"Magus" by Anthony Grafton

“This book traces the rise of learned magic, from its medieval origins to the synthesis that Agrippa created in 1533.” (Introduction)

I think it is written for the specialist rather than the general reader. I found it confusing. Part of the reason for this is the structure of the book: each chapter focuses on the work of one or more scholars, for example, Nicholas of Cusa, Roger Bacon, Pico della Mirandeola, Johannes Trimethius and Agrippa. This meant that the information on, for example, 'natural' magic was broken up as we considered, in turn, what each of these authorities felt about it. I gained the general sense that the issue facing each of them was how to distinguish 'natural' magic (which seemed to mean the marvellous effects that could be produced by science and engineering) which was somehow 'good' from the rest which were snares and delusions set by the devil and his demons. (I suppose this equates with the issue facing alchemy - usually just off-stage in this book - of how to distil what we now call chemistry from the dross of superstition.)

Other reasons I was confused was that sometimes the author seemed to expect me to know more than I did. For example, in chapter 3 he states: “The established Latin magical library came from polyglot sources: Jewish and Muslim but also Greek. Some texts, such as the Latin Picatrix, derived their contents from even more exotic quarters.” What were these 'more exotic quarters'? I wondered. Unfortunately, he doesn't say, nor could wikipedia help.  (107) [It does n’t say where, which is frustrating. Wikipedia suggests that it is primarily Arabic; it doesn’t suggest it goes any further than Arabic, German, Greek, Latin and perhaps some early Christian]

I got even more confused about a polyglot called Samuel bin Nissim Abulfaraj who was baptized as Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada and used the pen name Mithridates VI Eupator Dionysis of Pontus. Having given all these names, Grafton then refers to him without warning as ‘Flavius’. Grafton gives no clue as to the identity of Flavius. I had to resort to Google to discover that Flavius was the first name of Mithridates. 

Selected quotes:

• “The masters of the art of hydromancy ... believed that God had not created water since the Book of Genesis described the spirit of God as hovering over the waters.” (Ch 2)
• “‘Meeting monks is generally considered an evil omen, and all the more if it takes place in the morning. For that sort of man lives mostly from the charnel house, as vultures live off corpses.'" (Ch 5, quoting Agrippa)

Heavy-going.

July 2025; 219 pages

First published in 2023 by Harvard University Press, USA

My paperback edition was issued by Penguin Books in 2025

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

"Tripticks" by Ann Quin

From the start of the novel, the anonymous narrator is being pursued across America by his number one ex-wife and her schoolboy gigolo. Following a lot of flashbacks including his ex-wife's father and his other ex-wives in a series of scenes satirising everything from conspicuous consumption to wellness communes, the chase climaxes with the end of the novel. 

Written in 1972 and determinedly of its time. The typeface with its errors and the way the words were mixed with black and white images reminded me of one of the underground magazines that proliferated in those days. The prose style is a cascade of thoughts that feels like the author has streamed her consciousness directly onto the page. 

The author has a penchant for lists, for example (on pages 22 and 23): “Ah those cabinets of dreams. always the hero to the rescue of wonder women who were continually being molested by
giant lizards
snared by dissolute white slavers aboard a baroque submarine
enslaved in an Albanian bauxite mine
sacrificed by a sacred polar bear
cultivated by a mad fungologist
hostess to a tupperware party in Kew Gardens
slain by a blind zen archer"
... etc [This particular list continues for another 19 items]

There were hints of Angela Carter, for example The Passion of New Eve but mostly it reminded me tremendously (though without the cut-up technique) of a William Burroughs novel such as Naked Lunch or The Wild Boys. I've always enjoyed those and I always champion novels that attempt non-standard narratives. But I felt buried under Quin's avalanche of words and immensely wearied. I didn't enjoy the experience. It was hard work and I ended up skim-reading. So I doubt I have given the book sufficient care. I must have another go sometime. But not yet!

Almost at the end comes this line: “He so ignores the canons of construction that at times he seems involved in little more than an engagement in a shaggy-dog story.” (p 181) That rather expressed how I felt. Already, I had encountered the line: “Admit you are getting tired of the whole works.” (p 142) I was.

Nevertheless, I stayed awake enough to enjoy some pithy and witty observations:

• “The first time we made love it was like entering a self-supporting garden city combining bucolic charm with big-city nerve.” (p 58)
• “I thought your letter was slightly less penetrating than the mouse that attempted to fertilize the elephant.” (p 92)
• “You grow on me like cancer.” (p 108)
• “Women's Lib Chick. The hand that refuses to rock the cradle.” (p 142)

There were also one or two super descriptions of which my favourite was: “His face looked as if it had been slept in.” (p 188)

But on the other hand there were lines that seemed to value spontaneity over careful construction. For example: “As soon as he turned up on the scene our family life from then on turned from a semi-circular urn of intimacy, a kind of womb with seats where mother and I had nuzzled together so comfortably, into battle scenes played in a refrigerator.” (p 77) The start of the sentence is a mess, with two 'turned's and two 'from's. Even though we reach a wonderful final phrase, it needs work.

