"Legions of the Eagle" by Henry Treece

Gwydion, the son of a Belgic lord, the right-hand man to King Caratacus, and his Silurian slave Math, are captured by the Romans invading Britain. Math escapes but Gwydion is sent to Gaul as a slave to be the companion of centurion's son Gaius. Following a plague, the boys return to Britain seeking Gwydion's mother and the father of Gaius. They also find Math and a whole lot of trouble.

I loved this boys' adventure story when I was nine. Now I don't. Gwydion is the typical Treece hero (see his Viking books): brave, boastful, and reckless. His experiences as a slave don't seem to have changed this. He doesn't seem to learn. He's also blond and Treece seems to have favoured flaxen hair: the dark-haired (and dark-faced) Math might be cunning but he is despicable. Although there are moments when Gwydion catches glimpses of Math's resentment of the master-slave dynamic (despite the author's protests that Gwysion and his mother treat Math like one of them) this doesn't spill over into justice in terms of the story arc and I have to conclude that Treece, like Gwydion, never properly understood that a favoured slave is still a slave, that power can only exist with powerlessness, and that conquest does not give the conquerors the moral right to belittle the conquered in any way, even by patronising them. At the end, Gwydion says: "Life isn't given to us just so we can exert our strength on other men and turn their lives inside-out for our own advantage." (Epilogue). But there is no evidence, in his character, or in that of his best friend Gaius, that he understands this. The lesson is learnt by Math, perhaps, but by this time Math is the antagonist.

Furthermore, the history seems surprisingly sloppy for such a well-known author. "Then Gwydion saw his mother do a strange thing; she suddenly stood in her stirrups" (4.1). This would have been strange indeed during the Roman conquest of Britain (43 CE).  Although rope loops may have been used as early as 200 BCE (in Asia, perhaps reaching Rome but probably not Britain) there is no evidence for the stirrup as such before 500 CE. Furthermore, Gwydion travels through "Londinium" (2.1) but there is no evidence for pre-Roman settlement in London and Londinium as such was founded by the Romans after their invasion.

A very disappointing read.

Selected quote:

• "When men go to war, they do not think of their opponents as being of the same nature as their own families." (2.5)

August 2021

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Rainbow Milk" by Paul Mendez

At the age of nineteen, Jesse, a young black man from Dudley in the UK, is disfellowshipped from the Jehovah's Witnesses for being gay. He moves to London and becomes a drug-fuelled rent boy. This book chronicles his experiences. He is befriended by a supportive network of gay men and women, and people of colour, all struggling against a world they see as controlled by straight white males. 

I presume that this novel is largely autobiographical. This raises a problem for a critic. My comments are not meant to undervalue in any way the reality of the lived-in experiences described. The authenticity of the narrative was often overwhelming. But it seemed to be more of a memoir than a novel.

The main character is defined mostly by his opposition to his context. He is bitter and resentful about his birth mother and white stepfather; he is very angry about the Jehovah's Witnesses and their version of God. He works as a waiter at a posh London restaurant and sees almost all of the diners as spoilt and self-centred; he feels they look down on him or see him as a threat (There are several wonderful pages of hugely realistic dialogue presented as snippets overheard by an overworked waiter which are the best in the book). His customers as a rent boy divide into those who are kind and those who are exploitative. He is angry and bitter, particularly against  white men (the irony being that he is sexually attracted "to lick, suck and fuck white male ass" ). Almost the only positive side to his character is his deep love of and knowledge of music. Unfortunately, since one of my many failings is that I am more or less totally ignorant of any music post-1970, I was unable to appreciate the pages and pages of musical hagiography.

Other characters seemed stereotypical. The gay white poet, published by a gay white contemporary from Cambridge who was easily monied, descending from landed gentry, the pair of them part of the "horrible, toxic, racist, complacent, inbred, white supremacist homosexual world of high poetry" (Brixton, Ch 4) While the author's past is represented by the industrial proletariat, his present and future are worlds where there are few shop assistants or warehouse workers or lorry drivers, or even research scientists and engineers; everyone he knows now is creative or academic. 

The author is very good at capturing the speech patterns of different dialects but too many of the dialogues are dominated by speeches in which the characters represent points of view as if this novel is a sociological essay. These moments undermine the authentic feel of the rest of the novel. Perhaps in the author's world people really do speak so coherently but not in mine.

I felt too often I was being preached at, rather than being captivated by the story.

