Author: Antenna

“Quivering arches…. like awakening longings…. restless as the very soul of man” (Nansen)

This is my review of Aurora: In Search of the Northern Lights by Dr Melanie Windridge.

Fascinated by the mysterious shape-shifting of the Northern Lights which intrigued both local communities and explorers long before they had an inkling of the scientific causes, plasma physicist Melanie Windridge set out to write a popular science-cum-travelogue to explain the phenomenon, visiting Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Canada and Scotland in the process.

The author makes comparisons to twanging elastic bands, strings of pearls or games of cricket to make theories easier to grasp. There is also a good deal of repetition, which can be useful, although I was left confused and frustrated by the fragmented explanation (with often unclear diagrams) of the all important “Dungey Cycle” by which the plasma stream of negatively charged particles from the solar wind interact with the earth’s magnetic field to give some of the most spectacular aurora effects on the night side of the earth. Perhaps I am puzzled over the above because the process is still not fully understood by the experts.

No doubt to achieve a reasonable length and to make the physics more digestible, the text sometimes seems “padded out” with mundane details of encounters, or over-long digressions into, say, the history of photography, but one cannot afford to skip anything. I found my interest unexpectedly caught by, for instance, the history of the Canadian town of Yellowknife, named after the copper blades of the knives carried by the local Dene people. In the series of prospecting rushes for minerals, the town had a belated gold mine open right up to 2003. For decades, the economy has functioned with “ice roads”, literally cleared of snow in order to freeze hard enough to support convoys of lorries, Now that the Canadian government is committed to the construction of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, there is local ambivalence over the inevitable damage to the ecosystem and traditional culture, the price to be paid for access to commercial progress. The focus on Yellowknife is of course due to its proximity to the Arctic Circle where the Northern Lights are most visible at night in the winter months.

Even if I am left unclear over the “aurora oval” and “reconnection”, I have certainly learned a good deal. Seen with the naked eye, the aurora may be much less impressive than the effect to be captured for the same event with a camera. Varying between arcs and “patchy pulsations”, the familiar green of the aurora derives from oxygen electrons which, with lower energy, may appear red: nitrogen molecules emit blue, violet and pink colours. Those who lived through the hundred year period from 1620 which became known as the Maunder Minimum would have seen few auroral displays, which seemed to coincide with a lack of sunspots visible on the surface of the sun. A “coronal mass ejection” or “vast blob of plasma” may be launched from the sun into space at great speed. Organisations like “Swipsie”, the Space Weather Prediction Center are co-operating to invest increasing resources in predicting whether it is likely to “interact with the solar wind ahead of it because this can twist up the magnetic fields and lead to a more severe event on earth”: apart from interference with the operation of satellites, this could involve damaging an electricity grid, or an unusually large and dramatic auroral display.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Aurora: In Search of the Northern Lights

Knowing the cost of war

This is my review of Eye In The Sky [DVD] [2016].

British and American forces combine in the use of cutting-edge technology to locate a band of fundamentalist terrorists, with the aim of capturing them alive to stand trial in their countries of origin, making an example of those with UK or US passports. When this proves impossible, single-minded British Colonel played by Helen Mirren is determined not to let them escape, but what are the moral issues stirred up if they are to be wiped out in a drone attack by a “pilot” activating Hellfire missiles from his base thousands of miles away in the States?

Relying on moments of black humour or poignancy rather than gratuitous violence and mindless action, this at times almost unbearably tense drama presents the arguments on both sides, continually dragging the rug of certainty from under our feet, causing us to vacillate as much as the politicians and lawyers one despises for trying to pass the buck. Although it may not be technically accurate, the film highlights a troubling new aspect of war, in which one side can wreak havoc from an office desk with no personal physical risk, as if playing a computer game set in an alien environment with which one feels no connection, yet may at the same time be confronted by the image of an innocent bystander which one might not encounter as a solder in the adrenalin rush of real action on the ground. My only reservation is whether soldiers trained to be tough killers would be quite as sensitive as some of the characters.

