This is a whistlestop tour through some of the more interesting uses of mathematics. As usual with such things, it left me wanting more depth. You could not ask for more breadth! From economics to correcting errors in digital communication, from astrophysics to topology, from electoral systems to significance to social networks to double-crossing spies, this book has an extraordinary range. Mostly it is well written so that I understood the maths although Elwes has an infuriating tendency to use different (often undeclared) bases for his logarithms. Sometimes he offers results without backing them up sufficiently (at least for my taste). But I am not a general reader and I think that, for the general reader, this book will provide a brilliant introduction to the ubiquity of maths.
Breathless. June 2015; 363 pages
Tuesday, 30 June 2015
Sunday, 28 June 2015
"Oscar Wilde and the murders at Reading gaol" by Giles Brandreth
Following his release from prison, Oscar Wilde is in exile in France when a Dr Quilp prompts him to tell the story of a series of murders that took place while Oscar was inside. Oscar had solved these, using the techniques of his good friend Conan Doyle. Thus the stage is set for an interesting murder mystery with the background of the utter dejection and appalling treatment meted out to prisoners in Victorian gaols under the notorious 'separate' system.
The whodunnit element is a little flawed because the murder weapon of choice requires specialist knowledge not offered to the reader, more in the tradition of Holmes than Poirot. But there is a clever twist at the end.
The tone of the book is classically Wildean, veering from clever epigrams to self-absorbed emotional grand opera. There are insertions from Wilde's prison literature, both De Profundis and the Ballad of Reading Gaol. These insertions were also in the Wilde tradition: they lack subtlety and one can feel the self congratulation 'look what a clever boy am I' of the author.
To echo the quote on the front of the book from Alexander McCall Smith: this book is "intelligent, amusing and entertaining'. I read it in two days. It left me eager to reread the ballad and De Profundis.
June 2015; 302 pages
Thursday, 25 June 2015
"The infernal desire machines of Doctor Hoffman" by Angela Carter
Desiderio tells this story as an old man, a war hero, looking back.
Doctor Hoffman has invented machines which can turn reality into fantasy. He attacks the city, threatening the supply of mundane things such as bread and milk, and a war breaks out. Desiderio, assistant to the Minister, is sent out into the countryside to track Doctor Hoffman down.
But Desiderio is haunted by a woman he has met in his dreams and who shifts her shape: Albertine, the Doctor's daughter. So his quest is to find Albertina. He embarks upon a picaresque journey through fantasy landscapes and has fantastic sexual adventures: in the Mansion at Midnight he sleeps with a woman who then turns up dead so he is arrested for murder; escaping he travels with the River People who find him a child bride but plan to eat him at the wedding; he is buggered by nine Moroccan acrobats (twice each) and so on. In the end, it transpires that the source of the Doctor's power is eroto-energy generated by cages of copulating couples.
This is classic 1960's fantasy; fairgrounds and ethnic peoples and centaurs and all obsessed with sex.
I found it very wearying.
She writes with enthusiastic description but there isn't much of a story.
It reminded me of Candide in the way our hero embarked on a remarkably improbably adventure which led to sex and death and mutilation and at the end of each chapter enjoyed the most improbable escape. At least no characters actually came back to life. But, in a way that those of us who remember the 1960s with affection still regret, it ended with a remarkably naff parody of a James Bond film as our hero outwits the man who wants to rule the world.
There were several bits that made me sit up and think although these were not in the end adequate recompense for the silliness of the story:
June 2015; 271 pages
Doctor Hoffman has invented machines which can turn reality into fantasy. He attacks the city, threatening the supply of mundane things such as bread and milk, and a war breaks out. Desiderio, assistant to the Minister, is sent out into the countryside to track Doctor Hoffman down.
But Desiderio is haunted by a woman he has met in his dreams and who shifts her shape: Albertine, the Doctor's daughter. So his quest is to find Albertina. He embarks upon a picaresque journey through fantasy landscapes and has fantastic sexual adventures: in the Mansion at Midnight he sleeps with a woman who then turns up dead so he is arrested for murder; escaping he travels with the River People who find him a child bride but plan to eat him at the wedding; he is buggered by nine Moroccan acrobats (twice each) and so on. In the end, it transpires that the source of the Doctor's power is eroto-energy generated by cages of copulating couples.
This is classic 1960's fantasy; fairgrounds and ethnic peoples and centaurs and all obsessed with sex.
I found it very wearying.
She writes with enthusiastic description but there isn't much of a story.
It reminded me of Candide in the way our hero embarked on a remarkably improbably adventure which led to sex and death and mutilation and at the end of each chapter enjoyed the most improbable escape. At least no characters actually came back to life. But, in a way that those of us who remember the 1960s with affection still regret, it ended with a remarkably naff parody of a James Bond film as our hero outwits the man who wants to rule the world.
