about someone you love.’ (p94) And he’s rather critical of the fair sex in general: ‘all that unreasoning bitterness and mortification to which women are so subject.’ (p108) And: ‘A measure of capriciousness is, after all, natural in women; perhaps fulfils some physiological need for both sexes.’ (p111)
On the other hand, when Jean opens the door to welcome Nick, she is naked: ‘There is, after all, no pleasure like that given by a woman who really wants to see you.’ (p145)
He is aware of a strange possessiveness. ‘When you are in love with someone, their life, past, present and future becomes in a curious way part of your life…’ (p150) And then he opines, ‘In love, however, there is no rationality.’ (p151)
Their group at the Templers’ is increased with the arrival of Quiggin, making up an ‘oddly assorted company’ (p91). After dinner, they indulge in an Ouija session, which turns awkward when Marxist sentiment intrudes in the esoteric messages!
Some days later Nick and Jean witness a ‘hunger march’ joined by St. John Clarke in a wheelchair accompanied by Quiggin and Mona Templer, the harbinger of a collapsed marriage. Nick learns of a number of marriages disintegrate and there’s a strong whiff of betrayal and dissatisfaction with women.
Powell’s descriptions of characters always amuse: ‘(Sir Gavin Walpole-Wilson) looked no older; perhaps a shade less sane.’ (p114)
At an old boys’ reunion Nick meets Maiden who ‘was in the margarine business.’ A short while later, Maiden ‘screwed up his yellowish, worried face, which seemed to have taken on sympathetic colouring from the commodity he marketed.’ (p189)
The reunion throws in the fact that one old boy had given a maiden speech in parliament, ‘tearing Ramsay MacDonald into shreds’, while another talked of India’s eventual independence, and another talked of Tanganyika. In short, the orbit these old boys covered encompassed the world painted pink.
The passion and ardour Nick experiences with Jean are muted; left to the imagination: ‘There was no sound except her sharp intake of breath… because passion in its transcendence cannot be shared with any other element, I could not speak of what had happened…’ (p146)
And yet he can capture an emotion sometimes. ‘I was myself overcome with a horrible feeling of nausea, as if one had suddenly woken from sleep and found oneself chained to a corpse.’ (p149)
Throughout, Powell exhibits gentle humour. ‘Coronets on the table napkins, but no kind hearts between the sheets.’ (p208) He could be alluding to the 1949 film or the Tennyson poem. In a closing scene where Nick is coping with a drunken Stringham, there’s an amusing interchange: ‘For your own good.’ ‘I haven’t got my own good at heart,’ says Stringham. ‘We will get you anything you want.’ ‘Curse your charity.’
The presumed forward planning of the series is worthy of note. Here, he writes, ‘Duport (who, as I was to discover years later, had a deep respect for “intelligence”)…’ (p149)
Towards the end he neatly links to the beginning, as he viewed a postcard of a hotel room: ‘Indeed, the style of furnishing was reminiscent of the Ufford.’
Despite the mention of the abandonment of the Gold Standard, the formation of the National Government, and the other references above, there was in my view little feeling for the period. Certainly, Marxism was raising its head – no doubt in the background, recruiting spies in the University cities. But I’ve still to perceive ‘a remarkable picture of the history of our times’ as espoused by the Sunday Times blurb. Maybe that will come after a few more books. This is not a criticism of the books, naturally, but of the blurb writers! ...more
Megan Abbott’s second noir novel, The Song is You (2007), though set in 1950s Hollywood, is topical in light of the #MeToo furore.
Based on the real-lMegan Abbott’s second noir novel, The Song is You (2007), though set in 1950s Hollywood, is topical in light of the #MeToo furore.
Based on the real-life disappearance of actress Jean Spangler, this novel peels off some of the gloss from Tinseltown. Spin doctor Gil ‘Hop’ Hopkins, former reporter, is tasked with running interference for the movie stars, ensuring that no mud sticks, that scandal stays buried. He’s pretty good at what he does, turning a blind eye to debauchery and traumatised starlets.
There are a number of appropriate name-drops from that period.
