Baswood's books part 2

Time to take stock and start a new thread for the rest of the year. My reading _targets are moving slowly along.

I have now read all the books on my shelves whose authors surname starts with the letter B and so time to move on to the C's. I have decided again only to read those books as yet unread and here is the list.

John le Carré - A Perfect Spy
Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
Peter Carey - Illywhacker
Michael Chabon - The Amazing adventures of Kavalier & Clay
John Le Carré - The secret Pilgrim
Cervantes - Don Quixote
Colette - Claudine at school
Orson Scott Card - Speaker for the dead
Angela Carter - The Passion of New Eve
John Le Carré - The Russia House
Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White
Michael Collins - The Ressurectionists
Raymond Carver - Where i'm calling from
John Le Carré - Our Game
Joseph Conrad - Lord Jim
Arthur C Clarke - A fall of Moondust
J Fenimore Cooper - The Last of the Mohicans
Andre Camilleri - The Shape of water
Colette - Cheri and the Last of Cheri
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
John Le Carré - The Tailor of Panama
Robert Coover - A night at the movies
Peter Carey - The Tax inspector
J M Coetze - Disgrace
John Le Carré - Absolute Friends
Jonathan Coe - The Rotters Club
Joseph Conrad - Nostromo
Orson Scott Card - Xenocide
John le Carré - the mission song
John Cheever - The stories of John Cheever
Raymond Chandler - The Chandler Collectioin
John Le Carré - A most wanted Man
Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone
Peter Carey - The history of the Kelly gang
Colette - Collected stories
Joseph Conrad - Victory
Robert Coover - Geralds Party

There are a lot of books on that list by John Le Carré. I must have bought a job lot somewhere and I have never read anything by him previously and so I hope I like him.

I am still discovering gems published in 1951 and so I am going to keep on drilling down my list and the next few will be:

Rhys Davies - Marianne A
Alfred Duggan - Conscience of the king
James T Farrell - This man and this woman.
Nelson Algren - Chicago city on the make
A C Bentley - Clerihews complete
Charles Causely - Hands to dance
C Day Lewis - The poets talk
William Faulkner - Collected stories
E M Forster - Two cheers for democracy
T S Eliot - Poetry and drama
Graham Greene - The end of the affair
Patrick Hamilton - The West Pier (Gorse Trilogy)

Science Fiction:
I have a separate list for science fiction published in 1951 and I have nearly come to the end of that. All the remaining books I want to read are now downloaded onto my kindle:

Arthur C Clarke - The sands of Mars
Frederic Brown - Short story collection
Lord Dunsany - The Last revolution
L Ron Hubbard - Typewriter in the sky/Fear
Raymond F Jones - Renaissance
Sam Merwin - The House of many worlds
Malcolm Jameson - Bullard of the Space patrol
Sterling Noel - I killed Stalin
John D McDonald - Wine of the dreamers

More science fiction with the SF Masterwork series and so:

1960 Algis Budrys - Rogue Moon
1961 Arthur C Clarke - A fall of moondust
1962 Philip K Dick - The man in the high castle
1962 J G Ballard - The drowned world
1963 Kurt Vonnegut jr - Cats cradle
1963 Walter Tevis - The man who fell to earth
1964 Philip K Dick - Martian Time-slip
1964 Brian W Aldiss - Greybeard
1964 Philip K Dick - The penultimate truth
1964 Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky - Hard to be a God
1964 Philip K Dick - The Simulacra
1965 Philip K Dick - The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
1965 Arkady Strugasky & Boris Strugatsky - Monday begins on Saturday
1965 Philip K Dick - Dr Bloodmoney
1965 Frank herbert - Dune
1966 Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon
1966 Samuel R Delaney - Babel-17
1966 Philip K Dick - Now wait for last year
1966 Robert A heinlein - The moon is a harsh mistress
1966 Robert Silverburg - Needle in a Timestack
1967 Roger Zelazny - Lord of light
1967 Brian W Aldiss - Cryptozoici

I will also continue with some proto science fiction from the late Victorian era.

I have reached the year 1595 in my reading through the ages project. Of course reading literature especially plays from that era cannot be pigeonholed into actual dates, because much of it would be printed some time after it was available in manuscript form and so I have guessed the following:

Shakespeare - Loves labours lost
Edmund Spenser - Amoretti & Epithalamion
Anonymous - Locrine
Shakespeare - King John
Shakespeare - Richard II
Shakespeare - A midsummer’s nights dream
Gervase Markham - The most honorable tragedy of Sir Richard Grinville
Henry Chettle - Piers Plainnes seven year prenticeship
Emanuel Ford - Ornatus and Artesia
H R Henry Roberts Pheander the mayden knight
Edmund Spenser - Astrophel
Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet
Edmund Spenser - Colin Clouts come home again.
Robert Wilson - The Pedlers Prophecy
Thomas Lodge - A fig for momus
Richard Barnfield - Cynthia
Barnabe Barnes - A Divine century of Spiritual sonnets.
Thomas Campion - Poemata
George Chapman - Ovid’s banquet of Sense
Robert Parry - The adventures of the black knight.
Gervase Markham The poem of poems or Syon’s Muse
Robert Southwell - St Peter’s complaint
Sameul Daniel - The civil wars
Michael Drayton - Endimion and Phoebe

Looking at those lists above reminds me that most of that reading consists of books/play/poetry written by dead white males. So to compensate I will continue to read contemporary french books from my local library.

Impressive lists, Barry, as always. What do you do about series in your ROOTS project? For instance, you list Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, but not the first in the trilogy, Ender's Game. Have you already read it, or will you? Le Carré's books are also somewhat linked, although less so than Card's. Which of his will you read first?

Your “C-list” looks like fun. Those Le Carrés will disappear in the twinkling of an eye, the only danger is that you get hooked and start reading all the others. He’s great at mixing big thriller-themes with the banality of Civil Service life. A perfect spy is one of his best, partly because it’s so autobiographical.
I’ve managed 28 chapters of Don Quijote in about six weeks, so you’ll probably overtake me there if you’re reading it in English.

>7 labfs39: Enders game was a book club choice when I was a member of a book club and one of the participants who was passionate about the trilogy said the other two were better - hence I bought them and never got round to reading them.

>8 thorold: Unlike you Mark I have no record of when I bought the unread books on my shelf. I am fairly certain that some of the must have been there for over 30 years.
I am already engrossed in A Perfect Spy

John le Carré - A Perfect Spy
I have several Le Carré novels sitting unread on my bookshelf and this one published in 1986 was the first one that came to hand. I have not previously read any le Carré, but was reasonably assured that his novels were well written and this was certainly the case with A Perfect Spy. I was soon under the impression that the novel was in some respects autobiographical and this turned out to be correct. It is a long novel, not always easy to follow, but once the reader gets the idea that the book is largely a back story to the defection of a British spy, then this back story becomes the most interesting part of the book.

Pym is a spy, a British agent and probably a double agent. He has suddenly gone missing and the British, the Americans and the Czech secret services are all frantically trying to locate him. The story of Pym's life from his miserable childhood to his difficult relationship with his con-man father is told in parts by Pym himself in a letter to his son, by his handler: Brotherhoods attempts at tracking him down and by other witnesses to a life both complicated and banal. Voices come and go but they all build a portrait of a shallow individual skilled in the techniques of spying, but never entirely sure who he is spying for and why he has lived the life he has led. Much of this is explained and this reader did not for a moment feel compassion for a rather feckless individual. I think the book is very well crafted and if the reader can live with this cast of anti-heroes who make up this unglamorous undercover world, then it is a very good read. 4.5 stars.

What a great "C" list. Looking forward to reading your reviews of them.

>10 baswood: "Feckless" is one of my favourite adjectives, and you're right - it doesn't usually warrant compassion.

Amazing lists, Barry. You remind me that I read a bit of Le Carre in the 70s and 80s. I think the most recent read was likely 1983's The Little Drummer Girl.

Désobéir: Roman (Collection Contemporains) - Gérard Valbert
It has been over two weeks since I visited this thread and the books have been pilling up on my desk unread. It has not quite got to the stage where I can't see over the top of them, but the piles have become precarious. The reasons for this is has been the return of the Marciac Jazz festival which ran for two weeks and has taken up most of my time: not that I am involved in the organising or anything like that, but just because I have been listening to lots of music and generally staying out very late.

The festival has not quite regained the majesty of its pre-covid days; in 2019 there was no festival at all and in 2021 it was like entering into a giant cage or as someone said a prison exercise yard. In 2022 The 6000 seater temporary Chapiteau was erected and most of the paraphernalia (bars, restaurants, gift shops, toilets) were back in place. However this was the first year that I did not go to any of the big events and this was because of the program. It would seem that it is moving away from being a jazz festival and moving towards more popular entertainment. The headline acts were Jeff Beck with Johnny Depp in tow, James Blunt, Nile Rogers and Chic, Gregory Porter, Beth Hart etc. There were of course some jazz regulars at the festival: Herbie Hancock, Avisa Cohen, Wynton Marsalis and Diana Krall, but I have seen all of these acts at least three times in the last ten years. The compensations were that there is plenty of music around town and you are able to see and hear quite well the concerts outside of the Chapiteau.

Another reason for not posting on this thread was Désobeir (Disobedience), which took a great effort on my part to get into, but once I did it was a very interesting read. Philippe Lavenne a writer visits a farm in the Jura (France) where there is supposed to be some papers and articles left by his uncle Friedrich-Wilhelm Walter who was a philosopher and political adviser who fled to the USA in 1940 to escape retribution from the Nazi invaders. Whilst searching through a box of papers Philipe comes across his own old diaries written during the years 1938-1941, when he was a young teenager (13-15). The novel then turns around from being a search for lost papers to being a reworking of Philips diary entries with added comments from Philip as a mature man and his own acts of disobedience.

The diary entries describe the family living in a very smart address in the centre of Paris. Philips father was a business man, his sister was an actress and Friedrich-Wilhelm Walter was a government adviser. At the fall of Paris the family hastily leave Paris to return to their native Switzerland, but cannot avoid the horrors of the refugees struggle to leave the capital. Walter is in fear of his life, but they manage to get to Neufchatel. Once there Walter is intent on escaping to the USA while Philipe and his father try to pick up a life in Switzerland. Philipe is very much left to his own devices and must cope with the horrors of the flight from Paris, his hatred of the Germans and the French Vichy government and his own developing manhood.