There were several bits that made me sit up and think although these were not in the end adequate recompense for the silliness of the story:
- "I used to think that the Faust legend was a warped version of the myth of Prometheus, who defied the wrath of god to gain the prize of fire."
- "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear."
- "the Procrustean bed of circumstance"
- "Your bill will be presented on departure sir" (there's a metaphor for life!)
June 2015; 271 pages
Books by Angela Carter that I have read and reviewed in this blog:
- The Bloody Chamber, a brilliant collection of short stories in which fairy tales are brought up to date and given a horrid, and often feminist, twist
- The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman: a very sixties psychedelic romp, perhaps too surreal for me
- Heroes and Villains: a post-holocaust fantasy
- The Passion of New Eve: obsessed with mirrors and sex changes and dominatrices
- Wise Children: the reminiscences of one of a pair of show-biz twins; multiple references to twins and Shakespeare
- The Magic Toyshop: a beautifully written coming of age story
Sunday, 21 June 2015
"Phineas Finn" by Anthony Trollope
This is the second of Trollope's political 'Palliser' novels and forms a stand-alone sequel to Can You Forgive Her?
Phineas Finn, the son of an Irish doctor, training to be a barrister in London, is encouraged to become an MP. Unfortunately he has no money. This is a double problem since MPs are unwaged and since it costs them money to fight an election. Fortunately he finds a rotten borough which is in the gift of a Lord and is elected to that; his father pays him an allowance to survive. The obvious solution is to find a rich woman to marry; he becomes friendly with several. However, each of the ladies to whom he is attracted has other suitors one of whom pips him to the post and another challenges him to a duel. Through all of this he has to learn parliamentary business and face the ordeal of giving a maiden speech. But he prospers and is chosen to become a very junior minister (unfortunately this requires him to resign his seat and then stand in it again which costs him more money). Through all of this a Reform Bill is being enacted and he votes to disenfranchise the rotten borough he represents (he does this twice eventually).
Truly the path of becoming an MP when you are penniless and of marrying a suitable woman whom you actually love is not easy!
A standard, if long-winded, Victorian romance distinguished by the character of Violet Effingham who mercilessly teases her guardian aunt and who refuses to marry without being in love. As in Can You Forgive Her? there is a woman who is trying to manipulate her best friend into marrying her brother, a rather unsuitable and violent man, and there is a woman who marries for money and regrets it. The sadness of this marriage is very well portrayed although it would be nice if the dour Scot of a husband had some redeeming features.
I have a couple of niggles. Some incidents seem to come out of the blue. Phineas contracts a debt on behalf of a friend; this hangs over his head for some time making a nice pressure on him; then it is suddenly paid. An incident with some garrotters enables Phineas to save the life of a colleague; this is not fully exploited. Finally, about half way through and at a point when Phineas doesn't really need it, he inherits money which he then invests. But this is then forgotten when he has subsequent money troubles. It could have kept him going for some time but it lies unnoticed in a bank account.
On the other hand, Trollope really surprised me with his views which I hadn't expected in a Victorian, even one of a Whiggish/ Radical persuasion:
Trollope write a lot of books and he wrote quickly and this isn't great literature. But it is a good story, well told. June 2015; 873 pages
Also on this blog:
Phineas Finn, the son of an Irish doctor, training to be a barrister in London, is encouraged to become an MP. Unfortunately he has no money. This is a double problem since MPs are unwaged and since it costs them money to fight an election. Fortunately he finds a rotten borough which is in the gift of a Lord and is elected to that; his father pays him an allowance to survive. The obvious solution is to find a rich woman to marry; he becomes friendly with several. However, each of the ladies to whom he is attracted has other suitors one of whom pips him to the post and another challenges him to a duel. Through all of this he has to learn parliamentary business and face the ordeal of giving a maiden speech. But he prospers and is chosen to become a very junior minister (unfortunately this requires him to resign his seat and then stand in it again which costs him more money). Through all of this a Reform Bill is being enacted and he votes to disenfranchise the rotten borough he represents (he does this twice eventually).
Truly the path of becoming an MP when you are penniless and of marrying a suitable woman whom you actually love is not easy!
A standard, if long-winded, Victorian romance distinguished by the character of Violet Effingham who mercilessly teases her guardian aunt and who refuses to marry without being in love. As in Can You Forgive Her? there is a woman who is trying to manipulate her best friend into marrying her brother, a rather unsuitable and violent man, and there is a woman who marries for money and regrets it. The sadness of this marriage is very well portrayed although it would be nice if the dour Scot of a husband had some redeeming features.
