Baswood's books 1

The first day of the new year and time to brush down those reading plans. I did not finish any of my reading projects last year and so this year will be a sort of continuation:

Elizabethan Literature:
1594 Shakespeare - The sonnets
1594 Thomas Storer - The life and death of Cardinal Wolsey
1594 Henry Willobie - Willobie His Avisa.
1594 William Percy - sonnets to the fairest Coelia
1594 Anonymous - Zepheria
1594 Fulke Greville - Caelica
1594 Michael Drayton - ideas mirror, Matilda
1595 Shakespeare - Loves labours lost
1595 Edmund Spenser - Amoretti & Epithalamion
1595 Anonymous - Locrine
1595 Shakespeare - King John
1595 Shakespeare - Richard II
1595 Shakespeare - A midsummer’s nights dream

So thats four plays by Shakespeare and the sonnets, which will guarantee some excellent reading.

The unread books on my shelves which I am working through alphabetically did not produce much great reading last year and I still have the following to read before I can move onto authors beginning with the letter C

William Boyd - Ordinary Thunderstorms
Anthony Burgess - The Kingdom of the wicked
Suzanne Berne - A Perfect Arrangement
E F Benson - Paying guests
John Buchan - Greenmantle
A S Byatt - The djinn in the nightingale's eye

Books Published in 1951: has thrown up some surprisingly good reading, but I think I have read most of the books on the "Best of" lists. I am going to keep working on down through other books that might be interesting until the quality starts falling off. And so:

Mulk Raj Anand - Seven summers
H E bates - Colonel Julian/selected short stories
H E Bates - The Nature of Love Dulcima the grass god
Walter Baxter - Look Down in Mercy
Elizabeth Bowen - Early stories
John Collier - Fancies and good nights
Rhys Davies - Marianne
Alfred Duggan - Conscience of the king
James T Farrell - This man and this woman.
Nelson Algren - Chicago city on the make

Science Fiction
There are still a couple of books from the masterwork series that I want to read:

1959 Kurt Vonnegut JR - The Sirens of Titan
1959 Walter M Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz
As well as catching up on the novels of Jules Verne.
I hope to still be able to make my four weekly visit to the local library and grab enough books to read one a week.

Happy New Year! Look forward to reading your reviews again this year - that's quite the list!

Happy 2022! We read A Canticle for Leibowitz for bookclub and had an excellent discussion. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Happy 2022.
I've read Ordinary Thunderstorms ten years ago and I liked it. Enjoy it.

Happy New Year, Barry. I had to chuckle over on the introduction thread when you wrote that you became a French citizen so you could remain a European.

>1 baswood: Your published-in-1951 challenge inspired me to look at some lists from my birth year. Quite an enjoyable exercise. Thanks

I'm glad your back for another year Barry. Your thread is often full of very erudite reading, but also fun stuff. I like your 1951 project. I don't have any of those books in my TBR pile, but I do have Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand and The Man With the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren. Maybe I'll get to them this year.
And I read Ordinary Thunderstorms a few years ago and quite enjoyed it. Not necessarily great literature, but a good diversion.

Barry, your reading list this year is not quite as intimidating to me as usual! Maybe because of the preponderance of Shakespeare in the Elizabethan list. My stepson asked me for a copy of his complete works this year as a Christmas gift, after having read one of the plays with a friend. I haven't read enough of them myself and really should join him in one. I'll look forward to your reviews, as they are always enlightening.

Love your plans, even if I'm puzzled by your persistence with the B's. :) I'm hoping to read King John and the Shakespeare sonnets this year, hopefully with a group on Litsy (which, for me, is a support group). So we might have some overlap. Of course, I hope it's an of course, I adore your Elizabethan reviews and learn a great deal from them.

Happy New Year! I’ll be following along to see what your always interesting thread has to say.

>1 baswood: I'll be interested in your review of A Canticle for Leibowitz. I had a fairly strong reaction to that one. Also it's the only book (aside from the obvious Shakespeare titles) on your lists that I've read. :)

Looking forward to your thoughtful reviews. A lot of interesting plans!

Just checking in to wish you a good reading year, Barry! Lots of interesting books in prospect, by the look of it.

Happy New Year, Barry. Will you create another music thread in addition to this one?

>13 kidzdoc: yes. why not. I have recently bought a disc that will be of interest to you - So Many Things: The European Tour 1961, The John Coltrane quintet featuring Eric Dolphy.

Happy New Year! Looking forward to reading your thread, as always :-)

>14 baswood: I hadn't heard of that album, so thanks for mentioning it, Barry. I ordered it from Amazon, as I'm no longer living in close proximity to a music store that would stock it.

Your reading plans are very interesting - it looks like you really have a method!

I haven't read anything by Jules Verne but plan to read one of his novels this year.

>17 kidzdoc: I should have warned you that the sound quality of the live recordings is pretty bad, but the music is exceptional.

Ordinary Thunderstorms - William Boyd
The most famous acropachydermic was the poet W H Auden. Acropachyderma is a clubbing of the fingers, deformation of the long bones, and thickening of the skin of the scalp, face and extremeties. W H Auden died in 1973, but in the late 1960's he seemed to be almost a permanent fixture on late night intellectual programmes on the BBC. I often wondered about his incredibly wrinkled facial features: the wrinkles looked incredibly deep; I imagined they might have been caused by cigarette smoke, he always seemed to have a lighted cigarette on the go, or perhaps he had spent an ordinate amount of time on fishing boats, but no William Boyd tells us in Ordinary Thunderstorms it was acropachyderma, which was by far the most interesting thing in his 2009 novel Ordinary Thunderstorms.

Adam Kindred returns to England from America after a messy divorce. After a job interview he casually meets a man in a restaurant and they chat. The man leaves without his plastic folder and Adam decides to return it to him as he lives nearby. Adam arrives at his house to find the door open and the man lying in bed with a knife in his chest. Adam rushes over to help and the man tells him to pull out the knife. Meanwhile an intruder hiding on the balcony slips out through the front door. The man dies and Adam is left with the knife in his hands and covered in blood, he panics and rushes out of the apartment. From this moment on Adam's life is in turmoil, the dead man was a scientist, working for a pharmaceutical company, which is about to reveal a new wonder drug. Adam does not report the murder to the police, but has left enough evidence in the apartment to make him a murder suspect. A hit man is also trying to track him down. Adam takes to the streets living amongst the down and outs and then plays cat and mouse with the police and the hit man while trying to prove his innocence. Adam lurches from one adventure to another while a series of improbable coincidences keeps the story moving along.

Boyd is a good story teller and writes well enough, he can do humour and adventure and can lead his characters into tense situations. Of course its all baloney, and if two of the three female characters are whores (the other is a police woman) and expendable and the rich white male characters are cheating each other over in the big Pharma company and the man with acropachyderma gets murdered; well its all to be expected in such a novel. It mostly works itself out in the end, but although it is entertaining I did not put the book down with any feeling of satisfaction at the conclusion. Not quite storytelling by numbers, but close enough. This was one of the unread books on my shelves, it is now in the charity book box. 3 stars.

When I read Ordinary Thunderstorms a few years ago I compared it to watching TV. I don't watch much TV, and this filled the space when I needed a mindless diversion. I remember nothing about the acropachyderma--just how he had to figure out how to live on the streets with no money, credit cards, food, place to stay etc. That's what kept me turning the pages.

>20 baswood:, >21 arubabookwoman: well, I thumbed both reviews.

Here leaving my star, Baswood. As always, your plans make me tired--since I turned this great age I read only the most diverting stuff. I read seriously for many years, but I doubt I will do much now.

Happy New Year!

>20 baswood: I didn't much care for Ordinary Thunderstorms either.

>19 baswood: Thanks for the warning, Barry. My order of So Many Things from Amazon was cancelled, as the seller was out of copies by the time it received my order. As long as the music is sublime the sound quality is less important to me. I'll be in Atlanta for a few days next week, so I'll look for it in my favorite indie music store.

>20 baswood: Thanks for taking one for the team with Ordinary Thunderstorms; it's a hard pass for me.

Adeline Yzac - Le Jardin de Jeanne
Le Jardine de Jeanne was published in 2005 and it garnered some good reviews, but it appears to have been forgotten or not read by the general public. This was my latest selection from my local library and because it has been little read, I felt that in a curious way the book had been written just for me to read. The book is taken up for the most part with an interior monologue of Jeanne Jeanette which added to the feeling of a personal story.

We first see Jeanne as she arrives at a small station to catch a train. She is a small thin woman of 60 years of age and she is flustered and she is late. She is unsure of herself and hesitant in everything that she does. It takes her several pages of the book just to get onto the train. When she eventually gets into the empty compartment she searches around for the seat in which she feels more comfortable and then her story starts. She is worried, fussed and scared about her train journey, she constantly plays and rearranges her large handbag in which she keeps three dolls and her life story is slowly revealed by flashbacks set off by the journey. She is a woman who has rarely left the house in which she grew up, unmarried with her only friends being the family with whom she lives. She spends most of her time working in the garden and she is worried about leaving it uncared for while she spends the day away from the house. Apart from shopping trips she has only ventured further away on two other occasions in her life. More information is revealed as she struggle to make herself comfortable; constantly fidgeting. She was adopted by the family when she was three, this was 1944 and she is Jewish. She did not realise that she had been adopted until 1968 when a researcher from Amsterdam looking into displaced Jewish people after the war visited her family and told them all about Jeanne (real name Judith) and the story of her family during the Shoah.

Jeanne has reluctantly taken the train journey to visit a solicitor who has papers for her to sign as a result of a legacy left to her. When the man from Amsterdam visited the family back in 1968 Jeanne was horrified, because she wanted nothing to disturb her quiet life looking after her extensive garden. The train journey reveals more memories for Jeanne to process, memories that she has buried in order to keep her sanity. They flit in and out of her head as the train slowly rolls to its destination

This is a story that slowly reveals itself, a story of trauma in the past that has completely dictated the life that Jeanne has been able to lead. Readers of modern literature will be used to the stream of conscious technique that works very well here in solving some of the mystery of Jeanne's life. I was thoroughly convinced in what turned out to be a powerful piece of story telling with a style of its own and so 4 stars.

>26 baswood: That sounds like a book I would very much enjoy. Sadly, my French is no longer up to snuff, and it doesn't appear to be translated. Your review would make a lovely post on the Holocaust Literature fiction thread.

>26 baswood: terrific review

>26 baswood: Great review, Barry. I wish there was a translation available, but at least on the LT author page, it looks like none of her works have been translated. We miss out on so much with limited translation availability.

>26 baswood: >27 labfs39: The review is great Barry, and it sounds like a book I would want to read immediately. Unlike Lisa, I can't say my French is no longer up to snuff--it's nonexistent. So I will just have to hope that it will be translated at some point.

Hi there,
Interesting reading plan you got there! I hope you'll make it. My reading (and posting here) was really bad last year and I intend to be around more. Let's hope for the best. I will be following your reading in any case! :)

Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan
The Sirens of Titan was Kurt Vonnegut's second novel and is included in the science fiction Masterwork series. Published in 1959 it was the novel that won the first of the many awards that Vonnegut won in the genre, although his first novel Player Piano had created a stir. I have previously read Slaughterhouse-five, his most well known book, a couple of times and neither time was I overly impressed. I think it is because I am not in tune with his style of writing. I think because he is such a well known author in the genre and Slaughterhouse-five crossed over into the mainstream, it is perhaps the sort of style that would be off putting for many readers, who were dipping their toe into science fiction for the first time. Certainly I think that would be true back in the 1960's, well before A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

There is not much science in The Sirens of Titan, really it is more of a fantasy novel and one that reads like it was cobbled together after a drunken nights storytelling, which I think it was. The writing style has all the elements of an oral story; the sentences are short, the language is simple and it has a conversational style. The organisation feels a bit haphazard and the structure is one you might find in a good story made up as the teller went along. However after saying all this, it kind of works, the reader gets carried along with the story rush, not stopping to think about holes in the plot or the sheer craziness of the story: that is if you have not already tossed the book aside, thinking I am not going to read any more of this rubbish. It works in the genre where a sense of wonder and dare I say it: ideas; bordering on the fantastic; which are more important than literary style.

Of course there are flashes of brilliance in this crazy mess of a book and it is open to all kinds of interpretation; it is a bit like Alice in Wonderland and like Lewis Carroll's book it is funny and genuinely satiric. However in my opinion it has not stood the test of time, although the style has been imitated and I am thinking of Philip K Dick, who managed to run with it taking it to another level. If my thoughts are confused then I can only put this down to having just finished The Siren's of Titan. The story, the plot you don't really need to know. It deserves to be in the masterwork series because of what it is, but I just didn't like it and so 3 stars.

>32 baswood: I think this is the first i have read about this book, or perhaps mess of a book. You leave me intrigued (despite?)

>32 baswood: I am always interested in those who dislike Vonnegut.

I do happen to click with him--much more so in my old age. But he does write *around* a lot of his themes, which makes the plots seem formless and rambling. And his characters are such luckless dimwits that they leave readers puzzled about how much to empathize with them ... and, by extension, their own humanity.

If I knew Brecht better, I'd venture to say there is a kind of alienation effect going on in Vonnegut's work that frustrates a lot of readers who aren't already half nuts themselves.

I am partial to his novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. But if you didn't like Slaughterhouse or Sirens, I doubt that would be of interest.

Anyway, just stopped in to say Happy New Year, if that isn't a total oxymoron in these grim days.

>26 baswood: I hadn't heard of this book, and it seems to tick a lot of boxes for me!

Belated Happy New Year. I'll be looking forward to following along with your reviews and other comments as always. Somehow it's gotten by me that you are a jazz fan. I, too, love Dolphy, as Darryl knows. I invite you (and anyone else interested, of course) to listen to my radio show, called the Jazz Odyssey, which you can stream live at www.kzyx.org. I'm on every Monday afternoon from 1:05 to 3:00 Pacific (U.S.) time. I don't know how that lines up with the timing where you are though. Darryl is a semi-regular listener. Cheers!

>36 rocketjk: Thanks for the new year wishes. I have been a jazz fan since I first heard John Coltrane on Voice of America back in the 1960s the dJ, if you can call him that was Willis Connover. After absorbing Coltrane I then sort of worked backwards through the jazz catalogue. I play the tenor saxophone myself, but not professionally. I think your show should be on at 10pm tomorrow, perfect time for me.

>34 nohrt4me2: his characters are such luckless dimwits that's a great description

Happy New Year to you, with a bit of luck with Covid we will all be allowed out to play again in late spring.

>37 baswood: Great! Let me know if you're listening. Best way is by email: dj@kzyx.org. Also, let me know if you have any requests. Looks like some Eric Dolphy is in order.

>32 baswood: I adore Vonnegut. He is right up my alley. The dissociation in Slaughterhouse Five I think is related to the trauma of being in the freshly fire-bombed Dresden and often hauling corpses as enforced work. That's just my opinion, of course. There are certainly other reasonable ways of taking it in. I don't see the resemblance between Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick: I'll have to think about it.

Thanks for your comments. I, too, like to encounter people who don't like him, because to me he seems to write something for everyone.

>32 baswood: - Enjoyed your review. I was thinking of reading some more Vonnegut for one of my projects since it's been a very long time since I read one of his books but it sounds like this isn't the one.

>20 baswood: Ordinary Thunderstorms was a disappointment for me too, and I'm a confirmed fan of his writing.

>26 baswood: Love the idea of the story unfolding as the train rolls along.

Armed with my copies of:

The Arden Shakespeare: Shakespeare's Sonnets edited by Katherine Duncan -Jones and Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets: a new commentary by Don Paterson and perhaps Stephen Booth's Shakespeare's Sonnets (if it ever arrives in the post): I am reading through the sonnets. As there are 154 of them I am not going to be close reading them all, but I will read each one at least three times with reference to the notes at hand.

They can be split into three/four unequal parts:

The first part are the pro-creation sonnets. There are 17 of those and Shakespeare presents himself as a father figure advising a young courtier that he really needs to get married and have children.

The second part and by far the most sonnets are the 108 love poems to one of the courtiers, perhaps the same one as Shakespeare addressed the pro-creation sonnets.

The third part are the 26 sonnets to the Dark Lady which are misogynistic in tone I believe.

There are a couple of more curious sonnets to end the collection and to make up the 154

Over the last couple of days I have been reading those first 17 pro-creation sonnets, which Don Paterson in his New Commentary compares to hack work, poems written for a commission perhaps. Anyway he doesn't think much of them.

My favourite is No 15

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night,
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

Sonnet 18 is the first of the love poems and has a first line that many people will know:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

>43 baswood: I'll be very interested in what you think of the different commentaries. Enjoyed #15

>43 baswood: I liked this sonnet, too. I'm going to have that book you mention--the one on the sonnets, because I really want to know why that is hack work.

Hi Bas, happy new year! Trying to get back on LT and club read, and I'm happy to find you still here :-)

Nice to see you here FlorenceArt

The Genius of Shakespeare - Jonathan Bate
Over the last four years I have read many plays and much poetry from, shall we say the age of Shakespeare. To be more precise the late Elizabethan period when Shakespeare wrote and had produced the first batch of his plays, before the plague hit the London theatres in 1593/4 and the publication of his longer poems. I have read much that is readily available and so plays by Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene, George Peel, John Lyly, Thomas Lodge, Anthony Munday and that most popular playwright Mr Anonymous. I have ploughed through many of the poets and sonneteers: Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Richard Barnfield., Giles Fletcher, Henry Constable et al and so I have my own ideas as to why Shakespeare was a "Genius" in an age that could be labelled The English Renaissance.

Picking up Jonathan Bate's book "The Genius of Shakespeare" I was rather hoping that he would share his views on why he thinks Shakespeare's plays and poetry were the work of a Genius. I was looking for some sort of analysis of the words on the page. What made Shakespeare's writing at its best (and that is most of it) stand head and shoulders above his contemporaries. I had to wait until the final section of his book which was entitled "The Laws of the Shakespeare Universe" to satisfy my curiosity, however it was not until I had finished the book that I could appreciate what a finely structured piece of literary criticism Bate has produced.

