Book review, Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic, (Discworld 2) by Terry Pratchett, 1986

TLF_cover

‘The Light Fantastic’ concludes the adventures of Rincewind, the failed wizard, and Twoflower, the curious tourist from the Agatean Empire, who were left at the end of ‘The Colour of Magic’ falling in some style off the edge of the world (the world being, of course, disc-shaped, said disc being on the back of four giant elephants who in turn are perching on the shell of the Great A’Tuin, a celestial turtle). Hope you got that.

Reading back over my review of ‘The Colour of Magic’ I think on reflection I may have not clearly conveyed my awe at the wonder that was Terry Pratchett. He was a creative and comic genius, and my admiration of his body of work is tinged with sadness that he will no longer be adding to it. As comic writers go I would put him almost on a par with Douglas Adams – I can think of no higher praise.

Of course this isn’t just a fan-blog, these are intended as above all things honest reviews, so there’s no point in self-censoring observations that are less than adulatory – what would be the point? But there’s equally no point in just listing the minor flaws in a novel, and ignoring the gems. So if I got the balance wrong with ‘The Colour..’ then apologies, not least to TP. Continue reading →

Standard
Book review, Malorie Blackman, Noughts and Crosses

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman, 2001

untitled‘Noughts and Crosses’ is set in an alternative society in which the dark skinned people of the world conquered and enslaved the lighter skinned. As a consequence, although slavery has now been abolished, black people are prosperous, have good schools and hospitals and hold senior positions through society, white people are disenfranchised, hold most menial jobs, and are economically disadvantaged. Relationships between noughts and crosses are frowned upon – they are not unheard of, but still considered transgressive and likely to lead you to end up being assaulted. Critics have called this society dystopian (“relating to or denoting an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one”), but I am not so sure about that – I think Blackman intended it to be as realistically close to our own as possible.

This inversion of society and race is an inspired way of encouraging people to look at the power relationships in society, and the many ways in which black and minority ethnic people are still treated as second-class citizens, despite the progress that has been made in some areas. Certain scenes, such as when four “blanker” children (‘blanker’, we can deduce, is a shockingly offensive term similar to way the n-word is used in our own society) are allowed to attend a “Cross” school, are based on incidents in the Civil Rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and 60s. However a knowledge of this history is in no way essential for an appreciation of the novel.

One reason why this is not simply a dystopian nightmare is that there is some evidence that society is in transition. There appears to be a democratic Government, albeit one in which Crosses dominate, and an international organisation, the Pangean Economic Community, which promotes racial equality. Noughts can now attend cross schools. There is hope that the oppression of noughts is being eased, albeit slowly.

This world is portrayed through the eyes of two teenagers, Sephy, (short for Persephone) a prosperous Cross, and the son of her nanny, Callum, a nought. Callum and Sephy narrate alternative chapters in the novel, similar to the turns taken in a game of noughts and crosses. Their fledgling romance is disrupted when Callum’s mother is spitefully dismissed by Sephy’s mother for failing to provide an alibi for one of her affairs. Callum’s father and older brother Jude are slowly drawn into the dangerous world of the nought resistance movement, the Liberation Militia. As you can probably guess, things don’t go well for the star-crossed youngsters. I will eschew my normally strict policy on spoilers; suffice to say this is not the traditional teen romance the opening chapters might have led the reader to expect.

The target readership for ‘Noughts and Crosses’ is finely calibrated. Readers need to be young enough to forgive the simplistic structure, the use of clichéd scenarios (spurned young love, letters read moments too late, parental neglect, etc.) and the reliance of heavy handed narration in which teens sigh a lot and complain about how no-one understands them:

“I pulled him closer to me, wrapping my arms around him, kissing him just as desperately as he was kissing me. Like if we could just love long enough and hard enough and deep enough, then the world outside would never, could never hurt us.”

“That’s why I started crying. That’s why I couldn’t stop. For all the things we might’ve had and all the things we’re never going to have”.

However, the caution on the novel’s front cover – “Not suitable for younger readers” – is a warning that this is more than a teenage romance novel. The characters a bit wooden, even two dimensional, and in particular Jude is the world’s worst terrorist, but this is nevertheless a challenging novel of ideas where easy answers are avoided.

It is difficult for adults to review books written specifically for children and young adults. If we point out their bland characterisation, flaccid language, and clichéd storylines, we miss the point – children are looking for different things in their fiction, such as strong themes, identifiable characters, and just the right amount of danger. ‘Noughts and Crosses’ is a modern children’s classic, but there’s no doubt I would have enjoyed it so much more if I had read it as a teenager.