I have a couple of niggles. Some incidents seem to come out of the blue. Phineas contracts a debt on behalf of a friend; this hangs over his head for some time making a nice pressure on him; then it is suddenly paid. An incident with some garrotters enables Phineas to save the life of a colleague; this is not fully exploited. Finally, about half way through and at a point when Phineas doesn't really need it, he inherits money which he then invests. But this is then forgotten when he has subsequent money troubles. It could have kept him going for some time but it lies unnoticed in a bank account.
On the other hand, Trollope really surprised me with his views which I hadn't expected in a Victorian, even one of a Whiggish/ Radical persuasion:
- "How can there be honour in what comes ... by chance? ... Honour comes from the mode of winning it."
- "I am not saying that people are equal; but that the tendency of all law-making ... should be to reduce the inequalities."
- "The wish of every honest man should be to assist in lifting up those below him"
Trollope write a lot of books and he wrote quickly and this isn't great literature. But it is a good story, well told. June 2015; 873 pages
Also on this blog:
- The next book in the series is about the scheming, lying minx Lizzie Eustace, a great character: The Eustace Diamonds
- Phineas Redux: when Phineas returns to parliament and is tried for murder
- The Prime Minister: another mugging in Hyde Park, another unscrupulous foreign adventurer seducing another English gentlewoman for her father's money
- The Duke's Children: in which the children of Mr Palliser, now the Duke of Omnium, threraten to make yet more unsuitable marriages and test whether he can actually apply his Liberal principles to his own family.
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
"The Countess de Charny" by Alexander Dumas
This is one of the many historical pot-boilers that Dumas penned. It centres around the attempted flight of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and their children and assorted others from Paris; they were apprehended by common people at Varennes. Dumas wears his historical knowledge like a strait-jacket which he pads out with exclamation marks !!!! The only obvious addition is the mysterious figure of Count Cagliostro who is the immortal leader of the Freemason club that is agitating for the removal of the monarchy. There is also an episode in which Dr Gilbert uses hypnosis to send the countess of Charny on an astral journey in which she discovers what her son (by the wicked doctor) has been doing.
In short, this is absolute twaddle from beginning to end. I did wonder at one stage whether the indifferent translation was pitting me off and then I decided that the translator must have been as fed up by the bilge as I was.
One central mystery is why on earth is the book named after a character who has a cameo role near the strt and another cameo near the end but absolutely no role in the main story. It did seem that she had been forgotten. Certainly the sub-plot regarding her son is never developed after he is knocked down (but not killed) by a carriage in the street.
It became clear quite quickly that this is the sequel to another book about these characters and I think it would have been very useful indeed to have known about their stories before hand. Madame Nicole who is sometimes called Madame Oliva is a was in point: I has no idea why she was reduced to poverty nor whether it was at all important that she so closely resembled Marie Antoinette.
Dumas had a flair for telling a story which makes one forgive his appallingly romanticised prose and his obsession with honour. But in this book his story telling ability has deserted him. This is a great book for an aspiring author to read and to say: I can do better than that.
Sunday, 7 June 2015
"Shakespeare and Co" by Stanley Wells
The aim of this scholarly paperback is to show that Shakespeare was not a lone genius but worked within the context of other Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights, sometimes borrowing from their works and sometimes being borrowed from. He was unusual in that he spent his entire career working with one acting company; most of his colleagues were rather more promiscuous. He usually worked alone but from time to time he collaborated with others, for example with Middleton and Fletcher. In many ways, Shakespeare was the best of his contemporaries and sometimes he so overshadowed them that their reputations are undeservedly smaller as a result. In some ways, he was not as good as others: for example, he was much less likely to use satire to point up contemporary issues and he rarely wrote about the man in the London street.
Wells has dedicated a lifetime of scholarship to identifying the areas of collaboration. Much of the argument is to do with style: each writer leaves a signature in the way he writes whether it be in prose or blank verse of rhyming couplets or free verse; whether he regularly adds beats to the end of a blank verse line; whether his characters are logical on the build up of their arguments or more scatterbrained; whether the characters are ciphers or have lives of their own. Unfortunately, in a small paperback such as this, Wells has to assume a certain knowledge on the part of the reader which was often rather more than I possessed so I had to take some of his arguments on trust.
Although the focus of the book is always on Shakespeare, it probably works better as an introduction to the other playwrights. He is particularly good at explaining why certain scenes don't work. I found this fascinating and I learned about:
Other books about Shakespeare reviewed in this blog can be found by clicking here.
June 2015; 231 pages
Wells has dedicated a lifetime of scholarship to identifying the areas of collaboration. Much of the argument is to do with style: each writer leaves a signature in the way he writes whether it be in prose or blank verse of rhyming couplets or free verse; whether he regularly adds beats to the end of a blank verse line; whether his characters are logical on the build up of their arguments or more scatterbrained; whether the characters are ciphers or have lives of their own. Unfortunately, in a small paperback such as this, Wells has to assume a certain knowledge on the part of the reader which was often rather more than I possessed so I had to take some of his arguments on trust.