Other selected quotes

• “The man who doesn't reckon his pleasures on a silver platter is a fish who walks by night” (p 8)
• “Full of booze and passion for justice he sees himself as a law and ardour candidate." (p 9) I can't decide if this is clever or facile.
• “People rubbing people is always nice. People rubbing people with skill is an order of magnitude nicer.” (p 20)
• “When he bleeds, falls and dies, he does so in a beautifully obscene slow motion, a star swimmer in his own aquacade of blood.” (p 25) Love 'aquacade' 
• “Now I enjoy violence as much as the next guy, but enough is enough.” (p 26)
• “Her ears were sitars blown by my carved mouth.” (p 41) Is this profound or nonsense?
• “I believed in play now cry later.” (p 43)
• “I continually felt like the small boy who didn't get an invite the party and just wrote his own and went anyway.” (p 78)

Not worth the effort. 

July 2025; 192 pages.

First published in Ambit magazine and then by Calder and Boyars in 1972.

My paperback edition was issued in 2022 by And Other Stories

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

Notes:

On page 8 the narrator says “my belly is a Golden Poppy”. The Golden Poppy is the California state flower; it is also the name of a burger bar in Sweet Thursday, Steinbeck's sequel to Cannery Row.

Quin adored Virginia Woolf's The Waves, another book I found heavy going, but hated Jack Kerouac's On the Road. 

Quin also wrote: 

• Berg (1964)
• Three (1966)
• Passages (1969)

They're experimental but nothing like as off the wall as Tripticks.

"The Dumas Club" by Arturo Perez-Reverte

 

A murder mystery set in the world of book-collectors. 

Lucas Corso is an investigator for booksellers and bibliophiles. At moment he has two missions: firstly to authenticate some manuscript pages of chapter forty-two of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and secondly to track down the three extant copies of the Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows, a book of occult and esoteric knowledge which includes nine prints reproduced from a another book supposedly written by the devil himself. Corso travels from Spain to Sintra in Portugal and then to Paris. But his life appears to be in danger from a man with a scar, the double of d'Artagnan's adversary Rochefort, and Rochefort's accomplice Milady. And who is the strange girl who follows him: a guardian angel or something else?

The mystery is compounded by the fact that the three copies of 'Nine Doors' have illustrations which at first sight seem to be the same but on closer inspection contain differences that may or may not be significant. The present day story repeatedly harks back to the storyline of the 'Musketeers' and we also learn about occult literature. There some interesting twists at the end, although one had been heavily signalled (from the first paragraph of chapter one) with bookish references. 

It's an entertaining read but there was a lot about books and this rather overshadowed the mystery/ thriller element of the plot.

I did enjoy the self-confessed cowardice of the sidekick.

Also by this author: The Flanders Panel, a murder mystery set in the world of fine art.

Selected quotes:

• "Although I am narrating this story after the resolution of the momentous events to come, the very nature of the loop - think of Escher's paintings, or the work of that old joker, Bach - forces us to return continually to the beginning." (Ch 5)
• "It's Julian the Apostate crying, 'You have defeated me, Galileo'." (Ch 7)
• "The art of locking devils inside bottles or books is very ancient ... Gervase of Tilbury and Gerson both mentioned it in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As for pacts with the Devil, the tradition goes back even further: from the Book of Enoch to St Jeronimus, through the Cabbala and the Fathers of the Church." (Ch 10)
• "Like any intelligent being, the Devil likes games, riddles." (Ch 10)
• "In the real world many things happen by chance but in fiction nearly everything is logical." (Ch 14)

July 2025; 323 pages

First published in Spanish by Alfaguara in Madrid in 1993

My paperback edition (translated by Sonia Soto) was issued in 1996 by The Harvill Press

Filmed as 'The Ninth Gate' starring Johnny Depp and directed by Roman Polanski.

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

"Vernon Subutex" 2 by Virginie Despentes

The sequel to Vernon Subutex 1, the middle volume of the trilogy.

Spoiler alert. Having lost his record shop, Revolver, and his home, Vernon is still living on the streets of Paris, although this time by choice. His friends from VS1 have all offered him shelter (the Hyena even joined him in the shower to clean him up) and now meet him every evening, in the park and the nearby cafe-bar, to feed him and buy him drinks and look after him. There is a sense of a guru and his disciples: Vernon has dissociative hallucinatory moments and hugs even his enemies, bringing them inner peace, stripping away their alienation and bringing them into the group. Sometimes he acts as DJs and they all lose themselves in the dance.