I think my issues with the book were focused on the first third, where after some anecdotes Bate concentrates on looking for autobiographical evidence in the poetry and then rehearsing again the known facts of Shakespeares life, adding to this, some conjectures on the the periods where there is no written evidence. This of course leads him into the authorial controversy, in which he goes at some length to ascertain that the man born in Stratford-Upon-Avon was the Shakespeare that wrote all the plays and poetry, accredited to him. I have to say this bores me silly. I think that Shakespeare from Stratford-Upon-Avon is the author of much of what is available, but I don't care in the least if he was not. What is important is the quality of the works that are available to us. Bate also launches into the speculation on: who were the people to whom Shakespeare addressed his sonnets, who was the young aristocrat, who was the dark lady. Why oh why has so much ink been spilled over these issues, I want to shake hold of these people and say read the fucking sonnets and enjoy the wonderful poetry and write about that. Don't be an inkhorn. To be fair to Jonathan Bate he does also put the sonnets in their historical perspective, reminding his readers that they could just as well be an exercise in Elizabethan sonnet style based on Petrarch as they could be actual love poems written to or for a contemporary person.

In the first section of the book I did enjoy the chapter entitled Marlowe's ghost, where Bate concentrates on Shakespeares contemporary playwrights, paying particular attention to Marlowe, who was something of a genius himself and someone who may have provided a springboard (unwittingly of course) for Shakespeare to launch his own particular style.

Part two of the book examines Shakespeare from a historical perspective. How has his work been judged over a period of some 400 years. How have changes in fashion affected his appreciation. What influence has his work had on other artists, dramatists of course, but also musicians, philosophers, painters and more casual readers. Bate comes up with the idea of Shakespeare as a field of forces in space-time, while acknowledging he is also the chief of the dead white authors brigade.

It was the final section of the book that interested me the most. He gets down to the nitty-gritty of the words on the page. Shakespeare's art is all about the condensing of his ideas in memorable words and phrases, this condensing also leads to ambiguity. It is the ambiguity that fuels the imagination, that brings readers back to the plays and poems time and time again. It also has given the work an appeal to readers over the time span since Shakespeare wrote his masterpieces: different modes of life, different fashions, different philosophies, different movements for example the Romantics have been able to relate to the plays and the poems. Bate gives examples of alternative readings of the plays and how directors can emphasise different sections, phrases, or even right down to individual words to turn preconceived thoughts on their head; something that Bate calls the truth of aspectuality. The fact that Shakespeare was an actor, and a producer of plays as well as a writer and collaborator gave him the ammunition to ensure that the plays worked as performances. Bate has used the idea of a 'performative truth' to encompass this idea. A more mundane reason for the success of Shakespeare's plays is their availability. The first folio printed after Shakespeares death in 1623 contained the 36 principal plays, collections such as this were not normal, many playwrights suffered through plays being lost or not even printed at all.

The final section satisfied my reasons for reading Bate's book, but it also brought into focus the structure of the whole thing, which was not immediately obvious to me. Bate is attempting to provide an analysis of all aspects of Shakespeare's genius. His education, his experience, the effect of his work on other artists, the adaptability of his plays, the raising of his profile over the time period and finally why his work can be considered the work of a genius. Occasionally Bate disappears briefly down some rabbit hole or other, but one cannot accuse him of lacking in ideas or insight. An excellent critique of an enormous subject and so 5 stars.

Just stopping in Barry to see what you are reading. Interesting review of the Vonnegut.

>48 baswood: Excellent review of Bate on the Bard. The class on Shakespeare that I took in college might has well of been called the Myth of Shakespeare. It's interesting to me now to think about "the genius of Shakespeare." Do you think scholarly opinion has shifted (again), or do you think it has always been a mixed bag?

>50 labfs39: Jonathan Bate's book covers the history of Shakespeares critical acclaim. His plays have always been available and certainly he was considered a genius by some critics from the 18th century onwards. In the 19th century he emerged as Englands national poet, fiercely defended against French and German nominees. He was considered by the Romantic movement as the poet of nature. Really from this time onwards Shakespeare went hand in hand with English nationalism. In the first decade of the 20th century two critical studies cemented his position as the National Bard and from then on he has gone from strength to strength, becoming almost an industry all of his own.

Bates point is that because his work is open to many different interpretations, he can ride out various changes in fashion and literary criticism. There were plenty of feminists critics of his works, but this has not stopped his continued popularity. He would seem untouchable, even if he is now referred to in some quarters as Chief of the Dead White Authors.

>48 baswood:, >51 baswood: your are uniquely prepared for this review and extra post and I enjoyed them immensely. Shakespeare brings forward the idea of what makes a classic a classic, or a genius a cultural manifestation of “genius”, and it’s no surprise that in part it comes down to access and evolving fashion (and these interplay). But how interesting that ambiguity is a sort of bulwark that allows the works to sort of maneuver or stay afloat. I don’t have a great sense of how silly this all sounds. I’m really enjoying my Shakespeare reading, partly because he is fun and interesting and wonderfully re-readable, partly because he creates conversations with other readers who have different and often intimate familiarities with his work, and partly because he echoes throughout the literature, creating that odd thing we call a dialogue even as it’s so different from the normal use of the word dialogue. I wish i had a good question for you instead of this longwinded response. But hopefully this conveys something back to you.

>48 baswood: Thanks for the review of the Bates book. Sounds interesting! I’ll have to measure up my Shakespeare shelf and see if there’s room for one more…

>52 dchaikin: Ambiguity ambiguity ambiguity has been used consciously and unconsciously in much poetry. We know this about Shakespeare certainly and Bate nails it when he points to the condensing of his lines in his poetry and some of the plays, being the reason for much of the ambiguity. That ambiguity increases for the modern reader because of the changes to the meaning of some of the words over the last four centuries. OK we should always check on the glosses to ascertain what the words meant for the Elizabethans, but the more modern meaning can give the lines another life.

>48 baswood: Really like how you broke down the different segments of the book and discussed each. It seems that this book would work for just about everyone interested in Shakespeare.

>51 baswood: As >52 dchaikin: says, this rounds out the Bates review.

>51 baswood: All good reasons. After spending years diligently avoiding Shakespeare, I started reading him in the 201n decade with a group of people and as you say he creates conversations with other readers who have different and often intimate familiarities with his work that are really worth while.

>48 baswood: - Great review! This definitely sounds like one to read, although it does seem like the title could be more relevant.

Une poignée de gens - Anne Wiazemsky
Anne Wiazemsky was an actress and starred in films made by the new wave film makers in France during the 1960-70's. She was married for a time to Jean-Luc Goddard and appeared in several of his films: Week-end, Le Chinoise, Sympathy for the Devil. She also worked with Robert Bresson, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Jean Aurel. She started writing novels in 1989 and won several literary prizes. There were autobiographies and children books as well; she died in 2017. Une poignée de gens ( A handful of people) was published in 1998; there has not been an English translation. It won Le Grand prix de L'Academie française et le Prix Renaudot des lycéens.

Anne Wiazemsky uses her ancestral Russian background (her father was a member of the nobility and emigrated to france in 1917) to write her novel which tells the story of a member of the Russian nobility's, attempts to adapt to life during the early years of the revolution. Marie Belgorodsky is french, but of Russian extraction and is 40 years old. Out of the blue she receives a letter from a Russian man a distant cousin who says he has photographs and a diary of the family in Russia. The diary belonged to Wladimir Belgorodsky who was assassinated in 1917. She agrees to meet Vassiliev the distant cousin out of curiosity, because she has no real desire to research her family history. However at the meeting she is charmed by the elderly Vassiliev and becomes interested in the diary and photographs. The major part of the novel is the story that has been pieced together by Vassiliev told from the point of view of Nathalie Belgorodsky who at the time (1917) was a very young woman betrothed to prince Belgorodsky. Vassiliev is an historian and was a friend of Nathalie before her death in the United Sates.

The book tells the story of how the young Nathalie soon settled into the life of the nobility, won the love of her husband the prince and was instrumental in the decisions taken during the time of the revolution. The prince and his family owned a large estate and the rumour of the land reforms and then the actual regulations pitted the family against the local population and their own large work force. The prince although well liked by his family and workers was soon overwhelmed by the disruption caused by the revolution. Violence was inevitable and the book builds towards the eventual assassination of the prince and the dissolution of the family. In a small final section of the book Marie travels to Russia with Vassilev to search for remains of the ancestral manor house.

Anne Wiazemsky uses extracts from the prince's diary as a way of moving the story along and this works well. The comfortable family life in the weeks before the revolution is well described as is the difficulties the family have in adapting to a new situation. There are of course tensions in the family and this being a french novel there is much concern over the cellar containing expensive bottles of vintage french wine. Perhaps the loss of this is almost as big a tragedy as the assassination of the prince. The novel flows along well and although we know the bare bones of the story from almost the first page, it still held my interest. An easy and entertaining read and so 3 stars.

>57 baswood: I read My Berlin Child by Anne Wiazemsky several years ago for Belletrista. It is loosely based on her mother's life. Did you know Anne's maternal grandfather was François Mauriac? Interesting family.

>57 baswood: and >58 labfs39: I audio-read Mon enfant de Berlin/My Berlin Child as well! I learnt a lot about the historical context of the immediate post-war period in Germany. As you said for Une poignée de gens, it was easy and entertaining.

>48 baswood: Excellent review, Barry. My stepson asked that I give him Shakespeare's Complete Works for a Christmas gift, after he enjoyed reading one of the plays with a friend. This looks like it would be a good follow-up for next year's gift. Good to plan ahead!

I last posted about Shakespeares sonnets on 11 January and I am now up to sonnet 61 and so another 93 to go. There is no point in rushing through........

and so sonnet 61 is a beauty, easily accessible (some are not) and a delight to read today:

Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?
O, no. Thy love, though much, is not so great.
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat
To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.

>61 baswood: I needed help. But enjoyed it a lot (61 in post 61. Nice)

https://shakespearequotesandplays.com/shakespeare-sonnets/shakespeare-sonnet-61/...

>32 baswood: >48 baswood: Two very interesting book bullets, although you are only satisfied with one. I am somewhat divided on Vonnegut myself, but I might consider giving The Sirens of Titan a chance.

Laurent Carpentier - Les Bannis, Laurent Carpentier
Laurent Carpentier is a free lance journalist and has participated in the creation of the first French information agency on the Environment (AIE). He writes regularly for Le Monde Magazine. Les Bannis (the banished or exiled) is a novel published in 2015 and I was attracted to picking it off the library shelf by its classy looking front cover.

The subject chosen by Carpentier for his novel is his family. He makes a fiction out of a biography of his family, writing stories about individual members in no particular order, but well enough structured so that the reader can follow the storyline and gradually get the impression of the family as a whole. A jewish family; some of whom were politically active in the communist party, which did not bode well for various family members during the German invasion of France in the second world war. The book covers five generations of the family and on reflection it would have been useful to have a family tree, but I can understand why this was not considered appropriate because of the fictional structure of the novel. I got a little lost with who was who, but this did not prevent my enjoyment of the individual stories, and anyway I got the impression they were not a close knit family, no grand family reunions.

There is the story of Jaques: scientist and communist party member who was arrested and shot by the Nazis. Carpentier glides smoothly between first and third person story telling, so giving his characters a modicum of life of their own. André; Jaques brother fled to Spain and his sister Arlette hunkered down in Nice taking the name Carpentier. Jaque's mother Alice is rounded up by the representatives of the Vichy government, she feels too old and set in her ways to attempt to flee, even though she is warned that they will be coming for her. She is one of many that takes the fateful train journey to the concentration camps. Jean nicknamed Jeannot is the next generation, he studies medicine and meets his future wife Raymonde selling copies of L'humanitée (left wing journal) outside the medical school. He joins the communist party working his way up to a position of leadership, but a putsch in the Party after the Soviet coup d'état in Czechoslovakia sees him banished from the party. He is an old man when we meet him again beginning to suffer from Alzheimers, he is welcomed back into the fold with a ceremony to give him back his Party card.There is Mathis who in a way banishes himself, by becoming a shepherd in a remote part of the South of France. He and his partner scrape together a living in a run down hamlet. One day Mathis finds a red balloon in the woods on his way to the pastures attached to it is an invitation to spend a night in a luxury hotel. What to do?

The book starts with Maurice who is living in poverty, he has not long to live and after visiting the grave of his own dead daughter has a car accident; he is in hospital and reflects on members of his family that starts a train of thought that threads the novel together. His partner is Fine and she lives to be a hundred years old. A presence in the family, but one that never gets to express her point of view. Laurent Carpentier expresses his story largely through the male members of the family and in a final chapter neatly brings the story to a full circle when he himself searches in a dream like expedition to find something in the snowy wastes of a wood near where he is staying, a memorial stone perhaps.

The Carpentier family is an interesting subject for a novel, certainly individual members of the family have interesting histories and Laurent Carpentier tells them well. His own emotional involvement is held back until the final chapter, letting his characters tell their own stories. There are perhaps not quite enough stories for the length of the novel, I found the story of his own grandfather: Henri's life in the Marais district of Paris showing some strain. Overall, however there was enough here to keep me interested and I am glad I was seduced by the front cover to pick this one off the shelf and so 3.5 stars.

>64 baswood: An interesting way to tell one's family history.

>64 baswood: That one sounds interesting, and I really like the cover.

Hey, Barry, there's a nonfiction "question" (list) you might be interested in on the Questions thread (inquiring minds ....), if you have time.

Just finishing sonnet 154 of Shakespeares sonnets. There are 154 in the collection. I'll get to the questions soon.

The Arden Shakespeare's Sonnets - Edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones
Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets - A New Commentary by Don Paterson
Shakespeare's Sonnets, Stephen Booth - Edited with analytic commentary by Stephen Booth

Don Paterson says in his excellent introduction to his New Commentary that it is impossible to read all the sonnets in one sitting (there are 154). You would certainly need super human powers of concentration to attempt the task and I am not sure the general reader would get much from it as many of them are not easy to read. I read them over a period of a month checking my understanding of them with the commentaries of Katherine Duncan-Jones, Don Paterson and Stephen Booth. I probably read each sonnet 5 or 6 times and at least once out loud, before I moved onto the next one. In many anthologies of English poetry one or two of the sonnets will appear and can be enjoyed as stand alone items. However if you are going to read them all then reading them in the order of publication will enable you to get a feel for the story behind the poems and more importantly there are many instances of sonnets following on from previous ones, so that it is almost like reading a double sonnet.

The 154 sonnets plus A Lovers Complaint were printed in 1609 under the title of SHAKE-SPEARES Sonnets, never before imprinted it says, although this was not quite true as a couple of them had appeared in a 1598 quarto. There are not many clues as to when WS wrote the sonnets and critical analysis has ranged from 1582 to 1609. It would seem that WS himself oversaw the 1609 printed version, probably collecting together and organising them into a form for publication. 1609 was a year when London was again badly hit by the plague and theatres would have been closed.

The first 17 sonnets have been labelled the procreation sonnets. The speaker gives advice to an attractive young man to find himself a wife in order to father children, to keep his family line in existence and to pass on his own marvellous qualities to his children. By the time we reach sonnet 18 the speaker has fallen in love with the young man and the bulk of the collection details the trials and tribulations of that love affair. Sonnet 127 then starts the story of the speakers infatuation with the dark lady. These are misogynistic and bitter in tone and take us to sonnet 152. The last two sonnets are an improvisation on a Greek epigram and serve to lighten the tone if nothing else. Don Paterson claims the sonnets to be:

They are alternately beautiful, maddening, brutally repetitive, enigmatic, sweet, prophetic, pathetic, bathetic, triumphant, trite, wildly original, contorted, screamed, mumbled, plain-speaking, bewildering, offensive, disarming and utterly heartbreaking.

Patersons description as utterly heartbreaking, puts him fairly and squarely into the camp of those critics who think that the speaker in the poems is WS himself and that at least some of the poems are written from personal experience. If this is the case then WS was clearly homosexual or bisexual, which would account for the fact that his sonnet collection was not universally liked following the initial publication. There are examples of analysis where critics tie themselves into knots trying to prove that WS was heterosexual.

Collections of love sonnets were very much in vogue during the 1590's. Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella published in 1591 set the bar high with his 108 sonnets describing a seemingly unrequited affair with a noble lady he referred to as Stella. The collection took inspiration from the Italian Poet Petrarch whose poems worshipped at the altar of his Laura, but Sidney created an atmosphere all of his own without breaking drastically the conventions of love sonneteering. Collections by Samuel Daniel (Delia) Henry Constable (Diana), Thomas Lodge (Philis), Giles Fletcher (Philis) soon followed, but these clung steadfastly to the conventional feel of courtly love poetry and have little interest for the modern reader. Shakespeare after mocking the love sonneteers in his plays then went on to publish his own collection which stood the conventional Petrarchan collection of love poetry on its head. The subjects of his poems were an unnamed man and an unnamed women. Some of the poems to the Young Man (YM) are indeed passionate love poems, with clear indication that there was sexual activity between the two of them. The same applies to the Dark Lady (DL) but here the speaker is cursing his infatuation and accusing her of wilful promiscuity. This is far removed from the respectful courtly love poetry, which also looked to spiritual enlightenment, as practised by most of his contemporaries. Having said that WS stood the Petrarchan conventions on their head: there are still a number of his sonnets that are as conventional as previous collections and address the same themes, but his condensed lines serve to give most of these a new life.

