A Review of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

I had known of this book for many years but had never read it. I had some vague notion that it was about some kind of smug, middle-class boating trip full of scrapes amd observations. Certainly not the sort of thing that my left-leaning, serious, twenty-something self was drawn to. And then when there was a TV re-creation with Griff Rhys Jones playing one of the parts, well, that more or less sealed it for me. But read it now I have and this is what I made of it...

Jerome K Jerome was thirty years old when he wrote Three Men in a Boat in 1889. At two years old, when the family business collapsed, along with their middle class aspirations, the Jerome family found themselves moving to Poplar in the East End of London, living in relative poverty. Jerome left school at fourteen and had various jobs from hack journalist to clerk and as a touring actor. So no Oxford or Cambridge for this man whose novel (which remember I hadn't then read!) represented to me the very ethos of the middle-classes. Messing around in boats? How dare they!


So to the book itself. Well first I must say that Three Men in a Boat has some of the funniest, wittiest scenes I have read in any book. As Jerome K Jerome was two years old when his family's business collapsed, so PG Wodehouse was two years old when Three Men in a Boat was published. Jeeves and Wooster, to my mind, would never have seen the light of day were it not for Jerome K Jerome! The jokes, the asides, the set-pieces, none would be out of place today. I struggle at times to find the humour in some fifties shows/films and I certainly have difficulty with alot of the modern day sit-coms, yet I found myself laughing aloud at the antics of Jerome, George and Harris. The descriptions of Harris and what he has got up  to in his life are wonderful but for me it is the observations on life of the author that carry the greatest humour. Again, bear in mind that Oscar Wilde didn't write any of his famous comic plays, beginning with Lady Windermere's Fan, until 1892, three years after the publication of Three Men in a Boat.

Here are few examples of lines from Three Men in a Boat which could easily be ascribed to Oscar Wilde:

• Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing. 
• People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained.
• It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

The structure of the book is odd at times - a combination of historical facts as the men make their way down the Thames, humourous anecdotes from one or other of the companions and, at times, poetic passages that muse upon nature and such. Though the first two of these plot devices work magnificently I did feel that the latter was somewhat out of kilter with the rest of the book. It is a much better book when it is frivolous and engaging and indeed informative.

So what could the forty-something me have said to the twenty-something me to have led me to have read this wonderful book sooner than I did?

"You'd like it. You love Oscar Wilde so it might be right up your street..."

"It won't be anything like Oscar Wilde. He is the greatest! Did Jerome K Jerome go to prison? Did he try and usurp the upper middle classes with his wit? Did he die a pauper's death in Paris? No! Well how can he be anything like Oscar Wilde?"

"I'll come back in a few years time, you may feel differently then...

I guess that's the beauty of great books. They are there for you your whole life just waiting for you to be ready for them.

A Review of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice in Wonderland was first published in 1865, a year that saw Charles Dickens survive the Staplehurst rail crash and the foundation of The Christian Mission (later to become the Salvation Army). At the other end of the scale, neither being saved nor salvaged, were the 400 rebels who were executed following an unsuccessful uprising against British rule in Morant Bay, Jamaica. Across the Atlantic Ocean the American Civil War was drawing to a close. Three days after the publication of Alice In Wonderland, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and just before the end of the year, the Klu Klux Klan were formed.

Strange times. Harsh times. If ever there was a time for an escape into 'Wonderland' then certainly 1865 was as good a time as any.

Up until recently, Alice in Wonderland had lain dormant in my conscience, planted there by Walt Disney, Online Slot Machines and Tom Waits. It was only when somebody who reviewed Tollesbury Time Forever compared parts of it favourably with Lewis Carroll's book that I thought, in deference to that reviewer, I should probably read it.

The first thing I will say is that I am amazed this book has stood the test of time. It is wonderful that it has done, but amazing all the same. Not because it's not good, but purely because it is almost entirely insane! At the height of Victorian stoicism and the dour industrialisation of England, Reverand Charles Dodgson decided to write, under the pseudonum Lewis Caroll, a short novel where the main characters are a talking rabbit, a vanishing cat, a deck of playing cards and a depressed turtle - not to mention a smoking catterpillar and a lizard called Bill. Oh and then there is a tea party that never ends because it is always six o'clock, a game of croquet played with flamingoes for sticks, hedgehogs for balls and soldiers for hoops. And the Caucus Race, well...