Meanwhile, we discover what is on Alex Bleach's tapes. It's a revelation that persuades some of Vernon's followers to take direct action in a #MeToo subplot (although VS2 was written in 2015, two years before the #MeToo hashtag began to be used on social media). This subplot gives the book a more coherent narrative structure. Both VS1 and VS2 have a bricolage construction being made from a tag-team of internal dialogues, often rants, but while what appeared from VS1 was a collage portrait of Paris, VS2 has a sense of a story with a purpose.

The sequel inevitably has less shock value than the original, and this defocuses some of the energy, but this increased sense that we are going somewhere  has made me eager to read the final part of this fascinating and original trilogy. 

This is definitely a contender for my book of the year.

Selected quotes: (page numbers from the English ppbk edition)

• “No-one likes old people, not even their own children.” (25)
• “Men are supposed to just put up with things and not bleat about being sensitive. Everyone proceeds from the assumption that they're obviously up for it. No-one bothers to ask whether they mind having their balls busted all the time, same as no one gives a damn whether they are not they want to be fathers.” (63)
• “Just because you're prepared to sell your arse on the streets, doesn't mean you'll make your fortune doing it.” (65)
• “A lot of people claim that they grow wiser with age. The truth is that they shrivel, they slow down. They lose their importance. They get trapped in quicksand and sink in good faith.” (79)
• “What was he thinking, back then, that stopped him talking to his last friend when there was still time to grab his arm, shake him hard and say, let's make the most of it, mate, let's make the most of it while we're still alive.” (108)
• “We entered into rock music the way you enter a cathedral ... there were so many saints everywhere we didn't know who to worship ... we didn't give a fuck about heroes, all we cared about was that sound.” (109)
• “Money is much better than drugs. It's the same basic principle, but overwhelming. And people say there are no side effects.” (118)
• “Compliance quickly becomes the ability to look the other way when you walk past the slaughterhouse.” (120)
• “A mind like hers should not be denied books, nor prevented from embracing complexity on the pretext of following some obscurantist mumbo jumbo.” (137)
• “It's hard not to feel a bit sorry for old people. They act like they're still young. Except they’re shriveled and mouldy. ... They’re still living in the steam age when everyone else has moved to touch-screen.” (182)
• “She had thrown herself at him, like a third-world country at a sack of rice.” (198)
• “It is not a cock that makes a man but the impetuousness of his desire.” (220)
• “Gaelle feels like a light bulb on its last legs, when it starts to sputter, to warn that it is about to fail.” (226)
• “How does a guy who's likeable enough but a bit short of change when it comes to charisma turn himself into the Messiah of the Buttes-Chaumont? The guy is homeless, stinks of sweat and wears trailer trash boots, but everyone treats him like he’s baby Jesus if he'd skipped the bit with the cross, he's surrounded by dozens of Magi who bring him gifts every day.” (232)
• “When urban hipsters start dabbling in spirituality, you know shit’s going to get real.” (233)
• “To be happy in love, you have to make do with what’s on offer.” (258) 
• “Penelope ... she’s a girl. Which means she takes everything hyper-seriously. If he makes one of his dumb jokes, she goes ballistic. It's like she's paid by the PC brigade to make sure no one has any fucking fun.” (259)
• “He died for me too, didn't he? You think I get lumbered with my sins just because I'm a blowjob goddess?”

July 2025; 334 pages

First published in French by Editions Grasset and Pasquelle in 2015

My paperback edition, translated into English by Frank Wynne, was issued by Maclehose Press in 2018

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

Spoiler Alert: a detailed synopsis of the plot of Vernon Subutex 2
Vernon has been very ill. He had a high temperature. He was terrified that he would die. He has been cared for by Charles, a retired alcoholic who has won the lottery and uses the money to drink with the down and outs living, like Vernon, in the parc de Buttes-Chaumont in north Paris. 

Following his illness, he regularly experiences moments of hallucinatory dissociation.

Vernon's friends (Xavier, recovered from his coma, Patrice, Emile, Lydia Bazooka, tranny Daniel and porn star Pamela Kant) have all offered him a place to stay but he prefers living outside with fellow down-and-outs Olga and Laurent. For the moment he has disappeared again. 

Pamela Kant visits Emilie who realises at last that the tapes of Alex Bleach's last interview that Vernon left with her might be valuable but before she can hand them to the group they are stolen by the Hyena who has been working for Laurent Dopalet, the film producer. However, the Hyena (who is now having a lesbian affair with Dopalet's assistant Anais) decides to play the tapes for recently-found Vernon and his friends (including the Hyena's friend, devout moslem Aicha) and at last we discover what is on them. Alex claims that his ex-girlfriend, porn star Vodka Santana, Aicha's mother, had been raped by Dopalet and that when she threatened to expose him he had her murdered. Alex himself has been threatening to expose Dopalet (and now Alex too has died 'from a drug overdose'). 