I suppose the bad news to approaching these sonnets is that they have not become easier to read the further we have moved away from the Elizabethan age. Poems written over 425 years ago with all the conventions and context of that era and changes to the language are going to make them harder to understand. The good news is that critical editions similar to the ones reviewed here are available to help the reader through. The hard work of tracking down the references, of pointing out anomalies, of putting the poems in the context of when they were written has all been done. I can imagine someone picking up the sonnets for the first time and looking at sonnet 1

Sonnet 1

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

This might put a few people off and most of us will need some help through some contorted syntax. So lets see how our three editors deal with it:

Katherine Duncan-Jones gives a brief summary of the subject of the poem

"The sonnet sets out a eugenic proposition: the most excellent examples of natural beings are under an obligation to reproduce themselves. But the addressee, to whom this rule applies is narcissistically dedicated to self love, allowing his beauty to go to waste by hoarding it up"

She then goes through the poem giving explanations to difficult words and phrases. This along with her general introduction to the sonnets where she explains that the first 17 sonnets are aimed at giving advice to a young man on issues around procreation are enough to get us through the poetry. She will also point out where she thinks that an idea is awkwardly expressed. However her comments are mostly devoid of her opinions and are neutral in most respects. Some readers might find this an advantage.

Don Paterson first reminds us that this is the first of 17 poems which basically say the same thing (he has also covered the idea of procreation in his introduction) and then says this about the subject of the poem;

"The argument here runs something like: ‘We want the lovely things to breed and perpetuate themselves, so that they don’t disappear from the earth. You’re a lovely thing yourself – but alas, you’re also a preening narcissist, and instead of spreading the love, you hoard yourself. Oh – you’re jack-the-lad right now, you’re the one-and-only, you’re gilded youth incarnate, you are; but you’ve sunk your happiness into your own youth Within thine own bud buriest thy content. If you don’t have some sympathy for the world, you’ll be remembered as the guy who consumed himself in self-love, and whom the grave ate without the world seeing any return on its investment in you."

He then goes on to give his opinion of the first 17 poems and points out the clever poetical tricks that he sees in this poem and how it adds to the meaning and our enjoyment. A different style and in some ways more informative; if you do not mind the less reverent approach.

Stephen Booth does not tell us anything about the subject of the poem he just gets down to the nitty gritty of analysing the words and phrases and examining the metaphors that WS has used and what these would have communicated to his contemporary readers. It is scholarly work and sometimes taken too extreme I feel.

Katherine Duncan-Jones gives a fulsome introduction which is in keeping with the Arden Shakespeare editions. She covers the history of their printing, surmises on evidence as to when they were written. She also covers the context with pointers to other love sonnet collections. She gives a brief rundown on the structure of sonnets. She also covers their reception through the ages. She points out the fact that much ink has been spilled in identifying the Young Man and the Dark Lady and then proceeds to spill more ink on the subject, but at least she doesn't go into the question of authorship too deeply.

Don Paterson gives us a lively introduction which as well as being informative gives the reader his experiences in tackling a re-reading of the sonnets. He is not afraid to express his opinions on the quality of the poetry and will show how various poetical effects work or don't work. For the more obscure sonnets he will give a line by line interpretation. His glosses on phrases and words are a little perfunctory, but this is not what he is about, his ides is to give the reader some lively information, which will be enough for the reader to enjoy the poem.

Both Katherine Duncan-Jones and Paterson refer to the work done by Stephen Booth and both are not afraid to disagree with him, although Paterson does this more than Duncan-Jones. Booth commentaries take up far more apace than the poems and can go into extraordinary detail. He hardly ever misses a sexual pun or innuendo and Paterson thinks he is a trifle obsessive in this respect. However as both of the other editors refer to Booth, it is handy to be able to have his original commentaries to hand.

Duncan-Jones and Paterson give us the sonnets with modern spelling, Duncan Junes commentaries sit on the page facing the poem while Paterson comment underneath each one. Booth gives us the sonnets first, both in original and modern spelling and his commentaries appear after the collection. The sonnets take up 128 pages and the commentaries 325 pages.

In my opinion Duncan-Jones's Arden edition is probably the go-to edition for facts, context and detail, however the lively enthusiasm and poetical insight of Don Paterson makes for a thrilling experience; to have him whispering in your ear (figuratively speaking), while you get to grips with the poetry. I put post-it notes on my favourite poems and found I had thirty so marked. In a collection of 154 poems there are going to be some you enjoy more than others. I would rate both Duncan-Jones edition and Patersons new commentary as 5 star reads; with the more pedestrian scholarship of Booth a four star read.

>69 baswood: Great background on these, thank you for taking the time and care on it.

>69 baswood: Fabulous review! You made quite a commitment with three books of commentary, but in the end your review does make the sonnets feel much more accessible. It is also interesting to see how much more emerges from reading them as a collection. Stand-alones is as far as I ever ventured.

I am impressed by your dedication! I doubt I will ever read these sonnets but it’s interesting to hear about your experience.

>69 baswood: terrific review. I really appreciate your takes on these editors-/-commentators and the clear note that I will need help with these when i read them.

Vernon Subutex Tome 1 - Virginie Despentes.
I think the clue is in the surname Subutex. There is certainly a lot going on in the subtext of this novel. I have just resurfaced after spending a week in the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll and the homeless (SDF) of Paris. I am familiar with the the world of rock 'n' roll and can pick up most of the references to groups and singers in the 1970's-80's sub culture. I used to be more familiar with the world of sex, but this all seems far away from my quiet existence in rural France. Drugs are a world I have never been in tune with and so reading this novel has taken me further out of my comfort zone than I usually venture, especially as I do not read that much contemporary literature. I have also had to frequently google as the author uses acronyms and verlan. It has been a bit of a roller coaster with some lows, but mostly highs.

Virginie Despentes is a French writer, novelist, and filmmaker. She is known for her work exploring gender, sexuality and people who live in poverty or other marginalised conditions. In her writing her characters deal with misery and injustice, self violence or violence towards others such as rape or terrorism. The world she depicts is laced with realism, her political stance is uncertain, she is more concerned in providing a social critique. From wiki there is a quote from Despentes talking about her life and work.

"I became a prostitute and walked the streets in low-cut tops and high-heeled shoes owing no one an explanation, and I kept and spent every penny I earned. I hitchhiked, I was raped, I hitchhiked again. I wrote a first novel and published it under my own, clearly female first name, not imagining for a second that when it came out I’d be continually lectured to about all the boundaries that should never be crossed. . . . I wanted to live like a man, so I lived like a man."

In her novel Vernon Subutex has just retired from making a living selling records from his shop, where various people hung out to chat, and probably sell drugs. Vernon was well liked and he had a connection with a rockstar (Alex Bleach) to whom he provided some services. Bleach has been recently found dead after an illness and Vernon has been left three cassettes by Bleach, unfortunately this has come at a time when Vernon has been evicted from his apartment and in his haste to get out from under the bailiffs most of his personal belongings have been left behind. Vernon is homeless and after a couple of nights on the streets he makes contacts with people in his address book, but short stays with them do not work out and Vernon is back on the streets again. There are people interested in the death of Alex Bleach searching for Vernon, thinking that he has information which can be used.

As this is Tome 1 of a three tome series; Despentes spends much of the time introducing the characters. They all have interesting back stories mostly concerned with living on the edges of society and have known Vernon while he was working. There are porn stars still aware of being recognised on the streets, a friend who has been left by his partner because of too many violent assaults, girlfriends who have tried to turn around their life after the drugs and prostitution of their earlier existence, a trans person who is intent on changing to become male, a film maker whose family is falling apart. All these peoples lives have touched on Vernon, but Vernon now finds all his energies and resources are needed just to stay alive in the hostile environment of the streets of Paris. The death of Alex Bleach is a connecting tissue that hovers in the background and it is only towards the very end of this novel that the story starts to move along.

Despentes is adapt at letting her characters tell their stories, mostly in the third person, but the author changes her writing style to reflect their world.
This is edgy writing, with the author taking the reader in a 'no holds barred' explanation of the lives of her characters. Not so much their own struggles with their sexuality, but the struggles they have with a society that does not approve of their chosen/forced life styles, but is willing to pay with money or violence for their services. Towards the end of the novel Vernon has become one of the faceless people who live on the streets. One of his former acquaintances hurrying to catch the metro sees a cat sprawled out on the lap of a young homeless person and he remarks:

"C'est plus facile de droguer son chat que d'apprendre à jouer de la guitar."

The novel was published in 2015 and has won several prizes. There is an English translation and it was shortlisted for the Man Booker International prize 2018. I borrowed this from my library and noticed that tomes 2 and 3 are still on the shelves. Once I have started something I usually finish and so I can see my reading schedule being interrupted for a time. This was a 4 star read.

I read a few lines from the beginning of Vernon Subutex, and I felt that I wouldn’t like her writing style. The subject sounds interesting but I’m not sure I’m ready to revise my summary judgment ;-)

>75 baswood: >76 FlorenceArt: Vernon Subutex seems to be pretty divisive! I think it's a masterpiece - a Comédie humaine for our times, although I understand why others might not share my views. I hope you enjoy Volumes 2 and 3 :-)

>75 baswood: The subject matter and milieu appeal to me—I have to admit to really liking sex/drugs/rock'n'roll as a theme when done well—but not the fact that it's #1 of three. Do you think it would work as a standalone, or do you really need to read all the way through the series?

>78 lisapeet: Yes it could be read as a stand alone, because the mystery surrounding the death of the pop star never really gets going in this first book and so what we have here is back stories of the characters that are hovering around the edge of the mystery. It is the stories of these characters that interested me.

>79 baswood: OK thanks, good to know. Sounds like there's definitely the risk of getting sucked in to find out more... which I guess is the point of a series.

I have read only one book by Despentes, King Kong théorie, and found it to be near-total dreck. Assuming she still holds the views she airs there, she's an antifeminist, misogynist, neoliberal blowhard and dick-worshiper.

That last epithet is really the source of every other. Despentes never found a humanity she could like and espouse in the women around her; only men exemplified the freedoms she wanted. Her single idea is that to be free, one must be male, or behave as if one were male.

And, as with her beau idéal, Camille Paglia, men in particular LOVE her message. Men are as they are and women should be more like them, prostitution and pornography are liberating, if women have the right to sell their bodies men have the right to buy them, traditional married women are no better than prostitutes whose competition they fear, rape is "natural" (inevitable) and women have "the right to risk being raped" (not sure I'm quoting exactly, but that is the gist).

It's just a stunningly obtuse and backward way of looking at things, at least in this era.

>81 LolaWalser: Well that's certainly another view, but I can see where you are coming from and certainly those views could be levelled at Despentes.

Mulk Raj Anand - Seven Summers
Published in 1951 this is the first part of a projected seven volume autobiography. Anand died in 2004 at the age of 98 having completed 4 volumes of the autobiography, the last instalment was published in 1985 and so he had plenty of time to complete his project. I guess he just lost interest.
Seven summers covers his early years from his first memories until the age of nine which coincides with the start of the first world war in 1914. Fortunately it is not written in the language of a preteen boy, but Anand stretches his memories to encompass his childish thoughts along with his more mature considerations.

Anand's (referred to as Krishan) early life took place in the melting pot of Indians who found themselves followers of the British Raj. Krishan lived in a comfortable house just across the riverbed from the British cantonment. His father was in the service of the British army and like all of the Indian families his father and therefore the family were at the beck and call of the British. As a child Krishan only occasionally came into contact with the British, and so considered them as almost god like figures. His father was high up in the pecking order of the local Indian population and had to work hard to maintain his position. He was a proud man whose main consideration was to improve the position of himself and his family. He was a hard taskmaster to his children.

Krishan was a rebel, a difficult child with a violent temper. He admits he was self-willed and egotistical, always trying to make things work for his own advantage. He did not do well with the stresses and strains that threatened to tear his family apart and this is the main theme of the autobiography. His father was high cast Hindu and his mother was a Sikh; she had become Hindu and steeped herself in the capricious gods of her adopted religion. Other families of the followers in the cantonment: or the prison of the armed camp as it was referred to, were Muslims with a good sprinkling of untouchables. Everybody had to somehow get along together as best they could. Krishan had to pick his way through this conglomeration of religious and social conventions most of which had to be taken for granted. Children suffered physical and verbal abuse on a daily basis, Krishan was never too far away from his next physical beating. Poverty was of course endemic and survival was not certain. Children had to grow up quickly, had to find their way through the melting-pot. Sibling rivalry with his elder brother was a feature of Krishan's early years, but it is Krishan's will to win through that pitches him against almost everybody. He must have been a horrible child to live with.

Mulk Raj Anand's descriptions of the sights and sounds from his childhood make his story seem steeped in reality. The religious observances, the rigid caste system, the struggles to adapt to the British Raj come across clearly through Arnand's account. Tempers are frayed, suspicions undermine any real friendships and the relentless desire to get ahead puts the struggles of Arnand in clear context. Arnand uses Anglo-Indian commonly used phrases to give his dialogue plenty of local colour and while this reader repeatedly lost patience with the brat of a boy that Arnand describes, I was thankful to him for setting me down in a time and place that fascinated me right to the end and so 4 stars.

>83 baswood: Thanks for the review. The book has joined Untouchable in my wishlist. If only I had more hours in the day!

>83 baswood: How interesting. Will you continue on with the next volume?

>85 labfs39: to quote >84 Dilara86: If only I had more hours in the day

Adèle et moi - Julie Wolkenstein
Another book from the library and one that I will only be too happy to take back. It is rare that I don't finish a book that I have started, but after getting to page 300, which is about halfway through I gave up.

The idea behind the book seems interesting enough. It is written from the perspective of a first person account by the author after a discovery of some papers relating to one of her ancestors. Adèle was born in 1870 and died in 1941 and the author was born some 27 years after her death. Like Adèle she was born in Paris and has connections with the coastal town of Granville in Normandy. The author looks further into similarities and differences in their two lives. After reaching the halfway point I still did not feel I knew much of Adèle or the author for that matter and just felt bogged down with the minutiae of life. I usually find this sort of approach interesting enough, but Wolkenstein uses parenthesis far too much for my liking and I felt it was just lazy writing not bothering to connect her thoughts. I just got bored.

I don't think that the book is badly written, it is just not for me.

I'm very interested in Seven Summers, but my library doesn't have it, and it's pretty expensive. Besides, I have had Untouchable waiting on my shelf for nearly 10 years, so I should get to that first.

Blaise Cendrars - Moravagine - Edition 1956
Reading Moravagine, I was immediately reminded of Voltaire's Candide. However Moravagine is much much darker and if you read it with all the apparent seriousness in which it is written, not funny at all.

Blaise Cendrars was a Swiss naturalised French citizen; a poet and novelist who was influential in the European modernist movement. Moravagine was originally published in 1926, but republished in 1956 with an explanation by the author on how and perhaps why he wrote the novel. It is a dark ride through the human (male) psyche. Warning misogyne is rife.

The narrator is Raymond la Science who as a young man of medical science sees an opportunity to release the madman and murderer Moravagine from an asylum in order to carry out further study. Moravagine is a very rich, last in line member of a noble family. He shows early signs of instability and is kept secured on a large estate. As a young boy he is betrothed to Rita, but is only allowed to see her once a year. When she arrives as a late adolescent woman, Moravagine murders her and he spends ten years locked away in a small cell, He keeps some sanity by focusing on his situation. Released by Raymond they move to London, but have to leave after Moravagine commits a number of brutal murders on women. Thy travel to Russia where Moravagine and Raymond become involved with the revolutionaries in 1907. Moravagine with his fortune and his ability to organise others, soon becomes a leader of the abortive 1907 coup in June. They are forced to flee and take ship to America, On the ship they befriend an Orang-u-tang (yes it starts to enter a world slightly touched by magic realism). Travels in America lead them to adventures on the frontier and needing to escape again they end up stranded on the Amazon river, where Morvagine becomes a god-like figure to a primitive tribe of Indians. They finally make it back to Paris where Moravagine becomes a pilot in the first world war.

It is a book on which I have hardly formed much of an opinion. As an exercise in modernist literature it can be admired, but there were only two parts that really grabbed my attention. The first was Moravagine's method of keeping his sanity while being locked up for years and the second was Raymond's experience with the Amazon tribe where he is a virtual prisoner in conditions where most Europeans would find it difficult to survive. The dream like states that both characters achieve pointed to a consideration as whether Moragavine was just the darker side of Raymond. It is a book that might benefit from a second reading, but I am not sure I can be bothered and so three stars.

Mort à vagin (lest anyone miss this peak of schoolboy wit...!)

Unrelatedly (or NOT?), I had a good chuckle yesterday reading Craig Owens' report (from the long-gone 1980s) about clowns Bernard-Henri Lévy and Philippe Sollers dazzling the rubes at a conference in NYC with eaches idiosyncratic take on sex (in all its meanings): Lévy: "Woman does not exist"; Sollers: "My sex is French".

The wit of Blaise Cendrars:
‘le plus grand malheur qui puisse arriver à un homme, et ce n’est pas tant un désastre moral qu’un signe de vieillesse prématurée, c’est prendre une femme au sérieux'

(the greatest misfortune that can befall a man, and this is not so much a moral disaster as a sign of premature old age, is to take a woman seriously).

The details haven't stayed with me, but I recall reading his travel-inspired writing and poetry with interest. However, yes, there's that all-too-common feature of French littérateurs that sold hatred of women as knowledge of women. Tolerance levels may vary...

>75 baswood: I'm catching up, and this is a terrific review of Vernon Subutex 1.

Intrigued by Mulk Raj Anand's autobiography too, but I'll give the vaginal death a pass.

>92 LolaWalser: Tolerance levels may vary...
Mine are very low, especially for the likes of Blaise Cendrards and other 20th century authors who (according to me) should know/have known better.
I'm intrigued to see that Moravagine is the 1st book appearing on his LT page. I had not heard about this book before ans would have thought that L'Or (that I read and did not really like, but for other reasons than misogyny) was more famous.

