Author: Antenna

What’s in a name?

This is my review of The Submission by Amy Waldman.

In a competition to design a suitable memorial to the victims of 9/11, the jury members choose a garden. When the envelope is opened to reveal the identity of the architect, he turns out to be a Mohammad Khan, a name likely to inflame feelings in the jittery aftermath of the disaster. As the chairman stalls for time, the situation is leaked to the press, and a media storm breaks. The real-life outcry over the plan to open a mosque near Ground Zero after this book was published shows the credibility and prescience of the theme.

In a tightly plotted tale, Amy Waldman introduces us to a large cast of characters representing a wide range of opinions, and develops their distinct personalities and motives with some skill. There is Claire, the rich and beautiful widow, not very representative of the other victims' families, who feels that the choice should stand on the basis of merit, and to ensure the fair operation of the system. Paul Rubin, the chairman, wants to persuade Khan to withdraw, so as to minimise trouble and safeguard his own reputation as a "safe pair of hands". Sean, the ne'er-do-well handyman whose brother's death has given him status and purpose to defend the memory of the firemen who perished at the Twin Towers, voices the widespread simple prejudice against any muslim involvement in the memorial. Governor Geraldine Bitman, who seems a caricature until one remembers Sarah Palin, wants to gain political advancement out of attacking Khan. In the other camp, the American muslim activist Issam Malik sees Khan's case as a source of publicity for his cause.

Issues are aired in ding-dong dialogues which often read like the script of an earnest play, presenting us with both sides of a range of arguments. Many assume the worst of Khan without knowing anything about him. In fact he is a sensitive man free from any fanaticism or subversive intent, but proves his own worst enemy in stubbornly insisting on his right to the award, whatever the cost. Then, he progresses to wanting the right not to explain himself to those who leap to thinking the worst of him.

Although I was gripped by the plot and unable to predict the end, Waldman's tendency to reveal her profession by drifting into jarring journalese proved a frequent source of irritation. Also, some of the final scenes in which people "shift sides" appeared a little rushed to me. I felt that the dramatic international scale storyline fizzles out as various characters vanish from the page, but at the very end, decided that the subtle ending is exactly right, with its focus on the failure of communication between two individuals who in many ways have much in common – both appreciate the beauty of a minimalist garden subject to Islamic influences which in turn draw on previous ideas of peace and harmony.

You realise at the end that the ambiguity of the title is also quite subtle. Life is not a simple question of winning or losing…….

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The Submission

Good old-fashioned spy yarn if that’s your cup of tea

This is my review of Darkling Spy, The by Edward Wilson.

For those who cannot get enough of Cold War spy adventures, this may form an adequate substitute for Le Carre.

The style seems quite old-fashioned, so that I was surprised to see the book was published as recently as 2010, but in fact, it works well for the time period covered – starting in the late fifties, with the Soviets still trying to groom defectors, and the Americans mistrustful because of the British failure to unmask Burgess and Maclean in good time.

I liked the black comedy of the early scene between the Catesby, the British agent with left wing sympathies, and Bone, his enigmatic, Oxbridge-educated superior, when they pose as Catholic priests at the organ loft of Brompton Oratory, a good place to spot a package being planted below. How did they know this was going to happen? I suppose it isn't vital to have all the details.

The author displays what comes across as a sound knowledge of weaponry and the practice of British agents and their American and Soviet counterparts. Sometimes, his explanations get in the way of the dramatic action and I agree with the reviewer who was distracted by Wilson's tendency to have Catesby reminisce about his upbringing and his sister, choosing the most inopportune moments, such as when he is about to be attacked.

The pacing is often uneven, the plot rambling and the style uneven e.g. is it meant to be tongue-in-cheek or serious action?

If you just like spy stories which give you a chance to feel nostalgic about the England of fifty years ago, and you don't mind the above criticisms, this story is worth a look.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Darkling Spy, The

Navel-Gazing

This is my review of Little White Lies [DVD].

This French approach to a "Three Weddings and a Funeral" type drama introduces us to a group of mainly thirty-something longstanding friends. Although shocked when one of them is seriously injured in a motorcycle crash, the rest decide not to be deflected by his coma from their plan to spend a seaside break at the holiday home of Max, a successful restaurant owner. Older than the others, Max is a tense and driven control freak, who forms the focus of many of the more amusing scenes, not least when another character, obsessed with his own sexuality, confesses the love for Max that he has been desperately trying to conceal.