Scoring highly on acting, direction and sets, this film is not only gripping but also provides the basis for in-depth discussion on the most effective and “ethical” use of force against extreme terrorism.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


Eye In The Sky [DVD] [2016]

The Master by Colm Tóibín: “Playing with vital elements….masking and unmasking himself”

This is my review of The Master (Picador Classic) by Colm Toibin.

In his fictionalised biography of Henry James, Colm Tóibín slides us into the author’s thoughts with no background explanation. The five year period covered is 1895-99, when he was a celebrated author in his fifties, but with many lapses into past memories going back to childhood.

At first, I thought that a full appreciation of the novel would require a detailed knowledge of James’s style, plots and characters and that it would bewilder and bore those who know little or nothing about James. In fact, what turns out to be a subtle and perceptive book, may be enjoyed and admired simply as a portrayal of a sensitive loner who cannot help employing his acute sensitivity to observe others, conjuring stories out of small incidents, yet who goes to great pains to conceal his feelings, and who, despite a sense of loneliness, even loss, ruthlessly steers clear of commitment, even at the cost of destroying the lives of those he has used as source material. Somehow, he generally manages to avoid acknowledging this realisation, just as he represses the expression of his sexuality.

So it is that he uses his beautiful cousin Minnie Temple as a model for several stories, but is chided by his friends for failing to invite her to stay with him in Italy when she is sick and close to death. Did he simply fail to notice her appeal for such an invitation, or refuse to make it because it interfered with his work? Similarly, he enjoys a secret friendship with a female writer, breaking through the defences of her self-contained loneliness, without apparently realising until too late the depth of her need for his presence and love.

James is continually an indecisive mixture of self-delusion and self-knowledge. The book opens with his excitement over the possibility of becoming a playwright: “He foresaw an end to long, solitary days; the grim satisfaction that fiction gave him would be replaced by… voices and movement and immediacy that …up to now he had believed he would never experience”. Yet this alternates with the certainty of failure (as proves to be the case) which would force him to return “willingly and unwillingly, to this true medium”. In such complex and nuanced chains of thought, Tóibín captures a sense of James’s convoluted yet insightful, hypnotic prose, but without making the mistake of concocting wordy, interminable sentences in what would inevitably prove a parody of “the master”.

There are some lighter moments, as Henry James steers his way through a world of gossip. On a visit to Ireland, it is clear that the domineering socialite Lady Wolseley, believing him to be gay, assigns the handsome army corporal Hammond to act as his servant, “smiling strangely” over his apparent satisfaction with the arrangement. The whole issue of the author’s sexuality is treated ambiguously, as it no doubt was at the time.

One of the funniest moments is towards the end when, briefly reunited with his elder brother William, with whom there has always been a degree of sibling tension. William takes him to task for wasting his sharp eye and wide-ranging sympathy on the superficial, class-ridden English whom he can never understand. In an outrageous, misconceived yet telling outburst, he asserts, “I believe that the English can never be your true subject. And I believe that your style has suffered from the strain of constantly dramatizing social insipidity. I also think that something cold and thin-blooded and oddly priggish has come to the fore in your content…I find I have to read innumerable sentences you now write twice over to see what they could possibly mean. In this crowded and hurried reading age you will remain unread and neglected as long as you continue to indulge in this style and these subjects”.

Not always an easy read, this has many brilliant moments.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

The Master (Picador Classic)

Australian opal of a novel

This is my review of The Shiralee by D’Arcy Niland.

Oppressed by the “captivity” of a job in Sydney, roaring in his ears “with its terrible pandemonious laughter”, Macauley returns to his life on the country roads of New South Wales, leaving his wife alone for long periods with their child. He is a stereotype of the macho Australian male, relishing a punch up or a drink with his mates, but he is also a good worker who has no difficulty finding work on sheep-shearing stations, building sites or sawmills. When he catches his wife in bed with another man, his first impulse is to snatch up his daughter, at least partly in revenge, and take her along on his travels, where she soon becomes a hindrance, a “shiralee” or burden far heavier to bear than his swag. The trouble is that her unshakeable trust in him , dogged affection despite his continual rebuffs and impressive resilience awake his conscience and emotional response to someone other than himself.