Although this novel was written by the author for the young daughter of a friend, there is no doubting that it is also for adults. Some of the conversations, particularly involving the Mock Turtle have the same madness about them as do Yossarian's conversations with Clevinger in Catch-22. The puns are superb and the situations entirely Pythonesque. The Mighty Boosh would be a lot less mighty were it not for Alice In Wonderland and you have to wonder at the influence on the likes of Terry Pratchett and Tim Burton. And all done without drugs!

But for all the madness there is at its heart a paen to the loss of childhood innocence. The last couple of pages of the novel are almost heartbreaking in their poignancy as Alice's elder sister looks down upon her whilst she sleeps so sweetly. She is almost willing her not to cross that threshold into adolescence and then onto adulthood - a land with more war than wonder.

Alice sums it all up when she says:

I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!

Has there ever been a better definition of adolescence than that?

The fact that more than one reviewer has mentioned some similarity in Alice In Wonderland and Tollesbury Time Forever has, having now read the book, given me a profound sense that my book has half a chance - madness, made up words, puns, songs, poems and all.

Just as one of the characters in Wilkie Collins' Woman in White continually refers to Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe for the answers to life's predicaments so I think I will always keep Alice in Wonderland handy. For these are Strange times. Harsh times. If ever there was a time for an escape into 'Wonderland' then certainly 2012 is as good a time as any.

A Review of Leiyatel's Embrace by Clive S Johnson

Leiyatel's Embrace is described as a fantasy novel. I must say to begin with that I have never been entirely predisposed to fantasy. I have read Lord of the Rings several times and love it. I have started The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever several times but just can't seem to get through even the first book. So that my friends is the sum total of my exposure to fantasy - discounting of course the little world of my own creation in which I have scrabbled around for the past forty-three years...

And you know what else? I can't remember why I decided to buy Leiyatel's Embrace, which is rather ironic given one of the major themes of the novel.

Leiyatel's Embrace is set in an alternate world and is a tale told on several levels. There is the thread of the story that begins with an impending invasion of the castle realm of Dica and the response by what is left of the local poplulace to this threat. Dica has been in decline for many years and is no longer a Kingdom able to defend itself. It's King has lost his mind and his subjects have been either scattered throughout the land or have just dwindled away. There are just a few people who have both the knowledge and courage to try and discover what is going on and it is their efforts that occupy the majority of the novel. The characters are wonderfully realised, each unique in both their mannerisms and their speech, responding in ways that define their individual characteristics.

The story is exceedingly clever. There are plot twists galore and twists and turns that will delight and enthrall. But for me, the story, wonderful though it is, is only a part of the novel.

To craft a novel of this complexity takes an incredible amount of talent - particularly when the world in which it occurs is entirely fictional - not that you would know it. The world is described in absolute detail with precision when needed, poetic brilliance when necessary and a love for nature at its core. Much of the book is taken up following the various characters on their journeys around Dica and I felt I was travelling with each and every one of them - seeing what they saw, smelling what they smelled and feeling their awe at the spectacular sites. I honestly feel like I've been to Dica! Perhaps I have and have just forgotten...

So to the themes. I guess this is a very subjective thing as different parts of a novel will resonate for different people depending upon their experiences and reflections. For me, there are three main themes: man vs nature, monarchy vs republic and finally the process of life itself. I will speak only of the last of these themes as touching on the other two may give away too much of the storyline.

As I said above, the characters go on a physical journey, many in fact, but that runs parallel with the feeling, the intense feeling, that with every step taken, something is being eroded, lost to time. There were some passages that were so poignant on this subject that I had to stop and think about how this all related to myself. I have, mainly by neglect, a poor memory. Some parts of my life are a complete blank. Years run into themselves and I struggle to put even the major events of my life into the correct sequence. Like one of the central characters in Leiyetal's Embrace I yearn to recall every detail but somehow things slip away, much like the Kingdom of Dica, much like the passing of time. Make no mistake - this is not a fantasy story about dwarfs and goblins and monsters and dragons. None of these things appear. And it's not about big battles and magic and sorcery. It's about good people trying to make sense of what is going on around them as their lives ebb away.