Most of the group members turn out to have secret problems and to be telling each other "little white lies". There is the young man who drives the others mad as he agonises over how to keep his girlfriend and gets totally confused when they offer conflicting advice. Even the successful actress is found to be troubled by her "biological time clock" and failure to find the right man.

Despite the many amusing, and occasionally moving situations, I can understand why some people have been left cold, or irritated, by the unrelenting navel-gazing and angst of privileged people who don't really have much to moan about.

I agree that the film is too long, and probably self-indulgent towards the end. The only thing that really bugged me is the sentimental English pop music included in what are meant to be solemn moments- perhaps this doesn't sound so crass to French people who don't appreciate the banality of the lyrics!

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Little White Lies [DVD]

The Human Experience of Hell

This is my review of All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings.

Is there a need for another book on the Second World War? For those yet to read one, this will be a good choice, since it provides a synthesis of more than three decades of investigation, research and writing on this theme. Also, as a journalist, Max Hastings writes in a more engaging style than many academic historians.

Although the chapters trace the facts systematically from the invasion of Poland to the fall of Japan, Hastings's main focus is on human experience. The plentiful, often dramatic and moving photographs are of civilians rather than generals and political leaders. He also quotes movingly from the correspondence of ordinary people whose lives were cut short by the war, from the lieutenant who mused how the experience of commanding a battleship, even if it ended in death, was far more fulfilling than slaving in a dull London office, to the seventeen-year-old boy, begging his mother to do her utmost to get him released from service back into a safe job at home.

Hastings reminds us of the full extent of the war, in which fifteen million Chinese died at the hands of the Japanese, and a surprising range of countries suffered heavy casualties. He points out how the Germans lost far more soldiers to the Russians than to the other Allies, and how the demands made by soldiers for food from the civilian population added to the intense hardship of ordinary people. The unimaginable horror of war, until one has experienced it, the fear, fatalism and futility are demonstrated too powerfully for anyone to overlook. For instance, he describes how soldiers were forced to walk on the faces of dead colleagues squashed into the trench floor.

In what he sees as a just war, Hastings focuses on the fact that it was only partly won, since the price of victory was that Eastern Europe (including the Poland which ironically triggered the debacle), although wrested from Nazi control, remained in Soviet hands at the end. He provides fascinating evidence of Churchill's unrealistic desire to continue the struggle, even using defeated Wehrmacht soldiers, but the Russians simply had too many troops on the ground.

I was interested in the ambivalence of the Imperial subjects in India and the Far East, who only supported the British with reluctance since they knew that a Fascist victory would be even worse.

The one "imbalance" may be relatively too little space given to those who suffered in the Holocaust.

Overall, I am not sure that Hastings provides much that is not already known, but he succeeds in arousing our sympathy and respect for those forced to endure the War. Although he is now turning his attention further back to the First World War, it might be more beneficial if he were to apply his forensic skills to the issues of today, say the crisis in Europe, but perhaps there is a strange comfort in reviewing the past through modern eyes.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945

The Human Experience of Hell

This is my review of All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings.

Is there a need for another book on the Second World War? For those yet to read one, this will be a good choice, since it provides a synthesis of more than three decades of investigation, research and writing on this theme. Also, as a journalist, Max Hastings writes in a more engaging style than many academic historians.

Although the chapters trace the facts systematically from the invasion of Poland to the fall of Japan, Hastings's main focus is on human experience. The plentiful, often dramatic and moving photographs are of civilians rather than generals and political leaders. He also quotes movingly from the correspondence of ordinary people whose lives were cut short by the war, from the lieutenant who mused how the experience of commanding a battleship, even if it ended in death, was far more fulfilling than slaving in a dull London office, to the seventeen-year-old boy, begging his mother to do her utmost to get him released from service back into a safe job at home.

Hastings reminds us of the full extent of the war, in which fifteen million Chinese died at the hands of the Japanese, and a surprising range of countries suffered heavy casualties. He points out how the Germans lost far more soldiers to the Russians than to the other Allies, and how the demands made by soldiers for food from the civilian population added to the intense hardship of ordinary people. The unimaginable horror of war, until one has experienced it, the fear, fatalism and futility are demonstrated too powerfully for anyone to overlook. For instance, he describes how soldiers were forced to walk on the faces of dead colleagues squashed into the trench floor.