On the night when Jean went missing, Hop had been among the crowd she was with, and now he has to retrace the steps of an unsavoury male double act in order to muddy the water and inter memories. Drugs, sex, and violence – it’s all here, though not too graphic. The few clues from the real case are inserted in the story, with convincing explanations. The real mobster Dave Ogul of the time also features.
While covering tracks, Hop becomes entangled with girl reporter Frannie Adair who’s also on the case. ‘She had been easy for Hop to spot, the sole pair of heels and the only ass worth a glance in the sweeping room full of sweat-stained unshaven ginks. … all ginger curls and round cheeks, like three months off the farm, until she spoke. Twitching her freckled nose, she shot back at him, “What’s it like going over to enemy lines, turning stooge for the plastic factory?”
She didn’t take prisoners, it seems: “I hear you’ve done more white-washing than Tom Sawyer.” (p47)
Besides wit and one-liners, Abbott delivers an atmospheric hardboiled tale. Despite his less than savoury character, you’re drawn to Hop, a flawed man who wanted to be good, but that didn’t pay enough. We’re with him as he turns over stones and sees what crawls out from under; when he stumbles upon a corpse, ‘Hop felt his body rise out of his skin, hover there a second, and then thud back down to earth.’
If noir fiction is your thing, then The Song is You is worth your while.
In the real world, the case of Jean Spangler remained unsolved; in the novel Hop gets to a solution. ...more
The book’s set in the late 1920s and is again narrated by Nick Jenkins, who stumbles upon some of the work of the artist Mr Deacon in an auction showrThe book’s set in the late 1920s and is again narrated by Nick Jenkins, who stumbles upon some of the work of the artist Mr Deacon in an auction showroom for sale. Deacon was a family acquaintance. Powell’s description of the assorted oddments up for sale is highly visual.
Nick is working in London for a publisher and attends various debutante balls with Barbara Goring. ‘This affair with Barbara, although taking up less than a year, seemed already to have occupied a substantial proportion of my life; because nothing establishes the timelessness of Time like those episodes of early experience seen, on re-examination at a later period, to have been crowded together with such unbelievable closeness in the course of a few years; yet equally giving the illusion of being so infinitely extended during the months when actually taking place.’ (p28)
Barbara never ‘touched strong drink, in spite of behaviour that often suggested the contrary.’ (p73) This is evinced at one outing when she pours the contents of a sugar dispenser over Widmerpool!
As Nick is very much a cypher, it’s not surprising he says ‘… for love of that sort – the sort where the sensual element has been reduced to a minimum – must after all, largely if not entirely, resolve itself to the exercise of power: a fact of which Barbara was, of course, more aware than I.’ (p29)
We are not privy in any depth to Nick’s inner feelings regarding any women in his life and any sexual encounter he might endure is not seen but inferred, if at all, behind closed doors.
Nick again encounters Widmerpool: ‘… while he retained that curiously piscine cast of countenance, projecting the impression that he swam, rather than walked, through the rooms he haunted.’ (p34)
Powell has plenty of telling moments: ‘Across the road the coffee-stall came into sight, a spot of light round which the scarlet tunics and white equipment of one or two Guardsmen still flickered like the bright wings of moths attracted from nocturnal shadows by a flame.’ (p97) Though the reader might question why ‘one or two’ – couldn’t Nick count them? Was it one or was it two?