Although the focus of the book is always on Shakespeare, it probably works better as an introduction to the other playwrights. He is particularly good at explaining why certain scenes don't work. I found this fascinating and I learned about:
- Robert Greene who wrote Pandosto which Shakespeare later transformed in A Winter's Tale; he also wrote Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
- Thomas Kyd, author of the the best-selling The Spanish Tragedy (which I saw in a brilliant production at the Old Red Lion Theatre in Islington) and of an early Hamlet
- Christopher Marlowe who wrote The Jew of Malta (a tragedy which Wells believes needs to be played for laughs), Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus, and Edward II
- The almost unbelievably prolific Thomas Dekker who write The Shoemaker's Holiday and may have collaborated with Shakespeare on Sir Thomas More; he also worked with Thomas Middleton on London-based dramas The Roaring Girl and The Honest Whore
- The aggressive, murderous, and sexually promiscuous Ben Jonson who wrote great comedy including Volpone (which I saw in a memorable production at the Cockpit Theatre in London) and The Alchemist (which I saw some years ago at the National Theatre)
- Thomas Middleton who wrote A Mad World, My Masters which was produced this year by the RSC (I watched it at the Barbican; it was brilliant), The Revenger's Tragedy, and probably collaborated with Shakespeare on Timon of Athens
- John Fletcher, who often worked with Francis Beaumont and probably collaborated with Shakespeare on the lost play Cardenio as well as the Two Noble Kinsmen
- John Webster who is most famous for The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi
Other books about Shakespeare reviewed in this blog can be found by clicking here.
June 2015; 231 pages
Sunday, 31 May 2015
"The Miniaturist" by Jessie Burton
Winner of the Waterstones Book of the Year 2014; Book of the Year at the British Book Awards 2014.
Nella, 18 and from the country, arrives in Amsterdam in October 1686 to move in to the house of her new husband, Johannes Brandt, who is one of the most successful merchants with the East India Company. The strange household is riven by secrets. Marin, sister of Johannes, rules them puritanical prayers and austerity. Johannes is away a lot and reluctant to bed his new wife. He is under pressure to sell a huge amount of sugar belonging to the wife of an ex-friend that he has somehow betrayed. Otto, the black servant, hovers between slave and member of the family; orphaned Cornelia is Queen of spying at the keyholes. Nella is desperately unhappy.
Johannes buys her a dolls' house, a replica of their own house, and Nella commissions a mysterious miniaturist to make models to go into the house. They are delivered by Jack Philips, a stunningly handsome English actor. But then models appear that Nella hasn't ordered. And then the models start to change as tragedies begin to occur.
The book is perfectly plotted with the shocking act of violence that is the twisting point of the story exactly half way through. The first half is dedicated to piling mystery upon mystery and tension upon tension; any light shed only serves to entangle the little family even further onto the edge of peril. In the second half, the tragedies start to cascade and though some of the mysteries are resolved, others are left hanging and on the final page the fate of those who are left is very much undecided.
In some ways the characters are not as full as they might otherwise be. Because of the need to leave so many things unsaid, aspects of character are only hinted at. Dialogue is rarely straightforward and often elliptical. There are hints and shadows; was that creak a footstep of the hall outside or is it just the old house settling into the canal?
The central mystery, of course, is who is the miniaturist? This is from the school of magical realism and the miniaturist is some kind of magician. She has a fully fledged pedigree, at one point we meet her father, but we never see her except i glimpses as she rounds corners. Is she following the tragedies, using gifts of prophecy to warn Nella? Or is the dolls' house a sinister and malevolent talisman, which causes all the awful things that happen? Is the miniaturist some kind of God, a puppet master? Is she a good God or a wicked one? Or does she just watch, uncaring?
Beautifully researched, perfectly told, this is a great book which deserves to be a classic.
Johannes buys her a dolls' house, a replica of their own house, and Nella commissions a mysterious miniaturist to make models to go into the house. They are delivered by Jack Philips, a stunningly handsome English actor. But then models appear that Nella hasn't ordered. And then the models start to change as tragedies begin to occur.
The book is perfectly plotted with the shocking act of violence that is the twisting point of the story exactly half way through. The first half is dedicated to piling mystery upon mystery and tension upon tension; any light shed only serves to entangle the little family even further onto the edge of peril. In the second half, the tragedies start to cascade and though some of the mysteries are resolved, others are left hanging and on the final page the fate of those who are left is very much undecided.
In some ways the characters are not as full as they might otherwise be. Because of the need to leave so many things unsaid, aspects of character are only hinted at. Dialogue is rarely straightforward and often elliptical. There are hints and shadows; was that creak a footstep of the hall outside or is it just the old house settling into the canal?