The novels effort to place the reader in the context of the times of the start of the second world war is handled with some detail, especially the detail relating to the family, It succeeds by and large but takes some effort from the reader. The reader has to wait to the final 50 pages of novel (total 315 pages) to learn about Philips act of disobedience, which then succeeds in being a bicycle powered road book. For me the story line of the novel was not as important as the description of life just before German occupation in Paris and then the portrait of Switzerland during the early years of the war. This was fascinating and reads like an autobiography. It has an authentic feel and places the reader securely in the context of the times.

This novel was the next one off the shelf of my local library. It was published in 1998 and does not seem to have made any great waves. Gérard Valbert was a journalist and author of four other books and I think he had an excellent story to tell here; 4 stars.

I'm sorry that the Marciac Jazz Festival has changed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Decatur Book Festival just outside of Atlanta and the Edinburgh Festivals have also made adaptations, which have not been good ones, IMO.

Nice review of Désobéir.

Marianne - Rhys Davies



This is not the copy of my respectable hardback copy which is missing its paper cover but would probably have looked more like this:



Marianne, Rhys Davies - Rhys Davies
Published in 1951 Marianne is set in Wales and I was not expecting to read a light hearted romantic comedy. I was not disappointed this is a very dark novel set in around the Rhondda Valley and the thinly disguised town of Port Talbot (Port Trolon in the novel). Marianne and Barbara are non-identical twin sisters just turned twenty-one and living in a respectable house above the hubbub of the local town. Their father is a respected man in the community and holds a good job at the steelworks their mother teaches music. They are well off enough to have a summer house in the long garden and the novel opens with the conflagration and blaze of light that comes from the works when the furnaces are being tapped. Marianne is the more secretive of the very secretive sisters and she has largely withdrawn from family life going out in the evenings and returning home late at night. Barbara suspects she has a boyfriend and when Marianne finally reveals that she is pregnant she plunges the family into despair. She will not reveal the name of the father and has convinced herself that the baby will be born dead. She lets her parents make arrangements for a doctor and midwife to attend to her and withdraws further into herself hardly communicating with her family. She gives birth to a baby boy, but seems to have no interest in life herself, the doctor in desperation summons Barbara to hold her hand as she dies in agony, but her last words are the name of the father whispered to her twin sister.

Barbara has keenly felt the agony of her sisters death and devotes her time to tracking down the man who made her pregnant. She has little information to go on, but knows that Marianne had been exploring her burgeoning sexual needs in the town and that the father of her child had broken off their relationship, which had resulted in Marianne's terminal depression. Some six months later Barbara tracks down the man: a steelworker from the rough end of town and without revealing that she is Marianne's twin sister, forms her own relationship with him and entices him into marriage. Secrets and lies is the name of the game and outlook looks as bleak as the Welsh weather.

Davies's exploration of the connectivity of the twins and the darker side of their sexuality and their struggle with the other sex, a struggle for dominance and fulfilment reminded me of the novels of D H Lawrence and it was not too much of a surprise when I discovered later that Davies was briefly part of the circle around Frieda and D H Lawrence, staying with them in France and smuggling a copy of Lawrence's Pansies (poetry collection) into England. Rhys Davies himself was the author of twenty novels and numerous collections of short stories and was awarded an OBE in 1968.

My second hand copy of the novel was advertised as being inscribed with a dedication by the author and it is a curious thing indeed because it is written in mid blue ink: "To Harry with Love from Win. Christmas 1951" Clearly Win. is not Rhys and on closer inspection it appears that the original name has been scratched out and Win. written over it in darker coloured ink. The original name can still be partly seen and looks to end in ys therefore Rhys.
I am always fascinated by dedications in secondhand books, perhaps there is a story there. Davies was homosexual, but never wrote about his sexuality. One could imagine then all sorts of reasons why the name was changed. A discovery and I enjoyed yet another plunge into the 1951 literary world - 4 stars.

Cool copy and interesting 1951 find.

>15 baswood: "I am always fascinated by dedications in secondhand books" So am I and this is a particularly interesting one! Thank you for sharing the photo.

>15 baswood: Love the tagline "Books of Proven Merit" at the bottom of the pulp cover!

You do make it sound like a worthwhile book, and like other, I too love finding inscriptions in old books

>16 dchaikin:, >17 MissBrangwen:, >18 SassyLassy: Thanks for the comments and now back to the bottom shelf of my local library and the next book along. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a comments page attached to library books.



Métamorphoses, François Vallejo- François Vallejo
What would your reaction be if your half brother, with whom you had a close relationship in your teenage years converted to Islam? It might be a shrug of the shoulders in typical french fashion, but if you knew that your half brother was obsessional and that he had distanced himself from you recently then you might be a little more concerned. This is the situation in which Alix finds herself when she hears from a close friend that Alban has converted and changed his name to Abdelkrim Yousef and is no longer taking her calls. Their parents are far too busy running a travel agency business in Paris to be concerned with Alix and Alban and Alix who has acted as a parental figure to her younger brother feels responsible. She remembers Alban being obsessed with the thrilling rides in Disneyland Parks when they were teenagers; their parents happy to dish out complementary tickets and pack their children off to various cities in France where there were amusement parks. Since those days Alban had studied chemistry and was at the point of writing a thesis when suddenly he dropped out of college.

Françoise Vallejo writes his novel from the p.o.v. of Alix as she struggles to gain more information on her estranged brother, she has carved out a career for herself in art restoration and has a contract to restore some early frescoes in a romanesque church deep in the countryside. She writes a journal on her laptop of her attempts to contact Alban and when she starts to make some progress, she is warned off by acquaintances that she may be causing trouble for Alban/Abdelkrim within his new community. One wonders if Alix is as obsessional as her brother, especially when she visits a doctor with whom she has heard there may be a connection with her brother, pretending she has a stomach complaint. Her concerns seem to be realised when she finds evidence of Alban travelling to the Maghreb and then to Waziristan followed by a terrorist attack at Orly airport some time after.

Vallejo's novels main theme is the indoctrination of a young Parisian susceptible to involvement in terrorist activities, but this is not explored in any great depth, because he is more concerned with the relationship with his sister. We only hear snippets of Abdelkrims new life and his reasons for being a Jihadist are as shadowy as the community in which he serves. The book becomes a sort of mystery thriller with Alix determined to find a way to save her half brother. There are some interesting juxtapositions, Alix is an atheist, but finds herself intimately involved in religious art, while her brother has embraced a new religion, but finds difficulty in being accepted, because of his nationality and catholic upbringing. Alix working partner betrays her, when she reveals the contents of Alix's laptop journal to the DCRI an agency gathering information for the Secret Service.

Françoise Vallejo is a professor of literature and has published several novels. His expertise is probably not in radicalisation or the secret service, but his writing skills carry along this novel: published in 2012 well enough and it succeeds in being a thoughtful psychological mystery. After a slow start I found it an entertaining read and so 4 stars.

Rogue Moon - Algis Budrys
Another book from the SF masterwork series: Rogue Moon was published in 1960, but its characters seem to belong to the 1950's rather than the 1960's and this is important because Budrys works as hard to present his protagonists as he does to tell a science fiction story. It is the dawning of the age of space travel and a mysterious artefact has been discovered on the dark side of the moon. It defies description, but occupies a space probably as big as a football field and it kills anybody trying to enter it. Doctor Edward Hawks has built a matter transmitting machine in an effort to probe the artefact. His machine can make duplicate copies of volunteers from earth, which it can transmit to the moon, allowing them to explore the artefact. Unfortunately the duplicates have not been able to last more than a few seconds inside the artefact without being killed and their destruction leads to insanity for the original copy remaining on earth. Hawks is running out of time and monetary support and so when the chief of human resources: Connington (the clue might be in the name) presents him with a candidate who has no fear of death, Hawks grabs at this last chance and agrees to meet Al Barker (for that is his name).

Hawks meets the thrill seeker and genuine all American hero at his home and walks into a tangled web of relationships. The girlfriend Clair Pack (where does he get these names from) is a wisecracking femme fatale who is weighing up her options with Barker and Connington, admitting to Hawks that she cannot help acting like a bitch (the dialogue is typical hard bitten detective novel fare). Hawks himself is not at ease with women, but after the stormy meeting at Barker's home, where the host and his girlfriend are as infuriating as each other, he meets and becomes attracted to a woman: Elizabeth Cummings (yes really) who picks him up on the long walk home.
While all of this has been going on, the artefact on the moon is largely forgotten, but the reader might have guessed by now, that it may have some influence on life on earth. Of course Barker cannot resist the challenge and agrees to be duplicated so that he can explore the mystery on the moon: the second part of the novel details his attempts to conquer the space inside the artefact with the help of Hawks and his team.

The main theme that emerges from the novel is death. Barker must conquer his own repeated deaths to explore the artefact. Hawks assistant Sam Latourette (another significant name) has terminal cancer and must soon accept his mortality. Hawks and his new girlfriend who genuinely fall in love, may have found a way to circumvent their fears with a more humanist approach. Clair Pack and Connington's attempt to ignore and run away from the human condition because of their own ego's is another approach. The puzzle for the reader is: what is the connection with the artefact on the moons surface? All well and good, but in my opinion Budrys's characters are so sharply conformist to 1950's cultural norms; for example the egotistical hero, the femme fatal, the inexperienced lover and the conniving cheat, that they lose some of their influence on the story. The actual exploration of the artefact is also a bit of an anticlimax. I could say that the novel is almost as crass as the names of its characters, but that would be unfair, as after all it is a 1960's science fiction novel that did hold my interest and Arthur C Clarke (2001 A Space Odyssey) may have read it and so 3.5 stars.

Michael Drayton - Ideas Mirrour (1594)
Michael Drayton 1563-1631 was an English poet and playwright. He was successful and widely read in the Elizabethan and Jacobean era, but has since suffered some obscurity. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature says:

Michael Drayton was a major poet of his age; but neither the present nor any future age will believe that a complete knowledge of his very extensive poetry is a necessity of intellectual life.

A bit of a put down, but the Cambridge History certainly does not take any prisoners when discussing authors outside of the elite canon. At the end of its summary of Drayton's works it concludes that "Drayton is a kind of poetical epitome. There is something of almost every kind of poetry in him. Drayton may not be read, but he is delightful to read in". There is little doubt that Drayton was a popular poet and his popularity was based on his printed work. He was disdainful of those gentleman poets who did not publish their work, referring to them as 'Cabinet Poets'. He had trouble finding a patron either due to bad luck or his ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and so he needed to get into print.