Stringham also makes an appearance: ‘… you know parents – especially step-parents – are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children,’ (p110) he says of his mother’s current husband, Buster. Stringham seemed in some way entangled with a Mrs Andriadis, who gave popular parties. At her party is Mr Deacon, the artist, and Gypsy Jones, who has a strange attraction for both Nick and Widmerpool. By now, we appreciate that we’re going to see certain characters often as the narrative progresses over several books: ‘… was sufficient to draw attention once again to that extraordinary process that causes certain figures to appear and reappear in the performance of one or another sequence of a ritual dance.’ (p183)
Nick spent weekends in the country and lunched at Stourwater, home of magnate Sir Magnus Donners, where he again met Jean Templer; she was now married; his earlier feelings for her have dematerialised. Widmerpool, employed by Donners, make an amusing appearance during a tour of the Stourwater dungeons, though he wasn’t a captive, as Nick briefly surmised. Nick later managed to wreck one of his master's ornamental urns with his car (after it is rejuvenated following a flat battery). In the autumn Stringham eschewed the company of Mrs Andriadis and married Lady Peggy Stepney; the artist Mr Deacon died after his birthday party, and Nick apparently had his wicked way with Gypsy after Deacon's funeral in the back room of a shop, though the emotional and physical content leaves a lot to be desired, no pun intended: ‘The lack of demur on her part seemed quite in accordance with the almost somnambulistic force that had brought me into that place… such protests as she put forward were of so formal and artificial an order that they increased, rather than diminished, the impression that a long-established rite was to be enacted, among Staffordshire figures and papier-maché trays, with the compelling, detached formality of nightmare…’ (p268)
Several characters who appear here we will meet again in the next book, among them J.G. Quiggin and the author St. John Clarke…
Not a lot happens that is dramatic or pertains to the real life of the majority of the denizens of Great Britain; perhaps it’s because we’re viewing a microcosm, a certain bohemian section of upper-class English society, entirely bereft of emotion and sentiment. Yet there’s a fascination with the characters, their descriptions and their interactions that compels me to read on. ...more
Powell’s first book, A Question of Upbringing (1951) in the sequence is set in the period 1921-1924. It starts, however, with our narrator Nick viewinPowell’s first book, A Question of Upbringing (1951) in the sequence is set in the period 1921-1924. It starts, however, with our narrator Nick viewing men at work gathered round a bucket of coke in winter. This two paragraph passage is highly visual and conjures up a distant memory – a Proustian madeleine moment in time – of winter at school in 1921 when Nick first takes much notice of fellow student Kenneth Widmerpool. And so the long novel begins…
At the time Widmerpool was ‘fairly heavily built, thick lips and metal rimmed spectacles.’ Widmerpool was not highly thought of at school and was the butt of jokes, yet he seemed to possess a thick skin.
Nick shares a room with Charles Stringham and Peter Templer.
The fact that Templer had declared ‘he had never read a book for pleasure in his life did not predispose me in his favour: though he knew far more than I of the things about which books are written. He was also an adept at breaking rules, or diverting them to ends not intended by those who had framed them.’
Stringham was ‘tall and dark, and looked a little like one of those stiff, sad young men in ruffs, whose long legs take up so much room in sixteenth-century portraits…’ (p12) He was an excellent mimic, and used this to good effect to get their housemaster Le Bas arrested! (pp 48-52) As you will gather from this, the novel is at times comical – never laugh-out-loud, but it possesses amusing scenes and dialogue. For example, Stringham’s attractive mother observes, ‘Still, you weren’t expelled, darling. That was clever of you.’ And Stringham replied, ‘It took some doing.’
Sillery is a manipulative Oxford don who hosts students with tea and cake, and while he inclined ‘to the Right socially, politically he veered increasingly to the Left’ (p165). He is a name-dropper and maintains contact with ex-students who might prove useful. ‘Sillery was a keen propagandist for the League of Nations, Czechoslovakia, and Mr Gandhi... and had been somewhat diverted from earlier Gladstonian enthusiasms by the success of the Russian Revolution of 1917.’ (164)
Nick spends a summer in France, where he stays at a large house, La Grenadiere, run by a Madame Leroy. The time-worn taxi ride from the train station has its moments: ‘Even when stationary, his taxi was afflicted with a kind of vehicular counterpart of St Vitus’ dance, and its quaverings and seismic disturbances must have threatened nausea to its occupants at the best of times.’ (p108) On arrival, Madame Leroy ‘led the way through the door in the wall in the manner of a sorceress introducing a neophyte into the land of faerie…’ (p109)
Throughout there are apt references to classical paintings, which isn’t surprising since Powell studied art in the early 1920s. What appears impressive is the forward planning in the early novels: ‘He piled his luggage, bit by bit, on to a taxi; and passed out of my life for some twenty years.’ And ‘This was the last I should see of Stringham for a long time. The path had suddenly forked. With regret, I accepted the inevitability of circumstance. Human relationships flourish and decay, quickly and silently, so that those concerned scarcely know how brittle, or how inflexible, the ties that bind them have become.’ (p222)
Clearly, much of the book has an autobiographical feel about it, reinforced by the first person narration. The writing is measured, considered, and coldly precise. There is much to admire in that regard. Yet, not a lot happens. The colours and hedonism of the 1920s do not seem in much evidence; the depiction, despite the paintings, appears colourless. There is no depth of feeling, only good observation. It’s a book of quite engaging characters; a slice of life and manners, perhaps, in a moment in time long gone by.