>89 baswood: etc — Interesting, Blaise Cendrars is another of those people I felt I ought to know about (seeing rows of his books in the library, etc.) but didn’t. Curiosity satisfied, for the moment…

>94 raton-liseur: LT popularity scores for non-English books often have little to do with how well-known a book actually is. For some reason they seem to get very skewed by the release of new translations. There’s a recent NYRB translation of Moravagine.

>95 thorold: Yes I have noticed quite some oddities in LT popularity and did not understand why. The link with translation releases make sense. Thanks for the info.

Anthony Burgess - The Kingdom of the Wicked, Burgess

When I reviewed Anthony Burgess's A Dead Man in Deptford which was an historical novel about the Elizabethan playwright Christofer Marlowe I said:

“The virtue of a historical novel is its vice - the flat footed affirmation of possibility as fact.” There are few facts known about the late sixteenth century playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe and so Burgess has great fun making up a story that fits with the facts that we do know. It is a rumbustious, roisterous, sacrilegious look at the life of a writer making his living around the playhouses of Elizabethan England and one asks oneself “was it ever thus” - well it just may have been.

The Kingdom of the Wicked published some eight years earlier (1985), shows a similar approach to historical novel writing. Burgess has fun with the early Christian movement, from the death of Jesus to the volcanic eruption in Pompeii in AD 79. He has three main strands to his story the rise of the Christian Movement led by the disciples and Saint Paul, the chaos at the heart of the Roman Empire as he follows the career of the Roman emperors and the Jewish nations own internal dissent following the teachings of christianity. Burgess is faithful to the historical outline, but like all good fiction writers he fleshes out the characters adding inventions and characters of his own to ensure nothing gets in the way of good story telling. Unsurprisingly he revels in the murder, mayhem and sexual perversions of the Roman world, which contrasts with the dedication and bravery of the early christian leaders; he provides intriguing characterisations of Saint Paul and Saint Peter.

Burgess starts his story with Sadoc, who is writing this early history. He is suffering from a chronic disease and nearing the end of his life wishes to finish this story before his death. He starts his tale controversially

"Concerning the resurrection of Jesus, everybody must believe what he can. For my part, I will not accept miracles if the rational lies to hand, and have no proof that Jesus died on the cross."

Sadoc's theory is that by all accounts Jesus was a man of immense stature, with enough breath in his lungs and body to survive the crucifixion. He was undoubtedly unconscious when taken down from the cross and his legs were not broken and after three days in the tomb he had recovered enough to roll away the stone. Sadoc then goes on to tell his story of the documented re-appearances of Jesus after the "resurrection". Nearly 400 pages later we come to the end of the story with the deaths of the last of the diciples and Saint Paul. Meanwhile we have taken in the corrupt roman emperors particularly Nero and the infighting of the Jews and their last stand at Masada. It is an enjoyable entertaining account based around the historical facts and paints a lively picture of the struggles of the early christian church. It is of course irreverent and may be offensive to some people, but for me it was both interesting, informative and for the most part entertaining. Sadoc's story is told as though he was writing it today (today being the 1980's) and so there is no attempt to place himself inside the mindset of the people living 2000 years ago.

This was my last unread Anthony Burgess novel and I have come to the conclusion that his irreverent style is suited to some subjects better than others. He had a story to tell with this book and launched himself wholeheartedly in his project to bring this to life for the modern reader. I rate this as 4 stars.

>97 baswood: Huh. For some reason, I’ve always considered him a 1-novel author - possibly weird advertising of his most popular one when I was in my teens which had left me confused. Both novels you mention sound right up my alley. I need to explore his writing. Wonderful review :)

>89 baswood: - I have the NYRB version of Moravagine on the pile somewhere, and it sounds like I don't need to rush to dig it out. Enjoyed your review even if the book was meh.

>97 baswood: Interested in this one thanks to your review. Burgess is always an engaging writer.

Éric Vuillard - La Guerre des Pauvres
This is an essay published in book form, covering 68 pages of text. Vuillard studied under the influence of the french philosopher Jacques Derrida which may account for this history of Thomas Müntzer staying close to known facts. He for the most part leaves it for the reader to make his/her own interpretations.

Thomas Müntzer 1489-1525 was a German preacher and theologian who became the leader of a popular uprising now known as the German Peasants' war. He was captured after the battle of Frankenhausen 1525 tortured and executed. Vuillard links this with earlier peasants revolts in England: Wat Tyler led the revolt in 1381 with his associate John Ball. There are similarities in that the revolt of the poor and oppressed took the nobility by surprise. However once the powerful men at arms realised that their very existence was under threat they reorganised and easily thwarted the revolt and showed little mercy to the defeated peasants. Another similarity was that John Ball was a fiery orator, a preacher in the mould of Müntzer who stirred up religious zeal which was a factor in leading the revolt. Jack Cade's revolt in 1450 which was again perceived as a reflection of social, political and economic issues is also described.

Vuillard tells of Müntzer's early life as a radical theologian and his allegiance with Martin Luther. His vehement preaching from the pulpit, which found favour locally, but led to a series of enforced moves. His break from the influence of Luther who he claimed had lost his way and become complaisant with the powerful magnates, led him to forge his own path. Müntzer's zeal was based on his idea that God about to overturn the natural order of things and when he preached this to the nobility he found little favour. There is no direct evidence that Müntzer was the leader at the battle of Frankenhausen, but Vuillard describes the battle as though he was there.

Vuillard matter of factly tells of Müntzers imprisonment and final beheading. He wonders what the local tradesmen saw who attended the execution. They saw the little man (Münzer was small in stature) who carried the burdens of the world on his shoulder, whose head became separated from his body. Vuillard does not ask himself what they thought only tells us what they saw. He concludes his essay with:

"Martyrdom is a trap for those who are oppressed, only victory is desirable. I will tell it."

Vuillard links events to a certain extent to re-emphasise the issues raised in his essay, but leaves the reader to do the thinking. 3 stars.

>101 baswood: Very interesting essay and history. Thanks for the review.

The Last American, John Ames Mitchell - John Ames Mitchell
Back to proto science fiction this week and a novella published in 1889 by John Ames Mitchell, who was a publisher, architect, artist and novelist. He was co-founder, editor and publisher of the original Life magazine.

Aboard the Zlotuhb in the year 2951 is the title page to this future history novella. It is a diary by the captain of the Persian exploratory ship which has been sent to search for the lost continent of Mehrika. They are sent on their way by Hedful the curator of the Imperial museum at Shiraz:

He holds the opinion with many other historians that the Mehrikans were a mongrel race, with little or no patriotism, and were purely imitative; simply an enlarged copy of other nationalities extant at the time. He pronounces them a shallow, nervous, extravagant people, and accords them but few redeeming virtues.

The wealth, luxury, and gradual decline of the native population; the frightful climatic changes which swept the country like a mower's scythe; the rapid conversion of a vast continent, alive with millions of pleasure-loving people, into a silent wilderness, where the sun and moon look down in turn upon hundreds of weed-grown cities,

They do of course find Mehrika and succeed in accidentally finishing off the last living Mehrikans . This is a satirical novel/novella/magazine article which can be read for free at project Gutenberg. It was republished in 1893 as a small hardcover book of 78 pages illustrated with half page etchings inserted into the text. Today it is a half an hours light reading with the main interest of working out the satirical names of the crew members:
Grip-til-lah, Nofuhl, Lev-el-Hedyd, Ja-khaz and the rest.

However Mitchell might have been prescient in predicting the dystopia of climate change. 2.5 stars.

>101 baswood: Interesting bit of history.

>103 baswood: SOunds intriguing and fun. So despite your lukewarm review, I might give it a try and I downloaded it from Project Gutenberg!

Antoine Volodine - Terminus Radieux
I have suffered a reading slump recently which I can only blame on Volodine's Terminus Radieux, not because it is a bad novel, but because it is the most depressing novel that I have read in a long time. So here are some bullet points as to why I found it such a struggle to get through:

It is a dystopian novel, where even staying alive seems to be a pointless exercise.

It takes place in Russia - a post nuclear Russia.

Characters seem to be neither dead nor alive, but something in between.

The prose is circular with very few events and when something does happen it is liable to be described again.

It is a novel of over 600 pages (I read the french original and so I might have lost something in the translation) where the situation seemingly, gets worse and worse.

Kronauer; a soldier and two colleagues have escaped from the Orbise a collective that was functioning as a capital of the region. It had been attacked by barbarians. Everybody is suffering from radiation sickness. The three have been on the run for about a month, have run out of water and collapsed within sight of some railway tracks. The woman Vassilissa Marachvili has been carried on Kronauer's back for some time and she is nearly dead, slipping in and out of consciousness. A train consisting of four wagons containing soldiers comes down the track and stops nearby. It is manned by soldiers half of whom are very dead, some are almost alive and all are sick. The three comrades remain hidden, but Kronauer decides to make for some nearby woods in a search for water. He eventually makes it to a Kolkhoze (an agricultural collective) and becomes a semi prisoner of the President.

The President Solovièï practises some kind of mind control and has become immune and possibly immortal due to radiation poisoning. His partner Mémé Oudgoul has become notorious as one of the few people who also survives the radiation. They are encamped on a nuclear reactor/outlet and have three daughters with whom Solvieï has incestuous relationships. He exercises control over the few inhabitants by nightmarish dreamscapes and is jealous of any unwelcome approaches to his daughters. Everybody is sick. Time passes, no one is really sure if they are alive or dead, the sun is almost blotted out, everything is grey and cold, daylight is decreasing and the creatures that seem to be benefiting are the carrion crows.

If ever a book celebrates the idea that darkness is coming then it is Terminus Radieux. Reading dystopian novels at a time when we are on the doorstep of a climate catastrophe is not everybody's idea of fun reading, but added to that the distinct possibility of nuclear war in Europe and one can easily for-see the future of our planet in the world that is described by Volodine. The novel is effective because it creates a powerful atmospheric force that destroys all hope of a return to lighter times. Is our future on this planet as bleak as Volodine claims, well if so I suggest you read his novel on a bright sunny day when the birds are singing. It should be banned as winter reading in Scandinavia or anywhere north of Alaska.

A difficult novel to rate, as an exercise in dystopian fiction then possibly a five star read. It is however a struggle and my enjoyment limits it to 3.5.

>106 baswood: What a strange title for such a dark novel. I'll pass as I am not in the mood for such read, but thanks for this interesting review.

Sorry about the slump and this difficult novel. Also admiring your improvement in French. Enjoyed learning about the 1889 post-apocalypse story and about Thomas Müntzer.

>106 baswood: Yikes. Not even a sunny day would suffice to induce me to tackle Terminus Radieux right now. Have you recovered?

>109 labfs39: Yes thank you I have recovered. The sun is shinning this morning and I have plenty of books to read.

The life of Cardinal Wolsey; George Cavendish (His Gentleman Usher)
George Cavendish's biography was written in manuscript form; probably between 1554-8. It was widely circulated at the time and could have been source material for William Shakespeare and John Fletcher's play: Henry VIII.
A garbled version was printed in 1641, but I read the version edited by Samuel Singer in 1825 which claims to be from the original autographed manuscript.

From my own experience of reading Elizabethan prose this is a biography that can be easily admired by the modern reader. Perhaps the earliest example of a biography that goes far and away beyond the usual hagiography that was usual at the time. George Cavendish was Wolsey's gentleman usher and there is little doubt that he admired and loved his employer, but he has not written a panegyric. His admiration and love does not stop him from giving examples of his employers less admirable qualities. At times Cavendish is writing from actual remembered conversations that he had with his employer or that he heard his employer speaking with someone else. This gives the work a feeling of immediacy, the reader can imagine being right there with the Cardinal especially in the last year of his life when his health was failing and he was at odds with the court of Henry VIII.

The biography does follow the accepted fashion of the rise and fall of a great man. There is a mid point in the story where Wolsey makes his first big mistake and that is to cross Ann Boleyn. In Cavendish's account it is Wolsey that intervenes in the affair between Ann Boleyn and the young Lord Percy. He summons Percy to his office and threatens him with public disclosure if he does not annul his pre-marriage contract with Anne. Of course he is acting under instructions from King Henry, but his overbearing character already hinted at from Cavendish's account does not make him the most diplomatic person to manage this affair and Ann will soon get her revenge. It is from this point on that Henry's court influenced by the Boleyn family turn against Wolsey, we know this from history and we, as readers of this biography can appreciate how it all panned out for the Cardinal. His negotiations with the French King and then his unsuccessful attempts to influence the Popes legate to allow Henry to Divorce Catherine of Aragon saw his rapid fall from grace. There is an excellent account of Katherine's evidence at the inquisition into her marriage with Henry.

The second half of the biography provides the reader with a more intimate portrait of Wolsey. His household has been drastically reduced, the king has sequestered his palace at Hampton Court, he is under threat of standing trial as a traitor, but he clings to the thought that his previous close relationship with King Henry will save him in the end. While the first part of the biography deals with Wolseys rapid rise to power and his intellectual achievements it is written in a more anecdotal form; a little removed, because the author was probably not present at that time. It is the second part that provides the more intimate details of a closer relationship and the tragedy of Wolsey's final fall from grace.

Apart from the insight into the character of Wolsey and King Henry the biography goes into some detail of the pageantry that surrounds Wolseys life as Chancellor to the king. His fabulous palace at Hampton Court, his easy relationships with the most powerful men and women in Europe. It provides much fascinating context of a life led at the highest reaches of Tudor England.

I read this biography as background material for a reading of Thomas Storers's long poem 'The life and death of Thomas Wolsey Cardinal divided into three parts, which appeared in 1599. I have not yet read the poem, but I am grateful it led me to read Cavendish's biography 5 stars.

>111 baswood: I would never have been interested in this until I read the Wolf Hall trilogy. Now I find myself tempted. Did Cavendish write much about Wolsey's relationship with Cromwell? Mantel's Cromwell looked up to Wolsey almost as a father figure, as well as mentor. It's interesting that you gave this biography five stars, the average is 2.67. Perhaps the wrong audience has been reading it?

>112 labfs39: People expect a modern biography. That it definitely is not - and that’s part of its charm. :)

>111 baswood: Several years back I read an interesting and enjoyable Wolsey biography, Naked to Mine Enemies: The Life of Cardinal Wolsey by Charles W. Ferguson, published in 1958. I recommend it if you're interested in adding a relatively contemporary biography to your Wolsey reading.

>112 labfs39: Cromwell features in the biography after Cardinal Wolsey has lost favour with King Henry. He meets Wolsey several times and he may be acting as an emissary from Henry or he may be acting for his own interests. Wolsey wants to trust him.

Cavendish's biography is free to read at Gutenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/54043/54043-h/54043-h.htm

>113 AnnieMod: My rating of reads are a bit of a law unto themselves, which is probably the same for many people who rate books. My rating of books from the 16th century takes into consideration other books that have been written during the same period and this one stands up well for me.

>114 rocketjk: Thanks for the recommendation Jerry.

>116 baswood: I was explaining why there are so many low ratings - not yours. :)

Thomas Storer - The Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal: His Aspiring, Triumph, And Death (1826)
Little is known of Thomas Storer apart from the fact that he was a student of Christ Church in Oxford, but his reputation as a poet was such that in 1599 appeared The life and Death of Thomas Wolsey Cardinal: divided into three parts. The first describes his rise, the second his prosperity and the last his fall. It consists of 101, 89, and 51 seven line stanzas respectively of decasyllabic verse. It written in rhyme royal (ababbcc). The first thing to say is that the poem flows along sedately and the rhyming scheme works well and is easy to read. It is not without interest and Storer adapts his style to the subject of the poem.

The poem is not a straightforward recitation of Wolsey's life. It is largely written in the first person and imagines that Wolsey is addressing his thoughts to Clio one of the seven muses: the muse of history. In the first part after paying tribute to his college he talks of his ambition and his particular talent: his silver tongue which allowed him to rise in the world. He asks himself questions, he examines his motives and he talks about the life of a poor clergyman as compared to the lives of the courtiers. He talks about his arrival at the court of King Henry and how his silver tongue allowed him to play the game of flattering his masters and keeping his rivals in check. There is then a section of the poem that launches into the personification of theology and here Storer indulges us into some flights of fancy and proves that he can raise his poetry to enlighten the reader. The second part describes his power and his position, but there are misgivings about his continual need for more works of art, more comfort, more prestige and he thinks again of the life of a lowly churchman. In the final part he contemplates his fall and his final journey around England looking for succour. Almost wishing that he had not been so ambitious:

Thus in I went into their holy Cell,
Where new obiections wandred in my mind,
Why could I not be once content to dwell,
In like meane sort, and to like orders bind
My life? why was I not so well inclin'd?
A quiet roofe seem'd then too meane for me,
I sold my selfe to purchase high degree.

I can't pretend that this long poem held my attention throughout, but there were certainly some stanzas that I found interesting and the poetry was well worked and musical. There was no mention of the political facts that led to Wolsey's downfall. Ann Boleyn does not get a mention. It is not always easy to follow the story, because for most of the poem there isn't one. It is Wolsey's contemplations on the life he has led and so it sets itself apart from being a biography/autobiography. After reading through the poem I found myself going back to enjoy individual stanzas and so 3 stars.

Je vous écris comme je vous aime - Elisabeth Brami
A brief meeting leads to a love affair, but this one develops through an exchange of letters between two women; one who is 50 years old and the other who is 80 years old. To enjoy the book you have got to sign up to the premise that love can be felt and reciprocated over distance and age is no barrier. I had no trouble and enjoyed the read.

Elisabeth Brami is a clinical psychologist as well as being an author of novels, essays and children's books. This was her first adult novel published in 2005 and as she has chosen to write much of her book as an exchange of letters between the two women, much of it is in the first person.