I may not remember clearly how I came to read Leiyatel's Embrace but having read it, I shan't forget this book for a long, long time.

You can by it on Amazon UK here and on Amazon US here

Cheers!

Stu

A Review of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Now I wasn't prepared for this! Much in the same way as Treasure Island surprised me by being so much more than a book about pirates and parrots, so Frankenstein is so much more than a novel about a mad doctor who creates a monster with a bolt through its neck. I confess to having subconsciously prejudged both novels perhaps due to the ubiquitous nature of their presence in other forms of media. And, in doing so, I somehow managed to degrade them in terms of their literary worth. My review of Treasure Island and conversion to its greatness is elsewhere on this blog. So what did I make of Frankenstein?

To be honest, I was shocked on many levels - not 'horror' shocked but shocked in terms of the beautifully poetic descriptions, the  almost Shakesperian quality of the dialogue and the deep melancholy of the entire novel. This isn't a book about creating life - it's a book about being unable to tolerate life. What begins as a dream for Dr Frankenstein culminates in the ruination of all and everything that he loves.

At this point a note about the author, Mary Shelley, is most apposite. I knew that Mary had been married to the poet Percy Shelley, that she had been very young when she wrote Frankenstein and that at one stage she, her husband and Lord Byron had gone to Europe together. What I hadn't known was how tragic had been her life before she wrote Frankenstein and in the years leading to its publication. Mary was born in London in 1797. Her mother died ten days after giving birth to her. Following her father's remarriage to their next door neighbour, who already had two children, Mary was left very much in the background, receiving no formal education and prone to visiting her mother's grave in St Pancras. Just before her seventeenth birthday, she ran away with Percy Shelley (who was then 22 and married) and travelled Europe - Lord Byron meeting them for that famous sojourn. Two years later, Mary's half sister committed suicide and not long after that Percy's wife drowned herself. Mary and Percy married on their return to London but the tragedy didn't end there. Mary bore three children all of whom died shortly after they were born. Percy then drowned in a freak storm in 1822.

To put this all in perspective, by the time Frankenstein was published in its second edition in 1823 (the first to bear her name), Mary had lost her mother, been cast aside by her immediate family, eloped with a famous married poet, had her sister commit suicide, her lover's wife commit suicide, married the famous poet, had three children, all of whom died shortly after birth and then, not long after the birth of their one surviving child, her husband drowned. Much has been made in the recent past of JK Rowling's single parent status and how wonderful it was that she was able to extract herself from her perceived ignominy by writing a novel based on a fantastical premise. It's all about perspective I guess...


So is it any wonder that Frankenstein is suffused with huge discources on the nature of death and the harshness of life?  Perhaps the biggest tragedy of all is that so many people, myself included, have grown to think of Frankenstein as nothing more than a hulking green zombie with a bolt through his neck when in truth the creature (Frankenstein being the creator) is the most eloquent character in the entire novel. The creature is never fully described. We know it is 'ugly', 'over eight feet tall' and 'yellowed skin'. There is no mention of bolts or a block-shaped head. The description in the novel reminded me very much of William Blake's incredible Nabuchodonosor as opposed to anything from the studios of Hollywood or the pens of cartoonists.

For me, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, is a breathtaking novel that seeks to find reasons to carry on amidst tragedy, self-blame and lofty aspirations. Mary died of a brain-tumour in 1851 at the age of 53. On the first anniversary of her death, members of Percy Shelley's surviving family opened Mary's writing desk. Inside they found, amongst other things, locks of her dead children's hair and a copy of Adonais (a poem by Shelley) with one page wrapped around a silk cloth that held some of his ashes and the remains of his heart.

Frankenstein, for me, is not a horror story, it's not science fiction and it's not a tale of adventure. It is a very personal story written by a young woman who is doing her best to make sense of her life, a life that had known death almost from conception. I put the book down with the belief that it is the creature that embodies Mary more than any other character - destruction following in its wake. "Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live?" The words are that of the creature, but are perhaps the honest exhortations of the author.