The cover features a quote from the Sunday Times: ‘A remarkable picture of the history of our times.’ This must relate to the entire sequence rather than this single book.
I’m determined to read all twelve books to see what happens to Stringham, Templer and Widmerpool. ...more
Leviathan is an understandably angry book. It concerns Justin Magnus, the new head of Magnus Oceanics, a successful film and communications company thLeviathan is an understandably angry book. It concerns Justin Magnus, the new head of Magnus Oceanics, a successful film and communications company that concentrated on the conservation of the oceans of the world. Following his father’s death he considered himself free now to put into motion his daring plans. He was outraged about the continued slaughter of the whales – ‘butchered for lipstick and pet-food’. Propaganda and persuasion hadn’t worked, the IWC seemed toothless. Fortunately, assembled around him were believers in his cause. His crew would set out for the Antarctic and locate the Russian factory ship Slava and blow it out of the water!
He sets out on the Jubilee with a loyal crew, including his younger brother Craig and the woman who becomes the love of his life, Katie. She’s also Justin’s editor; he has written a number of best-sellers, his purpose being the readers ‘must understand! They must see and understand the terrible peril that nature is in.’ (p28)
Their plan is complicated because they have no intention of harming any of the whalers themselves. They will board the factory ship and evacuate the crew in the lifeboats; the other outlying catcher boats can retrieve them.
What could go wrong?
Relationships become strained, especially when an associate and friend Max turns up out of the blue and threatens to expose their scheme. Loyalty is tested. The details are believable; and particularly harrowing when we witness the factory ship’s processing of the dead whales.
Interspersed between the chapters are sections from the perspective of three whales, mother, young son and father, and how their fate becomes entwined with a whaling fleet. There is nothing humane about their methods of killing; a harpooned whale will take at least two hours to die, in excruciating agony, while its family swim close by, pining, soon to be next to be harpooned.
Justin lectures about the decimation of the whales, and for good reason. But his concern is not only for the whales. ‘If the oceans should die, as they will if we stop polluting the continental shelves with sewerage and industrial waste, unless we stop oil pollution coating the sea and preventing oxygenation…’ (pp99-100) The carbon dioxide content will rise and then the polar ice caps will melt… You get the picture. And he – or his research sources – didn’t even consider the threat from plastic!
The whale sequences are glorious – and heart-breaking.
Since the book was written we know that massive public outrage and the efforts of many groups, including Greenpeace, have managed to bring these enormous graceful giants back from extinction. But now many of us have seen dead whales – and other sea creatures and birds – literally choking on the plastic detritus of our civilisations. Common sense tells us we cannot eradicate plastic, but the world’s response to coping with it requires international resolve. Before it’s too late.
Footnote According to Greenpeace, by1970, there were only about 6,000 blue whales left in the oceans, and the numbers of humpback and sperm whales had halved. The methods of killing certainly were not humane, using exploding harpoons, ultimately feeding the carcases into the efficient factory ships.
A so-called moratorium on commercial whaling was established in 1986 by the International Whaling Commission. The only countries still conducting whaling are Iceland and Norway, who objected, pleading exemption from the moratorium on the flimsy grounds of national diet, while Japan was permitted to continue killing for ‘scientific purposes’. According to the WWF, since the moratorium (that admittedly saved the whales from extinction), there have been about 19,000 whales killed (objection and scientific); and not surprisingly there’s been a continuous increase in the number of scientific kills. How many corpses do you have to study, really?