The central mystery, of course, is who is the miniaturist? This is from the school of magical realism and the miniaturist is some kind of magician. She has a fully fledged pedigree, at one point we meet her father, but we never see her except i glimpses as she rounds corners. Is she following the tragedies, using gifts of prophecy to warn Nella? Or is the dolls' house a sinister and malevolent talisman, which causes all the awful things that happen? Is the miniaturist some kind of God, a puppet master? Is she a good God or a wicked one? Or does she just watch, uncaring?
Beautifully researched, perfectly told, this is a great book which deserves to be a classic.
Jesse Burton also wrote Muse.
May 2015; 424 pages
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
"The naked scientist" by Chris Smith
This is a compilation, or a miscellany, of scientific news and facts. Many of the individual items are very interesting, many of them reflect the latest advances in gene technology. But there are too many of these little bite-sized bits and the arrangement of them holds no pattern that I could discern. As a result the book appears to be cluttered, the scientific equivalent of noise. The nuggets are lost in the flood of new information. This book desperately needed some structure.
May 2015; 309 pages
May 2015; 309 pages
Monday, 25 May 2015
"Can you forgive her?" by Anthony Trollope
The strange thing about the title of this first of Trollope's six Palliser novels is that it is quite easy to forgive Alice for her oscillating back and forth between two possible husbands (which is what Trollope wants you to forgive in her) but much less easy to forgive her for her hypocritical puritanical prudery. But I am getting ahead of myself.
This story revolves around three women (and Trollope is far better than Dickens at portraying real women).
So, the eternal dilemma for all women: bad boy to have fun with or nice boy for security?
This is a very weighty book. 770 pages takes commitment! But Trollope can write some brilliant nuanced characters (apart from Alice who is a pious pain in the posterior). Lady Glencora is a delight as a spoilt little heiress who chatters away endlessly, has tantrums, refuses to like people she dislikes (and tells them to their faces) and just longs to be naughty. I adored the trip with Plantagenet in which she opposes everyhting he proposes, just for the devilment of being awkward. George is a delight as he plans more and more moustache-twirling evil (whilst never straying too far from the paths of credibility) in his desperation to raise money: I particularly love his self-hatred as he is driven into the depths. Mr Palliser is a delight as he gradually becomes more and more human; at the start he has impeccable courtesy, he is dedicated to his politics and he is ridiculously honourable but before the end his sacrifices and sufferings have made him considerate (as opposed to just courteous) and thoughtful. Alice's father, widowed when Alice was a baby, resents having to work in the Court of Chancery signing papers for three days a week during term time for £800 per year (£500 pa is enough for a comfortable private income) but will not relinquish the job for a pension of £400 pa; he dines at his club every night so that Alice seems to have brought herself up. Lady Macleod keeps talking about the 'advantage' of knowing and being even distantly related to the nobility. And Mr Cheesacre, as I have written above, is a most marvellous comic creation.
There are moments of wonderfully dry humour. After Glencora's first trip to a casino, when Mr Palliser was very angry at Alice for allowing her to go, he agrees to accompany her a second time, at which Alice looks at him and says to Lady G: "Perhaps I shall be forgiven when someone sees how difficult it is to manage you."
It is well-plotted too. The first part of the novel is a little slow but once we have got the measure of the characters their intermingled stories keeps things going. There are 40 chapters in each of two volumes and almost every chapter has a neat dramatic arc. And the Greenow/ Cheesacre/ Bellfield comedy leavens the dough considerably. There were certainly moments when I didn't know what was going to happen next and could scarcely wait to find out.
Trollope wrote 47 novels (and other work)!!!! I have read The Warden, first in the Barsetshire tales of clerical sheenanigans, and now this. I enjoyed The Warden and now I very much want to read the rest of the Palliser series. Great fun. May 2015; 770 pages
I have now read and enjoyed the next books in the series:
This story revolves around three women (and Trollope is far better than Dickens at portraying real women).
- Alice Vavasor can't decide whether to marry goody two shoes John Grey (there is a point at which Alice's father says that he thinks it is John's goodness that irks Kate and I nodded in agreement at this point) or scarred villain (straight out of melodrama) George Vavasor, her wicked cousin. George is busy ruining himself in his ambition to become an MP for a Metropolitan seat; the costs of the election are far beyond his means and he becomes increasingly wicked in his efforts to obtain money.
- Lady Glencora wanted to marry handsome but impecunious devil Burgo Fitzgerald with whom she was head over heels in love but her important relations pressurised her into marrying dry stick MP Plantagenet Palliser, heir to the Duke of Omnium and a likely candidate to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer. But Burgo keeps tempting her to run away with him and she is very unhappy in her marriage and contemplating ruining her reputation by becoming Burgo's mistress.