Standard
19th Century literature, Book review, Bronte, Bronte Sisters, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte, 1848

towh

It is quite rare for me to open a classic Victorian novel and have almost no idea what it is going to be about. But that was the case here – I have somehow avoided television and radio adaptations, reviews, blogposts etc – and the kindle edition even removes the clues provided by the blurb and illustrations of the sort shown here. So what is ‘The Tenant’ as I shall now refer to it, about?

It is a traditional three part novel, with a narrative structure that may seem clumsy to a reader used to omniscient narration. Gilbert Markham, a gentleman farmer, writes to a friend about the arrival of a new tenant for the nearby and near derelict Wildfell Hall.. The novel’s opening subverts that used in ‘Pride and Prejudice’, in that instead of a male tenant arriving in a community and being the cause of local gossip and interest, here a mysterious widow, Mrs Helen Graham, is the newcomer. Mrs Graham fascinates and attracts Markham, even though she is the focus for local scandal, the detail of which is never spelt out explicitly but relates to an implied relationship with her landlord, Mr Lawrence.

The central section of the novel is recounted in Helen’s diaries, given to Gilbert to dispel his suspicions about her ‘affair’ with Lawrence, and presumably carefully transcribed by him into his letters. Helen is a much more moralistic character than Gilbert. She tells the history of her relationship with and marriage to Arthur Huntingdon. Huntingdon is a rake, and does little to disguise his flaws from Helen, who foolishly thinks she will be able to reform him. He boasts openly of his dissolute former life with its seductions and affairs:

“His favourite amusement is to sit or loll beside me on the sofa and tell me stories of his former amours, always turning upon the ruin of some confiding girl or the cozening of some unsuspecting husband”. (Chapter 24)

The birth of their son, also called Arthur, exacerbates the problems with their relationship. Helen can stand Huntingdon’s drunkenness and openly conducted affairs, but when he encourages Arthur junior to drink and swear she begins to plan her escape.

The final section of the novel starts after Gilbert’s reading of the diary. By now his ardour for Helen is at full pitch, and the news that she is still married does not deter him. Her moralistic sermons have the desired affect however, and he promises to leave her alone, for six months at least. He complies but is shocked to find out, from her brother, that she has returned to her husband who has fallen seriously ill. Huntingdon dies a squalid if convenient death, leaving the path open for a reconciliation between the now rich widow and the farmer. Despite some minor confusions and misunderstandings, the lovers marry, retire to the country and live happily ever after. It is only at the novel’s conclusion that we learn that the letters have been written to Gilbert’s brother-in-law, a Mr Halford, in the form of a memoir.

In many way ‘The Tenant’ is a conventional romance, with a happy ever after marriage and children at the end of a complex courtship, where the characters slowly discover their feelings for one another. The long separation in the middle of the novel, followed by the reconciliation at the end, is reminiscent of the structure of ‘Jane Eyre’, where Jane exiles herself to avoid temptation. Helen is an extraordinarily strong woman, determined to keep her marriage vows, when she can, care for and protect her son, and keep true to her faith. True love is her reward for these sacrifices. Critics have long identified her defiance of her husband – albeit after years of psychological torment and abuse, including his conduct of an affair openly before her – as the actions of a proto-feminist. She’s certainly a strong determined character, but I think it is important to remember that she returns to her husband as soon as he needs her, putting duty to him above her personal interests, and remains faithful to him despite everything.

I had hoped that the wonderfully named Wildfell Hall would play a central role in the novel, and the portrait of it given by Markham in the novel’s opening chapter promises much:

“Near the top of this hill, about two miles from Linden-Car, stood Wildfell Hall, a superannuated mansion of the Elizabethan era, built of dark grey stone, venerable and picturesque to look at, but doubtless cold and gloomy enough to inhabit, with its thick stone mullions and little latticed panes, its time-eaten air holes and its too lonely, too unsheltered situation – only shielded from the war of wind and weather by a group of Scotch firs, themselves half-blighted with storms, and looking as stern and gloomy as the Hall itself”.

The narrator then goes on to tell the reader how the garden has run to seed, and all the topiary bush animals have “spouted into such fantastic shapes as resembled nothing in heaven or earth but presented…a goblinish appearance that harmonised well with the ghostly legions and dark traditions…of the haunted hall”.