However you sugar-coat it, these whales take a long time to die in excruciating agony. ...more
It's no mean feat to write a novelization. Bear in mind that the usual length of a film script is much shorter than a novel; my film script for my vamIt's no mean feat to write a novelization. Bear in mind that the usual length of a film script is much shorter than a novel; my film script for my vampire crime thriller Chill of the Shadow came to 120 pages, 22,500 words, while the book’s word-count was 80,000. Those additional words provide the reader additional visuals, backstory, and characters’ introspection.
The main problems for the writer of a novelization are that they may be working from an early script and they have a very tight deadline, possibly as little as a week or two. Novelizations are invariably published prior to a film’s release. This can be seen in Dewey Gram’s version of Gladiator, an excellent book: there were scenes in his novelization that did not appear in the theatre release, though ultimately they were reinstated in the Director’s Cut.
Prolific author Nancy Holder has done a sterling job with her Wonder Woman novelization. The book begins, as does the film, in the present, in Paris, where Diana Prince, the Curator of Antiquities worked in the Louvre Museum. She receives a package from Wayne Industries, a sepia photograph – ‘a moment of triumph frozen in time, shared by the four unsmiling, heavily armed men who bracketed her. Though the monochrome photo couldn’t show it, the eyes of the man standing to her right had been intensely blue, as blue as the sea that surrounded Themyscira, the island of her birth…’ A hundred years ago. When Wonder Woman came into being.
Then we travel to the past, to Themyscira, and the childhood of Princess Diana, a wayward child who is fascinated by the history of the Amazons, the inhabitants of the island, a place where no man lives. Long-lived, they train as warriors in order to combat the last surviving god, Ares. Holder evokes humour and mischief as Diana, the only child on the island, grows into young womanhood. Scenes shift neatly, until Diana witnesses something other than a bird plummeting from the sky and falling into the sea. She dives to investigate – and rescues the pilot, Steve Trevor, from a sinking airplane. Happily, the Amazons are fluent in many of Earth’s languages. The interchange between the pair is of wonder on both sides, leavened with mystery and amusement.
It transpires that Steve is a spy, fleeing from German General Ludendorff and his warped scientist, Dr Maru. This evil pair has concocted the means to prolong the War to End All Wars at a time when Germany is seeking armistice.
Diana joins forces with Steve to fight this menace.
Skilled actors can convey emotions and to a certain extent their character’s thought processes. And in the movie they do just that. Holder then gives their thoughts and fears life on the page, whether that’s the naivety of Diana or the pure evil of Ludendorff and his acolyte.
If you haven’t seen the film and yet are curious about the character, then this book will offer an intriguing and adventurous tale, well told. If you have seen the film, then this provides further insight for several characters, not only Diana, and as you read you will visualise again many of the scenes.
An exciting story, told with pace, wit and affection. ...more
‘My business doesn’t exactly suit those who are disposed to be neat. Being a private investigator leaves you holding more loose ends than a blind carp‘My business doesn’t exactly suit those who are disposed to be neat. Being a private investigator leaves you holding more loose ends than a blind carpet-weaver.’ (p246)
Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich tends to use Gunther from time to time and this second foray is no exception. Ironically, Heydrich has got wind of secret plans for a pogrom against the Jews; he’s more concerned about the cost to German insurance companies than the fate of the citizens of that race, so he wants Gunther to stymie the plot.
Meanwhile, Gunther is investigating the brutal murders of Aryan girls; not for the squeamish. There’s a definite link, it seems between the deaths and the pogrom plot.
Taut and gripping, and steeped in period detail, the book races along. Complete with repulsive and intriguing characters:
‘Certainly time had stood still with his prognathous features – somewhere around one million years BC. Tanker could not have looked less civilized than if he had been wearing the skin of a sabre-toothed tiger.’ (p117)
And the plot neatly chimes with a terrible real historic event.
The book title fittingly comes from a phrase in a Nietzsche quotation.
It’s 1954 and the young narrator is a scriptwriter for Maximus Films, a character that echoes Bradbury’s own worship of the Golden Age of Hollywood. AIt’s 1954 and the young narrator is a scriptwriter for Maximus Films, a character that echoes Bradbury’s own worship of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Adjacent to the vast film studio complex is Green Glades Cemetery. Here, one rain-sodden night he witnesses a revelation.