In what he sees as a just war, Hastings focuses on the fact that it was only partly won, since the price of victory was that Eastern Europe (including the Poland which ironically triggered the debacle), although wrested from Nazi control, remained in Soviet hands at the end. He provides fascinating evidence of Churchill's unrealistic desire to continue the struggle, even using defeated Wehrmacht soldiers, but the Russians simply had too many troops on the ground.

I was interested in the ambivalence of the Imperial subjects in India and the Far East, who only supported the British with reluctance since they knew that a Fascist victory would be even worse.

The one "imbalance" may be relatively too little space given to those who suffered in the Holocaust.

Overall, I am not sure that Hastings provides much that is not already known, but he succeeds in arousing our sympathy and respect for those forced to endure the War. Although he is now turning his attention further back to the First World War, it might be more beneficial if he were to apply his forensic skills to the issues of today, say the crisis in Europe, but perhaps there is a strange comfort in reviewing the past through modern eyes.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945

Boy’s Own on Ice?

This is my review of Dark Matter: A Richard and Judy bookclub choice by Michelle Paver.

This is described on the cover as an adult ghost story by an award-winning children's author. The simple prose captures the bleak beauty of the Arctic, and conveys the sense of fear triggered by extreme isolation and exposure to long periods of darkness. The personality of Jack, revealed through his diary entries, is well-drawn, as the prickly young man with a chip on his shoulder in the presence of the public-school educated friends who decide to use him as the wireless operator for their research trip to the island of Spitsbergen.

Although credibility does not seem a very important criterion for a ghost story, I found it implausible that an Arctic expedition should consist of only five young men , yet still go ahead with only three, and should contain no experts in Arctic survival, medicine, hunting or dog-handling. The intention is obviously to create a situation, however far-fetched, in which Jack is alone.

Tension is built up well, including Jack's dismay over the prospect of four months with no sunlight and the false sense of respite when the moon is full. Despite this, the climax is a let-down, neither sufficiently terrifying, nor ingenious enough to make up for this. It includes a major coincidence and a final twist which both seem too contrived.

With large print, short chapters interspersed with drawings, words with no more than two syllables unless unavoidable e.g. for nouns like "gramophone", and the superficial skimming over issues of violence, deep emotion or sex, this reads to me like a "young teens" book, in all but the facts that the characters are in their twenties and drink whisky.

I agree with reviewers who would have preferred a purely psychological thriller without the hackneyed ghost element, or who feel this story lacks the depth and complexity to provide the challenge for a truly "adult" novel.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Dark Matter: A Richard and Judy bookclub choice

Beautiful Lies – Farced Forward

This is my review of Beautiful Lies [DVD] (2010).

This is the latest in a spate of well-made, “feel good” films flowing out of France. Any irritation over its silliness is offset by the magnetic presence of Audrey Tautou, as Émilie Dandrieux, the to be honest rather capricious and devious joint owner of a hair salon. Not realising that an anonymous love letter has been sent to her by Jean, the salon’s handsome odd-job man, Tautou retrieves this from the waste bin, and uses it verbatim to concoct a letter from an imaginary secret admirer to her mother Maddy. Émilie is convinced that this will serve to shake Maddy, sympathetically played by Nathalie Baye, out of her longstanding grief over being abandoned by her callous husband.

In the style of true French farce, the misunderstandings pile up as you may well imagine.

There are many amusing scenes, as when Émilie is forced to admit that she has sacked Jean, because the discovery that he is multilingual and Harvard- educated (he’s lost his position as an interpreter owing to a nervous breakdown) makes her feel inadequate and uncertain about how to speak grammatically in his presence.

The denouement is cringe-making in places, the emotions superficial – except for Jean’s at times inexplicable fancy for Émilie – and the ultimate happy ending not in doubt, but a little light-hearted entertainment probably never did anyone much harm, and it is a way of practising one’s French. You may also like the fact that the main characters are all flawed in various ways, especially Émilie, which may make them appear more human.

My only query is why the title was changed from “De Vrais Mensonges” which translated literally as “Real Lies” seems more apt.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars


Beautiful Lies [DVD] (2010)

Fabriqué en Dagenham à la française.

This is my review of Potiche [DVD] [2010].

This tale involving a strike at a French umbrella factory reminds me of the recent “Made in Dagenham” about the 1968 Ford dispute over equal pay for women, but it is purely fictional, and a more lighthearted comedy.