Ideas Mirrour was published in 1594 at the height of the Elizabethan craze for love sonnets and Drayton writes very much within the Petrarchan template. It is an early work and he revised and added to the poems repeatedly throughout his career, but I have read the original 51 sonnets: two of which are stretched to eighteen lines. On the whole it is a good collection and I would say better than most, as it repeatedly introduces arresting imagery and for much of the time avoids the obscurity that belabours some of these collections when the poets launch into mere stylistic exercises. The poems however do not breakout of the straight jacket imposed by the unwritten rules of love sonnets at the time and so there is little evidence of personal feeling.

In his introductory sonnet Drayton acknowledges his debt to Sir Philip Sydney:

Divine Syr Phillip, I avouch thy writ,
I am no Pickpurse of anothers wit.

And in the first sonnet titled Amour 1 he comes straight to the point in the very first line:

Reade heere (sweet Mayd) the story of my wo,

He is addressing directly the woman who has rejected him as a lover. The idea of unrequited love is usual in theses collections, but Drayton seems to be making this personal: the Mayd is never named and referred to as Idea, but it is conjectured he is writing the poems for Anne Goodere the daughter of his patron at the time, she married someone else, but remained on good terms with Drayton. He emphasis her virtue throughout as well as his own chaste desire and so there is a feeling of a genuine love story here.

The sequence runs through the usual gamut of praise for the beloved and then the realisation that he has been rejected. There are a few instances where bitterness of his loss is reflected in some vitriol against his beloved, but he soon recovers, wishing to internalise his feelings and ends by restating his love and admiration.

There are many enjoyable poems in this collection, but of course not every one would be to my taste and there are plenty of examples where the poet is either labouring the same point over a sequence of poems or is indulging in exercises of style, but even Shakespeare in his wonderful collection is guilty of this. It is therefore pertinent to think about those poems that appear to be successful and please the reader: here are a couple of examples:

In Amour 7 he plays with a personification of Time:

Stay, stay, sweet Time; behold, or ere thou passe
From world to world, thou long hast sought to see,
That wonder now wherein all wonders be,
Where heaven beholds her in a mortall glasse.
Nay, looke thee, Time, in this Celesteall glasse,
And thy youth past in this faire mirror see:
Behold worlds Beautie in her infancie,
What shee was then, and thou, or ere shee was.
Now passe on, Time: to after-worlds tell this,
Tell truelie, Time, what in thy time hath beene,
That they may tel more worlds what Time hath seene,
And heauen may joy to think on past worlds blisse.
Heere make a Period, Time, and saie for mee,
She was the like that never was, nor never more shalbe.

Amour 45 later in the sequence when things are not to rosy:

Blacke pytchy Night, companyon of my woe,
The Inne of care, the Nurse of drery sorrow,
Why lengthnest thou thy darkest howres so,
Still to prolong my long tyme lookt-for morrow?
Thou Sable shadow, Image of dispayre,
Portraite of hell, the ayres black mourning weed,
Recorder of reuenge, remembrancer of care,
The shadow and the vaile of euery sinfull deed.
Death like to thee, so lyve thou still in death,
The grave of ioy, prison of dayes delight.
Let heavens withdraw their sweet Ambrozian breath,
Nor Moone nor stars lend thee their shining light;
For thou alone renew'st that olde desire,
Which still torments me in dayes burning fire.

I rate this as 3.5 stars.

Matilda The faire and chaste daughter of the Lord Robert Fitzwater. The true glorie of the noble house of Sussex.

Another dip into the poetry of Michael Drayton. Matilda was published in 1594 and is an epic poem of nearly 200 stanzas written in rhyme royal: a stanza of seven lines, in iambic pentameter rhyming ababbcc. It harks back to the poetry in William Baldwins The Mirror for Magistrates published in 1559 which had the same format. It also has the same idea as the protagonist in the poems in that collection, which were all ghosts of famous people who claimed to have been unjustly murdered. Drayton does the same thing in Matilda; daughter of the Earl of Sussex, who claimed she was murdered by King John.

Like the collection in Mirror for magistrates it is a sorry tale. Matilda is an outstanding beauty at the court of King John. He falls in lust with her and she realises her virginity is in danger. She flees to the protection of her father the Earl of Sussex. King John exiles her powerful father and Matilda enters a convent. She is soon visited by a messenger from the king who gives her a stark choice; she must either consent to going to bed with the king or she must drink a vial of poison. She drinks the poison and seeks revenge through the poem written by her ghost.

No new ground being broken here and none is claimed by Drayton who refers to a couple of the poems in the earlier collection, notably Shore's wife. The Mirror for Magistrates proved to be a popular collection when printed and so for Drayton there would be no harm in repeating the formula. His versification is smooth and his imagery is lively enough. The interest from a 21st century standpoint is what the poem tells us about the power of kings and the helplessness of women like Matilda. Her own thoughts on the tragedy of her life finally comes to the surface when she is given the poison to drink, she bemoans the evil king on one hand, but she also says it is within his right to command his subjects as he wishes.

3 stars.

Anne-Gaëlle Huon - Les Demoiselles, Anne-Gaëlle Huon
A book recommended to me by a French friend while we were sitting outside of the main concert hall drinking a glass of champagne during the Marciac Jazz festival. In the book the heroine Rosa is told that:

Il n'y a que trois règles ici Rosa:
la première: ne jamais tomber amoureuse.
le deuxième: ne jamais voler l'homme d'une autre.
La dernière: ne boire que du champagne millésimé.

Well I think the last of the three rules is much harder to follow in these difficult times, certainly the Taittinger we were drinking was not vintage. However on a balmy evening it seemed better to be sitting outside the concert hall sipping champagne and talking about books. The music in the background was best ignored.

Rosa a fifteen year old Spanish girl joins the annual expedition to cross the Pyrenees in search of work. It is winter time and her sister dies during a hazardous journey, Rosa is mortified, but is encouraged to buck herself up and get to work in a factory that make espadrilles. In the town of Mauleon (home of the espadrilles) she meets a teacher who offers to teach her French and when Rosa falls out with her Spanish friends she finds her way to Mlle Thérèse's house, where she is taken in. She finds herself surrounded by books and music in a household fantastique, but settles down with the grand dame Vera, the beautiful Colette, Bernadette, Marcel the Chauffeur and Lupin a man mountain who once worked in a circus. There is a history to this household and there are secrets and lies. Rosa is telling her story as an eighty year old woman looking back on an eventful life to a certain Liz.

The book is a work of popular fiction, which outside of its story of a young woman's struggle to make a success of her life, has no axe to grind. The setting of the book was in South West France where I live and so was interesting for me, as was the historical events that affected the area. The story starts in 1923 and so takes in the war years, it also encompasses some famous people who dip in and out of the story: Charlie Chaplin, who has an affair with Colette, Christian Dior who orders espadrilles from the factory for a fashion show and others who hide under pseudonyms. The book kept me interested until the end with its lively narrative.

Anne-Gaëlle Huon is an author who is very active on social media and this is the sort of book that I would not have come across, unless it was recommended to me and was available in my local library. Published in 2020 and a bit of light relief perhaps, but a good 3.5 rating.

The Last Revolution, Lord Dunsany - Lord Dunsany
The Last revolution by Lord Dunsany was published in 1951, and although this is science fiction it has something of an H G Wells feel about it. The story takes place in an area known as the Thames Marshes, long since disappeared into housing estates like Thamesmead, built on the marshes in the 1960's. The last revolution which could be the final revolution to topple the dominance of mankind confines itself to the Thames marsh locality and so the parochial feel of some of H G Wells science fiction is very much in evidence.

Abelard Pender is an inventor of gadgetry, but in the story has recently turned his brilliant mind to making a brain, using wire to conduct electrical currents. He succeeds in this first step and goes on to give his invention, a body, many arms and other accoutrements that make it look like a spider or a crab that scuttles across the floor. The story is told in the first person by an acquaintance of Abelard Pender who is a member of the same London Club, Pender invites him home to see his invention. The journey out to the Thames marshes finds Penders original invention busy making other machines. On another visit the speaker is soundly beaten at a game of chess by the machine and Pender boasts of its extraordinary intelligence. The speaker soon realises that the invention could be very dangerous and when Pender looses control of it and the machine is able to influence other machines his worst fears are realised. The last revolution will be a revolt of all the machinery. The climax of the story finds the speaker, Pender and his girlfriend along with 12 policemen trapped inside a workman's cottage on the marshes surrounded by the hostile machines.

The novel feels like a short story that has been stretched to novel length, there is some repetition, but the writing flows smoothly enough. It does give the author much space to warn against the danger of the machine age and finally looks back on a bucolic ideal, before the invention of machines. I enjoyed the small town feel of the events and the curious British insularity in a crisis that could lead to the end of the human race. There is some discussion on the mistakes that have been made by too much industrialisation. The author; Lord Dunsany was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist with over 90 volumes of fiction, essays, poems and plays to his credit, one can often find a story of his, collected in a science fiction or horror story collection of the time. This would have been fine as a short story and so 2.5 stars.

Aurélie Valognes - Le Tourbillon de la vie.
Bring on that feel-good factor with Aurélie Valognes and Le Tourbillon de la vie. The whirlwind in this instance is Louis an eight year old boy who is spending the summer with his grandfather. A loving relationship develops between the two. Papy finds himself living alone, he has been diagnosed with an illness that will lead to memory loss, but has kept this to himself wishing to enjoy perhaps one last summer with his grandchild. He has been a stage actor and like some in that profession his ego and his pride have carried him away from his wife and his daughter. He realises that he has been selfish and perhaps stubborn and the love that remains with him is for Louis.

Valognes tells the story from an omnipresent point of view with short interjections from Papy at the start of each short chapter. He sometimes reflects on his past, but also tells us how he is thinking at the moment, he has always kept a diary. He comes to depend on Louis and the relationship changes from adult to child and back again for the two of them. To make the story work, the eight year old boy is wise well beyond his age, growing up remarkable quickly during an idyllic summer holiday.

Valognes tells her story simply and well creating an atmosphere that is a pleasure to read. She muses on feelings of empathy, of time passing and reflections on a full life now coming towards its end. Papy says he does not regret anything, but this last summer exposes a more gentle heart in a man coping with his coming demise. A gentle quiet book that does not challenge the idea that love will conquer all. Reading it is a bit like taking a warm bath, relaxing and enjoyable, but it does not last for long and you must get out, get dressed and face the world. 3 stars.