Vernon goers back to the park but now his friends regularly meet him there and take him for a few drinks at the nearby bar-cafe. New disciples join, such as Aicha's father Selim, and have their angers and sadnesses and frustrations eased; they become reconciled within the group. Not all are certain. Xavier, who now owns a rescue dog, a poodle called Joyeux, has his doubts, but Vernon seems to lift the weight from his shoulders. Celeste the barmaid who also works as a tatooist (and met Vernon in VS1 when she told him she used to go to his record shop Revolver with her dad, a cop) is sceptical. 

But Celeste is recruited by Aicha to go to a lecture given by Dopalet's son, Antoine, and disrupt it by coughing. Celeste takes more direct action, going home with Antoine, sleeping with him, and scrawling graffiti over his walls before she leaves. But Antoine hates his father. When Dopalet dismissed Anais in front of him, Antoine follows her to the nightly meeting with Vernon (via a meeting with Gaelle who seduces Anais away from her lesbian affair with the Hyena) and is recruited to the group, telling Aicha and Celeste how to gain access to Dopalet's apartment. 

The girls go to Dopalet's apartment and terrorise him, tattooing his back with 'RAPIST' and 'MURDERER'. His interior dialogue reveals that he arranged for Vodka Santana, Aicha's mum, to service other powerful men and then, when she threatened to expose them, looked the other way when she was murdered. “She had no idea of the gravity of the threats she was making. Certain situations necessitate extraordinary solutions, there are brilliant careers that cannot be derailed over some vulgar sex scandal. He warned her. She persisted. She had left him no room to maneuver: he had to let his friends know what was happening. But, honestly, when some minor bigwig had said ‘alright, then, she's left us no choice,’ he had not understood. ... He had thought they might ask some Chinese gangster to break her leg. ... She had to be made to see reason. ... When they had asked him to arrange to meet Vodka Satana, he did so, and when he saw the suave playboy they had sent to chat her up ... he had felt reassured ... She had been found dead the next morning. Accidental overdose or suicide. There was nothing to prove it was anything other than a terrible coincidence.” (247)

Loic, the neo-Nazi who put Xavier in a coma, is heart-broken that his best friend Noel has broken up with him over a stupid joke he made. He has contacted Xavier to apologise (he adores the one film Xavier made; he even loved going to Revolver, Vernon's record shop). He becomes reconciled with Xavier and is taken to meet Pamela Kant (he adores porn too) and, despite himself, starts dancing as Vernon DJs. But the next day he is ambushed in the Metro by Noel and the other neo-Nazis. his ex-mates, and beaten to death.

The Hyena, afraid of Doplaet's power and revenge, has arranged that Celeste and Aicha disappear. She knows she will have to flee too. 

They all meet at Loic's funeral but few of them actually enter the church. Instead they end up in the bar opposite, toasting Loic with champagne, and starting an impormptu dancing session. 

The Vernon crowd is now in Corsica. They travel around France arranging 'ceremonies'. As for Vernon: “He is making them all dance.”

"Sweet Thursday" by John Steinbeck

The sequel to Cannery Row.

The intervention of the Second World War has changed things. Gay is dead. Lee Chong has sold the grocery (and, Mack fears, the deeds to the Palace Flophouse) to crooked Joseph and Mary. Dora has died and bequeathed the brothel to Fauna; a new girl called Suzy has joined the team of girls. Doc wants to contribute something to science but can't write the paper and his dissatisfaction with life casts a gloom over the Row. The general diagnosis is that he needs a dame. Is Suzy the one?

The characters are all there, the wise observations are all there, it is as funny as Cannery Row. Perhaps the main difference is that the plot is more prominent; the interchapters that made Cannery Row such an anarchic pleasure are fewer and further between. There seems to be less observation and more device. It's not such a great book as Cannery Row but that is like saying that Ben Jonson is not such a great writer as William Shakespeare. Sweet Thursday is hugely entertaining and the main newcomer, Suzy, is one helluva dame.