Selected quotes:

• "I don’t know this about England when I did back in Jamaica, but they have this whole spread, thick like lard pon bread, of people who can’t read, can’t talk good, scratch themselves up like dog with flea, don’t understand a thing about life outside their own head, but think they can call me nigger, darkie, coon, gorilla, tell me to go back to my own country where I belong and stop steal their sunlight – I don’t have enough back in the jungle?" (Swan Village July 20, 1959)
• ‘I don’t want to get better at suffering, Norman. I want to be happy."  (Swan Village July 20, 1959)
• "I don’t like this world. I can’t go to church when God make me humiliate so"  (Swan Village July 20, 1959)
• "Two evangelists, both mic’ed up, competed with each other over dub basslines at the station’s mouth." (Great Bridge August 2, 2002, Ch 1)
• "Johnny was scrubbing his cup as if an alien’s tongue had rimmed it" (Great Bridge September 19, 2001 Ch 4)
• "He recognised that if he was a tall, blond white boy, everything would have been different." (Great Bridge September 19, 2001 Ch 4)
• "He had thought of himself as a blond white boy all his life. He’d never thought of himself as a black boy, or compared himself to other black people." (Great Bridge September 19, 2001 Ch 4)
• "He knew he would have to spend the rest of his life convincing people that he wasn’t too black." (Great Bridge September 19, 2001 Ch 4)
• "‘So you’m part o’ the furniture, then?’ ‘The squashy old sofa. Or the vintage slot machine, take your pick,’" (Earl's Court, May 4, 2002 Ch 1)
• "Jesse realised he’d spent much of his life learning what it was to be a black man from white men. You’re like a black boy trying to be a white boy trying to be a black boy." (Earl's Court, May 4, 2002 Ch 2)
• "The bright morning, even if it wasn’t sunny, pursued him like paparazzi." (Earl's Court, May 4, 2002 Ch 3)
• "Graham wasn’t even really a football fan anyway, which put him in a minority of one among the Brothers of the congregation, who, even while they quoted scriptures warning against idolatry, were openly worshipful of the Baggies’ Number 9." (Earl's Court, May 4, 2002 Ch 3)
• "His smile had the capacity to convey every intention and emotion, and had faded slightly, transmitting concern." (Bruce Grove, December 25, 2002, Ch1)
• "He had never prayed, anyway, not really. He said words in his head but could not believe he was speaking to a real being, who was actively listening. As far as he was concerned, a conversation had to be between at least two voices; otherwise he was talking to himself, and he was not mad." (Bruce Grove, December 25, 2002, Ch1)
• "He’d found someone who could love him, whom he’d be willingly led by if he was blind." (Bruce Grove, December 25, 2002, Ch4)

A fascinating, bitter, portrayal of a segment of contemporary London life. August 2021

At one stage Mendez references, as novels portraying black life in England in the middle to later part of the twentieth century, Small Island by Andrea Levy and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon. Both these work better as novels. He also references the unutterably superb Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, which is about a young man whose upbringing conflicts with his homosexual desires. 

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Horned Helmet" by Henry Treece

 A Viking story, very similar to Treece's Viking's Dawn. Beorn, an orphaned Icelander, is 'adopted' by Vikings and grows up sharing the hardships of the Viking way of life. It's all about being a man and fighting bravely and ensuring that you face death with a smile.  Little thought is given to the lives of those who suffer these predatory sea-borne brigands. It is written in the style of the sagas and includes incidents from them and genuine period poetry. 

But there are moments when Treece encapsulates profundities in just a few words. For that, he must be reckoned a great writer.

Selected quotes:

• "Greek ... was like trying to read the thorns in a bush." (Ch 4)
• "But it is against the will of the gods to let a man's days run too smoothly with laughter. It is the sort of pattern they will not weave, even though warp and weft seem set to pass the cloth out clean from the loom." (Ch 11)
• "Though he was older now, he had known more mealtimes than meals in the time since he had left Iceland." (Ch 13)
• "Five times he was closer to death than the shod foot is to earth." (Ch 13)
• "If this place is too quiet for you, then you must do what many young hounds do, and go sniffing the hedgerows for yourself." (Ch 13)

A very boyish boys' own adventure. August 2021; 122 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

Also by Henry Treece

• The Viking trilogy: Viking's Dawn ,  The Road to Miklagard, and Viking's Sunset
• Legions of the Eagle: Romano-British adventure
• The Golden Strangers: A story from prehistory

"Death from a Shetland Cliff" by Marsali Taylor

 Another murder mystery to be solved by intrepid Shetland sailor Cass Lynch and her policeman boyfriend DI Gavin Macrae. Cass looks after Tamar, an elderly lady, discharged from hospital after a fall, at her remote croft. The vultures gather from near and far (London and even New Zealand). Some want Tamar to leave her the croft. Others are chasing the rumour that one of Tamar's relatives might be an (illegitimate but, under Scottish law, full) heir to the estate of the laird. Has Tamar got something that thieves want? And what is hidden in the container near the jetty? 

Death provokes further questions. Why did the man fall to his death from the nearby cliff? And when further deaths occur: what happened and why?

As it happened, for once, I was ahead of Cass every step of the way. But it didn't matter. I love these books not for the puzzles they pose, though that is an essential ingredient of all good whodunnits, and not for the inevitably nail-biting finish at the end, but for the quality of the writing, the perfectly-drawn characters, the insight into Shetland life, and the lyrical descriptions of sailing and scenery. 