‘I heard a ghost sigh somewhere, but it was only my own lungs pumping like a bellows, trying to light some sort of fire in my chest.’ (p9)
The revelation was a lifelike dummy of the dead studio head J.C. Arbuthnot, who died twenty years ago in a car crash. He enlists his best friend Roy Holdstrom (an inventor of science fiction sets, monsters and special effects) to solve the mystery. On the way he meets wildly eccentric characters, among them a drunken ham Shakespearean actor, J.C., who states, ‘I do not dare, sir. I am.’.
It’s clear that these books are Bradbury’s reminiscences of his time when a young teenager hovering around the periphery of the movies. His early influences were King Kong and the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
‘It was like having an affair with Kong, who fell on me when I was thirteen. I had never escaped from beneath his heart-beating carcass.’ (p4)
Bradbury would spend many a day in front of the studio gates of Paramount and Columbia hoping for autographs. He’d watch film stars come and go at the Brown Derby restaurant – and all these places figure in this novel. One of the tragic characters, Clarence is clearly modelled on himself, though older.
‘Instantly my soul flashed out of my body and ran back. It was 1934 and I was mulched in among the ravening crowd, waving pads and pens… pursuing Marlene Dietrich into her hairdresser’s or running after Cary Grant Friday nights…’ (p15)
This book is dedicated to a few folk of his acquaintance, among them some deceased: Fritz Lang and James Hong Howe. And his friend Ray Harryhausen, who was alive when this was written. Roy Holdstrom is modelled on Harryhausen, and the character Fritz Wong is an amalgam of Lang and Howe. The narrator’s investigator pal Crumley is named after the crime writer James Crumley. Manny Leiber (who intended cutting Judas from a Biblical film because he didn’t want to make an anti-Semitic movie!) may well be named after fellow science fiction author Fritz Leiber. There may be other allusions I’ve missed.
The tale is typical Hollywood scandal and cover-up. Nothing new there, then. Fittingly, Crumley states, ‘Sometimes dead folks in graves have more power than live folks above…’ (p186)
The beginning contains some excellent imagery and writing. It starts with the narrator observing there were two cities within a city: ‘one moved restlessly all day while the other never stirred. One was warm and filled with ever-changing lights. One was cold and fixed in place by stones… Maximus Films, the living, and Green Glades Cemetery, the dead…’ (p3)
‘Ten thousand deaths had happened here, and when the deaths were done, the people got up, laughing, and strolled away. Whole tenement blocks were set afire and did not burn…’ (p3)
And: ‘From here Dracula wandered as flesh to return as dust. Here also were the Stations of the Cross and a trail of ever-replenished blood as screenwriters groaned by to Calvary carrying a backbreaking load of revisions, pursued by directors with scourges and film cutters with razor-sharp knives…’ (p4)
Besides transposed reminiscences and mystery, there’s humour: they were looking at a huge display of coffins. ‘How come so many?’ I asked. ‘To bury all the turkeys the studio will make between now and Thanksgiving.’ (p37)
And when turning up at the Brown Derby, the maitre d’ accosts them: ‘“Of course, you have no reservations?” he observed languidly. “About this place?” said Roy. “Plenty.”’ (p59)
While Bradbury didn’t shy away from acknowledging the grim underbelly of the world in this book and others, yet he preserved an incorrigible innocence too, encapsulated by Constance, a faded movie star, telling him: ‘How lucky to be inside your skin, so goddamned naïve. Don’t ever change.’ (p131) She also makes the observation, ‘That’s no hospital. It’s where great elephant ideas go to die. A graveyard for lunatics.’ (p140); hence the book’s title.
Whimsical and sometimes silly, with a plot that barely hangs together for all those depicted years, it’s still a worthy addition to the Bradbury collection, and as hinted at above there’s much to admire. However, if you’ve never read any Ray Bradbury, this is not the best place to start. ...more
If you’re a fan of westerns – movies, TV or in print (paper and electronic) – then you’ll absolutely love this book. If you’re curious about what all If you’re a fan of westerns – movies, TV or in print (paper and electronic) – then you’ll absolutely love this book. If you’re curious about what all the fuss is about regarding westerns, this will explain it. If you’ve never read a western, then this book will show you what you’re missing.