Selected quotes:

• “Mack could tell a ghost how to haunt a house.” (Prologue)
• “How few men like their work, their lives - how very few men like themselves.” (Ch 3)
• “The end of life is now not so terribly far away - you can see it's the way you see the finish line when you come into the stretch - and your mind says, ‘Have I worked enough? Have I eaten enough? Have I loved enough?’All of these, of course, are the foundation of man's greatest curse, and perhaps his greatest glory. ‘What has my life meant so far, and what can it mean in the time left to me ... What how I contributed in the Great Ledger? What am I worth? ... Men seem to be born with a depth they can never pay, no matter how hard they try. It piles up ahead of them. Man owes something to man.” (Ch 3)
• “What can a man accomplish that has not been done a million times before?” (Ch 3)
• “Doc threw himself into his work, hoping, the way a man will, to smother the unease with weariness.” (Ch 3)
• “It's always hard to start to concentrate. The mind darts like a chicken, trying to escape thinking even though thinking is the most rewarding function of man.” (Ch 6)
• “She had a fine walk, thigh and knee and ankle swinging free and proud, no jerk and totter the way so many women walked as they fell from step to step.” (Ch 6)
• “You never feel real good if you never been a sucker.” (Ch 7)
• “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn't necessarily a lie even if it didn't necessarily happen.” (Ch 8)
• “I want to take everything I've seen and thought and learned and reduce them and relate them and refine them until I have something of meaning, something of use.” (Ch 10)
• “It's a fact that if he's left alone a guy practically always marries the wrong kind of dame.” (Ch 11)
• “The injustice in the theory of private ownership of real estate was descending on them.” (Ch 14)
• “The delphiniums were like little openings in the sky.” (Ch 19)
• “There aren't many days like that anyplace. People treasure them. ... Old people sit looking off into the distance and remember inaccurately that the days of their youth were all like that. Horses roll in the green pastures on such a day and hens make a terrible sunny racket.” (Ch 19)
• “There ain't never been no dame went out first time with a guy she liked that wasn't scared.” (Ch 22)
• “You look back at every mess you ever got in and your find your tongue started it.” (Ch 22)
• “They ain't nobody was ever insulted by a question.” (Ch 22)
• “The nicest thing in the world you can do for anybody is let them help you.” (Ch 22)
• “Thing people like most in the world is to give you something and have you like it and need it.” (Ch 22)
• “He probably knows more secrets than any man in the community, for his martinis are a combination of Truth serum and lie detector. Veritas is not only in vino but regularly batters its way out.” (Ch 23)
• “S-l-o-w-ness - It gave meaning to everything. It made everything royal. She remembered how all the unsure and worried people she knew jumped and picked and jittered. Just doing everything slowly, forcing herself, she felt a new kind of security.” (Ch 23)
• “Of all our murky inventions, guilt is at once the most tedious, the most comic, the most painful. Was it planted by the group pressure of the tribe to keep the potentially dangerous individual off balance?” (Ch 30)
• “He watched life as a small boy watches a train go by - mouth open, breathing high and light, pleased, astonished, and a little confused.” (Ch 30)
• “Mack ... considered life hardly worse than a bad cold.” (Ch 30)
• “She has all the convictions of the uninformed ... not only sure for herself, but sure for everyone.” (Ch 33)

July 2025; 206 pages

First published in 1954 by William Heinemann

My Pan paperback edition issued in 1958

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

Books by Nobel Laureates reviewed in this blog can be found here.

A detailed synopsis of the plot

Doc is dissatisfied with life. He is experimenting on octopuses but he’s finding it impossible to write his paper. The other residents of the Row reckon he needs a dame.

There;s a new girl in town. Suzy joins the brothel, now run by Fauna, even though she isn't really cut out for that kind of job.

Fauna does Hazel's horoscope and predicts that his inescapable destiny is to become President of the United States. Eddie offers: ‘We’ve weathered some pretty bad ones.’ 

Mack realises that the Flophouse belonged to Lee Chong and then Lee Chong sold his business to Joseph and Mary who perhaps doesn’t realise that he owns the Flophouse but when he gets the tax demand for it he will at which point he will want to collect rent from Mack and the boys. Even if they kill Joseph and Mary, someone will inherit their house. Mack comes up with the plan to raffle the Flophouse to buy Doc the big new microscope he needs and make sure that Doc draws the winning ticket.

Every time Doc and Suzy meet, they end up shouting at each other. Nevertheless, Fauna persuades them to have dinner together (she'll pay) at Sonny Boy's. She also persuades Mack that the raffle will also be an engagement party with a fancy dress (Snow White) theme.

The Night Out: When Doc sees Suzy, whom Fauna has decked to the nines, he scarpers back home to put on a next-tie. Doc and Suzy dine at Sunny Boy’s. Sunny Boy has been primed, the table is ready, laid perfectly, the cocktails ready mixed. The menu sorted. Fauna has organised everything and they fall in love.

At the party Doc wins the Flophouse ... and then reveals (but only to Mack) that Mack already owned it. Lee Chong deeded it to Mack and paid ten years tax on it. He didn’t tell Mack because he was afraid Mack would sell it. Mack asks Doc never to tell anyone and to hold on to the house because otherwise Mack would sell it. Doc agrees to rent the house to Mack. 

DSuzy makes her appearance as Snow White, the bride. Doc tries to react well but Suzy reads his face and runs off. Fauna follows and Suzy reveals she loves Doc.