Selected quotes:

• "Given that I’d lived on a series of boats for the last fifteen years, since I was sixteen, I didn’t see why just being female qualified me for the post of Chief Inspector of Housework" (Ch 1)
• "A brown Shetland wren landed on the drystone dyke that enclosed it, bobbed at us, chittered indignantly, then flew into a cranny between two grey-lichened stones." (Ch 1)
• "The stairs were best grade traditional crofthouse, with a gradient similar to a ladder’s, going straight up between wooden walls." (Ch 1)
• "I was still wary of large animals that had a bite at one end and a kick at the other." (Ch 1)
• "The gold flush along the bottom of the eastern cumulus faded to grey, and the clouds jostled over the sun, leaving only a chink of bright sky." (Ch 2)
• "Outside, the wind had fallen to a cold breath on my bare arm. The sky was not yet dark; there was a band of lavender along the horizon, shading up to creamy-blue that gradually deepened to indigo. Three stars glittered. Even as I watched, the lavender darkened to heather purple." (Ch 2)
• "Her eyes seemed too big, green searchlights seeking out other people’s frailties." (Ch 5)
• "She paused, and tilted her head towards the guest bedroom. ‘No sign of life from there. Probably doesn’t know there is a morning.’" (Ch 6)
• "Loretta had copied the short, flicked-back haircut, and walked as if she expected people to bring her flowers as she passed." (Ch 7)
• "I felt my inner socialist welling up." (Ch 11)
• "I wouldn’t keep trying to have my butter and the money for it" (Ch 15)
• “Why on earth,” I told her, “would he carry poison round with him in his backpack when he’s just coming to redd up kin? It’s a bit overly for a first meeting.”’ (Ch 17)
• "Dealing with disturbed people’s all in a day’s work for Superplod." (Ch 24)

This is a crime novel by a writer at the very top of her game.

August 2021

The brilliant books in this series, in order, include:

• Death on a Longship
• The Trowie Mound Murders
• A Handful of Ash
• The Body in the Bracken
• Ghosts of the Vikings
• Death in Shetland Waters
• Death on a Shetland Isle
• Death from a Shetland Cliff

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"The Floating Church" by Alexandra Peel

This delightfully charming novella is set in the Spring of 1603. In the opening chapter we are introduced to the villagers of Hope Ghyll, through the eyes of narrator and principal protagonist Susanna, an innocent girl fast approaching womanhood who goes to the woods to confide in her doll and idol, 'Oak Tree Jesus', telling him all her dreams, from becoming May Queen to kissing the dreamy-looking James Joseph. But growing-up has its dangers and its consequences.

I'm not an expert on this period but to me the details and the descriptions and the dialogue seemed pitch perfect. At the start of the book the countryside is idyllic: the villagers work together and live together in a close-knit but tolerant co-dependence; Susanna is happy to be surrounded by her kith and kin and comforted by the certainty of the village traditions. But change cannot be prevented. A new preacher arrives, who challenges the easy paganism of village life. And Susanna's own longings prove disruptive too. With the dreadful inevitability of a gathering storm, clouds loom on the horizon. Tragedy, when it strikes, is terrible.

The plot is perfectly paced (the May day celebration, half way through, is the turning point) and the prose is lyrical. The writing seems simple and effortless which is a testament to the writer's skill. 

Some selected quotes:

• "And if there was one thing John Assheby was, it was certain."
• "The white thing lay across a large rock, soaked through, plastered to the stone like a second skin. One sleeve trailed into the water, whilst the other lay across its own body. The watery arm wafted back and forth waving to her."
• "The abandoned parson’s house where an apple tree wrapped its branches around one corner of the roof, as a parent embracing a child."
• "James, simply thinking his name made her sigh with bliss, would come home tomorrow. Perhaps."
• "Moths were a sign of death, and it was unlucky to kill them."
• "The road rose uphill to the church and cemetery and climbed from there at a rate Tom Ballard's mare and even John Baker's donkeys struggled to ascend. She remembered her father once comparing it to the long climb to Heaven, but Heaven was a steeper journey, no doubt."
• "If I had looked in more windows before marrying, tried the goods, well...who knows how things might have turned out.”

A simple tale, beautifully told. Magnificent. August 2021.

Alexandra Peel has also written:

• Beneath the Skin: a steampunk adventure in two parts:
• Where Sleeps the Serpent
• The Song of the Nightingale 
• The Life and Crimes of Lockhart & Doppler: another steampunk novel

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"August-Lost" by R G Vaughan

 Whodunnit meets horror in this page-turning read. An incredibly sinister Painter with a obsessively Gothic approach to art. A policeman, psychologically damaged by the repercussions of a murder in his youth. An arranger suffering from a terrible trauma in childhood.

The super-creepy chapter one reminded me of Portrait of a Man by George Perec, a fantastic book that deserves to be better known. The 'fiendish painter' chapters were the very best moments in 'August-Lost'. The twist in which that portrait is revealed was very clever.