All I have left to say is anybody these days going through even a part of what Mary Shelley went through would undoubtedly find themselves referred for counselling, psychotherapy, perhaps be given medication and an appointment with a psychiatrist. And just imagine what the media would make of the discovery of the locks of deceased children and the partial heart of a dead husband. But what did Mary do in response to the tragedies of her life? She wrote books - and one particular book, Frankenstein, that has people like me, almost two hundred years after its publication, tapping words into a machine that will then be available to people all around the world. Sometimes you just have to gasp at the wonder of this life.

A Review of Ask The Dust by John Fante

One morning, a couple of weeks ago, a slim package from Amazon dropped through my door. I was just recovering from my knee operation and thus struggled to bend down to pick it up. Having done so I slid it onto the kitchen worktop assuming it was something else my wife had ordered. It was only when she came in from work that I was told it was actually for me. But I hadn't ordered anything. I opened it anyway and there was Ask The Dust by John Fante. I hadn't heard of either him or his book. Perplexed, I read the back of it and saw there was a Foreward by Charles Bukowski - one of my favourite authors. Curiouser and curiouser! The mystery was solved when I noticed a small typed note in amongst the packaging:

"Get well cards are for girls. Thought you might like this. I love it. Dave"

Now that's a great mate for you!

Ask The Dust was first published in 1939 when the author was thirty years old. It tells of struggling writer, Arturo Bandini (Fante's alter-ego much in the same way as Ray Smith is in The Dharma Bums for Jack Kerouac), who has moved to Los Angeles to make a go of his writing career. It is a first-person narrative story whose style is very similar to that of Bukowski who once declared: Fanti is my god! In fact Arturo Bandini and Henri Chinowski (Bukowski's alter ego) could be at the very least brothers, if not twins. It also stands comparison to Kerouac's Tristessa in terms of the main character's fascination with a woman with whom he believes he is in love; yet it is what she represents that truly holds the fascination.

Arturo Bandini is in his early twenties when the book begins and we are guided through various events, none of which are particularly dramatic, through his eyes. It is fair to say that at no time does he come off with any real credit. He is pompous, selfish, downright unpleasant at times, a bully and a liar. And the store that he holds in his (at the start of the novel) only published short story - The Little Dog Laughed - would make every fledgeling author squirm! I know I did! I believe that every independant author just trying to make their way, like me, would get a lot from Ask The Dust. Arturo has an unstinting belief in his talent and on one level you have to admire him for it. Times are very hard, living off free oranges and stolen milk and yet he still believes that one day he will make it as an author. He idolises his agent as being the one man who has spotted his genius and pours scorn on all those that don't recognise it. The only person ever to have told him they had read his short story is a fourteen year old girl whom he implores to read it aloud to him whilst he lays on his bed. He then claims to be closer to her age than he looks before she is whisked away by her mother.

So on one level this is the story of a struggling writer - his loves, ambition, confusion and daily worries. On another it is wonderful social commentary about how Los Angeles has sucked the life out of all those who live within its environs.

Ask The Dust is achingly funny at times but in a really poignant way. The final scene is wonderful and the whole book, from the manner in which it came into my hands, to the delightful prose, I found to be an absolute delight. As someone who recognises many of the traits inherent in Arturo Bandini I feel both sustained in my belief that I will one day make writing my full-time profession and relieved that were it not for people like my mate Dave the chances of  my appropriating the more unedifying elements of Bandini's character are thankfully remote though only ever just below the surface.

A Review of The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

Although The Dharma Bums was published in 1958, the semi-fictionalised events it describes all occurred prior to the publication of On The Road a year earlier. On The Road was itself written in 1951 taking years to find a publisher. The interesting thing therefore about The Dharma Bums is that it describes Jack Kerouac (Ray Smith in the novel) before the fame of On The Road struck. And it literally did strike both with a suddenness and a force from which he would never truly recover.

The Dharma Bums is very much a novel about someone searching for a foothold in life, a way of being, of expressing yourself that is both true and honest but does not entirely lead to alienation from society. Jack Kerouac, in many of his novels, although this one in particular, is constantly battling with his yearning for spirituality and peace against the reckless nature that would ultimately lead to his death in 1969 at the age of 47.

Although narrated by Ray Smith (Jack Kerouac), the central character of the novel is Japhy Ryder (poet Gary Snyder). Japhy represents all that Ray strives to be - a woodsman, a mountain-climber, entrenched in Buddhism, a revered poet - and he still gets all the girls! Ray is forever following, literally, in Japhy's footsteps but he is never quite able to emulate him. Even when they make their beautifully described attempt to climb Matterhorn, Ray stops a hundred feet short whilst Japhy dances around on the peak.