Suzy goes to the Golden Poppy and asks Ella for a job, she’ll work for free. She buys some furniture and moves into the boiler that Sam Molloy and his wife used to live in.

Hazel consults everyone he can to try and get Doc and Suzy back together. Suzy says she wants no part of Doc unless he gets sick or busts a leg. 

Joseph and Mary decides to 'have a whack at' Suzy but she slams the door on him, catching his hand in it. Doc fights him and almost throttles him to death. J&M and Doc have a drink and then they gather flowers. Doc dresses smart and pays a formal call on Suzy. They talk and she tells him she is over him. He says he’s going to La Jolla to collect specimens.

Hazel realises what he must do. He gets a base ball bat. Doc wakes up with a broken arm.

Suzy offers to drive Doc down to La Jolla. She goes to Mack for emergency lessons on how to drive.

Mack presents Doc with the scientific apparatus bought with the takings from the raffle ... but instead of a microscope it is a telescope. 

Doc and Suzy drive away from Cannery Row.

This review was written by

the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God

"Under the Greenwood Tree" by Thomas Hardy

 A romance set amongst the comic antics of the rural peasantry. This is the first of Hardy's Wessex novels but much lighter in tone than most of them.

There are two plots, connected only by personnel. Music at Mellstock church has been traditionally provided by a group of string players and singers who call themselves the quire or choir, but a new young vicar has decided that henceforth they will accompany hymns with an organ. The second story is a love story: the nominated organist, schoolteacher Miss Fancy Day is being wooed by Dick Dewy, the carter's son and violinist in the quire, Mr Shiner, the grumpy churchwarden who is pushing for the quire to be replaced, perhaps because they woke him up on Christmas Eve with their carols, and Parson Maybold the new vicar himself. Will she marry for love or for money or for position in society? 

The quire plot roars into life but it never properly develops and it peters out after about 40% of the novel. This was disappointing because it had all the hallmarks of a theme: should tradition or innovation prevail? When, on Christmas day, the school girls sing as loudly as the quire, the latter are appalled: “Brazen-faced hussies! ... ’Tis the gallery have got to sing, all the world knows ... Why, souls, what’s the use o’ the ancients spending scores of pounds to build galleries if people down in the lowest depths of the church sing like that at a moment’s notice?’” The old folk think the old ways must be respected (this theme returns right at the end when a bride has to choose between old ways and new ways for her wedding). On the other hand, the old Parson is revealed as shamelessly hands-off, pocketing the income from the living without doing anything to put himself out, while the new one is stated, approvingly, to have reduced the stigma of being a witch for old Elizabeth Endorfield. It would have been nice to see this conflict developed through the novel but Hardy seems to give up. Instead we are left with a rather predictable and very standard 'who will she wed?' plot.

The characters are fundamentally one dimensional caricatures of the Dickens type (Dickens died two years before this novel was published so he would have been the benchmark at the time Hardy was writing). Not one of the characters has any sort of arc. Fancy is the only character who faces a moral choice. Dick the protagonist the the boy with the heart of gold whose trials and tribulations are all external challenges. Reuben, Dick's father, the leader of the choir and a 'tranter' (a man with a van, or rather, given the period, a cart) The rest of the characters contribute to the colourful and comedic background, particularly Thomas Leaf, a simpleton.

Thomas Leaf, a somewhat shaky gentleman, is an example of Hardy's use of charactonyms of which the most obvious is Fancy though Dick is somewhat Dewy behind the ears and Elizabeth Endorfield is blatantly named for the Witch of Endor who conjures up prophecies for King Saul in 1 Samuel 28.

Dick's courting is set against the marriages of, particularly, his parents Reuben and Mrs Dewy and Fancy's father and step-mother. There are also mentions of the Penny marriage. These allow the author a number of reflections about marriage, almost always seen from the male point of view:

• "She d’belong to that class of womankind that become second wives: a rum class rather.” (2.6)
• “wives be such a provoking class o’ society, because though they be never right, they be never more than half wrong.” (2.6)
• “When you’ve made up your mind to marry, take the first respectable body that comes to hand—she’s as good as any other; they be all alike in the groundwork; ’tis only in the flourishes there’s a difference.” (2.8)

There are some wonderful descriptions. Hardy's descriptions of scenery as illuminated and shadowed is almost cinematic:

• “Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against the sky, his profile appearing on the light background like the portrait of a gentleman in black cardboard.” (1.1)
• “They were all brightly illuminated, and each was backed up by a shadow as long as a steeple” (2.2)
• “The landscape being concave, at the going down of the sun everything suddenly assumed a uniform robe of shade.” (4.2)

He's also very fond of the pathetic fallacy: whether it is raining or sunny, windy or calm, the weather always reinforces the plot point perfectly.