Who can read that portrait and not expected a traditional gothic novel to follow, with things that go bump in the night and half a dozen or more mad-women locked in the attic? If so they will have been disappointed, because Wildfell Hall is a minor character in the story, a haven for the escaping Helen rather than the venue for any Scooby-Doo style antics. Instead we have a disturbing story of unhappy marriages and domestic violence which must surely have been all the more shocking and transgressive when first published – rich people really didn’t do such things within the confines of marriage, or if they did we certainly didn’t read about it. We are not surprised when Heathcliff is violent towards animals, but when Huntingdon hits out at his favourite cocker spaniel – “He struck it off with a smart blow; and the poor dog squeaked, and ran cowering back to [Helen]. When he woke up half an hour after, he called it to him again; but Dash only looked sheepish and wagged the tip of his tail. He called again, more sharply, but Dash only clung closer to [Helen], and licked [her] hand as if imploring protection. Enraged at this, his master snatched up a heavy book and hurled it at its head” – the violence is a thinly veiled metaphor for domestic violence. This in many ways is more troubling for being hinted at rather than directly portrayed, for example in this sinister description of the casual violence of one of Huntingdon’s debauched friends towards his own wife: (chapter 32)

“I love thee Milicent, but I don’t adore thee’. In proof of his affection he clutched a handful of her light brown ringlets, and appear to twist them unmercifully. “Do you really Ralph?” murmured she, with a faint smile beaming through her tears, just putting up her hand to his, in token that he pulled rather too hard.”

Is ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ a good novel? Well of course it is a classic, but at the same time it is usually ranked below ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Jane Eyre’. It shares many features with these novels, the slightly awkward narrative structures, the dark secrets, and troubled love affairs. But a distinct aroma of sanctimoniousness pervades ‘The Tenant’. Helen is rarely very loveable or off her guard, and goodness doesn’t she love to preach!

(Chapter 45) – We are children now; we feel as children, and we understand as children; and when we are told that men and women do not play with toys, and that our companions will one day weary of the trivial sports and occupations that interest them and us so deeply now, we cannot help being saddened at the thought of such an alteration, because we cannot conceive that as we grow up our own minds will become so enlarged and elevated that we ourselves shall then regard as trifling those objects and pursuits we now so fondly cherish, and that, though our companions will no longer join us in those childish pastimes, they will drink with us at other fountains of delight, and mingle their souls with our in higher aims and nobler occupations beyond our present comprehension, but not less deeply relished or less truly good for that, while yet both we and they remain essentially the same individuals as before”.

The supporting cast of minor characters is also weaker in ‘The Tenant’ – they tend to blur into one another and are less clearly differentiated. None of which really detracts from the overall power of the novel.

Two other brief observations. Firstly, this short scene caught my attention. It happens when Helen is running her fingers through Huntingdon’s hair:

“The head looked right enough, but when he placed my hand on the top of it, it sunk in a bed of curls, rather alarmingly low, especially in the middle”.

I can’t find that any critics have picked up on this description (which is not referred to again), but I find it hard to read any other way than that the author is suggesting Huntingdon has an ‘alarming’ depression in his cranium. What the Victorian pseudo-science of phrenology, referred to more extensively by Charlotte in ‘Jane Eyre’ would have made of that depression I can only imagine, but it surely is a heavy hint of the moral depravity to be exposed as the novel progresses, or possibly a propensity to addictive behaviours.

Finally, I am pretty sure I spotted a mistake in the novel’s portrait of the English countryside. In chapter 29 we are told “On a bright…day, in the beginning of July, I had taken little Arthur into the wood that skirts the park … and having gathered a handful of bluebells and wild-roses…”. Anne knew full well that bluebells are a spring flower, having written a poem in their praise, so is this just a simple slip, or something more interesting?

Standard
Book review, Discworld, humour, Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic

The Colour of Magic (Discworld 1) by Terry Pratchett, 1983

Colour of magic

So this is where it all began. I returned to the original Discworld novel as a change of pace from Dickens and with one question at the front of my mind – would it stand the test of time? How well would it have aged, and how fully formed was Pratchett’s early vision of Discworld? Would the detail and complexity all be there, or would, as I assumed, the detail have developed and accrued over time, book by book? Which is a lot more than one question of course.

Remarkably the Discworld universe is almost completely fully developed in this first portrait. The cosmology or Astrozoology – with the Great A’tuin and his accompanying elephants – is all there, and Pratchett had obviously given a lot of thought to the practicalities of a flat world with its hub and the Rim. Ankh-Morpork is complete in virtually every detail (quote) with the pre-Sam Vimes Watch, the Patrician (not yet identified as Vetenari) and the Thieves and Assassins’ Guilds. The Unseen University with its complex hierarchy of wizards and ArchWizards is there, as is magic as a practical working concept. I really enjoyed the way Pratchett plays with the idea of science being a modern equivalent of magic – not a new idea of course, but one he has fun with, for example when Rincewind is trying to work out how Twoflower’s camera works.

“This is all wrong. When Twoflower said they’d got a better kind of magic in the Empire I thought – I thought…

The imp looked at him expectantly. Rincewind cursed to himself. “Well if you must know, I thought he didn’t mean magic. Not as such”

“What else is there, then?”

Rincewind began to feel really wretched. “I don’t know” he said. “A better way of doing things, I suppose. Something with a bit of sense in it. Harnessing – harnessing the lightening, or something”.