>19 baswood:

If you'd read more about radicalisation, I highly recommend Yasmina Khadra's Khalil (about the November 2015 attacks in Paris). It's short but hard-hitting. I liked especially how he conveyed a whole spectrum of characters, moods, attitudes on the terrorist side, instead of presenting a unique paradigm (this type and no other...)

>25 LolaWalser: Noted - thanks

Loved your post on Michael Drayton and the two works of his poetry.

Karine Tuil - Les choses humaines, Karine Tuil
I found this is a difficult book to like and a difficult book with which to come to terms. The subject is the violation of a young woman by the affluent son of a famous Television broadcaster. It is set in Paris at the height of the MeToo movement in America and the similar balancetonporc movement in France. Alexandre is the 21 year old son of Jean Farel. Jean is 70 years old and fighting to keep his position as a celebrity, political interviewer on National Television. He is on the point of getting divorced from his wife Claire who is a journalist, she has recently been in the news for criticising her feminists colleagues approach to the harassment of women in Cologne (Germany) by muslim men, at New years eve celebrations. This ties the story to a real event: the 2015-16 New Years Eve celebrations where 1,200 women were reportedly sexually assaulted by groups of non-European men. However this becomes a side issue that has little bearing on the central story.

Alexandre has returned from Stanford University in America and is living with his mother who has found a new Partner Adam Wiseman. She has set up house with Adam and his 18 year old daughter Mila. Alexandre offers to take Mila to a party organised by a group of old school friends, much drinking goes on and Alexandre accepts a challenge/bet to seduce Mila. He buys her drinks, he scores some coke and he has sex with her in an area where there are waste disposal bins for a block of flats. He stuffs Mila's knickers in his pocket as proof of his success. After the event Mila goes to her mother and claims that Alexandre raped her. They report the violation to the police and want to press charges. The majority of the second half of the book deals with the highly publicised trial of Alexandre Farel.

There are many issues involved: Jean Farel has been ruthless in carving out his career and has not always been a good parent. His view: stated publicly is that it would be disgraceful if his son's career and future life would be destroyed for a careless 20 minute episode with Mila. He is also concerned for his own reputation. Mila's mother Valery is a strict religious Jewish woman and Mila has been brought up in a fairly closeted environment. She is un-worldly and claims she was petrified/frozen when Alexandre forced her to have sex. The arguments of the barristers at the trial boils down to whether Mila gave her consent to sex. As it is her word against Alexandre's then psychological reports, witnesses character assessments and other background issue are used to come to a decision. This gives the legal representatives full scope to make their case. Mila's representative gives a good account of events and widens it to demonstrate how difficult it is for a woman like Mila to obtain justice, however............

I have some criticism of Tuil's book. In my opinion she overcomplicates the family connections, and then does not explore them in any depth; for example we never learn how much pressure if any Mila's mother put on her daughter. Mila herself breaks down in tears whenever she is forced to describe the events. The justice system makes it difficult for her to make a case, all Alexandre has to do is to keep saying "she did not say no" and this leads to a further criticism: Tuil takes us through the events again and again and it has the feel of voyeurism. The question is "who is the victim here" and Tuil in my opinion does not come off the fence, she leaves it for the reader to decide, it is though she is interested in a mere reportage of the facts and I think her novel demands something stronger than that. One could argue that although Alexandre and his father protest that the incident could have serious repercussions for their future lives, there is little doubt that Mila's life has already been destroyed.

Karine Tuil is a french author with eleven other novels to her credit. She is noted for writing about subjects that point to contradictions in the human condition and hypocrisy in contemporary life. This novel was published in 2019 and although she has thrown her hat in the ring on a controversial subject, in my opinion she really has brought nothing new to the table. It is well written and raises many issued intelligently, however I was not entirely convinced and so 3.5 stars.

It has been made into a film, which I have not seen.

Alfred Duggan - Conscience of the King, Alfred Duggan
An historical novel from 1951 and Alfred Duggan's second novel is a good one. He tells the story of Cerdic Elesing who was said to be the founder of the Kingdom of Wessex. It is told in the first person as Cerdic now in his eighties looks back on his life and times. The title stems from the fact that Cerdic had no conscience. Born in 451 AD; the third son of a Roman Briton his only path to glory was to murder his elder brother and then plot to overthrow his father whose stronghold was in Canterbury England. Cerdic had to make his own way in the world and apart from having no conscience his other advantages were that being born a Roman he had an education which enabled him to read and write, and being wet-nursed by a Saxon woman, he learned to speak `german and was fully conversant with Saxon culture. He could therefore make his way in either world at a time in England when Roman educated Britons were being harried by Saxon adventurers and settlers on the East side of the Country. The Romans had effectively abandoned England some fifty years earlier and the civilisation that they had founded was rapidly unwinding.

Cerdic remains a shadowy figure in English history and Duggan has plenty of scope to invent a likely personage. As an historian and archeologist he is able to paint a credible picture of England during its transition from Roman rule to a darker age when warring factions struggled to maintain a semblance of civilisation. Allowing Cerdic to tell his own story places the reader inside the head of a successful adventurer. Cerdic achieves his aspiration to become an independent king, through cunning, feats of arms and letting nothing stand in the way of his ambition. He suffers some reverses, but his ability to transfer allegiance from Roman Briton to Saxon Briton and to outthink his opponents enables him to achieve his objective. Duggan's Cedric is not weighed down by later day morals and it is this portrait that convinced this reader that somebody like Cedric could be successful and even perhaps admirable.

The description of fifth century England is convincing, Roman towns have largely been abandoned, agriculture is carried out when and where people find or clear an area and can gain protection from raiders. The taking of oaths, the fear of the unknown, superstition, rituals are all part of the culture that Duggan describes. He also comes into his own when describing military action, for example the battle of Badon Hill where he envisages Cerdic's saxon army suffering a reversal at the hands of Artorious heavy cavalry. Legends and scraps of history are fitted together to give a convincing picture and characters are brought to life. An entertaining four star read.

Back from my holiday at Lake Garda Italy I took the following books to read:

Conscience of the King, Alfred Duggan
Les choses humaines, Karine Tuil
Typewriter in the Sky, L. Ron Hubbard
This man and this woman, James T. Farrel
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Two Cheers for Democracy, E. M. Forster
C. Day Lewis, A selection by the author

We had great weather all week and so I only got to read the first three titles. The others I shall read next:

Always better to bring too many books than too few!

>30 baswood: I'm with Lisa. More is always better, especially if you want choices :-)

Typewriter in the Sky - L Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard, yes that L. Ron Hubbard; the man that founded the church of Scientology. he started life as a pulp writer for the burgeoning magazine market in America in the 1930's. He is best known for his stories in the science fiction and fantasy genres, but also wrote adventure fiction, aviation, travel, mysteries, westerns of course and even romances. Typewriter in the Sky was published in 1951 at the time when Hubbard was launching a career in Dianetics and a few years before he founded the church of Scientology.

The story which is a sort of adventure fantasy was first published in 1940 and was republished with another of his pieces 'Fear' in 1951. It was generally well received and now is considered one of Hubbard's better stories. It begins with pulp writer Horace Hackett up against a deadline for producing his next novel. Pressed for a plot summary he uses the character of one his friends (Mike de Wolf) in a swashbuckling adventure story on the Spanish Main. Suddenly Mike finds himself transported to the year 1640 and is emerging from the sea after being shipwrecked. He hears the sound of a typewriter and slowly realises that he is playing the role of the captain of the Spanish navy who is trying to eradicate English adventurers/pirates from the West Indies. Mike of course is familiar with the pulp stories created by Horace Hackett and fears for his life because he is obviously the villain of the piece and Hackett's villains never get the girl and usually die a horrible death. There follows a tale of derring-do, adventure and romance where Mike is continually trying to subvert the story that he knows Hackett will write. It is an interesting idea, but this is pulp fiction and Hubbard is a pulp fiction writer describing how pulp fiction is created. The story is wildly fantastic and only flirts with historical events, but is entertaining enough.

It is light reading with an original idea that might have been better developed had more time been spent on it, but hey, this is pulp fiction, and it is no more offensive in terms of racism and sexism than much of the genre at the time and so 3 stars.

James T. Farrell - This man and this Woman
Another book from my 1951 reading list and this time I have been introduced to an American writer from the realist school. This man and this woman is a demoralising and depressing read. The man in question is Walt Callahan and at 63 years old he is thinking of soon taking a peaceful and well earned retirement. He works as a supervisor in an express company and has been through tough times during the depression in America, but him and his wife Peg have raised a family and Walt is considered to be comfortably off. Now that the children have left home Peg has time on her hands and she realises that she has never liked Walt that much and now his very presence around the house causes her to lash out at him. Walt wanting peace and quiet does his best to calm his wife, whom he still loves, but it is becoming an impossible situation. Most of the time he does not know what to say to her, as anything he does say is twisted by Peg against him.

This is a sad story of a woman who feels that she has wasted her life with Walt and now feeling trapped she boils over into frustration. She spends her day cleaning the house and preparing herself for her husbands return, a man whom now she despises. Walt escapes into his job which keeps him busy and occupied and he dreads having to go home. The verbal abuse, the name calling, the insults are unremitting from Peg and Walt does not know how to deal with the situation, especially as Peg reverts occasionally to being a 'good wife'. James T Farrell dialogue is realistic and expresses all the tensions that lie beneath this unhappy couple. Farrell writes from Walt's point of view and he comes across as a kindly man well liked by his family and colleagues, but now seriously out of his depth in his relationship with Peg.

This short novel forges ahead to its logical conclusion and along the way introduces two people struggling to make sense of their lives. It is well written and effortlessly wraps the readers into the miserable existence of this failing relationship. It is written from the mans point of view, but does touch on Peg's early life. The reader has to come to his/her own conclusions to account for a deeply unhappy woman. I was impressed by the quality of Farrell's writing and If I was in the mood for another dose of realism I would turn to him to lead me through the misery: 4 stars

>34 baswood: This had a strong Richard Yates sound to me as I was reading your review. I wonder if Farrell influenced him.

Perhaps it's a good thing you had good weather and didn't get to this "dose of realism" while on holiday!

>34 baswood: Thanks for this review that introduces me to an author I did not know about.
It sounds fairly depressing, but nonetheless interesting.

Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The next unread book off my library shelf was Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It is a short novel, just under 100 pages in the penguin edition, but the text is dense and at times quite difficult to read. I know that the film Apocalypse Now is based on the book and is the story of an adventurers nightmare journey up a remote river in search of a white man who is rumoured to have gone native. In the book it is the Congo river and Marlowe is heading towards a remote trading post, sometime in the late nineteenth century in search of Mr Kurtz. The film takes place during the war in Vietnam and Willard is heading up the Mekong river searching for Kurtz who is an army commander in a remote and advanced position. Knowing the story and some of the themes of the film is helpful when staring out on the book.

The book was published in 1902 and is now considered to be an influential work of modernist literature. I do not want to get into technical reasons but from a generalist point of view, I think this is because the narrative flow leaps forward unexpectedly, passages of close description of events are followed by gaps in the storytelling. Conrad seems more intent on describing the atmosphere, the surroundings and the environment rather than motives for the action. The reader has to work hard to follow the story which seems to move in and out of consciousness. It is told in the first person and Marlowe's thoughts often appear confused. He is trying to grasp the unknowable and often just falls back on snapshots of remembered events.

The novel opens with Marlowe on a sailing boat on the upper reaches of the river Thames, he is with four companions and the atmosphere of a grey day on the water with little movement, provokes him into telling his story of his adventure in Africa. He sits buddha like with his back against the mast as his story unfolds. He was fascinated by unmapped areas of the world and manges to gain command of a steamship plying its way up to remote regions of the Congo river. He finds himself in a Belgian trading post and describes the treatment of the black Africans by their white masters and he is shocked when he encounters six Africans chained together being forced to carry baskets of earth up a hill after the blasting of a hillside.

They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete deathlike indifference of unhappy savages........I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed and the devil of hot desire: but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red eyed devils, that swayed and drove men - men I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside , I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly.

Just as well that Conrad was talking about the Belgians and not the British colonisers. Marlowe has to wait three months at the trading post while his boat is being repaired and he finally gets going with a Belgian manager several pilgrims of 'The international Society for the Surpression of Savage Customs' and a crew of African cannibals. They are travelling upriver to Mr Kurtz trading post which has outperformed all other such posts in the supply of ivory. Kurtz's unusual methods which entails recruiting and leading his followers in war parties against other tribes is the reason for his success. He has become a god-like figure, not afraid to commit any amount of horrific crimes to further his ambitions.

When they finally reach Kurtz station he is a sick man being carried around on a stretcher. He is semi delirious and is not able to give much of a clue to his heart of darkness. He is worshipped by the motley collection of Africans who surround him, and his speaking voice and charismatic personality give some clue to his success. His hold however is weakening and Marlowe although fascinated by him is never able to explain or come to terms with why this should be so. In a way this is frustrating for the reader, who is never able to see Kurtz at the height of his powers.

Reading other peoples thoughts on the book reveals this dichotomy. It is a book that some people find overhyped, the struggle with the text becomes a pointless exercise, while others acknowledge it as a great piece of literature and I can see both points of view. What struck me was the continual references to a dream like environment, this is underlined by the fact that Marlowe is retelling a story to his friends and also still trying to come to grips with his own thoughts and feelings. He is still confused and the dreamlike environment is more like a nightmare, one which he has survived, but has made a lasting impression. Perhaps he has come to some understanding of the heart of darkness even if it is only the more prosaic thoughts on the evils of exploitation. Yes 5 stars.

>37 baswood: Definitely time for me to reread this after reading your review.

Your last paragraph really had me thinking of Apocalypse Now, and the Redux edition, realising how much Coppola had captured that dreamlike/nightmarish atmosphere. Despite having seen these films 10+ times, it hadn't struck me that they too are narrated. That's poorly worded; obviously I knew they were narrated, but I hadn't made the connection to the narration by Marlowe in the book, possibly because I didn't read it until after seeing the film.

I wonder if, or how much James Frazer influenced Conrad.

Have you read Michael Herr's Dispatches, one of the other main texts for the film?

Some thoughts on books and the film from the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/21/archives/the-literary-roots-of-apocalypse-now...
As noted, there are transcription errors in the digitizing process.

>37 baswood: >38 SassyLassy: I’ve read a couple of accounts recently that talk about Conrad’s connections with colonial whistle-blower Roger Casement, who later crossed that line you mentioned and moved on from exposing the evils of King Leopold’s private empire to investigating human-rights abuses by British mining companies in South America (and then crossed an even more sensitive line over Ireland, but that’s another story…).

>38 SassyLassy: >39 thorold: interesting. I am thinking about ordering a copy of the Norton Critical Edition, because it is a fascinating book.

>40 baswood:

I would recommend above all to look for criticism by Africans, for example Chinua Achebe's An image of Africa. White people are constantly finding excuses for Conrad's strident racism, it's beyond depressing.

Tokyo Décibels - Hitonari Tsuji (french translation by Corinne Atlan)
This was the next novel on the library shelf which was published in Japan in 1996 and translated into french in 2005. The decibels the sounds of Tokyo street life drive this story. Arata's job is to measure the decibles in and around certain districts in Tokyo 80-85 decibels and above are considered harmful. Arata is into heavy rock music which he listens to on headphones and wanders around Tokyo seemingly in some sort of daze. His girlfriend Fumi is starting to keep her distance from him and he consoles himself by sleeping with Mariko who makes a living doing telephone sex. Arata is in love with Fumi and Mariko shows him how he can spy on her by installing a listening device in her flat. Arata on his travels bumps into Ikuo an old school friend who was a member of the same student rock group. Ikuo has troubles of his own, he makes a living as a piano tuner as he has perfect pitch, but his marriage to a professional pianist is breaking up and they are fighting over the custody of their child. Ikuo and Arata spend evenings getting drunk together.

Arata enjoys his work and when he discovers the bells of a Japanese temple that briefly out decibel the traffic noise, he makes further studies. He involves Ikuo in his project making maps of the sound patterns in the districts that house one of the temples. He makes a presentation at work and his boss and his team run with the project in an effort to publicise that there are other sounds in the city centre that people can relate to. However Arata loses sight of his project which might have been an anchor for both him and Ikuo. The two men drift again failing to understand their place in city life. Trying to solve their relationship problems and getting themselves further into intrigue and incomprehension, with the sounds of city life intruding into their very being.

The idea of city sounds as background to people struggling to make human connections is a good one, the haze and noise that intrudes; making difficulties, even when the protagonists hold onto the sounds as a way of connecting; either as a way of earning a living or at play in a rock group. The book has been made into a film which does not seem to have had much of a release outside of Japan. I enjoyed the story and the atmosphere of Tokyo city peeped through at times and so 3 stars.

Ahlam, Marc Trévidic - Marc Trévidic
Marc Trévidic is a Parisian magistrate and has been one of nine judges specialising in anti terrorism enquiries. He acted in this role from 2006-2015. Ahlam was published in 2016 and is a novel which focuses on terrorism in Tunisia at the time of the fall of Ben Ali's government in 2011. Trévidic had published several essays on the struggles against terrorism, but Ahlam is a novel that tells the story of a family torn apart by division when a young man becomes a Mujahideen.

The story begins in 2001 when Paul Arezzo; Parisien and world famous artists arrives in Kerkennah an archipelago off the coast of Tunisia. He is seeking a retreat from the professional art world of Paris and plans to stay on Kerkennah an island that he remembers from childhood. He is still a young man in his twenties, but is rich and he thinks of buying a house to rest a recuperate. He befriends a local fisherman Farhat and employs him to take him around the coastline. Farhat invites him to meet his family, his wife Nora and two children; the boy Issam and the girl Ahlam. Paul becomes infatuated with the beautiful and educated wife of the fisherman and takes the two children under his wing; they are all fascinated by the famous man from Paris with seemingly unlimited wealth. Paul's retreat becomes idyllic and when he buys a large house on the coast it becomes a play ground for the two children. With the approval of Nora he teaches Issam to paint and encourages Ahlam in her piano studies. He discovers that the two children are incredibly talented and Paul has grandiose dreams of supporting them both while they pursue their art in Paris.

Tragedy strikes the family and Issam becomes involved with his childhood friend Nourdine, who has become a fervent Muslim. He is seduced into the world of Islam, realising that it speaks to him as an Arab youth and he becomes drawn into the world of the Mujahideem as they put themselves on a war footing intent on filling the vacuum when Ben Ali's corrupt government falls from power. This puts him at odds with his family and particularly with the Christian Paul and he abruptly leaves his family to join a cell of jihadists.

Issam's conversion to a jihadist is well described and sets the scene for an inevitable clash with his sister Ahlam who becomes involved in the women's movement against the Charia laws, when the fundamentalists attempt to seize power. As a novel I do not think it works particularly well as the reader can guess where it is going almost from the start. The clash between the artistic world of Paul and the political realities of Tunisia is interesting and the juxtaposition of the two cultures is well described; it is sensitively done, as is the telling of the love story. Trévidic's experience in dealing with Islamic terrorism enables him to set up a convincing back story, however he is less convincing when depicting the artistic cultural world of Paul Arezzo. The description of the sea and coastline of Kerkennah does much to take this book into a world that the reader can see and visualise, however the family life of the islands inhabitants does not ring quite so true. As a story of star crossed lovers against a topical background it has its moments and so 3.5 stars.

Catching up. As always I enjoy your reviews. Your Heart of Darkness review is really fantastic. Great stuff. It leaves with an a urge to revisit Apocalypse Now. (But the slow book can wait a while before I revisit. 🙂)

So funny to see you reading all those (almost exclusively) French books. Wow!

Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (Norton Critical Edition)
If ever a book of Novella length (77 pages) deserves the Norton Critical Edition treatment it is Heart of Darkness. The book runs to over 500 pages and my second hand edition was full of post-it notes in nine different colours. There is no evidence who the literature student was who posted all the notes and so when I removed them all I had a perfectly clean copy. It was no longer clean when I had finished it, but I did use a pencil (a stadilo pencil 160 coming from the Czech Republic).

My last review of an English language book was the penguin edition of Heart of Darkness and LolaWalser (of course) posted a comment recommending that I look for criticism of the book by African Writers as white people are constantly finding excuses for Conrad's strident racism. The norton critical edition has Achebe's essay: An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, but all the other critical essays are from white authors, some of whom do address Achebe's concerns. In fact J. Hillis Miller asks the question 'Should we read "Heart of Darkness"

"Heart of Darkness has often received a heavy sentence from its critics. It has been condemned often in angry terms, as racist or sexist, sometimes in the same essay as both.................Nevertheless, according to the paradox I have already mentioned, you could only be sure about this by reading the novella yourself, therefore putting yourself, if these critics are right, in danger of becoming sexist, racist, and Eurocentric yourself.