Catherine Deneuve arouses immediate sympathy as Suzanne Pujol, the underestimated middle-aged “trophy wife” of Robert, the ghastly man who has taken over her father’s business and driven the staff to mutiny through his heavy-handed management style. When Robert is incapacitated by a heart attack, Suzanne is persuaded to take over and proves a remarkably emollient and creative director. Of course, when he has recovered, she is expected to get back on her ornamental shelf. But after a taste of power, combined with her discovery of his philandering, how can she return to being a simple “potiche”? Also, where will the loyalties of the couples’ son and daughter lie?

There is the added complication of the Suzanne’s long ago fling with Maurice Babin, the town’s socialist mayor, played by Gerard Depardieu, whose help she needs at first to pacify the angry strikers.

Recommended for a well-acted and humorous evening’s entertainment.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


Potiche [DVD] [2010]

The White Tiger has escaped

This is my review of Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga.

I agree that it must be hard to produce a novel after reaching the unexpected heights of a Booker win so early in one's career as a novelist.

This continues the theme of how rapid change and exposure to western materialism is corrupting traditional Indian society and values, and rightly seeks a different theme from the prize-winning "The White Tiger", which highlights the gulf between rich and poor. In this case the community of residents in a proudly "middle class" Bombay tower block are split apart by the lure of a businessman's very generous offer for them to leave, to enable him to redevelop the site for luxury apartments. The story is also a study of human nature – the way in which formerly decent people turn on the one moral – and perhaps foolishly stubborn – soul who persists in refusing to be bought, thereby sabotaging their one off chance to get their hands on the windfall which they imagine will transform their lives.

Although I want to admire and enjoy this book, it seems to me to lack the sharp wit and verbal imagery, combined with creative imagination and originality of "The White Tiger". Despite the large cast of potentially interesting and moving characters, I found the scenes too plodding and pedestrian to sustain my interest. The opening pages also read more like a journalist's article, than a piece of creative writing in which the reader gradually works out what is going on, who the characters are and what they are like.

I may return to this book and try the author again with another title, but was a little disappointed.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Last Man in Tower

Holds its own with Le Carre and Chandler, even Greene

This is my review of Pavel and I by Dan Vyleta.

This recreates 1946 Berlin in the aftermath of war, with buildings and lives smashed, and law and order barely held in place by the Allied forces united in name alone. People have been brutalised by suffering yet still retain a powerful will to survive and the capacity to undertake at times unexpected acts of humanity.

Pavel is presented from the outset as an enigma, a sick American, fluent in German and Russian, hiding away with a large store of books he refuses to sell to obtain much-needed medicine and food, and giving shelter to Anders, a ragged and superficially unappealing street urchin.

This well-written, fast-moving drama in which the author still finds time to develop a large cast of characters as distinct individuals, begins with Pavel receiving an unwelcome visit from his friend Boyd, once soldier, now pimp and racketeer, who dumps on him the body of a well-dressed midget concealed in a suitcase. It soon becomes clear that the midget possessed something of strategic interest to each of the Allies jockeying for power in Berlin.

There ensues a complex Grahame Greene-cum-Chandler tale in which nothing is ever quite what it first seems, and actions tend to have unintended consequences. The tone is often brutal and cynical, but leavened with wry humour: this is illustrated by the recurring references to the pet monkey which the sinister Colonel Fosko (reminded me of Count Fosco in the Woman in White) foists on Sonia, the elegant tart with a heart. It is also evident in the descriptions of the street urchins organised by Paulchen, and the casual deciding of their fate.

An unusual aspect is the third person narration which, with growing frequency, lapses into the first person – a one-eyed Brit called Peterson – sometimes merely confiding with the reader in sly asides, at others even getting fully involved in the plot. The shifting viewpoint could be irritating, and reduce one's engagement with the characters, but I quite like this device.

There are, as Peterson himself admits, a few holes in the plot, but overall the complex chain of events links together quite well. There are moments of real tension, when a character seems to be going to his death, and you know the author is ruthless enough to eliminate any member of the cast, and to let bad win out over good.

I thought the ending a little too inconclusive and disappointing – perhaps as is often the case a bit too condensed. I also found it unclear why Pavel exerted such a charismatic power over most of the people he met, and would have liked to know a little more about "what made him tick" and exactly what he had been up to.

If this is a first novel, it suggests an impressive talent, and I shall look out for further novels by Dan Vyleta.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Pavel and I