When Ray is not with Japhy, he spends time hitch-hiking back to his mother and whilst there plays the part of the deep thinker, sleeping under the trees, going for long walks and trying to get his family to understand why lives the way he does. Ultimately his reasoning comes across as shallow and entirely out of context with the daily struggles of his sister and brother-in-law. Even when riding the rails or hitching lifts, Ray invariably has money in his pocket should he get tired of the travelling. And he is not always the most grateful of passengers, becoming angry on one occasion, having hitched a ride, when a mother gets baby food on his new rucksack. The whole dichotomy so familiar to so many of us is the putting into practice the spritual and humane beliefs we hold to be true. In Japhy Ryder we have someone who is able to do that more often than not. In Ray Smith we have a man who just falls short, a voyeur, a man who won't allow himself to fully let go.

As in Jack Kerouac's life, Ray Smith veers from veneration of the bodhisattva life-style to being a drunk, replete with paranoia and obnoxious traits that isolate himself from the very people he is trying to emulate.

When I first read The Dharma Bums many years ago I was influenced hugely by the idea of living a simple life, appreciating the wonders of natural beauty that abound everywhere we look and the possibility that an existence based on peace and tolerance was possible even in the modern society of tension and commerce. Reading it again now though it is the character of Ray Smith that really stands out. For in many ways I resemble him more than perhaps any other character in any other book I have read. And that is humbling to admit, believe me.

So The Dharma Bums is a special book for me. It began, when I first read it, a train of thought that led to me writing Tollesbury Time Forever - a novel about forgiveness and hope. Now it has given me the impetus to no longer be that voyeur who gives up a hundred feet short of the summit. Jack Kerouac died at 47 - lonely, shot to pieces, full of self-admonishment, having written the most honest, beautiful books I know. I'm nearly 43. When I go it won't be having drowned in a pool of cheap red wine, guilt and what might-have-beens - it will be because I have fallen off the mountain-top dancing like a crazy fool.

Where once I tried to emulate Jack Kerouac as he tried to emulate Gary Snider, I'm now just going to be me. I just wonder how long that will last - paticularly with the three bottles of wine for a tenner deal still on at the corner shop...

A Review of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone was published in 1868 and has been hailed as the prototype of much subsequent 'Detective Fiction.' Interestingly a novel called Monsieur Lecoq by Emile Gaboriau was published the same year and was, according to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a direct influence on the creation of Sherlock Holmes. A final note on 1868 is that it was the first Cricket Tour to England by an Australian team - a team made up entirely of Aboriginies. Over a five-month period, the tourists played 47 matches. They were not paid and, after each match, they had to put on a boomerang and spear-throwing display. Interesting times then!

So to The Moonstone. I found the basic premise of the novel far less interesting than the characters. An Indian Diamond (The Moonstone) is stolen from a shrine by a rogue English soldier who in the process slew the three men whose purpose in life was to protect it. There are stories of a curse being put upon anybody who possesses the stolen diamond and that the descendants of the three Indians who were murdered are to retrieve the diamond at whatever cost. The Moonstone is bequeathed to a young aristocratic woman from whom it is subsequently stolen.

The majority of the novel comprises the investigation into the stolen diamond. It is told in several first person narratives including a servile butler, a religious zealot, a mysterious doctor and a gentleman who is in love with the young woman from whom The Moonstone was stolen. A famous London Detective is assigned the case following bungling attempts by the local constabulary. He is mistrusted by the aristocratic establishment. He has a passion for roses and the arts. He employs methods others deem to be eccentric. Yet he gets results and is famous all over England. Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse and Adam Dalgleish - progenies all!

The plot is very clever, intricate and daring. The reader is led to believe that almost every character could be the thief and there are red herrings galore. The fact that the novel was first serialised in a magazine is evident by the cliff-hangers at the end of every chapter and the occasional contrived summation of events by one character to another. And the literal unmasking of the thief towards the end is straight out of Scooby Doo - but no, it's not Old Man Withers from the abandoned amusement park...