Fundamentally, this is a pastoral comedy. There are a couple of moments of farce (when the Parson drops his pen, and when Fancy is stung on the lips) and some delightful set pieces, particularly when the characters are in conversation, such as Dick's first dinner eaten with Fancy's dad and his strange wife. There are also some brilliant one-liners:

• “Marrying a woman is a thing you can do at any moment; but a swarm o’ bees won’t come for the asking.” (5.1)
• “‘’Tis my belief she’s a very good woman at bottom.’/ ‘She’s terrible deep, then’.” (5.2) OK, that's a two-liner involving a straight man's set up and a withering riposte.

It's the humour, derived from a scrupulous observation of life that reminded me of Cannery Row, that lifts this book out of the ordinary.

Other selected quotes:

• “Having grown so very fast that before he had had time to get used to his height he was higher.” (1.2)
• “That sort o’ coarse touch that’s so upsetting to Ann’s feelings is to my mind a recommendation; for it do always prove a story to be true. And for the same reason, I like a story with a bad moral. My sonnies, all true stories have a coarse touch or a bad moral, depend upon’t. If the story-tellers could ha’ got decency and good morals from true stories, who’d ha’ troubled to invent parables?” (1.8)
• “did you ever hear too—just now at supper-time—talking about ‘taties’ with Michael in such a work-folk way. Well, ’tis what I was never brought up to! With our family ’twas never less than ‘taters,’ and very often ‘pertatoes’ outright” (1.8)
• “That was very nice o’ the man, even though words be wind.” (2.5)
• “Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed: kings must be managed; for men want managing almost as much as women, and that’s saying a good deal.” (2.5)
• “Then the music is second to the woman, the other churchwarden is second to Shiner, the pa’son is second to the churchwardens, and God A’mighty is nowhere at all.” (2.5)
• “watching the damp slopes of the hill-sides as they streamed in the warmth of the sun, which at this unsettled season shone on the grass with the freshness of an occasional inspector rather than as an accustomed proprietor.” (2.6)
• “If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single, we do.” (2.6)
• “I think I can manage any vicar’s views about me if he’s under forty.” (2.7)
• “That there maid is taking up thy thoughts more than’s good for thee, my sonny. Thou’rt never happy now unless th’rt making thyself miserable about her in one way or another.” (2.8)
• “This is how a maid is. She’ll swear she’s dying for thee, and she is dying for thee, and she will die for thee; but she’ll fling a look over t’other shoulder at another young feller, though never leaving off dying for thee just the same.” (2.8)
• “if you can’t read a maid’s mind by her motions, nature d’seem to say thou’st ought to be a bachelor.” (2.8)
• “For without money man is a shadder!” (4.2)
• “you have enough in you for any society, after a few months of travel with me!” (4.6) The vicar arrogantly reassures the woman he is wooing that she'll be good enough if she succumbs to his tutelage.
• “Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can’t blame other people for singing ’em." (5.1)

July 2025; 186 pages

It was first published by Tinsley Brothers in 1872

My Penguin paperback edition was issued in 1978 and reprinted in 1982.

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

A summary of the plot. Beware of spoilers!

On Christmas Eve, the Mellstock church quire (including some string musicians) gather at Reuben's house for a few drinks and then go round the parish singing carols whether they are wanted or not.

Dick sees the new schoolmistress, Fancy Day, and falls in love.

On Christmas morning the quire go to church and are distressed when other members of the congregation sing as loudly as they do. They blame the new vicar.

Later they gather at Reuben's house for a meal and, after midnight, dancing. Dick is desperate to dance with Fancy. But churchwarden Shiner escorts her home.

The quire meet at Mr Penny's shoemaking shop to discuss the new vicar who wants to change things such as not letting men put their hats in the baptismal font (it's cracked so it won't hold water; the old Parson used to spit on his finger to christen babies). And to replace the quire with an organ. Played by Fancy.

They go to see the vicar, trying their best to keep in step (you'd think a choir ought to be able to manage that!) They win a reprieve until Michaelmas. 

That's more or less the end of the 'quire' plot. 

Soon after Easter, Dick visits Fancy at her father’s house. He realises the rivals to her love include Farmer Shiner and Parson Maybold. He mismanages an opportunity to declare his love. His father advises him to go and get her. He writes her a letter, tears it up and writes another. 

He meets Fancy by chance at Budmouth-Regis and drives her home. They become engaged. But they don't tell anyone and when, finally, Dick speaks to her father he says Dick isn't good enough. 

Fancy consults a local witch who tells her how to win her father over. Fancy goes off her food. Her dad caves in immediately. But the engagement is still not widely known.

Fancy debuts as church organist on a day when Dick is pall-bearing elsewhere. Parson Maybold is smitten by Fancy and proposes, offering her a posh life. She accepts.