The driving concept is original – offering recommended western titles, one per week for a year’s worth of reading. There are quite a few ‘best of’ book recommendation books around; one of my favourites being Anthony Burgess’ Ninety-Nine Novels – the Best in English Since 1939 (1984). Naturally, some of the titles were contentious; it was his personal choice, however. With 52 Weeks the compilers haven’t fallen into the ‘best’ trap, and they’re aided by quite an illustrious bunch of other authors and readers who have added their own favourites to the selection.
Ranging alphabetically from .44 by H.A. De Rosso to The Wolfer by Loren Estleman, there’s something for everyone, both male and female reader, here.
Naturally, there is a good number of ‘classics’ – The Mark of Zorro (1919), Hondo (1953), The Day the Cowboys Quit (1971), The Big Country (1957), Old Yeller (1956), Riders of the Purple Sage (1912, The Searchers (1954), Shane (1949), The Shootist (1975), True Grit (1968), Valdez is Coming (1970) and The Virginian (1902) to more modern offerings dating as recently as 2015. While I’ve read most of the above, the beauty of this book is that it introduces new authors and books to consider for that always growing 'to be read’ list.
A double-page spread is devoted to each book, comprising Book Facts (a teasing narrative without spoilers), Author Facts, and interesting pieces in Beyond the Facts and Fun Facts, the latter two sections sometimes providing anecdotal information, or details about the movies spawned by the book. In addition, there’s a favourite quote; a good idea, though sometimes I felt that the quotation wasn’t too meaningful! Many of the featured authors have produced hundreds of books (in several genres); prolific journeymen to be admired for their output.
Each double page is lavishly coloured with two or three covers/movie posters.
This book is definitely a labour of love by all concerned, including the editor Nerissa Stacey and the designer Kari Kurti: a triumph. ...more
This collection of seven tales of terror is not recommended if you have a nervous disposition, are in any way paranoid or succumb to the modern diseasThis collection of seven tales of terror is not recommended if you have a nervous disposition, are in any way paranoid or succumb to the modern disease of ‘snowflake-itis’. If you’ve ever read any of Herbert Van Thal’s classic Tales of Horror, you’ll probably know what to expect, though you will still find each atmospheric offering tantalising and thought-provoking.
‘Adultery’ concerns a man and woman in a seedy hotel room, committing adultery. But then they hear something happening in the adjacent room. Something that tests their commitment and their sanity… A fine tale of tension.
‘The White Room’ finds an unnamed man regain consciousness in a white room. Trapped. He doesn’t know why. Food arrives while he is asleep. Confined, how can he escape? Hope burgeons in his chest. He discovers a possible way to get out; if he’s careful, he can engineer a break-out. Patience over the days is required and, no easy task, he must keep his actions secret… A good nightmarish tale.
‘The Movie Star in her Ivory Tower’ is not so grim as the preceding stories. Elizabeth, a well-known actress, is confined in her hotel room, hiding from the paparazzi while Richard was out somewhere getting her ‘a surprise’… Trapped in a four-star hotel room. Despair very nearly overcomes her, the balcony beckoning… A sympathetic study of the price of fame, with a devilish twist at the end; Elizabeth would have approved.
‘Stonebridge’ isn’t a place but a person. Trevanion is trapped in a cellar beneath a great house that belongs to Stonebridge. How he got there and why promises there’s a grim and unpleasant fate awaiting Trevanion. This is a particularly gruesome tale, not for the squeamish!
The ‘Walkie-Talkie’ is held by the man buried alive. They can hear him pleading… and enjoy it. But they made a simple mistake… Unpleasant characters who get their comeuppance. Dark!
‘Isolation’ is about a man who suffers from night tremors, imagining ‘the monster’ is hiding in the dark corners. There had to be a monster. Hadn’t Amanda vanished? The monster had taken her, perhaps… She had thought the flat was haunted. Leave the light on after you’ve read this…
‘Solipsism at the End of the World’ finds our nameless narrator staring out of his front window. After just over four months, he has decided to take a step outside. That was before he noticed that strange cylinder in the sky. And those creatures… Self-imposed isolation might be the safest option – but for how long? ...more
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