For me the biggest joy, and what a joy, was the characters. The skill necessary to write several first person narratives within the same novel that all have such distinct voices is incredible. I would even go as far as to say that within the narrative of Miss Clack - the young religious zealot, there are passages that rival Catch-22 for outright hilarity and madness. The butler, Betteridge, who consults his copy of Robinson Crusoe at times when he needs answers to the confusion in his life is wonderful too. Two swipes at the prevailing religious establishment and two characters that Oscar Wilde or PG Wodehouse I'm sure would have been proud to have created!

More courageously and, for the time, so humane, is the depiction of the foreign characters in the novel. Ezra Jennings, shunned by his local community for his Indian origins is a wonderful depiction of dignity and gentleness so much at contrast with the insular, money-ridden lives of the other characters. And the final scene really humbled me, not just with the majesty of it but in the realisation that I too had been swept along by the machinations of the rich and the search for the diamond thief when right from the outset it is quite clear that the real thief is The British Empire. No spear-throwing demonstrations here - just a deep understanding of the nature of a dignified man and his people.

Elements of The Moonstone have clearly been embellished by subsequent authors (as well as Hannah Barbara!) and to this day TV programmes, films and books continue to survive from the genius of Wilkie Collins. I do think it is sad though that perhaps the humanity of the book may get missed amongst the chuckles and the cleverness, that the irony and the social commentary may be overlooked as I'm sure it was back in 1868. People would have read the serialisation with absolute excitement being enthralled and entertained, rushing out to buy the magazine to read the next installment. And who, even these days, doesn't want to be excited, enthralled and entertained? I as much as anyone. But it is the subtle reflections on Empire, the perhaps less than subtle reflections on religion and the marvelous dignity in the characters of Ezra Jennings that, for me, elevate The Moonstone from a good book to a great book.

A Review of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

I was surprised to discover that Treasure Island was first published in May 1883. I had always thought it was from the same era as Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719) and Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726). So as a novel it was post Charles Dickens and a contemporary of such novels as The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi and The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. Yet in my mind Treasure Island has always been synonymous with the period of its subject matter - and having now read it, that view is loathe to change, despite me now knowing it was published just seventeen years before the dawn of the 20th Century. A sign of a fine book? I think so.

Treasure Island is written largely in the first person narrative from the perspective of young Jim Hawkins, a lad who lives with his parents in a remote coastal Inn. He recounts the adventures that befall him after a mysterious old sailor takes up residence at the Inn and who is subsequently tracked down by nefarious ne'er do wells leading to Jim and his mother having to flee. Jim joins a ship, The Hispaniola, in an optimistic search for Captain Flint's Treasure which is purportedly buried on a mysterious island far out to sea.

Robert Louis Stevenson uses a clever narrative devices in order to fill in the gaps in the tale that Jim Hawkins does not personally witness, ranging from a complete change of narrator for a short period (Dr Livesey) to other characters feeding back to Jim directly or indirectly what has occurred during his various absences. It works very well and leaves you wondering, while you are reading Jim's account, what is happening to the other characters in the story.

And in Long John Silver, the duplicitous Ship's Cook, surely we have one of the finest renderings of the modern day politician. This is where Treasure Island, for me, rises above just a plain old swashbuckling childrens yarn. Akin to my presumption about the period in which the book was published, so I had in my mind that the parrot toting one legged Silver was a pirate caricature, in much the same way that I believed (before I read the book) Captain Hook to be entirely unpleasant. Long John Silver is the original silver-tongued devil (wonderful Kris Kristofferson song by the way!) and uses his charisma to manipulate more or less everyone else aboard The Hispaniola. The fact that in a novel where the majority of characters are killed, maimed or traumatised, Long John Silver remains throughout the most trusted, the most feared and the most believable, well that is fine writing indeed. He is the Humphrey of Yes Minister, more than the violent tyrant I had expected to encounter.

So I embarked upon Treasure Island expecting nothing more than a light bedtime read. Yet what I got was a fantastic study of manipulation and survival. I think I'm beginning to see why certain books are termed 'classics.' For me, Treasure Island certainly is that.