‘The Colour of Magic’ also features two of Pratchett’s most-loved ‘characters’ – Twoflower’s sapient pearwood Luggage, and Death. The Luggage is an indefatigable multi-legged terminator, while Death already speaks in his distinctive capitalised tone, and already has his habit of appearing when least expected, such as here when the landlord of the Broken Drum is trying to set fire to his cellar to claim on his recently agreed inn-sewer-ants polly sea:

“At the top of the cellar steps Broadman knelt down and fumbled in his tinderbox. It turned out to be damp.
‘I’ll kill that bloody cat,’ he muttered, and groped for the spare box that was normally on the ledge by the door. It was missing. Broadman said a bad word. A lighted taper appeared in mid-air, right beside him.
HERE, TAKE THIS.
‘Thanks,’ said Broadman.
DON’T MENTION IT.”

The other thing that struck me, and which may be controversial, is that over time Pratchett became a much better and funnier writer. That’s not to say ‘The Colour of Magic’ isn’t funny – it is – but I think his comic style matured and improved. His love of groanworthy puns is already evident here, but some of the jokes go beyond being bad dad jokes, and are just plain bad, for example:

“My name is immaterial,’ she said.
That’s a pretty name,’ said Rincewind”

There is a thin dividing line between using clever references to other writers and genres, and just being derivative. Pratchett tiptoes close to the line sometimes in this novel, and in particular I have always thought that his debt to Fritz Lieber, author of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series has been acknowledged but never fully appreciated. In later novels there is a lot more Pratchett and far fewer borrowings – references of course, but done in a way in which the original source is acknowledged without being simply reproduced.

Almost lastly, a bit of a moan about this edition. It is the Corgi edition shown above, with the original Josh Kirby illustration (which I always felt were a bit over the top tbh), published this year with a mention of Pratchett’s death in the frontispiece. The blurb includes a quote from the independent calling Pratchett “one of the funniest English authors alive”. Was this just a case of laziness by the publishers not bothering to update their copy, or just a bad joke?

Finally, a quiz question for you, which should be easy given the subject of this blog entry – who are Berilia, Tubul, Great T’Phon and Jerakeen?

Standard
19th Century literature, Book review, Charles Dickens

Comment: Gammon

Just a quick follow up to yesterday’s post about ‘Nicholas Nickleby’.

Earlier this year there was a very slight fuss in the UK media about the use of the term “gammon” as a pejorative description of older white men who get red in the face when upset. The Urban Dictionary defines it disrespectfully as:

“A term used to describe a particular type of Brexit-voting, middle-aged white male, whose meat-faced complexion suggests they are perilously close to a stroke. The term ‘gammon’ is linked to the unhealthy pink skin tone of such stout yeomen, probably because of high blood pressure caused by decades of ‘PC gone mad’, being defeated in arguments about the non-existent merits of Brexit and women getting the vote. Gammon often make their appearance on BBC’s Question Time jabbing their porcine fingers at the camera while demanding immediate nuclear strikes against Remain-voting areas, people who eat vegetables and/or cyclists.
When gammon appears en masse it is often referred to as a “wall of gammon“.

The origin of the term is interesting. In ‘Moranthology’ Caitlin Moran claimed that David Cameron resembled “a slightly camp gammon robot” and “a C3PO made of ham”. However, the term appears in a very similar context some 150 years earlier in (you guessed it) ‘Nicholas Nickleby’.

In a scene shoe-horned clumsily into the narrative for what I assume was intended but now lost satirical purposes, an angry political deputation (indeed, a mob) confront their humbugging MP, Mr Gregsbury. In the course of the argument

download (1)

 

“one gentleman in the rear did not scruple to remark aloud, that, for his purpose, it savoured rather too much of a ‘gammon’ tendency.”

“The meaning of that term—gammon,’ said Mr. Gregsbury, ‘is unknown to me. If it means that I grow a little too fervid, or perhaps even hyperbolical, in extolling my native land, I admit the full justice of the remark. I am proud of this free and happy country. My form dilates, my eye glistens, my breast heaves, my heart swells, my bosom burns, when I call to mind her greatness and her glory.”

Gregsbury is ‘Gammon and proud’ in other words.

Inevitably people have found earlier uses of the term, for example in the 1603 John Marston play ‘The Malcontent’ where someone gloriously is called a “sallow-Westphalian gammon-faced zaza”. So gammon has a proud old English heritage, ironically,

I think the term is a glorious addition (or rediscovery) to our lexicon. It calls to mind the physical response to distress or emotion in a certain group of individuals and as such is the perfect metaphor. It’s not just a term of abuse, although granted it isn’t a compliment, because as well as the physical similarity there is a shared intellectual mindset between the commentator and the cooked meat. As for the preposterous argument that it is in any way racist, phooey! Some people get red in the face when agitated – that has nothing to do with their ethnicity.