Chinua Achebe says:
The real question is the dehumanisation of Africa and Africans, which this age long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in this world. And the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanisation, which depersonalises a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of art. My answer is: No, it cannot...........................Whatever Conrad's problems were, you might say he is safely dead. Quite true. Unfortunately his heart of darkness plagues us still. Which is why an offensive and deplorable book can be described by a serious scholar as "among the half dozen greatest short story novels in the English language." And why it is today perhaps the most commonly prescribed novel in twentieth-century literature courses in English Departments of American Universities.

Achebe originally called Conrad a bloody racist, but toned this down in a later revision as a thoroughgoing racist. He says:

Conrad saw and condemned the evil of imperial exploitation, but was strangely unaware of the racism on which it sharpened its iron tooth.

In my opinion, the dichotomy of the book is that from a late 20th century perspective Achebe was correct in everything he says, however Conrad was writing his novel in 1902 some seventy years earlier, when the term racism had not even been invented. By all accounts he was conservative in his outlook, but this did not stop from him being horrified by what he saw and publishing a novel which at the time expressed liberal views. Paul B Armstrong says:

This conflict is only the latest chapter in a long history of disagreement about whether to regard 'Heart of Darkness" as a daring attack on imperialism or a reactionary purveyor of colonial stereotypes.

So we come back to the question of whether we should read this book. Speaking for myself I would want to read and re-read a book that has caused so much controversy. Being a white male I could not be personally offended by Conrads depiction of African natives, and although recognising it as racist from a contemporary viewpoint I am in a position to understand Conrad's viewpoint which reflects the culture and attitudes of his times. I do also of course understand why some people would choose not to read it.

The Norton Critical edition includes textual variants to the original novella and there are over 100 pages devoted to Backgrounds and Contents, which deal with Imperialism and the Belgian Congo and there is a section on 19th century attitudes towards race. Conrad and the Congo describes Conrad's own travels down the river by excerpts from his diary and selected letters. There is 200 pages of criticism ranging from contemporary responses to essays comparing themes in Heart of Darkness to the film Apocalypse Now. It does lack criticism from black writers (only Achebe's essay is featured), but there is enough to enjoy and perhaps study Conrad's novella. 5 stars.

Nice! Was Achebe consumed entirely by the racial denigration, or did he also look other aspects of the book? The essays sound terrific. When I read this, I followed with King Leopold’s Ghost, a very good nonfiction take on the horrors of the Belgian Congo, with a focus on Conrad (not an African perspective). It caused me to immediately reread looking for all the nonfictional elements.

These books are uncomfortable because they are racially insensitive. But they provide a window into the liberal white Euro-centric mindsets, and all their flaws. And HoD has a few literary positives. 🙂

>47 dchaikin: Ok, here's how my mind works: I should reread HoD with King Leopold's Ghost, as Dan did. Then watch the movie, Apocalypse Now? Especially having read The Sympathizer, which talked about the types of roles Asians had in the film. Didn't Nguyen write a sequel to The Sympathizer? What was it called again? off to google...

>46 baswood:

Being a white male I could not be personally offended by Conrads depiction of African natives

If you say so, but let me point out that plenty of people did and can get "personally offended"--empathise, IOW--with people different to them.

As to how were things then vs. now, what "concepts" or words existed or didn't and what that means... it's the eternal dumbest argument ever because, to begin with, it's utterly meaningless. So what if some X percent of Conrad's readers didn't "know" the word "racism"? They wallowed in racism; their world, even more than ours, was awash in it. Insofar they found it normal, and not something to rise against, they were racist.

Achebe isn't talking about them. He is not marvelling that Conrad and his contemporary readers were racist. He is protesting the continuation of racist readings into his own (Achebe's) day and even today. That's the issue.

>47 dchaikin: Achebe has little to say about other aspects of the book. His essay aims to show:

"it is the desire - one might say the need - in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe's own state of spiritual grace will be manifest."

>50 baswood: of course he’s right (elegantly so)

>48 labfs39: CR does that

Irène Némirovsky - Suite française
There are 333 reviews listed on LibraryThing and so I need not add much to what has already been said. I am therefore just going to give my impressions of this excellent book. Némirovsky was born in Kiev, she was jewish, but by the time she was writing the Suite française she had lived in France for over 20 years and had become a french national and converted to christianity. The first book tells of the flight from Paris just before the nazi invasion in 1940 and the second depicts a small town under Nazi occupation in 1941. Two events of which Némirovsky had first hand knowledge.

The story of the flight from Paris: 'tempête en juin' tells the story of several peoples experiences as the sought to escape the Nazis. There is the wealthy family Pericaud in their charabanc of cars taking everything they can with them, including Arthur the cat. Gabriel Corte a famous and well connected author is fleeing with his mistress. Charles Longelat a wealthy collector of porcelain and finally the banker Corbin and two of his employees les Michauds are all on the road. A good mix of the layers of society of Paris, who meet other people along the way in the confusion of the flight. It is the confusion in the fog of war that is well depicted here. The Germans are faceless invaders, bombing, shelling and strafing the towns and the countryside, the only soldiers that are met are the rags and tags of the defeated french army. Nemirovsky skilfully changes her POV from one character to another, including a memorable sequence describing Arthur the cat adapting to his new territory.

The second book Dolce is the more involving of the two books. A small town adapting to life under German occupation. The shortage of men who have either been killed or are prisoners of the Germans; place intolerable pressures on the women folk left behind. At the time 1941 after the defeat of the french army and the signing of the armistice it would appear that the Germans would be in France for some time. To what extent should the French citizens collaborate with the occupiers? Némirovsky observes that collaboration was more likely to occur in the upper levels of society. The rich and well connected town folk were more interested in keeping hold of their wealth and their position in society than being patriotic french citizens. They had more in common with the higher ranking German officers than the working citizens in the town.

The book was written more or less contemporaneously by the author who was murdered in the gas chambers in 1942. At the time of writing she did not know the outcome of the war and so her viewpoint was not affected by subsequent history. Again in the second book she is able to change her POV from character to character, emphasising the enormous gaps between the high born, the nouveaux rich, the tradespeople and the agricultural workers.
A revealing document and some excellent writing make this a five star read.

>52 baswood: Fantastic comments. Makes me want to reread it.

>52 baswood: Thanks for that — it’s a book I keep putting off reading, for no good reason, although I’ve had a copy on the TBR for ages. You remind me again that I should get to it, especially since I’ve been reading all sorts of other (hindsight) books about the German occupation lately.

Némirovsky is an exceptional writer.

Park Buttes-chaumont Paris

Vernon Subutex Tome 2 - Virginie Despentes.
At the end of Tome one of Vernon Subutex (https://www.librarything.com/work/15622201/details/212997284) the eponymous hero was trying to exist on the streets of Paris. He had been badly beaten up by some right wing youths and rescued by Xavier, an out of work film script writer. Vernon is soon back on the streets again, but now he is suffering with a fever after his brutal assault. He looks for somewhere to hide out and to be alone and ends up in the Buttes-Chaumont a parkland area in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. he slowly recovers his health, unaware that various people are searching for him, because of his connection with the recently deceased Alex Bleach (Black singer/songwriter extraordinaire).

We still do not know very much about Vernon, but the back stories of the disparate bunch of people on his trail are each given their due. Vernon himself still has the ability to attract others around him, just as he did when he owned his record store. He is befriended first of all by a couple of other homeless people and then the staff of a restaurant that backs onto the parkland give him food. People from his past life begin to rediscover him. La Hyéne and Emilie and then Xavier. Word gets around and soon there are his friends from the porn industry, there is Aicha the daughter of Vodka Santana, who is looking for answers concerning the death of her mother who committed suicide, when living with Alex Bleach. La Hyéne working for the mysterious M. Dopalet has stolen the three cassettes that Vernon had left in his duffel bag for safe keeping. The mystery of Bleach's own death and Vernon's connection to him are left swirling round with the group of people.

The elephant in the room is Vernon himself, his back story has not yet been completed. The mystery surrounding him is enhanced by his angel like attraction for others, he is becoming more ethereal, his illness has left him gaunt a little unsubstantial, but the other characters continue to play and flit around him. At the restaurant called the Rosa-Bonheur he becomes the DJ for the staff's party nights, attracting new people as well as his followers, their stories continue to unfurl, while Vernon keeps on just being Vernon. There are stories of violence, relationships, revenge, lesbianism and domesticity all apparently leaving Vernon untouched.

The third part of the Vernon Subutex trilogy is available at my local library and I hope to get to it soon as Part 2 was another 4 star read.

>56 baswood: I'm becoming increasingly interested in this series the more I read other people's reviews. I was always attracted to the covers, as is my way, but wasn't sure about actually reading what was between them... now I think they're going on the list.

Love's Labour's Lost - The Arden Shakespeare
Love's Labour's Lost - BBC Shakespeare Collection 1985
Shakespeare does it again, he writes a play that builds and deepens on much of what has gone before (1594/5) on the British stage, producing a play that seems totally original. Between August 1592 and the spring of 1594 the London theatres were closed due to the plague and Shakespeare's career as a playwright seems to have come to a halt as he probably spent his time preparing his narrative poems Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). Certainly he must have been busy writing sonnets, because a few of them appear in Love's Labour's Lost. There is a lot of poetry in the play and a good percentage of it is rhymed iambic pentameters. It is a delight to read and the only comparison I can make is with the later plays of John Lyly for example Loves Metamorphoses where the themes are virginity, chastity and constancy in love, all wrapped up in a froth of light entertainment. Love's Labour's Lost is certainly a comedy and would fall under the genre of light entertainment, but there is more depth, more word play and the jokes are more funny.

There is not much of a plot in Love's labour's Lost. Ferdinand the King of Navarre has persuaded three of his courtiers Berowne, Longaville and Dumaine to give up all pleasures for a three year period to study with him in his academy. They have forsworn oaths that they will not even speak to any women during this time. Berowne points out that the king must break his oath the next week because he has agreed to welcome the Princess of France and her attendants who are arriving on a diplomatic mission. The inevitable happens the four men fall in love with the Princess and her ladies Rosaline, Maria and Katherine and must devise ways of courting their intended. A Spanish gentleman, a clown are both looking to get their way with Jaquenetta a dairymaid and a pedantic schoolmaster Holofernes are all thrown into the mix. There are the usual elements of disguises, mistaken identity, a play within a play and many opportunities for double entendres, however Shakespeare introduces two major items of originality in that the women always seem to have the upper hand and are wise and worldly compared to their male counterparts and the ending of the play is open ended.