I think the story is skilfully told; starting with Gabriel the 80 year old woman resting at home. She has been a hard headed businesswoman still heavily involved in her families business. A mother of seven children who lives some 9000 kms distance from Paris. Emily lives in Paris and is a writer who has visited Gabriels house; the Bois-Rougue on an island in the tropics, as part of a film crew and has stayed overnight. At the dinner table the two women felt a connection and Gabriel left a message for Emily, placed on her pillow of the guest room. Emily sends a note back to Gabriel on her way to the airport and the correspondence starts. It soon develops into a passionate exchange of letters with each woman counting the days and hours before they receive the next letter. More details of Emilys overnight stay slowly emerge, but much of the letter writing is about the love and the connection that Emily and Gabriel feel for each other: their surprise and wonder as what has happened to them.

The epistolary love affair lasts a matter of months and then events beyond their control overtake them. Love of course is the main theme, but also illness and death, as both women feel their mortality. The author writes in the third person to fill in some of the background, but it is the letters that hold all the charm, the hope, the sadness and the missed opportunities. It is sympathetically done, without plunging too deeply into the psychological issues of an affair of this kind, but on reflection perhaps perhaps the book would have benefited from a little more depth. I was moved by the letters and so 3.5 stars.

H. E. Bates - Colonel Julian and other stories
H. E. Bates was a prolific writes of novels and short stories from his first novel The Two Sisters} published in 1926 to his final collection of short stories The Yellow Meads of Asphodel published in 1976 two years after his death. There was bound to be something published in 1951 and it was his first collection of short stories published after the second world war. Colonel Julian and other stories originally contained 15 short stories and the kindle version I read has one bonus story.

Colonel Julien is a war story and there are a couple of others, but these tales are far ranging; Switzerland, Burma, India and many parts of England. One expects a collection of stories like this to be uneven in quality, but there were none that were badly written and I counted ten of the sixteen that I really enjoyed. In many ways the first one in the collection The Little Farm has many of the ideas and themes that run through the rest of the stories. Tom a man in his thirties has been left a farm after the death of his parents. He is a shy man living on his own who struggles with illiteracy, but works hard to keep the farm just above subsistence level. He decides to look for a female helper to work with him on the farm and to clean and cook. With the help of the local news agent he places an advert in the personal column of the local paper and gets a reply from a strongly built young woman, who agree to work for bed and board. She immediately sets about cleaning up the farm and sorting out his paperwork, she has ideas about restoring the farm building and using the neglected orchard to make money. She easily betters Tom's part time employee who has been cheating him for a number of years. Tom is a gentle kind, man and soon falls in love with Edna who is just the woman he has dreamed of to help run the farm, but she has a past.......

Gentle hesitant men are often compared to stronger more self willed women in these snapshots of time. One can almost guess the ending once the story gets into its stride, but this does not matter, because it is the down to earth characterisation and the quickly sketched descriptions that carry the weight of the tales. Bates has the ability to set the scene and create an atmosphere right from the first page. Once I had finished the collection I found that many of them had stayed in my mind. I loved the story of Jo Johnson who has worked hard at his fruit and vegetable shop, but throws it all away when he chases after a younger woman. The female music teacher who sells sheet music above a shop and takes time to track down a song for a young man despite fending off another man anxious to take her to a party. The Girl called Peter who has been brought up by her father; who modelled her to be like her brothers, and discovers her femininity when she meets a sensitive young man.

There is no doubting the charm of these stories, the innocence of many of the male characters, but they avoid being sentimental or twee. I was surprised how much I enjoyed them. Certainly they may be considered light weight, wistful perhaps and few readers will be shocked by the outcomes, but they are not juvenile and I rate this collection as four stars. Comfortable reading.

>121 baswood: I haven’t read those stories, but I always enjoyed H E Bates, especially the Darling buds of May stories. High-quality light fiction.

This sounds like an author I need to have on hand for those times when I need a comfort read. I'll see what I can find.

A Perfect Arrangement - Suzanne Berne
A middle class family in New England, hire a nanny to look after their two children while they get on with their busy lives. We learn early on that Randi has falsified her references and that Howard and Mirella are desperate to find someone. Reading on and learning that Randi likes to be in control and there have been problems with her own family (Randi is hiding from them) the reader may well think that he knows where this novel is going: going into the realms of "The Hand That Rocked the Cradle" or other murderous nanny stories that haunt many families, who take the live-in nanny as a solution to child care problems. It is more power to the elbow of Suzanne Berne that she does not take her readers down this route, but what she does reveal about family life, is in some respects just as shocking.

Howard is an architect working from home in his purpose built extension, Mirella is a lawyer working in a busy practice that she has set up with her good friend Ruth. They have two children; a daughter Pearl who goes to play-school and her younger brother Jacob who is not yet speaking and would appear to have learning difficulties. Randi despite lacking experience throws herself into being the perfect nanny and of course the children soon appreciate the attention that she gives them. Jacob particularly thrives under her care. It is almost inevitable that Mirella will become a little jealous. Suzanne Berne focuses on the life of the family, their day to day existence, Randi striving to excel with new ideas and initiatives, while the lives of Howard and Mirella, becoming a little remote from the children; leaving them space to get into their own difficulties.

Another theme of the book is the residents pride in their New England town. Proud of their history, living a few miles north of where the pilgrim fathers landed. Pageants, fetes, are important events in their yearly calendar, seemingly a celebration of family life. However one gets the feeling that these middle class families are a little insular, too wrapped up in their own success perhaps. When things go wrong in a family, then that family tends to implode while neighbours look on in curiosity.

Randi the young nanny is the central character of this book and Berne paints her realistically as she does with the rest of the family. Nobody is nasty, nobody is evil, it is just the pressures of family and business life that takes their toll within the family unit. I enjoyed my birds eye view of the Cook-Goldmans who lacked for nothing, but a little imagination 3.5 stars.

Maxime Vivas - Rouges, Les collines de Caracas
Caracas capital city of Venezuela is currently a city that has this warning about safety and security for tourists on the UK Governments website:

There is a high threat from violent crime and kidnapping throughout Venezuela, which has one of the highest murder rates in the world. Armed robbery, mugging, carjacking, and burglary are all common and are often accompanied by extreme levels of violence – do not resist an attacker. These crimes can occur on the street or the beach, in supermarket queues or when travelling in private vehicles or public transport, or indoors. Remain alert and avoid using your mobile phone or displaying other electronic equipment or valuables on the street or in a vehicle.

This novel is written in the form of an investigation by a French free-lance journalist (Gaya) who is both attractive and has a back belt in Aikido. She is employed to spend two weeks in Caracas to write articles on the freedom of the press, and she takes a commission to search for one of the "disparados". She soon finds herself caught up in a political coup to topple president Hugo Chavez. It is May 2007 and she is lured into a barrio where a kidnapping attempt is made, she escapes and her contacts in the press and TV stations soon piece together; from arrests made, that there is a plot to assassinate Chavez at the Theatre Teresa Carreño. Arrangements are made for Gaya to be minded by Ricardo a Cuban during her eventful two weeks. There are CIA agents involved as well as agents from the TV stations owned by Oligarchs. Gaya feels herself under surveillance and does not know who to trust, every appointment or contact involves perilous journeys across the city.

The novel which weaves a story around the volatile situation in Caracas in 2007 is fascinating for the portrayal of a city where violence always seems to be just around the corner. People disappear, demonstrations can quickly turn violent as supporters and opponents of Hugo Chavez turn events for their own advantage. A world very different from the streets of Paris where Gaya lives. Of course the political situation takes centre stage, including all the ramifications of hostile agents from outside the country, but also a major theme in the book is the freedom of the press. In 2007 Chavez banned the television channel RCTV which was owned by fabulously rich Oligarchs that were hostile to Chavez popular movement and had been implicated in a plot to overthrow him some five years earlier.

I found the novel a little overwritten in places, attempting to tie up all the loose ends in such a complicated scenario can be exhausting to read. It is obviously a french novel because of the detail included about food and drink in Caracas. At the denouement of the story where recent events are discussed in a bar between Gaya and the Venezuelan journalists we are told about the bottle of wine that is ordered:

" The grape was Cabernet Sauvignon. A very explosive fruit with blackcurrant and raspberry notes. After agitation, sandalwood and smoke notes appear. A firm attack with ripe tannins. A very present and persistent woodiness. A finish with notes of nut kernels"

I was thinking, thank you for that, now can we get on with the story. Maxime Vivas is a french writer essayist and cyber-journalist, he has written detective novels and thrillers and this one was published in 2015 by Les éditions Arcane 17. It proved to be informative on a country for which I had only some vague knowledge and so 3.5 stars.

>125 baswood: I have never heard about this author or this book. It seems he has written more journalistic works than novels.
Your comment about it being obviously a french novel because of the detail included about food and drink in Caracas made me giggle!
I have read another book on Venezuela, describing a more recent situation, if you are interested: It would be night in Caracas by Karina Sainz Borgo. It is quite violent, but it's a powerful book.

>126 raton-liseur: Thanks for the recommendation.

Seetee Ship - Jack Williamson
Published in 1951 this science fiction novel proves to be an adaption of two stories that appeared in the magazine Astounding Science fiction way back in 1942 and 1943. Jack Williamson was a prolific author in the genre and these original stories were written under the pseudonym of Will Stewart. The magazine in the early 1940's was well on the way for being noted as a magazine that contained some hard science fiction stories rather than just adventure orientated stories. I am not saying that Seetee ship is hard science fiction as I understand it today (that is to say science that I don't understand), but it does have some interesting ideas.

The events take place in the 22nd century out in the asteroid belt. Uranium and other materials for nuclear fission are nearly exhausted, but the discovery of antimatter material has led to a race to find a way of harnessing this, as a new source of power. Rick Drake and his father battle against a large interplanetary company to solve the scientific and engineering issues. The discovery of an antimatter or CT (Seetee) spaceship which should not exist in this universe leads to a chase further out in the asteroid belt. Paul Anders leads the charge of the company men and it becomes a personal battle between him and Rick. Strange events mystify all those who search for the Seetee ship, but there are clues for those readers knowledgeable in the genre, to guess what is happening, before the denouement in the final chapters.

There are two strong female characters pitting their wits against Rick and Paul, but the dialogue between the sexes can be excruciating: the love interest is not this novels strong point. It is the unfolding of the story that makes this a solid read for novels like this from the golden age of science fiction. Scene setting and descriptions are adequate, but there is not much to raise it above a good magazine story and so 3 stars.

Willobie His Avisa or The true Picture of a Modest Maid and a Chaste and Constant Wife.

This was a pamphlet originally published in 1594. I read the modern spelling version in book form, with an essay towards its interpretation by Charles Hughes published in 1904. It is basically a poem of 74 cantos which takes the form of arguments between the virtuous Avisa, a woman of modest social status and various disreputable suitors who ply her with courtship both before and after marriage. Anything with a connection to William Shakespeare is going to be of interest and this poem has two: in an introductory poem following the usual dedications there is a direct reference with the line "And Shake-speare, paints poore Lucrece rape" (Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece was printed in 1594) and in the poem itself the author's friend who gives him advice on how to pursue Avisa is identified as W. S.

Initials, false names, fake news perhaps, certainly adds to the mystery of who may have written this poem. There is a record of a Henry Willobie being a student of law at the time but no record of his friend Hadrian Dorrell who writes an introduction. If Henry Willobie was the author he goes by the initials H. W. in the poem along with a D. H. and a D. B. There has of course emerged a number of theories as to who all these people were and who actually wrote the poem (George Gascoigne anyone?). There has also been speculation as to whether Avisa was a real person. (Queen Elizabeth anyone?). While all of this is not without interest I concentrated mainly on the worth and readability of the text in front of me.

“ The mirror of this sinneful age
That gives us beasts in shapes of men
Such beasts as still continue sinne,
Where age doth leave, there youths begin."

The poem is written in six line stanzas with eight syllables to a line, this is instead of the usual pentameter line of 10 syllables. This gives the whole thing a song like rhythm and feel. It has a rhyming scheme of ababcc with little deviation. In my opinion this gives the whole thing a lighter feel than much of the poetry written at the time. The first seven cantos provide the reader with a long introduction and then we get the first of the would be lovers N. O. B. who promises Avisa a life of luxury if she will be his mistress and perhaps his wife. This seems to be a man of the nobility. Avisa refuses him and his love turns to hatred he finishes:

I was thy friend, but now thy foe,
Thou hadst my heart, but now my hate,
Refusing wealth, God send thee woe,
Repentance now will come too late,
That tongue that did protest my faith
Shall waile thy pride, and wish thy death.

The second tempter is Caveleiro (a lusty hot headed Spaniard)
'And therefore wench, be not so strange,
to grant me that which others have,
I know that women love to change,
T'is but deceite, to seem so grave,
I never have that women tri'd,
Of whom as yet I was Deni'd

From Avisa's response it is now evident that she is newly married and she will not entertain the Spaniard. The next tempter is D. B. a frenchman; he is more subtle. However he also fails to bed Avisa and after an exchange of letters he accepts her decision with some grace:

Though thou in sorrow make me dwell
Yet love will make me wish you well

The next tempter is D. H. an Angle-German. His pursuit of Avisa takes place over a number of years and he visits her house in order to leave some verse he has written for her. He realises that Avisa will not consent to his wishes.

Now grant I Pray this last request,
That fraudlesse hart doth frendly send,
That if my fayth deserves it best,
Accept me for your honest friend
And if I seek your spoil, or shame,
Then raze me out, and blot my name.

It is interesting that in her replies to her suitors; Avisa increasingly differentiates between love and lust. She accuses her suitors of foul lust and so lust is taking on a more modern meaning: something sexual rather than just adventurous in spirit.
The final suitor is H. W. (Henry Willobie himself?), but first he asks advice on how to court Avisa from his good friend W. S. We are told that W. S. has recently been successful in love and his advice to H. W. is to keep on pursuing Avisa as she is bound to consent in the end. H. W. certainly takes W. S. advice and there is a long exchange of verse between him and Avisa. At first she chides him for his youthful puppy love, but when he continues to chase her, she must again use all her powers of persuasion to fend him off. The poetry now has become a little repetitive. A sort of challenge in thinking up different ways for Avisa to say no. Finally she puts an end to it all and asks him not to write to her anymore.

The 1904 book ends with two final poem celebrating a chaste and constant wife and then a contented mind. There follows a postscript in the form of an Apologie where the mysterious Hadrian Dorrel writing now two years later in 1596 (a subsequent reprinting) asks to be forgiven for suggesting that Avisa was a real person. He states categorically that the author had made up the name as a generic for a constant wife.

This is not difficult poetry to read and it certainly highlights the problems that a faithful wife, who is also very attractive would face from would be suitors. She is threatened, cajoled, made to feel guilty, promised everything she could want, and she must find a way to say no. There is very little evidence that she has encouraged the men and the poetry owes much to the courtly verse of earlier times. However, here it seems more concrete, not quite a new reality, but plainer speaking does not always lead to better poetry. 3 stars.

>129 baswood: enjoyed all that. Great post.

I'm catching up and just now read your review of the Cavendish biography of Wolsey, a terrific post. I just finished Shakespeare's Henry VIII and really enjoyed it and was surprised how clear his version of Wolsey comes across. There is touching nuance. Enjoyed all your other posts too. The UK travel warning about Venezuela is crazy - the country really broke down.

The Shelbourne: A centre in Dublin Life For more than a Century by Elizabeth Bowen.
We have just got back from a few days spent in the foothills of the Pyrenees on the French side. It was a walking holiday, but these days stiffening joints and balance not being quite as good as it used to be, restricts us to about 500 metres climbing and descending, however we compensate by staying in better class hotels. This time we stayed in a hotel at St-Savin that has been in the same family for five generations and so it was a good time to read Elizabeth Bowen's story of The Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, published in 1951. An establishment much grander than our hotel in St Savin, but one can appreciate a book about a hotel when one is a paying guest in a similar establishment.

Elizabeth Bowen was a successful and world famous novelist, her first novel published in 1927 was called The Hotel. Bowen was born in Dublin and so the imposing Shelbourne hotel situated opposite Stephen's Green: said to be the largest square in Europe, would have been part of her childhood. Her family was of the Irish gentry and could trace their ancestors back to the 1500's and this would put her in a good position to write a history of the hotel, but I wonder why she would wish to do this? Did somebody ask her to write it, or was it a subject that she found interesting or stimulating. I struggle to think it was the latter because the book is written in such a flat passionless style. This is the first book I have read by Bowen and so I do not have any knowledge of her usual writing style, but this certainly smacks of somebody writing from the upper echelons of society and being careful not to upset anybody who might matter. However it is a history and not a novel and it comes from a period (1951) when cool precise writing of this kind might be much admired.

Bowen tells the story from when three townhouses first became known as the Shelbourne when they were adapted by Martin Burke in 1824. There was a major redesign in 1867, but at the time it consisted of rooms or apartments which wealthy citizens might hire for long or short periods of time. Tourism as we recognise it today hardly existed. Bowen dutifully sketches in some details of the early owners and managers and gives a picture of the life and society that passed outside its front doors. The real drama in this history occurs at the start of the first world war, when almost the whole staff were arrested because many of them were of German origin. This was followed by the Easter uprising in 1916 when the Irish irregulars occupied Stephen's Green and the Shelbourne was used by British troops to strafe the occupants of the Green. History was again enacted inside the hotel in 1922 when the Constitution of the Irish Free State was drafted in room 112. Ireland being neutral in the second world war meant that the Shelbourne could keep its lights blazing throughout war time. After the war the Shelbourne hotel has settled down to life as a commercial hotel attracting the more wealthy tourists. Bowen's story ends in 1951, but today the Shelbourne is a luxury five star hotel that features its role in the history of Ireland.

As a history of one of the most imposing buildings in Dublin and as a portrait of changing times within the vicinity of the hotel then this book succeeds admirably. For the casual reader it also works well enough because it gives a flavour of well to do city life from mid 19th century up until 1951. However the men and women important to the hotel hardly ever detach themselves from the furnishings and this reader was left with a well written history that hardly rose above the mildly interesting and so 3 stars.