Words, like brexiteers, are fiercely independent, and can’t be bullied into or out of our language. The new definition of gammon might make it to the next edition of the OED, or it might not, but if it does I think Dickens would approve, and should certainly get some of the credit.

 

Standard
Book review, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

Nicholas Nickleby, by Charles Dickens, 1838-9

In her reading diary ‘Jacob’s Room is full of books’ Susan Hill describes her habit of reading one Dickens novel a year. This struck me as an eminently sensible habit – if you tried to read them all in one you would go a bit mad, and I suspect the novels would start to bleed into one another. One a year on the other hand allows plenty of time for other reading and would leave most readers with a realistic prospect of working their way through the whole canon. So I thought I would give this practice a go, starting with one of the more accessible novels, ‘Nicholas Nickleby’.nn

‘Nicholas Nickleby’ was Dickens’s third novel, published in monthly instalments over 18 months in 1838 and 1839. In many ways it is quintessential Dickens. Almost all of the features of a typical Dickens novel appear – the episodic switching between narrative threads, the mysterious stranger who reveals a long buried secret, fortunes lost and re-won, child-like romances, and the long drawn out death of consumptive innocents. Probably the one other most distinctive feature of all Dickens’ work is his concern with social justice. This aspect of his work is already fully formed in this novel, as for example here in this extraordinary meditation by Nicholas:

But now, when he thought how regularly things went on, from day to day, in the same unvarying round; how youth and beauty died, and ugly griping age lived tottering on; how crafty avarice grew rich, and manly honest hearts were poor and sad; how few they were who tenanted the stately houses, and how many of those who lay in noisome pens, or rose each day and laid them down each night, and lived and died, father and son, mother and child, race upon race, and generation upon generation, without a home to shelter them or the energies of one single man directed to their aid; how, in seeking, not a luxurious and splendid life, but the bare means of a most wretched and inadequate subsistence, there were women and children in that one town, divided into classes, numbered and estimated as regularly as the noble families and folks of great degree, and reared from infancy to drive most criminal and dreadful trades; how ignorance was punished and never taught; how jail-doors gaped, and gallows loomed, for thousands urged towards them by circumstances darkly curtaining their very cradles’ heads, and but for which they might have earned their honest bread and lived in peace; how many died in soul, and had no chance of life; how many who could scarcely go astray, be they vicious as they would, turned haughtily from the crushed and stricken wretch who could scarce do otherwise, and who would have been a greater wonder had he or she done well, than even they had they done ill; how much injustice, misery, and wrong, there was, and yet how the world rolled on, from year to year, alike careless and indifferent, and no man seeking to remedy or redress it; when he thought of all this, and selected from the mass the one slight case on which his thoughts were bent, he felt, indeed, that there was little ground for hope, and little reason why it should not form an atom in the huge aggregate of distress and sorrow, and add one small and unimportant unit to swell the great amount.

This is classic Dickens, with its clinical and yet at the same time passionate dissection of the social ills of Victorian Britain, but sadly also without offering any hope or constructive solutions. Yes the bad guys always come to a messy end in his novels, either the gallows, deportation or similar, and the central characters find happiness and prosperity through the bequests of long lost relatives, but the poverty disease and degradation are still all there.

The other source of enjoyment I find in Dickens is his wonderfully perceptive portraits of the fallibility of human nature. In this he probably has no peer other than Jane Austen. Mrs Nickleby is a particular favourite, bringing to mind her obvious predecessors Mr Woodhouse and Mrs Bennett, where the author’s use of reported speech conveys the full impact of her rambling complaints, without us having to work our way through them all:

To this, Mrs. Nickleby only replied that she durst say she was very stupid, indeed she had no doubt she was, for her own children almost as much as told her so, every day of her life; to be sure she was a little older than they, and perhaps some foolish people might think she ought reasonably to know best. However, no doubt she was wrong; of course she was; she always was, she couldn’t be right, she couldn’t be expected to be; so she had better not expose herself any more; and to all Kate’s conciliations and concessions for an hour ensuing, the good lady gave no other replies than Oh, certainly, why did they ask her?, her opinion was of no consequence, it didn’t matter what she said, with many other rejoinders of the same class.

There’s no denying the fact that Dickens’s villains are two dimensional, with very few shades of grey in their character, but what wonderfully wicked villains they are. Even if you have not read any Dickens, you will be able to get a good idea of the character of the schoolmaster Wackford Squeers simply through his name alone.