- Mrs Greenow, Alice's Aunt and a wealthy widow, flirts with Mr Cheesacre, a rich farmer who can never avoid telling everyone how well-to-do he is and penniless and mendacious soldier 'Captain' Bellfield. This story ends differently from the other two and gives the novel a welcome counterpoint of comedy; a lot of humour is wrung from the rivalry of Cheesacre and Bellfield, particularly from the pretensions of the former.
So, the eternal dilemma for all women: bad boy to have fun with or nice boy for security?
This is a very weighty book. 770 pages takes commitment! But Trollope can write some brilliant nuanced characters (apart from Alice who is a pious pain in the posterior). Lady Glencora is a delight as a spoilt little heiress who chatters away endlessly, has tantrums, refuses to like people she dislikes (and tells them to their faces) and just longs to be naughty. I adored the trip with Plantagenet in which she opposes everyhting he proposes, just for the devilment of being awkward. George is a delight as he plans more and more moustache-twirling evil (whilst never straying too far from the paths of credibility) in his desperation to raise money: I particularly love his self-hatred as he is driven into the depths. Mr Palliser is a delight as he gradually becomes more and more human; at the start he has impeccable courtesy, he is dedicated to his politics and he is ridiculously honourable but before the end his sacrifices and sufferings have made him considerate (as opposed to just courteous) and thoughtful. Alice's father, widowed when Alice was a baby, resents having to work in the Court of Chancery signing papers for three days a week during term time for £800 per year (£500 pa is enough for a comfortable private income) but will not relinquish the job for a pension of £400 pa; he dines at his club every night so that Alice seems to have brought herself up. Lady Macleod keeps talking about the 'advantage' of knowing and being even distantly related to the nobility. And Mr Cheesacre, as I have written above, is a most marvellous comic creation.
There are moments of wonderfully dry humour. After Glencora's first trip to a casino, when Mr Palliser was very angry at Alice for allowing her to go, he agrees to accompany her a second time, at which Alice looks at him and says to Lady G: "Perhaps I shall be forgiven when someone sees how difficult it is to manage you."
It is well-plotted too. The first part of the novel is a little slow but once we have got the measure of the characters their intermingled stories keeps things going. There are 40 chapters in each of two volumes and almost every chapter has a neat dramatic arc. And the Greenow/ Cheesacre/ Bellfield comedy leavens the dough considerably. There were certainly moments when I didn't know what was going to happen next and could scarcely wait to find out.
Trollope wrote 47 novels (and other work)!!!! I have read The Warden, first in the Barsetshire tales of clerical sheenanigans, and now this. I enjoyed The Warden and now I very much want to read the rest of the Palliser series. Great fun. May 2015; 770 pages
I have now read and enjoyed the next books in the series:
- Phineas Finn: a poor Irishman becomes an MP and tries to marry money to support this career
- The Eustace Diamonds: Scheming, lying minx Lizzie Eustace tries to hang on to her diamonds and trap a second husband; a great female character
- Phineas Redux: Phineas is tried for murder; Trollope writes his own spoiler and forfeits lots of possible tension.
- The Prime Minister: Mr Palliser, now the Duke of Omnium, becomes Prime Minister and yet another scoundrel marries yet another gentlewoman; perhaps this book has the greatest rotter but again Trollope forfeits a great deal of tension by resolving the main plot too early.
- The Duke's Children: Two of Mr Palliser's children threaten to make unsuitable marriages; will the Duke allow them?
But of all the books, Can You Forgive Her? has the best comic scenes.
Sunday, 17 May 2015
Silver: Return to treasure Island" by Andrew Motion
This is the sequel to one of the best adventure yarns ever: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. As such it was always bound to disappoint.
Jim is the son of Jim Hawkins who keeps a pub on the north bank of the Thames estuary. One day, Natty, the daughter of Long John Silver, turns up, takes him to her father and persuades him to steal the map of Treasure Island from his father and to get on a boat organised by her father to find the treasure that was left behind, an enormous cache of bar silver. Which he agrees to do. He feels very guilty about betraying his father and stealing from him but he seems to feel no fear whatsoever in obeying the summons and getting on board a boat with no-one he knows crewed by Captain Beamish.
I found this stretched my credulity too far. It is difficult for a book to redeem itself when one cannot believe in the first act.
When they get to Treasure Island (Natty now disguised as ship's boy Nat which continued to distort credibility) they discover that it is now inhabited. Adventures follow.
When I fist read Treasure Island it gave me nightmares. The secret was the brilliant characters: the smooth talking pirate Long John Silver with his single leg and the ex-buccaneer Billy Bones with his drunken rendering of the Captain Flint pirate song: "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest; Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum." The foolish too-trusting Squire Trelawney and the shrewd Doctor Livesey. The mad maroon Ben Gunn and the superbly sinister Blind Pew. And the adventures! Cross and double cross. Never being sure who was your friend and who your enemy; your life being saved by the arch villain. The reality of a pirate leader's life: deliver the gold or be torn apart by your crew. The threats and the brutality.