Hey, Barry, the current question for "the Avid Reader" is about SF (as literature that deals with the future), would love to have your thoughts.

>131 baswood: I’ve just been reading a John Banville novel where people keep going for tea to the Shelbourne — nice to find out more about it!

Frédéric Viguier - Ressources inhumaines
Frédéric Viguier is a french author and Ressources inhumaines published in 2015 was his first novel, he has also written plays for the theatre. He takes as his subject matter the working of a large Hypermarket and the title of his novel is a play on words of the profession of Human Resources.

I worked in Human Resources for the latter part of my working life and at the time it had suffered a name change; from Personnel or Personnel Management to Human Resource Management to make it sound more business like and more integrated into the production side of the work being performed. This change in focus was also of course aimed to remove the idea of individuality amongst the work force; it was no longer personal, everybody was a resource that could be moved around at will and this is a feature of the staff that work in a Hypermarket as envisaged by Viguier. Hypermarkets have been a feature of french life since the 1960's and feature both grocery lines and general merchandise. All the shopping you wish to do under one huge roof. These huge stores tend to discourage a personal approach to shopping and in Viguier's account discourage any personal approach in staffing arrangements.

The novel describes the career of a woman (she is never named) who starts her working life as a trainee in one of these big stores. She is ambitious and motivated and buys into the work-life world of a big enterprise. She is an attractive young woman and she stumbles across an error in the procedures that she is being shown. She does not take the advice offered of keeping her head down and not being noticed and reports the error to the head of a section. This head of section uses this as an excuse to transfer a member of staff whom he wants to move out of his section and as an added bonus sleeps with the trainee. A favourable report on the trainee's work is made to the Human Resource Manager and she secures a contract for full employment in record time. She works hard and by the time she is twenty five she has become "responsable du rayon textile femme'' and she is sleeping with the Head of the Clothing Section. She is prevented from moving further up the hierarchy because of a lack of formal qualifications and so when the Head of Clothing Section resigns to set up his own business she cannot apply for his job. She continues to be his mistress and he continues to help her in the running of her section and they work together unofficially.

Part two of the book catches the woman still 'responsable du rayon textile femme' twenty years later. Now a young male employee (Him) is transferred to her section, he has some big ideas about how he can increase sales in the shoe department. She becomes fascinated by (Him) and lets him have his head in what he wants to do. He makes a big success .................,however the manipulation by higher management and suspicion of employees succeeding outside of the designated rules of the game arouses jealousies.

The books main subject is the impersonality of work in a big enterprise and this is linked with the un-named heroine who recognises that she is empty inside. She only has her work there is nothing else; her affair with Gilbert (he can be named when he resigns from the Hypermarket) is going nowhere, he does not want to marry her even when his wife dies. She claims to be perfectly happy with her life, but she cannot escape the emptiness that she feels. She makes the most of her personality and she is careful to dress attractively, but "Him" has made her reflect on a life that remains unfulfilled.

I thought the juxtaposition of the management of a big enterprise and the effects on the young trainee's life was well done, even if one suspects that she has something of a personality disorder, perhaps alexithymia. The workings of a Hypermarket will not be a surprise to many people and Viguier handles this well. Being critical: in my opinion it is pretty transparent that the novel is written by a man; even if he is portraying a woman who has difficulty in describing her emotions; the character presented seems more hollow than necessary. However all in all, an interesting read and so 3.5 stars.

Walter Baxter - Look Down in Mercy
A stunning novel from 1951, written by Englishman Walter Baxter. A war novel that dared to highlight gay relationships (homosexual) in the army in the second world war. Just to put the date into perspective it was still British armed forces policy not to recruit homosexuals as late as 2000 and it was still 16 years before the sexual offences act legalised homosexuality for consenting adults in 1967. No surprise then that Baxter's first novel received some good reviews, but sold few copies. A neglected masterpiece - perhaps?

Baxter served in the British army during the second world war as a company commander; the company fought in Burma and then retreated to India. Baxter's novel is set in Burma during the second world war at the time of the Japanese invasion. The British army stretched and largely in disarray stage a tactical withdrawal into India. Anson is a private in the army and serves as batman to Captain Tony Kent. Anson is homosexual and is struggling with an abusive relationship with fellow private Goodwin. He finds himself attracted to Kent, but there seem to be insurmountable barriers of rank, class and sex. Kent is married, but is struggling to come to terms with his marriage to Celia and has difficulty in writing to her back home in England; he has a half hearted affair with an Anglo-Indian nurse.

The Japanese invasion is a rude awakening for some army units in Burma, who have seen no fighting action until faced with a formidable enemy. Captain Tony Kent is second in command of a unit of 120 men and is detailed to be part of a protective screen of a ridge of high ground to hold up the Japanese advance. They are soon involved in heavy and desperate fighting in jungle terrain. The Japanese are efficient and brutal and Kent's unit is in danger of being overrun. He performs a heroic rescue of an injured private and his tactical nohow keeps his unit functioning, but he does not get everything right and struggles with the conscripted men. He is always glad to have Anson with him who looks after him, perhaps a little over and above his duties as a batman. The two men find themselves in a frightening and desperate situation, the night of a sustained attack and cling to each other in a sexual embrace. They are captured and beaten up by the Japanese and Anson proves himself more resourceful under extreme physical pressure and engineers their escape.

The descriptions of the running battles with the Japanese are tense and exciting, the brutality of war is handled well, with Baxter not dwelling too much on individual horrors. The physical hardship of fighting is felt mainly through the eyes and body of Tony Kent and this is Baxer's greatest achievement. Kent is a British junior officer who knows his place in the world, the conscripted men are beneath him mentally and socially and the Anglo-Indians are of another race, he does not treat them cruelly, but they do not feature in any way as equals. He cannot countenance his relationship with Anson, but he feels a desperate need of it. In contrast Anson's character is not drawn quite so well, his passivity at times seems to go beyond the bounds of such a resourceful man, but he is a man in love with an impossible figure in Tony Kent. Seeing the world through Tony Kent's eyes most of the time means that racism and sexism are typical of the epoch, but Baxter does not overdo it. The Anglo-Indian nurse Dean is herself a conflicted figure and her giving way to Tony Kent is in keeping with her situation; at the heart of Tony Kent there is cowardice even rottenness, but he still elicits some sympathy from this reader.

I read the 2014 reprint which has a useful introduction by Gregory Woods and the alternate ending (as an appendix) written specifically for the American market. In my opinion, this novel is right up there with the best novels I have read from 1951 concerning the second world war and that includes Fires on the Plain by Shohei Ooka which was a five star read and so five stars for this one too. (The Hollywood alternate ending doesn't work)

>135 baswood: Interesting, I didn’t know about that. Simon Raven has a similar sort of batman - junior officer story in The feathers of death, but that was set in postwar Kenya and only came out in 1959.

>135 baswood: Interesting that there was an alternative ending for the US. I knew about alternative spelling but not alternative endings!

E. F. Benson - Paying Guests, E F Benson
First published in 1929 and I read the 1984 reprint published by Hogarth press. It has an introduction by Stephen Pile which adequately sums up the themes within the book, although in my view he could have spent more thought on the central love story of the novel which is lesbian. He talks about "an understandable blushing development". This does fit with the light hearted entertainment provided by the book, but in my view it deserves more analysis as it goes far beyond the idea of "women companions" and represents the only love story in the whole novel.

It is easy to like and be entertained by E F Benson. He provides a series of characters who he caricatures so expertly, that we can still recognise the real Englishness of the people underneath. Paying guests is the story of a season in a boarding house (the Wentworth): it is convenient for people who are taking health cures in the small town of Bolton Spa, but also it has a regular clientele who are almost semi resident. These are people of a certain gentile class who have no real money problems, and fill their days as they wish with the only restrictions being the lunch time and dinner time gongs for meals. The boarders form their own particular social group and are dominated by the blustering Colonel Chase, who spends his days cycling and walking and boasting about his record breaking adventures (he is a slave to his pedometer). Mrs Oxney and Mrs Bertram are two widowed sisters who take pride in running the Wentworth and this season are hosting Mr Kemp and his daughter/nurse Florence, Miss Howard who paints, plays the piano and sings and Mrs Holders who challenges the Colonel during the evening bridge sessions. A Mrs Bliss joins them all and she is passionate about following the guidance of a new craze which she calls Mind: the idea is that all health problems are not real, they are all in the mind.

The novel is built around small incidents that disturb the daily lives of the residents: the loss of Colonel Chase's pedometer, Miss Howards art exhibition, The charity concert in town and Mrs Bliss' zeal in convincing others to follow her example. However beneath the surface there are other issues, the Colonel is thinking about a female companion, Florence Kemp falls in love with Miss Howard and wants to get away from her fathers control. The humour is built around the web of deceit spun by all the characters in pursuit of their own ends. Nobody is spared and E F Benson has tremendous fun exposing all their little peccadillos. The humour is gentle and the plots are well woven into the fabric of the boarding house. As readers we are asked to be amused at this small segment of society and by and large we are. If we can see Benson's characters representing people we have come across, then the novel leans towards being satirical. The love affair between Florence and Miss Howard adds a further dimension, but I wonder should I really be amused by these selfish, reactionary, class conscious bigots. 3.5 stars.

>138 baswood: "but I wonder should I really be amused by these selfish, reactionary, class conscious bigots."

If you cannot be (or refuse to), a huge chunk of the British novels of the times will be out. Especially the good humor ones. So there is that. I need to get around to Benson one of those days.

Enjoyed your Shelbourne Hotel book review, given I know the area well. Not one I'm likely to read, but enjoyed reading about it.

>140 AlisonY: Hi Alison, did you pop in for afternoon tea when you passed by the Shelbourne?

A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller.
A science fiction novel published in 1959 and included in the SF masterwork series. It was the only novel by Miller published in his lifetime and is in fact an amalgamation of three shorter stories published between 1952-1957 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Miller has linked the three stories well enough to the central themes of his novel; they tell of events in different time periods and so the progression through time, told in chronological order gives the novel a sense of unity.

I had trouble warming to the novel, because it is a novel that is written from a religious point of view; particularly a roman catholic position and as my views tend towards the existential; not believing in an all powerful omnipotent God, I found much of the discussion of themes and ideas irrelevant to me. Had I read the novel in the 1960's when I was a teenager and fresh from a Church school then probably I would have found the religious views more pertinent, but I have moved on since then and so perhaps readers like me will find that the novel has not aged well.

The novel starts in the 26th century when much of the world has been destroyed by a nuclear war. Brother Francis Gerard is a novice in the order of the monastery of Leibowitz; which is campaigning for sainthood for its founder. During his lenten vigil he stumbles across an old air raid shelter which contains some documents including a blue print with a connection to Leibowitz. Brother Francis is eventually allowed to copy and embellish the documents by hand and is chosen to take them to Rome for the canonisation of Saint Leibowitz. The second part takes place in 3174. The Albertian Order of Saint Leibowitz has preserved a number of documents after Brother Francis has paved the way for the monastery to be a repository for half understood knowledge, from the previous civilisation. The world is emerging from a new dark age and one of the monks is experimenting with an electricity generator. A secular scholar arrives to examine the documents at a time when new rulers are threatening war. The scholar says it will take decades to understand the memorabilia, but the soldiers accompanying him are busy examining the monastery as a base of operations. The third part takes us to the year 3781. The world is reaping the benefits of a new technological age. Space travel has been accomplished, but two power blocks on earth are once again threatening nuclear war. The church of New Rome has secured a space ship for the order of Leibowitz to take the teachings of the Roman catholic church to the stars should the earth self destruct.

The two major themes of the novel are the cyclical trend of history. The repetition of mistakes; mankind always moving towards self destruction after periods of dark ages and then renaissance. The second theme is the conflict between church and state, this is particularly well argued in parts two and three of the novel. Contained within these themes are human stories that focus the readers attention. Brother Francis's struggles with the Abbot and church hierarchy to inch ahead with the preservation of documents from the past in part one and Brother Kornhoer has similar problems with efforts to generate electricity in part two. The most poignant story is Abbot Zerchi's struggles with the State during a nuclear attack and his arguments against voluntary euthanasia for those terminally ill with radiation sickness. The church is seen as a repository of knowledge and wisdom, but tends to hold back the advance of civilisation. This idea is seen as essential for mankind's survival as the reactionary nature of its functions looks towards mankind's salvation. The characters are swamped by events over which they have no control and as such they struggle for a foothold to mark their existence. The answer that this book postulates is the teachings of the Roman Catholic faith. From my own point of view I am not thrilled by the idea that the only people escaping the earth's destruction are a spaceship full of missionaries to spread the word to those inhabiting planets in other star systems. This would seem like a repetition of the earths destructive cycle.

I can admire the new ground covered in this book. It is a book without a hero and although it deals with weighty themes it manages to create a micro-climate of human stories connected with the Abbey of Saint Leibowitz. It never lets the reader stray too far away from the characters, even if they do at times function as mouthpieces for the ideas that carry this novel forward. There are no female characters in the book, apart from the mutant woman destroyed by the nuclear attack and the young woman and child terminally ill with radiation sickness. Women as victims is pretty much standard for this period of science fiction writing. There is no overt racism. My rating is 3.5 stars.

>142 baswood: Great review of a title I've heard many times in passing, but knew nothing about.

Le Black Note - Tanguy Viel.
The next book on the library shelf was Le Black Note, that is if you start from the end of the novel section and work backwards. My system of selection has only one prerequisite and that is it cannot be a translation from the English language. Le Black Note therefore was highly suspicious, but I checked that the author was french and that the title of the book referred to a notice on the door of the practice room for a jazz group. Reading the blurb on the cover it mentioned that the jazz group was led by Paul who referred to himself as John after John Coltrane and played the tenor saxophone . Paul wanted to model his group on what he considered be the best jazz quartet in the world: the famous John Coltrane quartet featuring Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. I was intrigued because it is my favourite jazz group, but hang on a minute I only count three; where was the pianist McCoy Tyner. They did not have a pianist, they had a trumpet player instead, so they had a Jimmy and an Elvin, but no McCoy.

We never learn the name of the trumpet player, but he is the unreliable witness (the speaker) who tells the story of the would be famous jazz group. Two of the members; the speaker himself and Elvin (real name Christian) are in some sort of medical institution, probably a psychological ward after the traumatic events leading up to the death of Paul. He was burnt to death in a fire in the practice room which was probably started deliberately. Jimmy (real name Georges) is also there, but he will soon be released. The speaker spins his tale of what happened, careful not to reveal too much to the head of the institution. The group had rented a house on a small island that had a basement cave that they used as a practice room. The four of them had been practicing for seven years under the tutelage of their charismatic leader Paul. They were well down the road of using both drugs and alcohol, but the speaker's story focuses on the traumatic night of the fire. He starts by saying he had nothing to do with it as his job was to navigate the boat that took the islanders to the mainland every day and he was out at sea when the fire started. His story changes as he thinks back to his stormy relationship with Paul and more details emerge. He confesses to driving the boat out to sea to dump the remains of Paul in a lead lined box, but there is more to come. Finally the whole sorry story, according to the speaker is told in the final pages of the novel.

The novel uses a stream of consciousness technique that is well suited to the subject matter. The speaker talks to Georges and to Rudolph (Head of the institution?), Christian is suffering from amnesia and so he cannot add anything. The speakers story starts and stops with some improvisation along the way: there are no paragraphs, but four sections and so one could think of it as a jazz tune which finally states the whole story at the end. If this was the authors intention it works to some extent, because the reader is never clear where it is actually heading, or if it is heading anywhere at all, but the final pages do give some sense to the whole thing. It is not a long read just 125 pages from the Les Èditions de Minuit publishing house and so not too long for the reader to stay with it.

I did stay with the book until the end, but felt it was not completely successful in what it was trying to achieve. A book that perhaps falls between two stalls, not quite a murder mystery and yet also not a great piece of imaginative fiction. I put it down to the fact that everything would have been better if the group had a pianist rather than a trumpet player: never trust the odd man out. An interesting read and so 3.5 stars.

>144 baswood: That sounds like a book I'd enjoy. This is taking place in France?

>145 rocketjk: There is no indication in the book where the island is situated. I am assuming it is off the french coast somewhere. There is nothing about the music in the book which disappointed me a little.

>144 baswood: Interesting way to pick your next book :) Sounds like an interesting book.

W Percy - Sonnets to the fairest Coelia.

William Percy third son of the eighth Earl of Northumberland was born in 1575. At the age of fifteen he went to Oxford University, where he took up residence for the rest of his life. He made friends with a small group of scholar poets and his sonnet collection was his only work published in his lifetime. He had a reputation for gaiety and wit and earned his reputation as a published poet with the Coelia sonnets. In his introduction to the poems he says:

To the Reader

COurteous Reader, whereas I was fullie determined to haue concealed my Sonnets, as thinges priuie to my selfe, yet of courtesie hauing lent them to some, they were secretelie committed to the Presse, and almost finished, before it came to my knowledge. Wherefore making, as they say, Vertue of necessitie, I did deeme it most conuenient to proepose mine Epistle, onely to beseech you to account of them as toyes and amorous deuises, and ere long, I will impart vnto the world another Poeme which shall be both more fruitfull and ponderous. In the meane while I commit these as a pledge vnto your indifferent censures. London,
1594.
W. PERCY

Perhaps Percy should not have signed his name to these toys and amorous devices. There are twenty sonnets and a madrigal to Coelia very much in the accepted pattern of Elizabethan love sonnets. In Percy's case his rhyming schemes do not always work so well, but perhaps he thought he was pushing the boundaries. There is little for the modern reader to enjoy here, as his poems are exercises in style. Percy was marching on a well- trod path with these sonnets. Perhaps his best offering is sonnet XX

Receaue these writs, my sweet and deerest frend,
The liuelie patterns of my liuelesse bodie,
VVhere thou shalt find in Hebon pictures pend,
Hovv I was meeke, but thou extremelie blodie.
I'le walke forlorne along the vvillovv shades,
Alone complaining of a ruthlesse dame;
Where ere I passe, the rocks, the hilles, the glades,
In pittious yelles shall sound her cruell name.
There I will vvaile the lot which fortune sent me,
And make my mones vnto the sauage eares,
The remnant of the daies which nature lent me,
He spend them all, conceald, in ceaselesse teares.
Since vnkind fates permit me not t'ennoy her,
No more, burst eyes, I meane for to annoy her.