Next day Parson Maybold meets Dick be chance and Dick tells him he is engaged. Parson M writes to Fancy offering to break the engagement; she writes to him breaking it off. He advises her to tell Dick and be forgiven.

Fancy and Dick marry. Dick still doesn't (and will never) know.

"The Flanders Panel" by Arturo Perez-Reverte

 

A murder mystery set in the art world in Madrid. With a large dose of chess.

Julia is an art restorer working on a Flemish painting showing two men playing chess as a woman at a window reads. An X-ray of the painting reveals a hidden inscription: who killed the knight? She consults her ex-lover Álvaro, an art historian, the woman who is arranging the sale of the painting Menchu, her 'guardian', the gloriously camp César, an antique dealer, and shabby down at heal chess genius Muñoz. They start investigating the painting. Then Álvaro is found dead.

By reverse-playing the game shown on the painting, Muñoz works out who captured the knight. This part of the mystery is solved by the 50% turning point. Then Julia keeps finding cards with chess moves written on them and she realises that Álvaro's killer is playing the game (as black) on from the position shown in the painting and that more deaths must occur before either white or black's king is check-mated. The murder mystery must be solved before Julia, the white queen, becomes another victim.

I love this sort of murder mystery with added historical puzzles and it was a classic example of its kind. The chess problems were explained so even a layman like myself was able to understand. But I expected more than I received. I was disappointed that the characters were such stereotypes: all the art world people were elegant and cultured and bitchy and the others included a dumb gigolo, a stupid policeman and the chess expert who was the classic private investigating loner in his shabby dress and his diffident manner. It was also disappointing that the historical mystery was solved in the first half, and so easily. There was a certain amount of what felt like padding in the middle as the characters talked of chess in Freudian terms and considered layers of meaning in terms of chess, and Bach (the owner of the painting was, wouldn't you know, an ex-conductor), and recursiveness: the influence of Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter was acknowledged in the epigraphs to chapters 9 and 11. 

A fun murder mystery but I was expecting more.

Selected quotes:

• “Life is like an expensive restaurant where, sooner or later, someone always hands you the bill, which is not to say that you should deny the joy and pleasure afforded by the dishes already eaten.” (Ch 1)
• “He had the unmistakable air of someone defeated before the battle has even started, of someone who, when he opens his eyes each morning, awakens only to failure.” (Ch 8)
• “Chess is all about getting the king into check, you see. It's about killing the father.” (Ch 9)
• “An exception doesn't prove anything; it invalidates or destroys any rule. That's why you have to be very careful with inductive reasoning.” (Ch 11)
• “In all businesses, unimpeachable honesty is the surest route to death from starvation.” (Ch 15)

July 2025; 295 pages

First published in Madrid by Alfaguara SA in 1990

My edition, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, was published by Harper Collins in 1994

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

Detailed summary of the plot: spoiler alert

Julia is an art restorer restoring a picture of two men playing chess as a woman watches. X-rays show a hidden inscription, in Latin: Quis necavit equitem: Who killed the knight? 

She goes to see art historian (and ex-lover) Álvaro; he identifies the people in the picture and points out that one was already dead. Art dealer Menchu tries to negotiate herself a larger percentage of the sale on the basis that this discovery will increase the value of the painting. She and Julia, with Julia's ex-guardian César, are trying to work out who killed the knight and waiting for Álvaro but he sends documents instead.

César and Julia go to a chess club and recruit expert player Muñoz who proposes to play the game shown in the painting backwards to discover who captured the white knight.

The police interview Julia in connection with Álvaro's death. Was it accident? But he died before he sent the documents. Suspicious!

César gives Julia a gun to defend herself.

Muñoz solves the mystery of who killed the knight. But now Julia discovers a card giving a further move and she and Muñoz realise that the game is now being played forward and that 'capturing'; a piece means a murder. And Julia, the white queen, is under threat. And she seems to be followed by a blue Ford.

While she is at the antique market, Julia's car is tampered with and another card is left. She and César see the blue Ford and attack it, Julia with the pistol. It’s the police. They have been tailing her 

The card Julia found has further moves in the game which they analyse with Muñoz.

Menchu has got wasted in a night club. Julia collects her in a taxi and takes her back to her flat. Next morning Julia goes out and while she is away from the flat, Menchu is murdered (there's another card left by the body, with yet further moves) and the painting stolen. 

The police arrest Menchu's boyfriend, gigolo Max, who tells Julia that Menchu planned to steal the painting but it was obviously taken by the man who murdered her.

Julia is working late in the restoration area of the Prado when she gets a phone call telling her to go to Room 12 and look at the painting by Brueghel the Elder called The Triumph of Death. There’s another card with more moves.

Julia and Muñoz go to confront the murderer. Muñoz plays against the murderer to the end of the game; he wins. The murderer explains how (and why) the crimes were committed.