So why isn’t ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ considered in the top rank of Dickens’ work? That assessment is open to debate of course, but I think it reflects a consensus. Dickens had five novels in the BBC Big Read list of the 100 most loved novels (‘Bleak House’, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, ‘David Copperfield’, ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’) but Nickleby was omitted. My theory is that this is because the scenes of peril in the novel are rarely sustained. The dangers characters face at different points is never very serious, and is usually resolved quickly. (This is reminiscent of the ‘fake’ deaths at the end of many Disney films: the scene in which a character appears to die, only to revive moments later is a feature of many children’s films, and it is a very reliable rule that the quicker they revive (think of Baloo surviving the fight with Shere Khan in ‘Jungle Book’, or the brief moment in ‘Robin Hood’ when we think he has been shot with an arrow and drowned) the younger the target audience.

From this perspective Nicholas lives a charmed life. When his father dies unexpectedly, rather than ending up in the workhouse, his family has a rich uncle Frank to turn to. He easily gets a job as a teacher despite his lack of qualifications. While Dotheboys Hall is a nightmarish place for the boys, for Nicholas it is far less uncomfortable, and when his patience is pushed too far he can simply beat Wackford and walk away, something of which the boys can only dream.

His sister Kate and their mother are given lodgings free of charge by the villainous uncle, and Kate is found a perfectly respectable job as a milliner’s assistant. When this does not work out another equally respectable job, as a lady’s companion, appears quickly enough. The trauma of the subsequent assault on Kate by Sir Mulberry Hawk is obviously serious, but is quickly stopped by Ralph.

Nick’s good fortune however continues. He finds a job on the stage in Portsmouth and debuts almost immediately as Romeo. Later, compelled to return to London, he again finds well-paid work straight away with the lovable merchants, the Cheeryble the brothers. Nicholas has been accompanied on his adventures by Smike, an orphan runaway from Dotheboys. Smike has the misfortune to run into Squeers, who kidnaps him, but is rescued within hours. A subsequent attempt to reclaim Smike by the use of forged documents to the effect that he is the long-lost son of a man named Snawley is avoided by the simple expedient of ignoring it.

Inevitably, romantic interest intervenes. Nicholas nobly tries to avoid making Madeline Bray, the penniless daughter of a debtor, fall in love with him, but it comes as no surprise when this plan fails. There is a far-fetched plan to marry Madeline off to Arthur Gride, an early iteration of Fagin, in return for the promise of paying off her father’s debts to be foiled. This scheme falls apart on the day of the wedding when her father drops conveniently dead. The happily-ever-after then comes in a rush as all the plots against Nicholas fall away as so much background noise.

There is much more sustained threat in Dickens’ later novels. Imagine how more scary being a pupil at Dotheboys would have been compared to being a master? Indeed, Dickens gives us this comparative experience himself with David Copperfield’s experiences at Salem House, and those of Oliver Twist in the workhouse. Ultimately, this lack of genuine peril is what makes this novel considered suitable for children. if you are looking for an introduction to Dickens for a younger reader this is an excellent place to start.

 

 

Standard
21st century literature, American literature, Book review, Jonathan Safran Foer

Here I Am, by Jonathan Safran Foer, 2017

As I may have mentioned once or twice, I keep this blog as a record of what I read. If I don’t blog it’s probably because I haven’t been reading, but occasionally there are novels that really challenge my ability to say something interesting. ‘Here I Am’, Jonathan Safran Foer’s third novel, is a case in point. I read it a couple of months ago, but found it so underwhelming that when I finally found the time to write this review I had to look the title up. What is more remarkable is that it seems to have taken the author 10 years or more to write it!

‘Here I Am‘ is the story of the Blochs, a very familiar dysfunctional American family. Julia, an architect, and husband Jacob, a TV screenwriter, live in Washington DC with their three sons, Sam, Max and Benjy. Their marriage is falling apart for all the usual reasons – boredom, disrespect, mid-life crises, infidelity. An extended family provides supporting cast members including Jacob’s grandfather Isaac, planning to defer death until after Sam’s bar mitzvah; Jacob’s parents, Irv and Deborah, and others.

The Guardian’s review described “Here I Am” as

“a novel of diaspora, of the elasticity of its numerous possible meanings, and of the pain caused by both the presence and the absence of the homeland it invokes. It moves from the intimate dissection of a family that has ceased to become a home for its members to the question of what Israel means to American Jews, and what they might consider to be their duty in the face of its imperilment.”

Which is a useful thematic summary, but will also give you a strong flavour of the worthiness of the novel. Worthiness can be fatal to any attempt at comedy. Because despite the big themes, this is undoubtedly intended to be an albeit dark comic novel. Divided between writing a serious novel about the experience of being a Jewish American family (already very well-explored novelistic territory) and the more comic aspects of that experience (ditto) Safran delivers neither very well.