2 stars for this then and moving quickly onto the next collection: Fulke Greville's Caelica

John Buchan - Greenmantle
Greenmantle was published in 1916 midway through the first world war. It is a fast paced adventure story that is filled with heroic exploits during the war. It is the second of the five novels featuring Richard Hannay: the first and most famous The 39 Steps had taken place just before the start of the war. In this novel war is a glorious business: a great show in which any real man should be proud to be involved. The climax of the novel features the capture of the town of Erzurum by the Russians from the Turks, which had taken place in February 1915.

Richard Hannay volunteers to go on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. His task is to find details of a rumoured rising of Islamic forces that are being nurtured by the Germans. A religious leader will rise and lead the faithful to a victory over the West. Hannay has a scrap of paper on which three short phrases from a British spy uttered on his death bed have been recorded. He sets off with two close allies, each one making separate fact finding journeys through Germany to rendezvous in Istanbul.

This world of adventures is for manly heroes battling against overwhelming odds. Unfortunately one of their adversaries proves to be a woman, who creates havoc in the minds of the men. Hannay admits:

Women had never come much my way, and I knew about as much of their ways as I knew about the Chinese language. All my life I had lived with men only, and rather a rough crowd at that.

The novel is both sexist and racist and celebrates the glory of fighting men, published at a time when Britain and its allies were locked in a war against the Germans. If this does not disturb you too much and you are prepared to take it for what it was at the time of its publication, then the novel does have some attraction. Buchan has the ability to hold the readers attention with his descriptions of scenarios; whether it is a fight to the death in a locked room, a fugitive struggling to avoid capture in a foreign city or an artillery bombardment on the field of battle. His description of Istanbul during the war years and the final battle outside Erzurum are memorable and he keeps the story moving along, although there is always the necessity for the principal characters to win through with some fortunate coincidences or chance meetings. As unrealistic as this novel is, there is time for the characters to reflect on their situation, even if this reflection is tempered by the desire to uphold the fairness and sportsmanship of the upper classes.

If this novel climbs above its comic book status, then it does so only briefly. I was able to enjoy the more atmospheric situations and so 3 stars.

>149 baswood: Yes, that’s one that hasn’t really stood the test of time very well. It’s somehow easier to take the ones where it’s more abstract fantasy.

Gary Victor - Quand le jour cède à la nuit
This was the latest book plucked from the shelves of my local library. Gary Victor is Haitian, born in Port au Prince in 1958. He has written novels, scenarios for television and theatre and has worked as a journalist and newspaper editor. He was also Secretary General of the Haitian Senate. Quand le jour cède à la nuit is a collection of sketches and stories that would have been published in newspapers between 1977-87. They range from stories drawn from contemporary life in Haiti to science fiction stories in the far future. All have an element of the fantastic and most feature violence or aggressive behaviour.

The book opens with 'Quand la planète t'appartiendra' which is a story about two Haitian men stuck in a huge traffic jam on the outskirts of the capital. They have been in their old American car for six hours and are stuck on a two lane road, although their is a line separating them from a new road that they cannot use. It is burning hot and many people have got out of their cars, but nobody dares cross over onto the new road. Finally the helicopters arrive to clear away the twisted metal that lies ahead, with loudspeakers blaring out that everybody should keep calm. In the second story a man sits on his terrace, watching a horrendous storm sweep away part of the town and he dreams that his beautiful wife is still with him. There is a story about a ruthless business man/politician who has finally achieved control of all the worlds food resources. His assassination is a foregone conclusion. My favourite story takes place during the Mardi Gras. A group of revellers tightly controlled by a charismatic individual enters the pageant and wins the applaud-its of fellow revellers and the audience with his throbbing music and wild dancing. He is dressed like the devil and heads towards the cemetery

There are eleven stories in all and they all make points about human behaviour in difficult situations. There is no time for character development as the stories move swiftly on. Dystopia is ever present with a feeling of coming doom; only the story based far in the future when space travel has taken humans out into the asteroid belt is their some sort of relief. There is plenty of evidence of Haitian culture in the stories, magic and voodoo feature as well as crumbling city states: Detritus Ballet features a struggle against an insect enemy that has colonised fields full of city waste. Politicians are ruthless and greedy and the differences between the rich minority and the miserable poverty all around them permeates many of these sketches.

A collection of stories based on Haitian life that do not break any new ground, but would give relief perhaps from the hard news in Haitian newspapers. I enjoyed the fantasy elements and so overall 3 stars.

I have started reading Zepheria which is an anonymous collection of Elizabethan love sonnets published in 1594. There are 40 sonnets in the collection

Here is the first of the sonnets:

Canzon 2. Though be thou limned in these discoloured lines
Anonymous

THOUGH be thou limned in these discoloured lines,
(Delicious Model of my spirit’s portrait!)
Though be thou sable pencilled, these designs
Shadow not beauty, but a sorrow’s extract!
When I emprised, though in my love’s affections, 5
The silver lustre of thy brow to unmask!
Though hath my Muse hyperbolised trajections;
Yet stands it, aye, deficient to such task.
My slubb’ring pencil casts too gross a matter,
Thy beauty’s pure divinity to blaze! 10
For when my smoothèd tongue hath sought to flatter,
Thy Worth hath dearthed his words, for thy true praise!
Then though my pencil glance here on thine eyes;
Sweet! think thy Fair, it doth but portionise!

It is the first time that I have found the word pencil mentioned in a work from this era. This poem mentions it three times. It is usual for writers to refer to pens or ink. Apparently pencils came into use in about 1560, but they were just chunks of naturally mined carbon, which would have been encapsulated in coils of string for easy use.

This anonymous poet was noted for inventing words to fit his rhymes, hence we have the word portionise in the last line.

>152 baswood: Pencil meant “fine paintbrush” before it started to be used for lead pencils — given the “sable pencilled” in line 3, I’d guess the sonneteer is thinking about painting rather than drawing. The OED cites Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale in a similar context: “With subtil pencel was depeynted this storie.”

>153 thorold: Thanks Mark. Yes the clue is in the first line:

THOUGH be thou limned in these discoloured lines,

Zepheria - Anonymous
Printed in 1594 this is a collection of poems, mostly fourteen line sonnets, written by now in the firm tradition of the Elizabethan Love sonnet. There seemed to be a gaggle of sonneteers either connected with the court of Queen Elisabeth or with the Inns of court (which provided schooling in the law and were based around Lincoln's Inn Fields in London). The anonymous poet who wrote his love sonnets to Zepheria was probably from the latter court as some of the poems are chock full of legal terms. They are love poems following the example set by the Italian renaissance poet Petrarch. They are poems of unrequited love and were closely connected with the idea of courtly love. In the hands of many sonneteers they had by 1594 become mere exercises in style and the modern reader is hard pressed to find any originality or any strength of feeling. We feel no sympathy for the love lorn poet as he takes us along a well trodden path, but sometimes there are individual poems that work through the music they create or some originality in the use of metaphors or rhymes. In the case of the Zepheria poems there are odd lines, couplets or even quatrains that give pleasure, but this does not last for the whole poem.

Certainly the Zepheria poems do not read as smoothly as some other collections. The iambic pentameters can be rough and the poet seems to have made up or altered some words to fit his rhyming scheme; he seems to have invented more words than most. Although most sonnets follow the traditional rhyming scheme made famous by Shakespeare and are fourteen lines in length, there are a couple with 16 or even eighteen lines. Although the poems were published as a series, unlike the better collections there is no connecting story. Reading them through one after another, therefore can be a pretty uninteresting experience. They would almost certainly have appeared firstly in manuscript form and so would have been read individually, which would have shown some of them in a better light.

As an example of the collection: Canzon 25 will serve. There are some interesting lines and the theme is the the old chestnut of the poets claim to making his subject famous through his published poems.


LET not Disdain, thy soul unsanctify!
Disdain, the passport for a lover’s vow!
Unsieging, where its seeks to fortify
With deadly frowns, the canons of the brow!
Let not Disdain (the Hearse of virgin Graces! 5
The Counterpoison to unchastity!
The Leaven that doth sour the sweetest faces!)
Stain thy new purchased immortality!
’Mongst Delian nymphs, in Angels’ University,
Thou, my ZEPHERIA, liv’st matriculated! 10
The daughters of ethereal JOVE, thy deity
On holy hill, have aye perpetuated!
O then, retire thy brows’ artillery!
Love more! and more bliss yet, shall honour thee!

I found this collection more lively than some, but they outstayed their welcome, especially the latter ones that seemed to weigh heavy with legal terms and metaphors. 3.5 stars.

Holiday beach reading last week and it was only when I got to the three books I had taken with me that I realised that they were all short story collections:

John Collier - Fancies and Goodnights.
Another book from 1951, but these short stories were mostly written a decade or two earlier. They now appear in a kindle version in two volumes. I read the 32 stories in volume 1. John Collier was British born but lived for a time in Hollywood where he earned his living as a screenwriter for film and television, but he had success as a short story writer with many of these stories being published in the New Yorker.

The stories could be classed as entertainments with many of them having elements of fancy. Some of them were adapted for the television series 'Alfred Hitchcock presents' and they would have been equally at home in 'The Twilight Zone'. They are generally well written with Collier showing his screenwriting skills by introducing his scenarios quickly and effectively. Several of the best stories are crime dramas, for example The Touch of Nutmeg Makes it. In this story two friends working in a research library befriend a newcomer from out of town, he is difficult to get to know, but eventually opens up to reveal that he has recently been acquitted in a big murder trial; he tells his new friends it was a particularly frenzied murderous attack and they cannot believe that there new friend would be capable of such a crime, he invites them up to his apartment and mixes some drinks......

About half way through the collection I came across Great Possibilities and things began to get a little weirder; stuffed animals coming to life. Then there is Gavin O'Leary which is a story about a performing flea called Gavin O'Leary and Thus I Refute Beelzy which is a story of a child's imaginary friend coming horribly to life. This vein continues with Special Delivery where a shy young man falls in love with a mannequin in a Department store; Green Thoughts tells of a man eating plant that holds its victims, still half alive within itself and we seem to have spilled over into Alien territory. There are a couple more crime stories before the final story The Chaser where a loving celebrity couple have acquired just one potion of eternal youth, which one of them should use it?

The stories are clever rather than being emotional portraits and they all work towards an interesting ending, which does not always feature a plot twist, but can leave the reader to make up his own mind how it might end. The dialogue is handled well enough and these scenarios take place in America, England and France; all places familiar to the author. I suppose the stories may seem a little old fashioned now, with many of them familiar to television audiences, but I found them amusing to read and so 3.5 stars.

A.S. Byatt - The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye: Five Fairy Stories.
The first four stories are indeed pure fantasy fairy stories that take the reader back to a simple childhood fantasy land. They are beautifully and precisely written, but at the end of the fourth story Dragon's Breath I was wondering whether these tales were just an exercise in the execution of fairy tales; something along the lines of a famous author proving to herself that she can write in this vein. However the title story which is of novella length is worth the money spent on this collection. Byatt once again shows how she can mix literature, literary history and fantasy into a satisfying concoction that draws the reader into a compelling story.

The Djinn in the Nightingale's eye features Gillian Perholt; a story teller whose profession as a narratologist takes her to a conference in Ankara Turkey. She is described as English and stolid and a little nervous of flying, but thoughts of tales from the Arabian nights has piqued her interest. She is presenting a paper on Chaucer's tale The Patient Griselda which allows Byatt to retell this piece of literary history whilst adding her own thoughts to the relevance of the story. Gillian meets an old colleague Orhan Rifat who takes her to Istanbul, to museums, to the famous covered market and to Hagia Sophia. Their fascination for stories lead them to re-tell the story of Gilgamesh and his love for Enkidu. A young student of Orhan presents Gillian with a dirty small glass jar which may be very old and here starts Gillian's own fantasy story, because when she uncorks the bottle a huge Genie (Djinn) appears and grants her three wishes for releasing him from his prison.

Gillian of course wants to know more, wants to know the history of the Djinn, she wants to know his stories. She falls in love with the Djinn, her life has become a fantasy story, how should she frame her wishes, how should she keep her connection with the Djinn, what wonderful things will happen to her now and how can she avoid the pitfalls of wishing for too much or too little. Byatt takes the reader on a wonderful fantasy ride with a knowledgable protagonist ready to ask the questions one might wish to ask if ever you were lucky enough to enslave a Djinn: the right sort of Djinn that is, because Gillian's Djinn is kind, thoughtful and everything you might want a Djinn to be. It becomes a love story and a story that will gladden the heart of the reader and effortlessly take him/her back to childhood fantasies, with the added bonus of delving further into the myths.

The interest and depth of the Djinn story made me wish to re-read the more simple first four fairy stories and so 4 stars for this collection

Stanislaw Lem - The Cyberiad
Stanislaw Lem was a Polish writer of science fiction and essays on various subjects including philosophy, futurology and literary criticism.
The Cyberiad is a collection of short stories linked by the two central characters of Trurl and Klapaucius who are described as 'constructors. Published originally in Polish in 1965 the collection was a turning point in Lem's career. Trurl and Klapaucius are two cyber machines that have the power to invent almost anything for almost anybody. They sometimes work together and sometimes in competition, but their sphere of operation is all known space and their work is often planetary in scope. They pride themselves in being a power for good but their ego's often lead them into situations where more harm than good is done.

This is fantasy science fiction a bit like an adult version of Le Petit Prince and like that book the stories have a moral or philosophical bent that makes them worth the telling. Lem's universe is peopled by rulers very much in a hierarchy of absolutes: they are kings, emperors, military commanders, who request help from the constructors. These two are so powerful that extinguishing or kindling stars is as easy for them as shelling peas. They have requests to build a machine that can grant every wish or to construct the most powerful quarry for a lord of the hunt to test his skills. Trurl takes it on himself to construct a machine that writes poetry, he invents a machine that can do anything as long as the anything starts with the letter n.

If this all sounds like nonsense then the stories are probably not for you. Lem was however an imaginative writer, and his imagination stretched to not only inventing worlds and crazy situations, but also inventing words and whole new areas of scientific research. In the original Polish there was much word play and the translator Dr Michael Kandel has focused on trying to mirror the invented words and the word play. The stories being pretty much nonsense anyway probably do not suffer too much from this approach. There are jokes, there are puns and even the most ridiculous ideas can be amusing and sometimes thought provoking. I tend to judge science fiction by the amount of wonderment that it can produce, perhaps there is a bit too much wonderment here. I have so far read 70% of the stories and so will hang in there until the end.

Étienne Kern - Les Envolés
This first novel by Étienne Kern could be translated as The flyers. It tells the story of one would be flyer; Franz Reichelt who jumped from the first stage of the Eiffel Tower wearing a home made parachute on 4 February 1912. It is a mixture of documentary and fiction based on the life of Franz Reichelt who made his living as a tailor. It is a sensitive portrait of a man obsessed by the need to prove to himself and others that he could fabricate the first commercial parachute.

The novel sketches in the early life of Franz before focusing on his small workshop in the centre of Paris. He is Austrian by birth and he speaks french quite poorly and struggles to make a good living. He is supported by his sister and a couple of itinerant workers, He has few friends; preferring to earn his living before thinking of marrying. Kern focuses on the period 1909-1912 - la belle epoch when Paris was in the grip of a craze for aviation and the brave men who dreamt of conquering the skies. The Wright brothers had first got off the ground in 1903 and in 1909 Louis Bliérot had flown across the English channel. Antonio who had previously worked with Franz was successful in the world of haute couture and became obsessed with designing and building his own aeroplane. Like others before him he died in the wreckage of his own contraption. Franz had caught the aviation fever, but he became intent on making a commercial parachute, partly as homage to his friend. The Aero-Club de France was offering a prize of 10,000 francs to the first inventor of a safety parachute for aviators. Franz saw the prize money as a gateway to a new start in life.

The biography of Reichfelt is interspersed with the authors repeated viewing of the surviving short newsreel footage of the unsuccessful attempt in February 1912, when Reichfelt jumped from the Eiffel Tower. Kern thinks about tragedies in his own life. His fathers suicide and the suicide of a friend who jumped from her Parisian apartment: unable to cope with a diagnosis of a terminal illness. These suicides lead the reader to consider if Franz knew he was going to fail? Franz had put himself under incredible pressure to make his parachute, he was a driven man. In addition he had drifted into a love affair with the widow of his friend Antonio, and she had broken off the romance when she discovered that Franz was trying to make a parachute. The climax of the book is Frank Reichelt's last moments before his jump, followed by the authors need to once again examine that old newsreel footage.

It was a cold grey day on 4th February 1912 and the video of the jump is available to view on youtube. Before the jump we see Franz parading with the contraption on his back and later we see him standing on a chair on top of a table so that he can place his foot on the balustrade of the Eiffel tower before he jumps. He seems to have a moment of concern when he lets loose his fabrication and his two helpers encourage him to ensure it is completely unfolded. Kern catches the moment well, but there is more to the book than a simple biography and I rate this short novel of 150 pages as a four star read.

>157 baswood: This sounds fascinating and horrifying at the same time.

>156 baswood: The only Lem I've read is Solaris, and it sounds more mainstream that these short stories.

Edited to add: I checked LT, and I see I've also read Hospital of the Transfiguration, but only gave it two stars and, as you can tell, it did not make a lasting impression.