Macauley is portrayed as a flawed hero, virtually raping his girlfriend when still in his teens, irresponsibly putting at risk his daughter’s welfare, and neglecting his understandably resentful wife. Yet his basic decency is not in doubt, together with his need to be true to himself. As the old man called the “oracle of the north” assesses: “there’s a lot of good in you, but it’s buried deep and it’s twisted..like a wild animal that has to be coaxed out into the light and tamed…does not come willingly because it is frightened for itself. Don’t lead two lives or both will be unhappy: lead one and lead it well”.

Published in the mid-1950s, this novel has the authentic ring of the author’s own experiences of life as an itinerant worker in his youth. What could be a sentimental and schmaltzy tale is avoided by an often tense and unpredictable chain of events, leavened with wry humour, and the distinctive style which conveys a strong sense of place, often daring in its play with stream of consciousness, as when Macauley recalls his brief attempt to live in the city and unwise decision to marry. The book is worth reading for the raw, fearlessly passionate prose alone, which sometimes goes over the top, untrammelled by any editor.

“The sky was overcast, all in a yeasty motion of sombrous hues ever darkening the earth. The lightning jiggled, sharp and brilliant as a blind shooting up against daylight in a black room. The ground shook with the rumble of tumbling thunder. The wind whuddered across the waste, scattering the roly-poly, not unlike a lot of sheep making a stupid run for it…The rain came with a few big drops, a hesitant rehearsal; then they heard it roaring over the plain, and saw it coming, a wall of grey between sky and earth.”

Recently revived, this novel reminds me of Steinbeck, and deserves to be better known.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

The Shiralee

“Capturing the truth of life …in brushstrokes on the verge of dissolution”

This is my review of The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velazquez by Laura Cumming.

Art critic Laura Cumming has a gift for helping us to appreciate paintings more fully,

She has a particular feeling for “Las Meninas”, the enigmatic masterpiece by Velasquez which mingles “the watchers and the watched”, bringing us, the onlookers into the picture: the Spanish Infanta in a group of maidservants and court dwarves make direct eye contact with us, except that they may in fact be observing the king and queen, glimpsed Arnolfini portrait-style in a background mirror, who may once have stood where we now stand, being painted by Velasquez himself, portrayed with his palette at a huge canvas to one side. His brushlike tapering fingers merging into the brush itself, “no more than a darting streak of white” – “the whole painting has been set in motion by its delicate tip, which effectively vanishes”.

Laura Cummings continually marvels at how often sketchy and thin brushwork when viewed close up, could create such fine detail of clothing with sheen of silk and transparent white collars. Faces are so expressive that they seem alive, startling us with their modernity: the portrait of the misnamed Pope Innocent X disconcerted viewers, as if they were meeting him in the flesh. Philip IV of Spain preferred not to submit to the unflinching truthfulness of Velazquez’s portraits as he grew old, but retained the court painter he had employed as a very young man, although for the last decade of his life Velasquez was promoted to High Chamberlain and seems to have produced relatively few works yet of high quality, including Las Meninas .

Although held in high regard, Velasquez was not free to travel, gaining permission for only two admittedly lengthy visits to Italy, but retained his artistic independence in the convention-ridden Spanish court. His most striking portraits are of ordinary people: the dignified water-seller, realistic drops of liquid trickling down the curved side of a ceramic pot; the old woman frying eggs in which the translucent fluid can be seen in the process of solidifying into white; the dwarves portrayed with dignity; self-assured Moorish assistant who chose to remain with Velasquez despite gaining his freedom; actor Pablo de Valladolid casting his shadow on a void which serves to focus us on his theatrical presence. Ever experimental, the painter even produced an inspiration for impressionism in the outdoor scene of the Medici Gardens, tall cypresses rising above a white cloth draped over a balconied terrace with a crudely boarded-up archway.