It is hard to write original detective literature but this book manages this by getting inside the 'office politics' of the chain of command. This added a dimension. Furthermore, the crippled psyche of the lead detective went far beyond the usual 'disgruntled detective with a failed marriage, a booze habit and a secret in the past'. I think I would have preferred the back story of this character drip-fed to me rather than given en bloc but he was certainly a neatly ambiguous figure and the provenance of his detecting abilities out-Sherlocked Sherlock. 

After the audacious twist in the penultimate chapter, I thought we were on the homeward run. To provide yet another twist demanded some extremely careful writing. This was provided, and the book kept me guessing to the last page.

Selected quotes:

• "The stale smell of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana lingered in the air and battled for supremacy over thick body odour. The house of three undomesticated men sat on his taste buds, and with every breath, a new flavour trickled down the back of his throat." (Ch 2)
• "Thanks to the odour of man still lingering in his nose, he guessed the shower saw few willing customers." (Ch 2)
• "She could put a typical alpha male in his place with a few choice words." (Ch 3)
• "He was built to play any sport that would benefit from hitting things hard." (Ch 3)
• "Bringing in several files and a big, nervous smile, she took a seat with more uncertainty than usual" (Ch 4)
• "The sterile smell of the hospital’s corridors sold the illusion of cleanliness and wellbeing." (Ch 8)

Clever plotting, some memorable characters and some genuinely spine-chilling moments. I look forward to the sequel.

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Castlereagh" by John Bew

 A huge and exhaustive scholarly biography of one of Britain's most influential politicians never to become Prime Minister. 

Castlereagh was born into the protestant landed elite of Ireland; his father soon became Lord Londonderry. After a year in Cambridge, the young Viscount became an MP in the Irish parliament; his career there ended when he fostered the Act of Union which abolished it on which he transferred to the UK parliament. As a protege of Pitt he soon rose through the Tory ranks and eventually became Foreign Secretary during the last few years of the Napoleonic Wars and, crucially, at the Congress of Vienna that determined the shape of much of Europe from 1815 until the end of the First World War. Seven years after that triumph he suddenly (in about a fortnight, it seems) became weary, paranoid and he finally committed suicide by cutting his throat.

His reputation, which is probably unfair, then and still, is of a right-wing reactionary. Bew spends a lot of time and amasses what I feel is significant evidence to counter this. 

To be honest, the biography that would have had me riveted was that of Castlereagh's younger brother Charles who, as well as being an aide to Wellington in the Peninsula campaign and sending letters to his brother undermining his boss, was a bit of a ladies man for whom the Congress of Vienna was the perfect opportunity for, well, congress. His conquests included one of Wellington's nieces, a Russian princess and the former mistress of Metternich; he also paid multiple visits to the local brothels, Later, while investigating the infidelities of Princess Caroline so that the Prince Regent could get a divorce (set a thief to catch a thief?) he bought a fake Titian for £1200 and suffered the humiliation of having the small son of his listress tell him that the man they had met in the street "comes to Mama when you go away". The fact that one of his amours turned out to be a spy was almost incidental. Later, back in England, he was ejected from the bedroom of an 18-year-old heiress (he was 38) by her governess, though, to be fair, he did go on to marry her. So much more colourful than his monochrome brother.

As usual I have quibbles about the use of foreign expressions without translation. Castlereagh is more than once described as having "mauvaise honte": it is French for bashfulness. Chapter 15 is entitled "A Lavaterian Eye": this relates to Johann Lavater (1741 - 1801) a Swiss theologian and physiognomist who popularised the belief that a person's character could be read from their face. If I, as a Doctor of Philosophy, need Google to understand a book, then it seems safe to conclude that it is not written for the general reader. The biography of Robert Peel, a younger contemporary of Castlereagh, by Douglas Hurd that I read recently was rather better written. 

There seem to me to be a few mistakes. In Chapter 2.19 Bew says that Spenser Perceval was "gunned down in the chamber of the Commons" when all other sources say it was in the lobby. In Chapter 2.20 he describes the ruler of the Prussians as an Emperor rather than a King. In Chapter 3.10 Castlereagh wears a "Whig".

Selected quotes:

• "All the genius and capacity to be found in the world are produced by that class of men who must study or be starved" (Lord Camden; Ch 1.4)
• "Castlereagh also expressed the view that all revolutions ... had been caused by 'the obstinacy with which government in all countries has opposed itself to every alteration in  the constitution'." (Ch 1,6)
• "Jerusalem Whalley ... had once walked from Dublin to the Holy City to play Eton Fives against the ancient walls for a wager." (Ch 1.17)
• "the most poignant of regrets, the remorse for a crime committed in vain." (Ch 1.17; after Samuel Johnson)

When Castelereagh went to the continent at the end of 1813 to negotiate with the allies he travelled in HMS Erebus, whose own biography I read recently.

Authoritative but lengthy and rather heavy going.