There was menace in this book. There were characters. But there was no betrayal. Goodies were goodies and stayed goodies, baddies were likewise constant. In some places there was a whiff of political correctness. The descriptions were beautiful and young Jim is very taken up by the floras and fauna of the island, even when heading into peril on an island of menace. But it really didn't gel.
It ended with as clear a presumption of a sequel as I have ever met, outside those books where they give you the first chapter of the next book as a taster.
Disappointing. May 2015; 404 pages
Jim is the son of Jim Hawkins who keeps a pub on the north bank of the Thames estuary. One day, Natty, the daughter of Long John Silver, turns up, takes him to her father and persuades him to steal the map of Treasure Island from his father and to get on a boat organised by her father to find the treasure that was left behind, an enormous cache of bar silver. Which he agrees to do. He feels very guilty about betraying his father and stealing from him but he seems to feel no fear whatsoever in obeying the summons and getting on board a boat with no-one he knows crewed by Captain Beamish.
I found this stretched my credulity too far. It is difficult for a book to redeem itself when one cannot believe in the first act.
When they get to Treasure Island (Natty now disguised as ship's boy Nat which continued to distort credibility) they discover that it is now inhabited. Adventures follow.
When I fist read Treasure Island it gave me nightmares. The secret was the brilliant characters: the smooth talking pirate Long John Silver with his single leg and the ex-buccaneer Billy Bones with his drunken rendering of the Captain Flint pirate song: "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest; Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum." The foolish too-trusting Squire Trelawney and the shrewd Doctor Livesey. The mad maroon Ben Gunn and the superbly sinister Blind Pew. And the adventures! Cross and double cross. Never being sure who was your friend and who your enemy; your life being saved by the arch villain. The reality of a pirate leader's life: deliver the gold or be torn apart by your crew. The threats and the brutality.
There was menace in this book. There were characters. But there was no betrayal. Goodies were goodies and stayed goodies, baddies were likewise constant. In some places there was a whiff of political correctness. The descriptions were beautiful and young Jim is very taken up by the floras and fauna of the island, even when heading into peril on an island of menace. But it really didn't gel.
It ended with as clear a presumption of a sequel as I have ever met, outside those books where they give you the first chapter of the next book as a taster.
Disappointing. May 2015; 404 pages
Friday, 15 May 2015
"Dead man in Deptford" by Anthony Burgess
This was the last novel written by Burgess before his death in 1994. Other great novels by this accomplished novelist include his first, the Malaysian Trilogy, A Clockwork Orange, The four Enderby novels, One Hand Clapping and what I consider to be his masterpiece, Earthly Powers.
This book is a fictionalised account of the life of Christopher Marlowe who wrote the plays Tamburlaine, Faustus, The Jew of Malta and Edward II; there is a suggestion in the book that he collaborated with a young Shakespeare on Henry VI part 1.
It is narrated by a young actor, who is blatantly not present for much of the action but doesn't actually enter much into the action which seems a rather pointless device. It is also written in Elizabethan English, spelt modern-wise in dialogue but Elizabethan-style when quoting written texts (eg the plays); this is sometimes a little difficult to understand (Burgess makes up a language in A Clockwork Orange called Nadsat based on Russian slang which is easier to read than this; my favourite example of an author immersing you in the language of a bygone age is Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd). There is a lot made of the fact that names are flexible, thus Marlowe is often turned into Marley or Merlin.
The life of Kit Marlowe offers a fascinating plot. He was an atheist and sodomite at at time when both of these were capital offences. He wrote world class plays and was an honourable predecessor to Shakespeare. He spied for Francis Walsingham (which might explain how he got away with the sodomy and atheism for so long) and was killed (murdered?) is a brawl in a tavern in Deptford. Burgess turns this is into a classic novel but I think something a little easier to read and slightly faster paced might have been even more exciting.
Nevertheless, every Burgess is a masterpiece. May 2015; 269 pages
This book is a fictionalised account of the life of Christopher Marlowe who wrote the plays Tamburlaine, Faustus, The Jew of Malta and Edward II; there is a suggestion in the book that he collaborated with a young Shakespeare on Henry VI part 1.
It is narrated by a young actor, who is blatantly not present for much of the action but doesn't actually enter much into the action which seems a rather pointless device. It is also written in Elizabethan English, spelt modern-wise in dialogue but Elizabethan-style when quoting written texts (eg the plays); this is sometimes a little difficult to understand (Burgess makes up a language in A Clockwork Orange called Nadsat based on Russian slang which is easier to read than this; my favourite example of an author immersing you in the language of a bygone age is Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd). There is a lot made of the fact that names are flexible, thus Marlowe is often turned into Marley or Merlin.