The four men appear foolish from the very start with their oath making and only proceed to become more foolish when they fall in love. The play does not rely on mistaken identities or slapstick comedy to entertain, but does rely on wordplay, wit and characterisation. This can make it more difficult to catch all the jokes and puns, because of the differences in language and culture between modern times and the Elizabethan era, but I think there is still enough which comes through to entertain us today, which was shown by the BBC production: the penultimate scene of the play put on by the nine worthies (commoners) was hilarious. As in much of Shakespeare more familiarity with Elizabethan culture and drama will result in a more in depth all round entertainment. A feature of this play is the craze for sonnet writing. Shakespeares contemporaries were rushing into print with sonnet collections based on ideas from a previous era of courtly love where the poet would write reams of words complaining about his unrequited love, for the unattainable woman or man of his affections. Ferdinand, Berowne, Longaville and Dumaine all write sonnets to their loved ones and those proudly read out by Ferdinand, Longaville and Dumaine are certainly no better than much of the dross that was served up by the Elizabethan sonneteers. The sonnet written by Berowne is a cut above the others, but unfortunately this one gets misplaced and read out by Nathaniel the curate to Jaquenetta the dairymaid, when it finally gets back to Berowne he immediately tears it up; this is surely Shakespeare's joke. There are many jokes concerning book worms and ink horns, which stretch across the social divide from the nobles to the professionals. Unrequited love is a feature of most sonnet collections and at the end of this play love is unrequited for all of the sonnet writers.

A play then about the battle of the sexes, with the women as the morally superior beings, but of course it is the foolish men who are the stars of the show. Much can be read into the play; for example Shakespeare's comments on the life of the courtiers, the tomfoolery and ignorance of the working classes, but although this may be interesting from a historical point of view this is an entertainment first and foremost. The reader can appreciate the word play with the puns and the innuendos, but the BBC production of the play showed how it works on stage. It is a delight for the eye as well as the brain and can be adapted to enhance Shakespeare's original stage craft. I was pleased to see that not too much was made of the sexual innuendos by the actors and if the viewer reads anything in the dialogue then this was not the result of leery comments or facial expressions from the players. This play does not need that, it has Shakespeare's genius to lift a mundane plot full of clichés into superb entertainment. A four star read and a five star view.

L'Homme des haies - Jean-Loup Trassard
I suppose the literal translation of this book is man of the hedges. It is a monologue of a retired farmer in the Mayenne: A department south of Normandy. Vincent Loiseau still lives on the farm with his heir and his wife who now manage the farm. The hedges are now the most important thing in the life of Vincent, he can no longer do much of the heavy work on the farm and so what is left is looking after the hedgerows as best he can. He has a rediscovered passion for the countryside now he has the time to reflect on his life and the natural world contained in and around the hedges.

When I made my first cycling trip to France I could not help but notice the different aspect of the French farms. At that time back in the 1960's, many of the hedgerows of the farms in the South of England had gone to make way for huge fields for growing wheat. In France many of the small farms still survived with different sized plots of land, bordered by hedges and containing a variety of animals and small areas for cultivation. Vincent's story is of an earlier era still, he was active in the 1930's and through the years of the German Occupation. He used horses to plough and can remember a time when there was no electricity on the farms in his area. The work was harder and certainly more labour intensive, but Vincent looks back on his life with some satisfaction. He has no regrets and cannot think he would have done anything else, but take over the work on the farm where he was born.

Vincent tells us of his daily routine from warming his clothes in his bed to getting up when it has warmed up a little to go back to working on the hedgerows when the weather and season allows him. He has not much to say about his son (one presumes it is his son who has taken over the farm as he only refers to him as "him"). Vincent is now in his late sixties and farming methods have changed, mechanisation has taken over and the son has tractors and other equipment. Vincent tells of the time when he had to sell his beloved horses and reminisces about his relationship with the animals and how important they were to the life on the farm. Much has changed and Vincent thinks that today on his farm the connection with nature has been lost: 'Him' is in too much of a hurry to do things differently. Vincent tells us of his wife Suzanne whom he loved and who died when he was in his fifties. He has adapted to life on his own, but still misses his wife.

It is Vincent's speaking voice throughout the book and he uses a variety of patois words and phrases (there is a small dictionary of terms to help the reader), but one soon gets used to his speaking voice and the way he phrases things. In his last sentence and the last sentence of the book he says that "I believes I have told everything, perhaps more than I should have and in any case I have told more than I have said to anybody". The book serves as a polite document of the life of a small farmer in the North of France at a time when agricultural methods were changing. Vincent's reminisces if they don't hark back to a golden age; certainly paint a rosy picture of farming life and its more intimate connection with nature and the small world of the farm and neighbouring villages.

The author Jean-Loup Trassard is a photographer and author and this book won him the "prix de L'Academie française Maurice Genevoix in 2013. I was soon caught up in the world that is described by Vincent in this book. In many ways it connects with the life that must have existed in the countryside around the village in which I live. I think Trassard has created an authentic voice and one that takes the reader into a world that for many of us is just about recognisable. 4 stars.

>59 baswood: Very interesting. I hadn't heard of this author before.

>59 baswood: Oooh... I have this book in my wishlist (can't remember how it landed there), but did not know if it was worth a reading. Now, I know it is. Thanks for this great review and shining a light on this book.

Illywhacker - Peter Carey
The next unread book from my shelf was Illywhaker published in 1985 and shortlisted for the Booker prize. I have to admit that I felt like putting it back on the shelf during a bit of a slog through its 600 pages. Peter Carey is Australian and this is an Australian novel that rambles across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland and describes places such as Jeparit, Bendigo, Geelong and Terang and ending up in Sydney: Great names and I was curious to look up some of these towns on the internet as a theme of the novel is Australian identity.

An Illywhaker is a conman or a liar probably both and is a story told by Herbert Badgery who claims to be 139 years old. He is in hospital at the end of his life and reminisces about his life and times. We first meet him when he is 32 years old in 1919 landing his small aeroplane in a large lot or garden area and meeting Jack McGrath a wealthy former bullock herder. They become good friends and Herbert persuades Jack to invest in an aeroplane factory to make Australian aeroplanes. Herbert marries Jack's daughter Phoebe and the omnipresent narrator continues the story of Herbert's family and the people that fall within their orbit, most of whom are crazy, weird or both. Herbert's plan to make Australian aeroplanes fails because investors insist that parts and specifications must be taken from other countries: tried and tested rather than inventing something new. There are similar issues with automobiles when Herbert turns his talents to selling cars. Herbert's story of failures and catastrophes, of lovers and deaths barrels on across the Australian landscape. Herbert is cynical sometimes contemptuous, but never loses his lust for life. He keeps on keeping on, adapting and surviving in his own self centred way: he claims he wants to be a good person, but of course we do not believe him.

Peter Carey has written a novel packed with tall stories, told in Herbert's inimitable style and it is this style that for me outstayed it's welcome. Herberts jaundiced views dressed up in a sort of garrulous humour that looks down on other people even though the narrator takes the world in his stride, seems to belong to another era. I could not warm to it even though I appreciated that it was well done. it is a novel written to entertain, but it failed to hold my interest throughout its length and so 3.5 stars.

>62 baswood: Great review, Barry. I can now safely pass on reading it!

>62 baswood: Having read other Carey novels and enjoyed them, as somewhat of a completist I was thinking I should read this one too, but was deterred by its length. Thanks for the review and putting a stop on that idea! I can see how it might have been a good book at half the length, but if it's not sustained, then no go.

>58 baswood: terrific review of Love’s Labours Lost, one of my favorite recent Shakespeare reading experience.

>62 baswood: i’ve read one book by Carey, My Life as a Fake, sent to me by an early Club Read member. I enjoyed it, but I don’t think this should be my second.

Kannjawou - Lyonel Trouillot
Kannjawou is the name of a bar that is a meeting place for the well-todo of Port-au-Prince Haiti. It is situated at a crossing point between the rich upper town of the city and poorer quarters below. It is a focal point for five young people who live in the poor quarter; one of whom: Sophonie works in the bar as a waiter. Two brothers the narrator and Popol regularly make the long walk to the bar to escort Sophonie home through the more dangerous streets of the town. The two brothers and Sopnonie live in the "rue de L'enterrement which ends at a huge cemetery and frequently watch the processions of mourners who make the long walk to the cemetery gates. They live in a house of 2 and a half rooms.

The narrator tells a fragmented story of the lives of five individuals and their connection with a college that receives grants from the government and their interaction with other people in the area. There is man Jeanne an elderly lady who is friendly with the petit professuer who runs a bookshop and encourages the narrator to widen his reading. It is at the time of the second occupation which began June 2004 and was established under the pretext of “stabilizing” Haiti after the U.S.-sponsored ouster of the country’s democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide. Some of the patrons of the Kannjawou are English speakers and many have been drafted in from other hot-spots around the world for a tour of duty in Haiti. This is the background to the lives of the five individuals, who can read all they want about liberty and freedom and perhaps get involved in some subversive activities, but at the end of the day there is little they can do. They all have to adapt to the situation, especially if they want to drag themselves out of the poverty trap.

The occupation of the country is juxtaposed with the funeral processions which prove both an interruption and a fascination for the five friends. There is just enough of a story and time line to make for an interesting read, however it is the brooding atmosphere and a sense of the lives of the young people, who cannot stretch their wings that is the fascination of this book 3.5 stars.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain
I read this as part of my pre science fiction project. It was published in 1889 and holds its place as one of the first science fiction novels to feature time travel back into history. I was surprised at just how gruesome it was. It is unremittingly horrible from the first chapter to the last, where our hero Hank Morgan who describes himself as barren of almost all sentiment: contrives to electrocute 10.000 of king Arthur's knights. It is of course a satire and takes careful aim at the romance of chivalry, the institution of slavery, monarchy, contemporary American politics and society, the catholic church and the art of novel writing. Nothing much escapes Twains long and at time arduous satire/caricature/burlesque of king Arthur's court.

Hank Morgan a successful inventor and businessman living in Hartford Connecticut gets into an argument and receives a stunning blow to the head. He wakes up in a green and pleasant land, but is almost immediately taken prisoner by a knight in full armour and taken back to King Arthur's court. His intemperate remarks lead to a sentence of death by burning and he realises that he must do something to save himself. He cannot awake from his dream, but knowledge of an impending total eclipse of the sun on 21 June A.D. 528 is enough to pit himself against the resident magician Merlin. He soon becomes the Kings right hand man and sets about to modernise the 6th century.