August 2021; 587 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Viking's Sunset" by Henry Treece

Harald Sigurdson, whose Viking career has already been chronicled in Viking's Dawn and The Road to Miklagard, sets of on a voyage to revenge himself on a renegade Viking who has looted and burned Harald's own village. With his best mate Giant Grummoch and a crew of characters, he chases northwards to becomes the first Viking to visit Greenland and live with the Inuit; they then voyage on to North America.

As with the other books, this is concerned with bravery in battle and manliness. Cowardice and weakness are despised. Meeting a good death is everything. Women must stay at home, keep house and bring up children. It is a sobering reminder of the mindset not only of the Vikings but of writers for children as recently as 1960.

Some moments:

• "Thorfinn said, 'A poet must live, Harald'. Gudbrod said, 'Why'?" (Ch 10)
• "Before death, man stands alone, and no one may comfort him." (Ch 23)

A very macho boys' adventure story. August 2021; 176 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

Also by Henry Treece

• Horned Helmet: more Vikings
• Legions of the Eagle: Romano-British adventure
• The Golden Strangers: A story from prehistory

"The Road to Miklagard" by Henry Treece

 The sequel to Viking's Dawn.

Harald Sigurdson sets off a-viking in charge of his own ship. He travels to Ireland, seeking fabled treasure. Battles and adventures ensue. With a variety of companions including Haro, Radbard and Giant Grummoch, Harald's travels take him to Jebel Tarik (Gibraltar) and thence to Miklagard (the Viking name for Byzantium, also known as Constantinople, now Istanbul). 

This is a classic picaresque except that the main character is not a humorous trickster who survives on his wits but a defiant fighter whose main strategy is to threaten and bluster. Strangely, this seems to work. He is, perhaps, a typical Viking hero but I found him charmless.

There is a great deal of action in this book which presumably appealed to the young me (I first read this book as a pre-teen). The chronology moves in spurts: some days are treated in great detail, in other places weeks pass in a paragraph. This made the narrative feel jumpy and the adult me thought that much of the story was treated superficially. This, combined with my adult reaction to the character, made me rather indifferent to the story.

But I loved it as a kid!

One magic moment:

• "The black beetle climbs up the table-leg, but there is a hand waiting to crush him when he reaches the top." (Ch 8)

This book is followed by the third in the trilogy: Viking's Sunset.

A fast-paced adventure story for boys' a quick and easy read. August 2021; 223 pages

Other books by Henry Treece:

• Horned Helmet: more Vikings
• Legions of the Eagle: Romano-British adventure
• The Golden Strangers: A story from prehistory

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Viking's Dawn" by Henry Treece

 The first part of a trilogy, this book follows the adventures of Harald Sigurdson, apprentice Viking, as he sails under Thorkell on the ship Nameless. They seek to steal treasure from other ships and coastal communities (this is a children's book so there is no rape) but they pay for it with the death of some of their comrades. There's a lot of death. There is treachery but there is also honour among thieves. There is also a lot of superstition: they take a treasure which is cursed and brings bad luck, two men meet one another in their dreams, there are monks and druids. 

Classically paced, the first quarter of the book takes place before the ship is launched, Harald's first killing is just after the half-way mark, and they meet the Christian holy man who will play a significant part in the climax at the three-quarters mark.

The hero is a young man thirsting for glory and fiercely loyal to his leader. One would hope that the character would develop over the course of the book as a result of some fairly traumatic experiences, but Harald is a hero to the end.

Many of the myths of the Vikings on which this book relies (eg that they wore horned helmets into battle) has been disputed. The book rather glamorises the Viking way of life.

Is it suitable for a children's book? Treece's Vikings are amoral, seeing might as right and stealing what they can. There is a lot of killing and a lot of death and these are lightly born: the general feeling being that the point of life is to have a 'good' death, preferably in battle. I suppose that may accurately reflect the attitude of people for whom life was full of unexpected death, in whose face they were relatively powerless: "You are but an ant crawling on a hunter's boot. That boot may carry you a long distance and you will think that life is good to you. Or it may crush you, then you will know no more." (Ch 5). It may also reflect the attitude of the time: it was written in 1955 so it probably reflects the attitudes of a man who served in World War II, though Treece was an RAF Intelligence officer rather than a soldier.

It is a classic boys' adventure story, almost devoid of women except as home-makers, but nowadays one might question what the subtext is. For example: "Ships be like any other creature. Show them who is master and they will obey; but once let them have the upper hand and they will run wild and break their backs in rebellion." (Ch 6)

Great moments:

• "Life is never sure, Harald. Whichever way a man turns, he thinks he might have done better to take the other path." (Ch 1)
• "A man who is troubled in his mind might bite and do hurt without intending it." (Ch 6)
• "These were old vikings, who knew the sea as a friend, an enemy, a grave." (Ch 6)

An easy read. August 2020; 176 pages

The series continues with:

• The Road to Miklagard
• Viking's Sunset

Also by Henry Treece

• Horned Helmet: more Vikings
• Legions of the Eagle: Romano-British adventure
• The Golden Strangers: A story from prehistory

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Travelling without moving" by Nathan Jones

 Napalm Erroneous Carton (all the characters have fabulous names, my favourite being Flip Zide, the DJ) lives in Kaputt, a dome world run by Main Computer and largely powered by clockwork. Of all the inhabitants of Kaputt, only he seems able to see the mechanisms by which the world is run: the clockwork lamp that is the sun, the hatches in the sky. 