A Review of The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby is one of those novels that I have always known of but never read up until recently. As is common with most works deemed to be classics I knew a little of its subject matter without really knowing how I had come upon that knowledge. With regard to F.Scott Fitzgerald, I learned a little about him from a John Steinbeck biography and that was about it. I have found that there are so many links between so many authors, both in terms of their work and their lives, that there always comes a point where you are compelled to learn a little more. Thus it was for me with The Great Gatsby. The fact that I have just got a Kindle (thank you Mum and Dad!) and the fact that The Great Gatsby was free to download, certainly nudged me in the right direction!

On the surface, and perhaps one of the reasons why I had never been drawn to the novel, the ups and downs of well-to-do folk in Long Island during the 1920's boom is as far away from the stark realism of John Steinbeck and the impoverished life and death soul struggles of Jack Kerouac as you can get. If you are new to this blog you may not know that these are two of my favourite authors. But I guess as you grow you become just as interested in the shades of grey as in the blacks and the whites that confirm your moral and cultural stance.

Reading The Great Gatsby I feel I have taken a step forward in many ways. It is not a long novel and not really much happens. You don't really get to know too much about the main characters nor really get to have a fondness for any of them. Despite all that, and perhaps in part because of it, I found the book to be wonderful.

Nick Carraway narrates the events of the summer of 1922 during which he meets Jay Gatsby and participates to a degree in the story that unfolds. The subtlety of the novel is its heartbeat. Each line is so well crafted, just tempting you to see what is implied as well as what is written. If I were to use one adjective to describe it then that word would be 'sparkle'. It is a hard, uncompromising tale of rich people falling apart, the story of people who can overcome anything so long as material possessions abound - even taking the life of another or being married to someone you don't love.

Inbetween all the perfect descriptions and genteel mannerisms of the main characters there are outbursts of violence that really do make you gasp. Tom Buchanan, a brute of a man, takes Nick with him to an apartment in New York where Tom has his away days with his mistress. Another couple are invited and a drunken party ensues. Then Tom's mistress begins taunting him about his wife and...

"Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand."

Literally stunning.

The novel seems to me to be an allegory of the capitalist dream, that constant pursuit of some definable attainment that tells everybody else you have 'made it.' Gatsby, on the surface, has made it. He has an amazing house and throws lavish parties for complete strangers yet the foundations are built on lies and deceit. Even the love he has for Tom Buchanan's wife is as superficial as he believes it deep.

The tragedy that befalls Gatsby at the end almost feels superficial to the real tragedy that F.Scott Fitzgerald has laid before us - that it is not just Gatsby and the Buchanans who ruin the lives of others, it is the very ethos behind their acts that continues to this day; the pursuit of power and love by means of wealth.


Needless to say, the book fair blew me away and, ironically, served to confirm my moral and cultural stance. Well who'd have thought it?!

A Review of Our Kind of Traitor by John Le Carre

Our Kind of Traitor is John Le Carre's latest novel. I am a huge fan of his writing and rate some of his novels - The Honourable Schoolboy and The Little Drummer Girl in particular - as some of the finest I have read. To my mind his last few - Mission Song and A Most Wanted Man have been a little less effective as they have lacked the broader scope of the majority of his other novels concentrating instead on the minute details of very particular operations. Of course the prose has always been magnificent and that typically english mixture of cynicism and patriotism spot on. Our Kind of Traitor is very much in the mould of A Most Wanted Man but I found it both more enjoyable and exciting.

The novel follows a pair of fairly hapless British tourists, Perry and Gail, who make the acquaintence of a potential Russian defector, Dima, whilst on holiday. They think nothing of it until Dima informs Perry that he has information that would be prized by the British Secret Service and he wishes to barter that information in exchange for the resettlement of himself and his family in England.

The first half of the novel sets up the characters and the agendas at work and the second half deals with the attempts to bring Dima and his family to Britain - no easy task considering the implications on both high ranking British government and city officials who stand to lose greatly were the extraction to be successful.

Gail and Perry are drawn into the plans at Dima's insistence and they bring a very human side to what is essentially a study in the machinations of government, intercontinental commerce and the criminal underworld in Russia. John Le Carre does a wonderful job in fusing the innocence and the experience here and shows himself as always to be so much more than a thriller/espionage writer. And the ending? Fantastic!

I regard this as definitely John Le Carre's best novel since The Constant Gardener and highly recommend it.