>157 baswood: What an interesting moment in history. Nice review.

Les Réputations - Juan Gabriel Vasquez.
I read a french translation of Vasquez's novel which was originally written in Spanish (Columbian). I have previously read two previous books by Vasquez, which were English translations: The Informers and The shape of the Ruins and although I liked both these books I thought that Les Réputations was a better, more thoughtful novel. On reflection I wondered if the more time I have need of spending, reading a book in a language that is not my first language, helps me to appreciate underlying themes, because the slower pace of reading and referencing new words gives me more time to think. I suppose that reading this novel in the original Spanish, a language in which I know only a few words would have slowed me down even more, but there is a limit to what I can do.

Les Reputations does not carry the weight of the history of recent Columbian politics that feature in Vasquez's other novels and so it is more limited in scope, but this makes it an altogether tighter novel and the themes are more readily translatable to similar situations in other countries. Javier Mallarino has been working for 40 years as a caricaturist for a leading paper in Bogotâ. We meet him as he is having his shoes shinned before attending a celebration in honour of his work. He enjoys the evening where he is fêted and celebrated. He thinks about his accomplishments as he waits backstage to be presented and his relationship with his ex-wife, who is in the audience. After the event he is approached by a young woman (Samanta) claiming to be a journalist wanting an interview. He finds her attractive and invites her to his house up in the mountains the following day. After spending the night with his ex-wife he meets the woman and as he is showing her around the house she reveals that she was there 28 years ago as a friend of his seven year old daughter and quizzes him if he remembers the events of that night, where there was a party to celebrate his divorce. Javier does remember and the following day he had published a caricature based on those events that had led to the suicide of a politician. The woman who was seven at the time has been haunted by those events, but remembers little of them and is seeking some sort of closure.

Javiers methods of working are antiquated. He does not have a computer, does not use email and sends his weekly caricature to the journal's headquarters in Bogotá by special courier. He also has a sense of honour and politeness and although he has made some enemies with his cartoons, he has never feared for his safety. Political life in Bogota can be dangerous, it runs under the surface of events, but Javier seems to have kept clear of retribution, however after Samanta confronts him with the events at his house and his subsequent cartoon, he realises that his work has deeply affected the lives of other people. He asks himself what can he do to make things right with those he has hurt and what dangers will he face.

The story is told in three parts, with the second part particularly going back in time as Javier tries to piece together what has happened and relate this to his current situation. The major themes are of course the responsibilities of an author to his subjects and in this case a cartoonist, the reflections of a successful man and his worth to society and the dangers of a public life. These are themes that Vasquez has explored before, but this time it seems more personal more interior. I rate this as a 4 star read.

>142 baswood: Great review of Canticle, which I read that back in 80s.

La Fabrique du Monde - Sophie van der Linden
This is a first novel by french author Sophie Van der Linden published in 2013. It was the next book on the shelves of my local library and proved to be a quick read of 140 pages. I would imagine it is aimed at the youth market, but I found it an interesting and thoughtful read. It takes place in China, but could probably be in any country where young girls are employed in fashion industry sweat shops. Mei at 17 years is one of a number of girls who are sold into employment by their families and work in a factory environment almost chained to their sewing machines. The are fed three times a day and sleep in a dormitory. They have no free time and the relentless pace of the work leaves them too tired to concentrate on anything else. The overseer on their factory floor keeps them all working to a certain rhythm, the speed of which, will depend on the urgency of the order for the work. The book does offer a glimpse into another world and a world that many of us might choose to ignore, as we select our next T shirt from the high street shop counters.

Mei dares to look her overseer in the eye when he criticises her work speed and from that moment on she is marked as a troublemaker, but a stoppage of her meagre wages does not allow her to travel home for the four day New Years holiday. She embarks upon an unexpected adventure during those precious four days. The book conjures up an atmosphere of a temporary freedom for Mei as she enjoys all the sights, sounds and smells of a release into another, more hopeful world. 3 stars.

>162 baswood: Unfortunately it doesn't look like it has been translated into English yet or I would wish list it.

Frank R Stockton - The Great Stone of Sardis
I read this as part of my exploration of proto-science fiction reading, but I could also claim this as Victoriana as it was published in 1898, however Stockton was an American author. He has been described as a writer and humorist and I can only think that his tongue was firmly in his cheek when he wrote The Great Stone of Sardis.

The novel starts with Roland Clewe travelling from England to America by boat a trip that was expected to take just under three days. Three days! that is a bit fast and then I realised that I did not know how long it takes to cross the Atlantic by ship. Apparently the fastest commercial crossing takes 6 days. However Stockton writing in 1898 was projecting ahead to 1947 when electricity was used as the main power source. Clewe is an inventor and he is keen to get back to his workshops to finish off a couple of his latest innovations. These are a submarine that he plans to take under the ice and be the first person to claim arrival at the North Pole. The second is a beam of light that he can project down into the earth that will illuminate everything that it passes through. These two adventures take place at the same time and so we have a mix of Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth and 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Unfortunately whereas Verne's ideas of exploration were based on some scientific knowledge and his proposals seemed possible, Stocktons are based on pure fantasy, although there is not much fantastical in his story telling. It is a bit prosaic and firmly based on Victorian cultural mores. A pleasant enough read, but not an author I would want to pursue further. 3 stars.

Caelica - Fulke Greville
Caelica is a collection of 110 poems written by Fulke Greville probably between 1580 and his death in 1628. They were never published during his lifetime. They existed in manuscript form until they were printed in 1633. They have been labelled a sonnet collection although in effect only 41 of the 110 poems keep to the 14 line rhyming sequence that we associate with sonnets. It is conjectured that many of the early poems in the collection (perhaps 1-40) were written in conjunction with Sir Philip Sydney as the two men were firm friends both serving at the court of Queen Elizabeth. Perhaps Greville is best known for the biography of Sir Philip Sydney written between 1610-12 and published in 1652.

Loaded with this information I approached the sonnet sequence with some trepidation, having recently trudged my way through sonnet sequences by Giles Fletcher, Barnabe Barnes, Henry Constable, Samuel Daniel; all collections named after a woman with whom the poet had supposedly fallen in love. Elizabethan love sonnet collections can be dreary things indeed, as by the 1590's they had quickly fallen into a pattern that owed far more to a style of writing than to any emotional content. They were seemingly based on ideas of courtly love, wedded to the example and template set down by the Italian poet Petrarch. They usually take the form of poems addressed to the named woman who is the love of the poets life; usually an unrequited love, hence the standard phrases and images of the love lorn speaker pleading his case to be accepted as a lover. A quick glance at the Caelica collection seemed to point to the same sort of thing. I thought I might be spending a couple of evenings with them, but ended up by reading them for over a week. It is true that in many respects they do follow the well trodden path of other sonnet collections, even more so in Greville's case because we never get any idea of Caelica as a living breathing woman, but there is something different at work here. In all such collections that I have read there are the occasional poems that stand out, or an arresting stanza, or a few lines that sing that can make the reading experience worthwhile. In the case of Greville this seemed to happen more often than not and in many instances I was fascinated by what I had just read.

The early poems are in the traditional form of Elizabethan love poetry, but there are enough good poems to make the reading worthwhile. Sonnet number two (and this is a traditional 14 line sonnet) is an example. It revisits the story of the hunter Acteon who stumbles on the Goddess of chastity Diana who is bathing naked in a stream. She is so outraged that she turns Acteon into a stag and his dogs tear him to pieces. This story from classical mythology has been used by any number of poets, but Greville's first line is

Faire dog, which so my heart dost tear asunder

Fair dog? could easily be read mistakenly as fair god and so we are alerted to Greville telling the story in a different way. Greville's poem about Acteon and Diana is a rarity, because he seldom falls back on classical mythology as a subject for his poems (that is with the exception of Cupid who features in several) and his imagery tends to be drawn from real life and so the reader does not feel the need of a classical education to enjoy the poems. What the reader does need is some patience because Greville's syntax can be knotty in the extreme. This is especially true in the 14 line sonnets where it is my guess that he has so many ideas to cram into each line that it becomes difficult to unpick. In my opinion his poetry becomes much more readable when he is not constricted by the sonnet form and he can let his ideas flow. Fortunately there are many examples in this collection.

SONNET LXII.

WHO worships Cupid, doth adore a boy;
Boyes earnest are at first in their delight,
But for a new, soone leaue their dearest toy,
And out of minde, as soone as out of sight;
Their ioyes be dallyings and their wealth is play,
They cry to haue, and cry to cast away.

Mars is an idol, and man's lust his skye,
Whereby his glories still are full of wounds;
Who worships him, their fame goes farre and nigh,
But still of ruine and distresse it sounds.
Yet cannot all be wonne, and who doth liue,
Must roome to neighbours and succession giue.

Those Mercurists that upon humors worke,
And so make others' skill and power their owne,
And like the climats, which farre Northward lurke,
And through long Winters must reape what is sowne;
Or like the masons, whose art building well,
Yet leaues the house for other men to dwell.

Mercurie, Cupid, Mars, they be no gods,
But humane idols, built vp by Desire;
Fruit of our boughs, whence heauen maketh rods,
And babyes1 too for child-thoughts that aspire:
Who sees their glories, on the earth must prye;
Who seeks true glory must looke to the skye.

Sonnet 62 is an example of a poem written in sestain units popular with Greville; as the collection moves forward he writes fewer 14 line sonnets. When we get to sonnet 85 he has abandoned all thoughts about Caelica and has moved on to matters that concern an older perhaps more reflective man. His Calvinist religious thoughts dominate the later poems, but also his political views. He held views which were typical of the time concerning order in the world; how everybody should know their place in society. He expresses the view that the Creator (God) has a master plan and he hints at predestination. He is obsessed with mutability, but firmly of the belief that man should accept the changes that are inevitable. He does rail against ambition and bad rulers, but stops well short of advocating any changes to the world order. Greville is not without a sense of humour. Sonnet 107 advocates taxing the rich more thoroughly and so it is no wonder that the collection was not published in his lifetime. It could also be said that there is scant evidence of misogyny: Caelica sometimes called Myra and sometimes Cynthia; goddess of the moon does not suffer the usual diatribe against women.

I said earlier in this short piece that many of the sonneteers however dull they maybe could occasionally come up with a line or two which can connect with the modern reader. Greville does this more often than not and he ends many a poem or a stanza with a rhyming couplet that makes the reading worthwhile. Greville has his admirers amongst modern critics and one or two have placed him just behind Shakespeare and Sir Phillip Sidney in the order of merit. Certainly a few of his poems from this collection have been anthologised and are available to read on the internet. I found some of his poetry a delight to read and have made notes to re-read some of them. I think he is never without interest especially within the tradition of Elizabethan sonnet writers and so I rate this collection as 4 stars.

La douleur du dollar - Zoé Valdes
I had to grit my teeth to get through this book, which was the next one from the shelves of my local library. There were many things about it which I did not like and yet is held a fascination for me and that fascination was the immersion in downtown Havana Cuba. Zoé Valdes is a Cuban author living in self exile in Paris since 1995. She was born in Havana in 1959 the year when the corrupt Baptista regime was overthrown and Fidel Castro established his communist government. Her family would therefore have been used to the cultural norms of the old regime. Her novel tells the story of Cuca Perez who was in her late teens living in Havana at the time of the communist insurrection and I was surprised how the perspective of the book was towards the right. So extreme in fact that the author cannot bring herself to name Castro; she calls him Taille Extra (french translation).

Cuca Perez lives with an aunt in a rumbustious household that also contains two slightly older girls who get by living off the men and women that they pick up in the club scene in Havana. Cuca shares a room with these two and has to spend many nights out on the landing while they entertain their clients. Most nights they are taken downtown by Ivo, who runs a car and they take Cuca with them to introduce her to the nightlife. Cuca meets Ouane who teaches her how to dance and takes her virginity. He has money, but he appears and disappears blaming his business interests, Cuca is head over heels in love with him. She becomes pregnant and one night he visits her at home and gives her a dollar bill, which he says she must guard with her life as he has to go away for some time. Thirty six years later Cuca is still dreaming of L'Ouane, she like many poor people in Havana is scraping by trying to feed herself, always glancing round in case she see's L'Ouane and one day she does see him. He is anxious to see her and wants to meet his daughter, now of course a grown up woman working as a journalist. He also is desperate to trace that dollar bill that he left with Cuca.

The story is an interesting one covering the political divide that happened in Cuba during the late 1950's and which led to a change in life style's when the Cuban regime was ostracised by the West. The embargo placed on it by the USA and the regimes dependence on Russian support led to difficult times for a population stuck on "prison island" (Zoe Valdez). Cuca unwittingly becomes peripherally involved in the politics through her connection with L'Ouane. There is a marked contrast to life in old Havana when it was full of American tourists and the clubs and bars were doing tremendous business, to the desperate struggle for existence under the communist regime. Valdez has a love for the old Havana and her passion for the city pours out of these pages. She combines the sights with the sounds of Cuban popular music, frequently quoting from popular songs and popular works of art. The dance and rhythm of the city make this novel come alive at times.

However apart from the right wing perspective which does not sit well with me, there are other difficulties. The novel sprawls and if this was meant to portray life in Havana, then it is a fine artistic achievement, but I doubt this very much. Apart from the popular culture, which is all pervading there are also recipes, idle thoughts of the characters and reflections that seem to come from elsewhere. The novel dwells on the filth and degradation of the city and at times on the sexual predilections of the characters. It does seem at times to wallow in its own disgust. However in my opinion its worst fault is a continual conversation with the would be reader. I never though I would find a novelist who would "get in my face" so much, even offering to rewrite the ending if it was not to my taste.

The novel was originally written in Spanish (Te Di La Vida Entera) and translated into french by Liliane Hasson and could not have been an easy task as she must have run out of words or phrases describing male and female sexual parts. Just taking the next book along the shelf as a way of selecting a library book is obviously going to throw up some curve balls and I haven't found one yet that was a waste of time. This one perhaps took up too much of my time, but it did lead me to refresh myself on Cuban history and learn a little about Cuban popular culture. 3 stars.

Lord of Light
Another book from the SF Masterwork series and this one was published in 1967. This highly regarded novel is more fantasy than science fiction and seems to have been timed perfectly to appear in the year of the 'Summer of Love'. India was all the rage and the Beatles were off to India to meditate with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in February of the next year, maybe one of them had a copy of this novel in their suitcase, which is based on the myths and legends of the Hindu Gods.

Sam the enlightened one sometimes known as Buddha, Tagatha, the binder of demons etc.... has been summoned/released from a prison in the sky by Yama the deathgod. They along with other re-incarnated deities are planning to battle with the city of Heaven where Kali, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Ganesh all live in the celestial city. There are also the Rakasha or demons who Sam had defeated in battle during a previous life: they are whirls of light that can take the form of a human, there is also a zombie army led by the Dark One who like the other groups wish to see Heaven destroyed. The Gods of course have special powers as do the Rakasha and take great delight in carving paths through the luckless humankind who are merely canon fodder. Much of the book is a flashback filling in the complicated history that led to the imprisonment of Sam. The new group is preparing for the final battle with the Gods of the celestial city.

I don't know if the heat was getting to me (the second heatwave of the year - temperatures up to 41 centigrade), but my eyes were glazing over whilst reading this. It did not really hold my interest, it all felt too much like a marvel comics battle of superheroes. This was not the fault of the author who writes good prose and holds the story together well. This reader could not relate to the attributes or the aspects of the gods or the demons, it was all too much fantasy. I felt no connection to the events and just wanted to know how it all finished. When I read the plot summary on the wiki page it said that The Lord of Light is set on a planet colonized by some of the remnants of vanished Urath or earth. The crew and colonists from the spaceship 'The Star of India' found themselves on a strange planet surrounded by hostile indigenous races and had to carve a place for themselves or perish, I presume the crew of the spaceship became the Gods living in Heaven. I do not remember reading any of this in the Masterwork edition that I read. I do however remember eating in many restaurants called the Star of India, but this did not help me much.

Not my kind of book and so 3.5 stars.

Holy cow! That's hot. I imagine it's hard to enjoy reading unless you have stellar air conditioning (which I do not have here in Maine). It's been hot and dry here too, and I'm trying to adjust to the idea of Maine being so hot. I'm hoping we don't have fires.

>168 labfs39: No air conditioning, just thick walls of an old house and heavy wooden shutters.

>168 labfs39: Most apps and web sites only give the meteorological temperature, but it is very worthwhile to calculate the "felt temperature" that factors in the humidity.

Here is south China the temperatures are about 30 degrees Celsius every night, with day temperatures around 35, but because of humidity it feels like 40 to 50.

Although everone has airco, and I have airco installed in my apartment, I rarely use it. So far this summer I have slep even without using a fan, opening windows on either side of the apartment creating a draft is sufficient. I hate using airco because it is too cold.

In the day time I use a simple fan to keep cool.

>170 edwinbcn: Well; we are all going to have to get used to hotter temperatures from time to time. 30 degrees as a night time temperature sounds very muggy. It is usually about 23-25 here and we throw open the windows as soon as the sun goes down and it has cooled off.

The problem with airco and even electric fans is the use of energy. In France there is already talk of possible cuts to electricity supply, which is something we may have to get used to a little further down the road.

>170 edwinbcn: True Edwin. I was assuming some humidity in France, which makes 41 even more awful.

>171 baswood: In Maine few people have air conditioning, unless perhaps new houses. We have window AC units upstairs in the bedrooms that we run on very hot nights, but downstairs we use a fan when needed. We too open the windows at night and shut them in the morning, as well as the blinds on the south side of the house. We have lost power three times in the last week due to freak wind storms, which is highly unusual here, but as you say probably something we will have to get used to. Ever since I had heat stroke, I seem to have a harder time self-regulating my body temp, so I'm careful about yardwork and walking outside until it cools off. All the more time to spend reading!

>172 labfs39: All the more time to spend reading! It's good to be positive.