Since comparatively little is known about Velasquez, the book often seems padded out with overblown speculation and a detailed sub-plot regarding the obsessive efforts of Reading printer John Snare to gain recognition for the portrait he had acquired of the youthful prince destined to become Charles 1. Whether or not this is a genuine Velasquez, the tale demonstrates how the casual, inconsistent description and classification of paintings together with a lack of x-rays and other dating techniques made it so hard to attribute them accurately until well into the C20, if then. It would of course have helped if Velasquez had signed his work. It is also disturbing to read about the dealer who, having “cleaned up” a “Velasquez” to make it more attractive to a buyer, had it darkened and aged to fetch a better price to suit the tastes of a wealthy alternative bidder.

Although the colour plates are of good quality, the main weakness of a generally fascinating book is the need for more of them, and better cross-referencing with the text, even if this added a little to the price. The small black and white photographs integrated in the text do scant justice to the painter’s work. I had to make a note of some titles of paintings described at length so that I could search for their images on line.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velazquez

En saisissant les apparences

This is my review of Nympheas noirs by Michel Bussi.

This French detective thriller-cum psychological drama has the alluring setting of Giverny, the location of Monet’s famous garden and, as we are made to reflect, the tourist-ridden village which has become for some inhabitants a kind of prison, or framed picture from which they cannot escape.

The enigmatic opening chapter is from the viewpoint of the anonymous eighty-something widow, the “sorceress” who inhabits one of the real buildings mentioned in the tale, the timber-framed “moulin des Chennevières” which may be seen on “Street View” with its distinctive “donjon” tower. She introduces us in an intriguing prophecy to the three females round whom the story revolves: herself, the talented young eleven-year-old painter Fanette Morelle and the beautiful thirty-something teacher with an interest in art, Stéphanie Dupain.

Much of the tale is concerned with the murder of Jérome Môrval, a wealthy eye specialist, connoisseur of art and serial philanderer whose body is found on the edge of the millstream near the rows of poplars made famous by Monet. This is absorbing with some entertaining sparring between the detective duo of the intuitive, charismatic Laurenç Sérénac, and his painstaking sidekick Sylvio Bénavides, the fascinating nuggets of information about Monet, such as his order for a tree he had commenced painting in the winter to be denuded of leaves by hand so that he could finish the work in summer, and a skilful bamboozling of the reader right up to the final major and highly original twist, which I did not see coming. So, having thought at times that I was reading a kind of French “Midsomer Murders”, the denouement forced me into a radical reconsideration of all that had gone before.

For a non-French reader, this is accessible and enjoyable, with just the right level of idioms and unfamiliar words to give the sense of improving one’s skill in the process of reading a page turner. I trust that the English translation due in June 2016 will capture the features which set this novel apart.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Nympheas noirs

Night Train to Lisbon – Seizing the day

This is my review of Night Train To Lisbon [DVD].

The dull routine of Raimund Gregorius, fifty-something Swiss teacher of classics, portrayed by a suitably disguised Jeremy Irons in baggy jumper and pebble glasses, is transformed by his spontaneous Good Samaritan act of saving a young woman from jumping off a bridge. When she runs away, leaving only her red raincoat, he finds that the pocket contains a train ticket to Lisbon and a book containing the forty-year old writings of a young doctor turned amateur philosopher, Amadeu de Prado.

Everything about this book captivates Gregorious, from the soulful expression in Amadeu’s photograph to his insights: “We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.” “So, the fear of death might be described as the fear of not being able to become whom one had planned to be.” And so on.

On an impulse, Gregorious takes the train to Lisbon to find out more about Amadeu and his circle of acquaintances. In the process, he becomes ever more aware of the emptiness of his own life in comparison.

Some reviewers of the international bestseller on which this film is based have attacked the “cod philosophy” which clearly expresses the popularised views of the author, an academic philosopher. Apart from the fact that some of this may have suffered in translation from the original German, I agree with those who have argued that the philosophy need not be regarded as the main point. The film is very successful in providing it as a backdrop to a poignant story of how the lives of idealistic young people in 1970s Portugal were disrupted, even destroyed, by the violence and menace of the revolution in which an authoritarian government tried to suppress dissent, to the extent of using torture.