A brilliant student at the Omniversity, Napalm has manufactured hallucinogenic drugs which enable the takers to collaborate in virtual reality games. He hopes to use these games to find a door to the outside of the dome; his friends hope to use the games to make money. But there is another party interested in hijacking the games: is it ThinkDom, the scientific establishment, MC the Main Computer itself, or Hue, Napalm's identical twin and nemesis?

So we have a variety of levels of reality: the (illusory) reality of the hallucinogenic drugs, the (illusory) reality of the game and the (illusory) reality of the computer-controlled dome to mention just three. Can increasingly drug-addled Nathan work out which is the truth?

This book is hugely ambitious in its conception and there is a large cast and a tortuous plot, and I admit to sometimes getting confused, especially given the shifting chronology of the story. But this is a book with wonderfully weird characters.  The core characters are Napalm's group of omniversity friends. These were perfectly drawn: I know students like these: "think fame and pussy, Liquid, fame and pussy." (C 2). Even more fabulously, there are literally fantastically baroque settings. I loved the fact that every colour has an emotion: eg Vigilance-orange, loathing-purple, angry-red. 

The book reminded me of Veniss Underground by Jeff Vandermeer, though with more humour, or the cult novel Dhalgren by Samuel R Delaney. 

I love the descriptions which can be vertiginously over the top but contain a wry downbeat of humour:

• "The smell was awful, chemically floral with undertones of urine." (C 1)
• "Mellow, mid-tempo beats drifted from wall-mounted smart-speakers; Mokey’s pride and joy, imported from The Americas, and again, a gift from Cloche.  Hoodoo-powered, mass-produced crap in his opinion. They reliably misjudged a room’s mood with impeccable timing, like bursting into jazz when someone delivered bad news, or wailing out the blues when you were close to orgasm." (C 2)
• "Bleary-eyed tourists and a slow downhill trudge of overalled locals placed the clock at far too early to care." (C 5)
• "Many of the Dravidian and Sumerian floors of Kaywan redefined filthy. They mugged filthy. Wiped their arse with it, passed it through a blender, imbibed it, and pissed it all over the walls." (C 15)
• "The whiff of breakfast, sizzling in skillets, teased Napalm's nostrils. Dustmen brushed another night’s muck into the gutters as they passed tipplers, topplers, spinouts, grinners and gooners, bumping and mumbling their way down The Spiral to the tune of the last few desperate hollers of colour peddlers." (C 29)

It was this quality of the prose, often as lush and tangled as a rain-forest but always hacked down with the machete of humour, that I most loved about this book.

More memorable moments:

• "He and Mokey were now exiting the cage of lies they existed within as ghosts of their true selves, and were entering into a dreamlike purgatory, a passage formed of his imagination, colours, delusions, and desires. And something else." (C 1)
• "Sunday shone in thick beams through NewRome’s crumbling arches." (C 8)
• "Earth’s skies hung loathing-purple, exactly as reported, except the shade was licked with heavy grief, and the vigilance-orange desert was flecked with rage." (C 8)
• "Napalm felt better. Better, better. One hundred and ten per cent better. No, one hundred and fifty. Instantly revitalised, invigorated, focused, and sharp as a knight’s pike. He felt real, in the realest sense of real, centred on the moment and bio-alchemically maxed. The flexible joints of a ten-year-old, the overflowing spunk of a teenager, the heart of an athlete. He rolled his shoulders, enjoying the satisfying chorography of renewed muscle." (C 13)
• "Curiosity and Hue’s buzz had him horny for whatever game was afoot, but he still understood that bravery and stupidity shared a bed." (C 13)
• "I guess I’m ready for a debriefing, even though I still don’t know what that bloody means, but I am not taking my pants off." (C 18)
• "Going with the flow had taken him nowhere, because the flow wasn’t his anymore." (C 21)
• "The cherry on the cake, of course, was that he had finally attained his dream and stepped through the door, to the place beyond, the final destination or the next step, the escape, transcendence, reality, whatever, and all he’d found was a new shade of hokum, but he couldn’t give a toss." (C 21)
• "The suspected lab coat looked more like a fetishist’s dress-coat-type-thing, something to be worn over kinky underwear, or nothing at all." (C 21)
• "Winners in commerce required much larger sections of the tribe to live and serve as lowly workers" (C 24)
• "It tasted old.  Not rotten old, but the cared-for old of a well-aged cheese." (C 27)
• "The epitome of Twig’s inspired wonderland hung motionless in deep space. A hollow, geometric webwork of tied, nailed, and glued scrapyard trash floated in a backdrop of impossibly dense, twirling galaxies and glinting stars, the illusion so complete the void of space continued seamlessly around the entrance doors’ perimeter. The whole place thrummed, the scent of grease and metal carried on Flip’s musical output." (C 27)
• "Do you really think the winding of a small key can run a vehicle or an elevator?’ ‘Always wondered about that,’ Ranks said. ‘It’s the pulley effect,’ Napalm explained, already doubting his knowledge." (C 29)
• "Hue was more full of shit than the gutters" (C 29)

A hugely enjoyable read. This is an author with a definite voice. I am looking forward to his next novel.