Part of the problem is that very little happens, and it takes a long time to not happen. Minor incidents become central plot elements. Sam leaves a list of “rude” words on his desk at school then denies doing so – it is not until near the end of the novel that we find out he did write the list, as a profoundly unrealistic exercise in intellectual curiosity. Jacob “loses” the secret mobile phone on which he and a producer have exchanged explicitly sexual texts, in a pretty pathetic attempt to make himself more interesting to his wife. As mid-life crises go this is mundane stuff.

The bulk of the narrative is conveyed through the family’s conversations. The repetitive dialogues and monologues may be realistic representations of the way families talk to one another, but it felt a bit like being harangued for 500 and more pages. Realising the novel needed something by way of incident or drama, Safran Foer goes “all-in”. An apocalyptic earthquake in the Middle East strikes Israel, gifting the surrounding states an opportunity to recover lost territories/invade, depending on your perspective. A domestic chronicle suddenly becomes a diary of this catastrophe, which ends with the Israeli prime minister’s absurdly unlikely call to the men of the Jewish diaspora to return “home”. As if a country struck by an earthquake needs an influx of untrained volunteers to defend it. Jacob’s half-hearted attempt to volunteer falls flat, being turned away at the airport due to him having nothing worthwhile to contribute. As a metaphor for the turbulence in the Bloch family the earthquake and ensuing crisis is clumsy in the extreme, and as a statement on the position in the Middle East it is at best irrelevant and worst tasteless.

And if you have found the preceding paragraphs an unsatisfactory account of this novel, well you can’t say I didn’t warn you!

Standard
Book review

The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors by Dan Jones, 2017

tamplarsIt would be hard to write a boring history of the Knight’s Templars. They were a Christian military order originally founded during the early years of the Crusades to protect pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem and other holy sites in the very dangerous lands of the Middle East. The Order’s story is inextricably linked with that of the Crusades, and you accidentally learn a lot about the latter just by reading this account of the former. It is hardly surprising then that the Templars have had a strong grip on popular imagination, from the Da Vinci Code to Indiana Jones. They also had a flair for iconography and symbolism, such as the big red cross they wore on their cloaks.

Dan Jones’s “Templars” a fairly conventional chronological narrative, and after a while the procession of battles, slaughter, castles and cities captured and lost, becomes a bit of a blur. Masters of the Order come and go, opponent warlords do the same, victories and losses take their turn. This is a very Western oriented history – the infidel hordes are differentiated only by their leaders, and there is no attempt to understand why they had such apparently inexhaustible resources (clue – because this was/is their homeland) or why they were able to repeatedly defeat supposedly superior Western European armies. Jones resists the temptation to draw parallels with modern conflicts in the Middle East,  although these suggest themselves at times irresistibly.

 Authors of histories need to address the “Why am I writing this book?” question in a way fiction writers do not. Normally answers range from “I have uncovered new material” – no such claim is made here – “I have a different interpretation from previous authors” – ditto – or “this topic has not been written about recently” – another ditto. So why was this book written? Jones may have hoped for a TV adaptation from this book – the settings are very photogenic – and this may be behind his tendency to leave chapters hanging on a cliff-hanger in phrases such as “William was not quite ready to act on the evidence he was compiling. But he could and he would”; “He would never see Cyprus again”; or “This was the moment when darkness began to fall on the Templars”.

I make no claims of expertise in this field, but I got the impression that Jones has based his work primarily on the chronicles of the Templars and their opponents. I would have thought an archaeological approach might have been worth considering – what do the ruins of the temples, castles, houses and farms of the Order  tell us about their histories that the chronicles gloss over?

During my read of this text I came up with a theory about this category of book – serious but non-academic history. There’s a limit to how much information the brain can retain. This is a complex narrative spanning around two hundred years. The bibliography, glossary and appendices run to almost 100 pages. This condensation of such a vast amount of information in a non-academic work of history (I don’t mean Jones’s approach is non-academic, simply that the book is aimed at the general albeit studious reader, rather than historians or student) inevitably leads to the overwhelming weight of facts passing the reader by. It’s just not possible to retain all that information, unless you read the book as if you were going to be examined on it afterwards. So in the end you probably learn little more than if you were to read a few thousand words about the Templars on Wikipedia. I am not sure that is a problem or not – you can enjoy the book but use the internet if time is more pressing or you want to cover more ground.