A Review of A Pauper's Shroud by Leon Steelgrave

A Pauper's Shroud follows a police investigation into the murder of an eight year old girl in Inverness, Scotland, focusing primarily on the three officers involved in the case: a newly promoted female Detective Inspector, an 'old school' Detective Sergeant and a new recruit to CID prone to panic attacks.

I must begin by saying that I am not used to reading detective/murder novels so this was quite a first for me. I saw an interview with the author on a blog and thought he came across as such an interesting chap I would check out his work!

The author has gone to great lengths in providing the details of how the police force in Inverness conduct murder investigations. There is almost a documentary feel to some of the scenes which is a testament to the depth of knowledge the author has on the subject which adds greatly to the sense of realism of the novel. The main characters, and indeed the more minor ones, are very well drawn and certainly reveal very human flaws regardless of their profession, rank or background.

With regard to the writing itself, the descriptions of various locations is very impressive, whether it be Loch Ness, the local dives, the grounds of an abandoned hospital or the various rooms and offices of the Police Station. These detailed descriptions along with the three-dimensional characters certainly draw the reader into the novel and go a long way to explaining its appeal.

In terms of the plot, I won't be giving anything away in this review. Suffice to say the strands are cleverly woven together to produce an ending that, in keeping with the raw realism of the rest of the novel, is satisfying.

So any negatives? These are of course purely my personal opinion and must be understood in the context of my not having been drawn to reading detective/police novels before. I found the pace very good to begin with in terms of getting to know the characters, the background story, the area etc but this pace did not really change throughout the whole novel. There was no quickening towards the final denouement hence when the killer is revealed it is done in quite a matter of fact way. I have mentioned several times how realistic the novel appears to be so perhaps the ending is very much part of that realism and should not be seen in a less than positive light. Detective work, by all accounts, is not as exciting as it appears in films or on the telly, and this fact is mentioned at times by some of the characters. My only other minor criticism would be that at times the reader is told how characters feel about society, each other, their jobs etc rather than shown by way of a scene or a piece of dialogue - when these scenes/dialogues do occur they are sometimes backed up by clarification in the narrative that does sometimes feel a little clunky and didactic.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I was very much impressed by both its structure and the care the author has taken in presenting a thoroughly realistic world in which to set his story. The characters are believable and do not at any time fall into caricature.

I highly recommend this novel to readers of this genre.

You can download the novel from Amazon here:

UK Amazon - A Pauper's Shroud

US Amazon - A Pauper's Shroud

A Review of Tales From The Longcroft Estate by Darren Sant

A Review of Darren Sant's Tales From The Longcroft Estate:

Tales From The Longcroft Estate consists of three tales: A Good Day, Community Spirit and Rowan's Folly.

A Good Day is the first of these tales and starts wonderfully with a description of a seagull swooping down into the estate - a very clever device, almost like a camera being lowered down from above. The story is about man on the estate who is heavily into his drugs and thinks only of the next high and how he is going to get the money to attain it. And his favourite song is The Car Alarm Blues - brilliant! He is not a bad man, just likes his 'skag.'  And when he stumbles across a situation he has to make a choice with wide-ranging consequences. A great short story about a complex character that really sets up the other two tales.

Community Spirit tells of a week in the life of a single mother who recently moved to the estate. The use of language is harsh and smart - the word 'slammed' being used twice in the same paragraph to describe a woman being thrown against a wall and a door shut moments later by the offender. People and objects are not so dissimilar it seems. The main protagonist is being pursued by a loan shark and she feels entirely alone in her plight despite there being posters around for a Neighbourhood Watch Scheme and 'curtain-twitchers' everywhere. This tale has a lovely uplifting twist at the end.

Rowan's Folly is the longest of the tales and goes deeper into the characters of the wider estate. There are several interweaving threads to this tale and there is some beautiful writing here. This is a really cleverly written story that is extremely visual. The writing is tight and the characters eminently believable. And the final line is fantastic.

In summary, Tales From The Longcroft Estate is a collection that gives an insightful snapshot into the lives of people who struggle each day to get through. It is inventive and witty and has a wonderful combination of original description, great dialogue and an overwhelming feeling of empathy for the characters. I can't recommend this collection highly enough.

Tales From The Longcroft Estate is published by Byker Books and is available on Kindle here - TALES FROM THE LONGCROFT ESTATE