August 2021

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"The Personal History of Samuel Johnson" by Christopher Hibbert

 Samuel Johnson left Pembroke College without a degree (much later in life he received an honorary LLD and is therefore known as Doctor Johnson) and did hack-work in Fleet Street in the 1740s and 1750s. He is most remembered for compiling an early English dictionary and for the biography written by Boswell. He was the centre of the coffee-house culture of the time and was often to be found at a coffee house or a tavern engaged in ferocious argumentation with his friends, who included the actor David Garrick (a friend from Lichfield whom Johnson had once taught) and the novelist and playwright Oliver Goldsmith. 

The biography shows Johnson to have been a domineering boor. He was arrogant and often insulted those who disagreed with him. He was greedy, eating up to sixteen peaches a day and drinking up to twenty-five cups of tea at a sitting. He frequently sponged off his friends; he rarely showed gratitude and seems to have taken the attitude that they were lucky to pay for the pleasure of his company. Nevertheless, they seemed to adore him for his eloquence and (sometimes rather heavy-handed) wit; he was a conversational genius (but at the same time a prima donna). 

He does seem to have suffered from something that might be akin to bipolar syndrome and might have similarities with Tourettes (he constantly fidgeted although he seems to have been in control of his language).

This a well-written warts-and-all portrait of a rather unpleasant man. 

Quoted from Johnson:

• "Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves." (C 7)

Quotes from the book:

• "Sam's knowledge was not gained easily, for he was incorrigibly, constitutionally lazy." (C 1)
• "The impression of idiocy he made upon some strangers was emphasised by his convulsive restlessness." (C 1)
• "Edward Cave ... was ... the son of a cobbler, he had been expelled from Rugby Grammar School for robbing the headmaster's wife's hen-roost." (C 2)
• "He had never liked vapid women with no opinions of their own; they had softness, he agreed, but so had pillows. Being married to such a sleepy-souled woman would be just like playing at cards for nothing. Honeysuckle wives were, after all, creepers at best, and commonly destroyed the trees they so tenderly clung to." (C 2)
• "He delighted in the use of difficult or antiquated words." (C 3)
• "He enjoyed being in a coach because he was assured of companionship there, the other passengers were shut in  with him and could not escape as they could out of a room." (C 10)
• "He strongly denied that some scoundrels made a lot of money by begging; the trade was far too overstocked for that." (C 13)
• "When asked if he did not really think he would start just in the way that Garrick did if he saw a ghost himself, Johnson had immediately replied, 'I hope not. If I did, I should frighten the ghost'." (C 14)

August 2021; 315 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"From the Holy Mountain" by William Dalrymple

 In the mid 1990s, Dalrymple sets off from Mount Athos, the autonomous theocratic collection of monasteries in Greece, to follow the route of John Moschos a Byzantine monk who, in 587, travelled through the Byzantine empire, through Anatolia and the Syrian-Lebanese-Palestinian coast into Egypt.

The modern journey, set before the more recent Syrian civil war, chronicles the plight of the Eastern Christians of a variety of persuasions (including Armenians, Maronites and Copts), a community with roots dating back to the Apostles, who are persecuted by the more recently introduced inhabitants of the various lands: the increasingly Islamist Turks, the non-Maronite communities following Lebanon's civil war, the Israeli government and the West Bank settlers, and the increasingly Islamist Egyptians. The complaint throughout is of neglect from governments and persecution from religious terrorists leading to mass emigration and dwindling communities facing extinction.

Clearly things have changed. Dalrymple's Lebanon is newly recovering from civil war, Syria, the country in which Dalrymple finds most harmony, has fallen in war and anarchy, in Egypt Mubarak has been toppled. Yet one suspects that the beleaguered communities, many of them making the point that they were inhabiting their villages before the arrival of the Ottomans, or the Moslems, or the Jews, are probably still persecuted. If they still exist.

He repeatedly makes the point that there was (usually) more tolerance in the past. In the monastery of Mar Gabriel, in Tur Abdin, a 1600-year-old Syriac monastery in Turkey close to its border with Syria, he witnesses Christians worshipping prostrate, as Moslems do now: "exactly the form of worship described by Moschos in The Spiritual Meadow ... the Muslims appear to have derived their techniques of worship from existing Christian practice." (2)

It is rather depressing. But the sadness is offset by some wonderful descriptions, some bizarre characters (especially many of the monks encountered) and by incisive observations. 