The life of Kit Marlowe offers a fascinating plot. He was an atheist and sodomite at at time when both of these were capital offences. He wrote world class plays and was an honourable predecessor to Shakespeare. He spied for Francis Walsingham (which might explain how he got away with the sodomy and atheism for so long) and was killed (murdered?) is a brawl in a tavern in Deptford. Burgess turns this is into a classic novel but I think something a little easier to read and slightly faster paced might have been even more exciting.
Nevertheless, every Burgess is a masterpiece. May 2015; 269 pages
Sunday, 10 May 2015
"Lewis Man" by Peter May
This is the second book in a trilogy; I haven't read the first but it seems to stand by itself. There was quite a lot of back story. I hope they weren't spoilers!
A body is discovered in a peat bog on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. At first it is assumed that the body is hundreds if not thousands of years old ... until they discover a tattoo of Elvis. Fin Macleod, retiring from the polis is Edinburgh, returns to his native home on the Isle to discover that the closest DNA match to the body is his first girlfriend's father. Unfortunately, the father, Tormold, has dementia and cannot tell what he knows.
This book is brilliantly evocative of the wet and windy Hebrides and the hardy people who hunker down in bungalows in the face of eternal gales. The people scratch a meagre living in the face of poverty and hardship but in the end they cannot bare to be torn away from the bleak and barren beauty of their land. It is brilliant on dementia: Tormold has little idea of what is happening to him and gets even his closest relatives confused but he has detailed memories of the past (although he rarely voices these aloud, leaving tantalising clues for his daughter). It is wonderful in describing the intermingled relationships in the close-knit community where everyone seems to have slept with everyone else, and betrayed everyone else, and fought everyone else. It is fascinating in its dissection of religion: a single isle can have five different warring Protestant sects. It is haunting in its sense of loss and in its description of the awful things that happened to orphans in Scotland in the not-too-distant past. And it is a pretty good whodunnit too (although I had it worked out about two thirds of the way through and I was a little disappointed at the ending which seemed to reduce a work of powerful literature to a thriller).
Definitely one to read. May 2015; 373 pages
A body is discovered in a peat bog on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. At first it is assumed that the body is hundreds if not thousands of years old ... until they discover a tattoo of Elvis. Fin Macleod, retiring from the polis is Edinburgh, returns to his native home on the Isle to discover that the closest DNA match to the body is his first girlfriend's father. Unfortunately, the father, Tormold, has dementia and cannot tell what he knows.
This book is brilliantly evocative of the wet and windy Hebrides and the hardy people who hunker down in bungalows in the face of eternal gales. The people scratch a meagre living in the face of poverty and hardship but in the end they cannot bare to be torn away from the bleak and barren beauty of their land. It is brilliant on dementia: Tormold has little idea of what is happening to him and gets even his closest relatives confused but he has detailed memories of the past (although he rarely voices these aloud, leaving tantalising clues for his daughter). It is wonderful in describing the intermingled relationships in the close-knit community where everyone seems to have slept with everyone else, and betrayed everyone else, and fought everyone else. It is fascinating in its dissection of religion: a single isle can have five different warring Protestant sects. It is haunting in its sense of loss and in its description of the awful things that happened to orphans in Scotland in the not-too-distant past. And it is a pretty good whodunnit too (although I had it worked out about two thirds of the way through and I was a little disappointed at the ending which seemed to reduce a work of powerful literature to a thriller).
Definitely one to read. May 2015; 373 pages
Saturday, 9 May 2015
"The Conquering Family" by Thomas B Costain
This part of a three volume history entitled The Pageant of England tells the story of the Plantagenet Kings from Henry II (though it starts with the civil war between Stephen and Matilda) up to the death of King John.
Costain was a historical novelist and this book was written in 1949; it is very much of its time. The narrative is told in broad strokes with little of the modern historian's care for close examination of alternative sources. It reminded me of A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens: much of the tales it tells serve either a romantic of a moral purpose. He has affectations: low grade priests are regularly referred to as 'shaven-polls' and he loves giving the correct words for parts of armour. But it is a good read.
A more historical account of these times (and a deeper and more fulfilling need even if it does 300 years in 600 pages) might be found in The Plantagenets by Dan Jones.
May 2015; 344 pages
Costain was a historical novelist and this book was written in 1949; it is very much of its time. The narrative is told in broad strokes with little of the modern historian's care for close examination of alternative sources. It reminded me of A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens: much of the tales it tells serve either a romantic of a moral purpose. He has affectations: low grade priests are regularly referred to as 'shaven-polls' and he loves giving the correct words for parts of armour. But it is a good read.
A more historical account of these times (and a deeper and more fulfilling need even if it does 300 years in 600 pages) might be found in The Plantagenets by Dan Jones.
May 2015; 344 pages
Other books in this trilogy include
- The Magnificent Century
- The Three Edwards
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