The portrayal of the knights and their position in the totally rigid hierarchy, means that they never have to think for themselves. They are conditioned to a life of chivalry and privilege with its own stupid rules of behaviour and to an outsider like Hank it is all ridiculous. He thinks he can introduce more democratic ideas, perhaps even challenge the divine right of kings and make a republic. He certainly thinks he can make some money, he is under the impression that he is dealing with rational human beings, but that concept is soon abandoned when he finally realises that he cannot change people who have been conditioned by birth to a certain way of life. The institution of slavery produces some horrific scenes in 6th century Britain that even moves hard hearted Hank to tears. Poor common folk are little more than drudges, but the slaves below them are even worse off, both classes are considered less than human by the nobility, but the common people must side with the upper classes to retain their own position.

Hank Morgan is first referred to as the stranger, but soon establishes himself as 'The Boss' only answerable to the king. He embarks on a series of adventures, some involving king Arthur and they manage to get themselves sold as slaves. King Arthur is outraged when he only fetches 7 dollars in the slave market, he thinks he is worth at least 21 dollars; the going rate. This is one of many instants where Twain satirises the money grabbing culture of 19th century America.
Mark Twains preface to the book says he has stolen some stories from Morte D'Arthur, but this should not worry the reader. There is a passage toward the beginning of the book where the heroine: the boss's eventual wife is made to talk in incomprehensible early English (as imagined by Twain) while Hank speaks of pork barrels and supply and demand issues which is equally incomprehensible in reply. Twain was obviously having fun writing this book and no _target was too sacred.

I was reminded of reading Malory's Morte D'Arthur, as much of Twains book seems haphazardly put together, a series of adventures where the time line is not always clear, it does however finish on a suitable climax. The book is more of a satire than a science fiction novel. its gruesome scenes of torture, murder and capital punishment would serve to hold the interest of many school children, who need not be worried by any sexual content. An interesting point for the modern reader to consider is how the _targets of Twains satire might have changed in the intervening years. Perhaps his satire has become even more pertinent; a good subject for a thesis perhaps, but one I am certainly not going to attempt. I read one of the versions on Project Gutenberg, which had facsimiles of sketches from the 1889 edition. A book that I am glad to have got round to reading, but I can't say I really enjoyed it, but it did make me laugh at times and so 3.5 stars.

I read something by Trouillot and liked it a lot. Poor Haiti. Hard to tell who's done worse by it, the French or the Americans.

Twain still surprises, even shocks. A great modern subversive hidden by the image of a provincial American comic.

Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
This was the next unread book off my shelf and its going straight into the recycling bin. This Pulitzer prize winner is over 600 pages and so the good news is that there will now be space for two new books. I have to admit that I did not finish it, giving up the struggle at page 361. Many of the unread books on my shelves were purchased some time ago in various Charity shops when I lived in England and this paper back edition was published in 2001. It cost 95p and that together with the moniker saying it was a prize winner was probably the reason I bought it, not knowing anything about the author Michael Chabon.

It is obvious that if we buy a lot of books that some of them are going to disappoint, but its is extremely rare for me not to struggle through to the end, but I started to resent the time I needed to spend to finish this one. It tells the story (the amazing adventures of) a couple of comic book writers and illustrators who rode the wave of the boom in comic books starting in 1939. Joe Kavalier a jew born in Prague had trained to be a magician and escape artist, he also went to art school. His family sacrificed everything to pay for his passage on a boat to America and he promised himself he would work to get his younger bother out from under the heel of the Nazis. He found refuge with his teenage cousin Sammy Clay and family. Sammy was fascinated by the early comics and copied many of the illustrations. The two cousins had all that was necessary to get a start in the comic book business. They become very successful and started mixing with the most fashionable people in the artistic world of New York.

I am still not certain why I found this book such a trial. It seems to have been well researched with the central imaginary characters slotted into the artistic and political life of New York, which should have been fascinating. I do not read comic books now, but when I was a teenager I was addicted to American DC and Marvel comics: I knew all the names of the writers and Illustrators. The book serves as a chronicle to the life and times of writers and artists in a fledgling industry at a time when America was considering entering into the second world war and so there should have been enough to keep me reading. Perhaps it was the humdrum lives of the two central characters that started to bore me. Two workaholics producing pulp by the yard to sell to the youth in America and beyond and even if you take into account that one of them had recently fled the Nazis in Prague and the other discovers that he is gay, the author never really attempts to tell us more about them: never gets beneath their skins. Chabon seems to compensate by surrounding them with the names of the glitterati. For me the book only came alive when stories from the comic books suddenly intrude upon the main story line. For goodness sake if you are going to write a book about the Amazing Adventures of............ then you may want to use some imagination in telling the story.

Stopping reading at three fifths of the way through, because of lack of interest does not qualify me to write a review, but it has provided me with a New Years Resolution. I am not going to plough ahead with books that do not interest me.

>69 baswood: This is a post with which I can identity completely - plus, you've relieved some of my guilt at doing exactly the same thing with this book - purging it. Like you, it is extremely rare for me not to struggle through to the end, but I started to resent the time I needed to spend to finish this one.. I just couldn't make it through though despite all the interesting things in it.

I had a different motivation in reading it. It is on the favourites list of a few people near and dear to me, but as I read along, I was questioning what it was about them I wasn't seeing! Their responses were usually along the lines of "I knew you wouldn't like it and I'm surprised you started reading it"

Do you have any thoughts as to how far you will take a book before discarding it?

>70 SassyLassy: Interesting

Do you have any thoughts as to how far you will take a book before discarding it?
Unless I can't get into a book at all, I will probably take it to the halfway point, but The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay was such a long book and so well reviewed that I did not trust my own judgement. Also I caught covid 19 for the first time while reading it so perhaps this did not help. I am going to be more ruthless with books in the future.

>69 baswood: a good resolution (said as I’m trying to plow through Musil). I had imagined that this book would be fun based on all the previous comments I’ve come across.

>69 baswood: I remember enjoying Kavalier and Clay when I read it many years ago—I had more free time and more bandwidth for a shaggy dog story, plus as a comics aficionado I enjoyed that plot line. No idea what I'd think about it now, though.

City Of Illusions - Ursula K Le Guin
A science fiction novel published in 1967 and early in the career of acclaimed author Ursula K Le Guin. The novel received little critical attention when published and I picked it up only because of its publication date ( my own category of science fiction novels from 1967). I thoroughly enjoyed the read and it took me back in time to the excitement of reading science fiction as a teenager.

The story starts with a humanoid figure crawling through a forest and finally coming across a clearing whereupon it stands up on two legs and is noticed by a young woman (Parth) working in the fields. Parth goes over to him and leads him into the small community; they call him Falk and Zove a father figure of the community with the help of Parth help to educate him. Falk's mind has been wiped clean, but his intelligence enables him to learn the ways of the community and become a useful member. He learns that the world is made up of small communities separated by immense forests and that the inhabitants have been subjugated by the Shing an alien species. The scattered communities are left to their own devices as long as they do not band together and threaten the aliens. After a four year period Falk feels the need to travel, to visit the city of Es-Toch which people of the forest commune have heard speak. The first part of the book describes Falk's adventures as his path westwards leads him to various other settlements and many hostile encounters. He meets Estrel a woman captured by a nomad tribe on the great plains. They escape together and she leads him to Es-Toch the home of the Shing and where Falk feels he will meet his destiny. The second part of the book details Falk's struggles against the Shing who were responsible for wiping his mind and who now hold open the option of restoring his other self.

The novel therefore falls into two distinct parts, the first a dangerous journey through a hostile environment, which is America after the Alien conquest and the second part is Falk's mind games with the aliens themselves. They are both voyages of discovery for Falk and the reader and the mystery of Falk is revealed carefully by Le Guin. There is mystery and imagination throughout, although the final battle with the aliens is perhaps oversimplified to ensure the reader is not left behind. Le Guin's writing is a cut above much of the pulp science fiction of the era and she handles the adventure story well enough. She imparts that sense of wonder that keeps the pages turning and the resolution is satisfying. Themes of identification and truth telling in City of Illusions add another layer and so a 4 star read.

I gave up on Kavalier and Clay too, much earlier. But I usually like Chabon, Wonder Boys I like very much and the film.

I also enjoyed your LLL review. Berowne's speech near the start of a1s1 is a favourite of mine, though I've not read the whole play, just seen it. Maybe I will now.

Year end Summary

It has been a year when I have not read as many books as usual. I was thinking I would read over 100 books, but finished with a total of 61. The reason for this was joining the local library, which has only French books. I read 26 books from the library and my reading speed in French is probably half that in English, but this still leaves a shortfall in books completed and I can only think that listening to music time encroached on my reading time or perhaps vacations took their toll and perhaps I spent more time gardening.

Science Fiction
It was a disappointing year for reading science fiction. The only book that I rated 5 stars could hardly be labelled science fiction:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain and only one other managed 4 stars and that was City of Illusions - Ursula K Le Guin

Elizabethan Reading
This did throw up some Gems:
Shakespeare's Sonnets, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, George Cavendish and Jonathan Bates Genius of Shakespeare were 5 star reads.
Falke Greville's sonnet collection Caelica and Shakespeare's Loves Labours Lost were 4 star reads.
However William Percy's sonnet collection Coelia was the worst such collection I have read in a category where the bar is pretty low anyway.

French Library Books
Suite Française was a 5 star read, but there were others I rated at 4 stars:
Jardin de Jeanne - Adeline Yzac
Vernon Subutex - Virginie Despentes
Les envolés - Etienne Kern
Les Reputations - Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Désobéir - Gérard Valbert
Metamorphoses, Vallejo - Francois Vallejo
L'homme des haies - Jean-loup Trassard

Books published in 1951
I have read over 50 books in this category, but it seems there is still plenty of good stuff to come, Look Down In Mercy by Walter Baxter was a 5 star read and there were other I rated at 4 stars:
Seven Summers - Milk raj Anand
Colonel Julian and Other Stories - H E Bates
Marianne, Rhys Davies
Conscience of the King, Alfred Duggan
This man and This woman, James T Farrell

Unread books from my shelves
Perhaps some of these have remained unread for a reason. I certainly felt that to be the case when I gave up on The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, but there were compensations:

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 5 stars
A perfect Spy - John Le Carré 4.5 stars
The Djinn in the Nightingales eye - A S Byatt 4 stars
The kingdom of the Wicked - Anthony Burgess