Standard
Book review

Jacob’s Room is full of books – Susan Hill, 2017

‘Jacob’s Room is full of books‘ is Susan Hill’s very readable if (I have to say) unsubstantial  follow up to ‘Howard’s End is on the Landing’. Simply, it is a reading diary, a year of reading as the subtitle puts it.  Each month Hill mentions the books she has been reading, and these booHIllks then go on to trigger what often seem quite random but nevertheless entirely natural thoughts – her personal acquaintance with the author, her impressions and judgments on their other works, what it is like to be a writer on GCSE reading lists, attending literature festivals, and so on. Interspersed with this well-informed stream of consciousness are many observations about nature, particularly birds, which if I was being cynical I would think of as padding to get the book over the 200 pages mark…

There is a structure of sorts to the book – it is divided into the twelve months of the year – but you could easily dip into it at any point and it wouldn’t make much difference. You certainly don’t end the book knowing much more about Hill or books or reading or writing than you do, say, half way, or indeed after having read ‘Howards End is on the Landing’. Which makes me wonder – is this anything other than a rather cynical cash-in, a stocking filler, something to appeal to Christmas shoppers with a reader in their lives to keep happy? I feel a bit ridiculous mentioning this, but the fact that Jacob’s Room isn’t mentioned at all in the book, other than to provide the mildly amusing title, niggled at me slightly. Because Hill’s struggles with her out-of-control personal collection of books, which she culls ruthlessly and often, but still can’t keep on top of, (“As fast as I get one out of the back door, two new ones come in through the front anyway”) was one of the more relate-able aspects of the book which I would have liked to have known more about.

The book shows signs of being a transcribed notebook – there is an immediacy to many of Hill’s observations and comments, such as those on wildlife spotted (that is seen, not spotted wildlife) or emails received – and the repetition at many points, such as her slightly contradictory accounts of being on the 2011 Booker prize jury, could have done with some friendly editing. There’s little artifice here – there must have been a temptation to edit or self censor to make the author appear a more careful and considered reader – but that doesn’t seem to have happened. I suspect I won’t be the only reader who snapped the book shut at her more outrageous criticisms of writers we have loved – Keats, for goodness sake, gets dismissed with a few words, and Jane Eyre goes proudly unread – but then cheered when she praises our favourites. I can forgive her almost everything for her comments on the brilliance of Raymond Chandler.

If I wanted to I could construct a narrative about this book being (underneath all the daily noise) about ageing. Hill is in her mid-70’s, and while full of life she still has some/much of the grumpiness of many of that age. She knows that her overstocked shelves are becoming a bit of a burden, and in trying to divest herself of them she is making tentative steps towards preparing for the later stages of her life. Whether I can convince even myself on this one is another matter.

This was the first and probably easiest/shortest of an extraordinary haul of books I accumulated over the recent festivities, which will dominate my reading across much of 2018. I’ll keep you posted.

 

 

Standard
Book review

Goods Omen by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 1990

Why haven’t I read “Good Omens” before now? That’s not a rhetorical question – tell me why no-one has thrust this book into my hands and said “You love Terry Pratchett and you think Neil Gaiman is pretty good as well, so read this, now”? As you can tell I feel slightly narked at the fact that this wonderful book has not made it onto my reading list until now. Good omens

One reason might be that collaborations, especially on novels, have at best a patchy record. Name me a novel written by two people that is as good as any of the novels written by either of the co-authors? That one is a rhetorical question btw. “Good Omens” is the only co-authored novel on the BBC Big Read list of 100 best novels, if you needed any evidence on that point. But something about the way these two worked together, across different continents and time zones, just worked, producing something as good as if not better than their best solo work. It could easily have been written by Douglas Adams, and if you have been paying any attention to anything I have written in the last 5 years or so you will know that there is no higher compliment.

“Good Omens” started life as a Just William parody, and if I were to find a fault with the novel, the extended sections of the prepubescent schoolboys and schoolgirl getting up to no good in an essentially well behaved way are some of the weaker parts of the novel. But that doesn’t really matter, because the cornucopia of ideas and characters that fizz from every page of the rest of the novel more than compensate. Quite how a schoolboy story became a parable about the end of the world I am not sure, but it tells you something about Pratchett and Gaiman’s imaginations. There so much to enjoy here – utterly believable eccentric characters, such as the angel and demon working together to avoid Armageddon, Witchfinder General Shadwell and his assistant Newton Pulsifer, the witch Anathema Device (was/is there any author better at producing fantastic names for his characters than Terry Pratchett was – I give you Cut My Own Throat Dibbler in evidence), a breathless plotline that genuinely leaves it open to doubt whether the world is going to end or not, and on every page some of the best and at the same time wisest jokes you will find in any modern novel.

“It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”

“An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards.”
“She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.”
This is Pratchett at his very best, and whatever Neil Gaiman contributed to the process and outcome – the appendix at the end of this edition contains interviews with the authors that are frustratingly vague on this point, including the possibility that some of the text was written by neither of them – the combination just worked. I suspect it made Terry a better author in the long run, although I don’t think he ever wrote anything better.
Finally some good news – the novel is being adapted for television by the BBC, with two of Britain’s best actors, Michael Sheen and David Tennant, in the lead roles, and with a wonderful supporting cast. Should be (the light) fantastic.
Standard