Many, many memorable moments:

• Descriptions:
• "I ate breakfast in a vast Viennese ballroom with a sprung wooden floor and dadoes dripping with recently applied gilt. The lift is a giant baroque birdcage, entered through a rainforest of potted palms." (2)
• "The yellow glow of the sulphurous streetlights silhouettes the city's skyline" (2)
• "When you think of the French Romanesque ... you are left with an impression of teeming life: biting beasts entwined around capitals; tympana crowded with the Twenty-Four Elders of the Apocalypse busily fiddling on their viols; angels blowing the Last Trump; the dead resurrecting, emerging like uncurling crustaceans from their sarcophagi." (3)
• "A cortege of elderly priests conducted the service, accompanied by a string of echoing laments of almost unearthly beauty, sinuous alleluias which floated with the gentle indecision of falling feathers down arpeggios of dying cadences before losing themselves in a soft black hole of basso profundo." (3)

• Observations:
• "As the Byzantine writer Cecaumenus put it: 'Houseparties are a mistake, for guests merely criticise your housekeeping and attempt to seduce your wife." (1)
• "What has most moved past generations can today sometimes only be tentatively glimpsed with the eye of faith." (2)
• "Those who are content to live in sin do not suffer from the temptations of the Devil so badly as those who try to live with God." (4)
• "Just as it is impossible to see your face in troubled water, so also the soul ... It is like two lovers. If they want to discuss their love they want to be alone." (4)
• "Being a hermit was like being a fire. At first it smokes and your eyes water, but ... after the smoke disperses, the light and the heat comes." (4)
• "I am the policeman of my soul. Demons are like criminals. Both are very stupid. Both are damned." (5)
• Others
• "Three years ago, in the middle of winter, some raiders turned up in motorboats ... They had Sten guns and were assisted by an ex-novice who had been thrown out by the Abbot." (1)
• "The hotel has a policy of naming its bedrooms after distinguished guests, which has unconsciously acted as a graph of its dramatic post-war decline: from before the war you cab choose to sleep in Ataturk, Mata Hari or King Zog of Albania; after it there is nothing more exciting on offer than Julio Iglesias." (2)
• "Relics were holes in the curtain wall separating the human from the divine." (2)
• "Gregory the Great always used to recommend making the sign of the cross over a lettuce in case you swallowed a demon that happened to be perched on its leaves." (2)
• "The dust from his clothes was more powerful than roasted crocodile, camel dung, or Bithnyian cheese mixed with wax - apparently the usual contents of a Byzantine doctor's medicine chest." (2)
• "Theodore, the seventh Archbishop of Canterbury, was a Byzantine from Tarsus who had studied at Antioch and visited Edessa; his surviving Biblical commentaries, written in England, show the extent to which he brought the teaching of the School of Antioch and an awareness of Syriac literature to the far shores of Anglo-Saxon Kent." (2)
• "You don't understand the police here. You think they are like the English policemen we see on the television, the fat man with the blue hat, the little stick in his hand and the old bicycle." (2)
• "It was from the Nestorian school of Nisibis - via Morrish Cordoba - that many of the works of Aristotle and Plato eventually reached the new universities of medieval Europe." (30
• "Yezidis ... and iraqi sect ... they're devil-propitiators ... They call Lucifer 'Malik Yawus', the Peacock Angel, and offer sacrifices to keep him happy. They believe Lucifer, the Devil, has been forgiven by God and reinstated as Chief Angel, supervising the day-to-day running of the world's affairs ... they get on with the Nestorians ... very well ... Some people believe that the Yezidis were originally a sort of strange Gnostic offshoot of the Nestorian church." (3)
• "The Fount of Knowledge [by John Damascene] contains an extremely precise and detailed critique of Islam, which, intriguingly, John regards as a form of Christian heresy closely related to Arianism (after all, like Islam, Arianism denied the divinity of Christ)." (5)
• "Sounding sincere in one's appreciation of the monks' culinary abilities was a task that needed advanced acting skills." (5)
• "In all the Byzantine sites excavated in Palestine and Jordan only two lavatories have ever been discovered, and one of those was located directly over a monastic kitchen." (5)
• "It was the custom in [early CE] Egypt to bury those who could afford it in mummy cases onto which were bound superb encaustic (hot wax) portraits of the disease ... the oldest icons in existence are to be found in St Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai ... they are painted in the same encaustic technique." (6)
• "There are an extraordinary number of otherwise inexplicable similarities between the Celtic and Coptic Churches which were shared by no other  Western Chruches. In both, the bishops wore crowns rather than miters and held T-shaped Tau crosses rather than crooks or croziers. In both the handbell played a very prominent part in ritual." (6)
• "Since the Second World War it has rained only once in Kharga, for ten minutes, in the winter of 1959." (6)

A wise and beautifully written travelogue.

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

I have also read the following books by William Dalrymple:

• In Xanadu
• City of Djinns