The scenes of Lisbon convey the crumbling appeal of the older parts of the city and the ferry crossing. Apart from a slightly implausible and corny love interest (without giving too much away, does the auburn-haired optician need to be quite so attractive and single to boot?) the film is well-acted with an intriguing and thought-provoking plot, and deserves to be better known.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


Night Train To Lisbon [DVD]

Parts much more than the sum of the whole

This is my review of Hail, Caesar! [DVD].

The Coen brothers have applied their trademark quirkiness to a parody of Hollywood in the 1950s, a world of glamorous make-believe masking the cynical commercialism of the studio bosses who railroad stars into keeping the show on the road at all costs, with hints of the grim background of kneejerk anti-communist McCarthyism.

The Coens have chosen a lightweight approach so that, without giving much, even any, thought to the underlying tensions and moral dilemmas, one can enjoy the slapstick and nostalgia over corny sets – guitar-strumming cowbow singing a ditty to the moon and mermaid siren emerging from a Busby Berkeley circle of synchronised bathing belles. So, when drunken philanderer Baird Whitlock, super star played by George Clooney is kidnapped, one does not worry about his safety, just as there is no pathos in a single mother star being ordered to undertake a fake marriage to preserve her reputation.

The lugubrious “fixer”, studio manager Eddie Mannix, presides over it all, unable to accept a more tempting job offer in the oil business (likely to involve far less wheeler-dealing), since despite himself he is bound to the role which drives him to chain smoke, instantly converting him when required into an unscrupulous monster of control who will stop at nothing to carry out his boss’s orders. He somehow squares this with his Catholic conscience, only feeling the need to confess “too often” to having broken a promise to his wife to give up cigarettes.

In spite of some entertaining if disjointed scenes, such as a “Nothing like a dame” sailors’ routine to rival Gene Kelly, I felt mostly unengaged, perhaps because the storyline is so fragmented as to disappear at times, the ham acting “on set” seems to extend into “real life” and I did not care enough about the characters, never doubting that it would all end pretty much as it began. It probably helps to know more than I did about the various real characters being parodied, but I suspect that the most positive reviews will come from those who simply enjoyed the entertainment, which surely cannot have been the Coen brothers’ artistic intention.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars


Hail, Caesar! [DVD]

Going where other vacuum cleaners cannot reach

This is my review of iRobot Roomba 620 Vacuum Cleaning Robot.

We purchased the robotic cleaner to get underneath beds. It is effective in removing dust where a conventional vacuum cleaner cannot reach and lifting heavy furniture is a chore. It is good at detecting and avoiding toppling over the top of the stairs, which unfortunately it cannot vacuum. Carpets and tiled floors are left looking clean, although I am unsure how efficient this machine is. It takes a long time – 30 minutes or so – to clean an entire level of house or a flat, and often misses small areas. Does it waste electricity by going over some surfaces with unnecessary frequency, wearing out carpet in the process?

As an aside, it is entertaining to watch it in action. You may like to view the Youtube videos of a cool cat taking a ride on and apparently operating the vroomba as opposed to the dog which barks and growls at but steers well clear of this apparent alien being. It is worth checking there is no soft mess on the floor before switching on the machine, which will otherwise spread it systematically over the entire floor area.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

iRobot Roomba 620 Vacuum Cleaning Robot

Red Angst

This is my review of Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists by David Aaronovitch.

Born in the 1950s, journalist David Aaronovitch grew up in a bubble of North London Communist Party activists. This book may be of particular interest to someone of about the same age who can recall the impacts of Yuri Gargarin’s space orbits or the Prague Spring, but with events seen oddly through the different end of a telescope. The young David was not allowed to read comics like Beano published by D.C. Thomson, a non-unionised exploiter of labour; he couldn’t be a Cub like his best friend since that would have meant monthly prayers for the Queen and Baden Powell. On the plus side there seems to have been a good deal of jolly socialising and when David’s father Sam fell victim to internal politicking and failed to get promoted as expected in the Party because he was judged “too ambitious”, his contacts with one of the few Communist academics in England enabled him to study for a degree at Balliol College Oxford with Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger singing at his leaving party.

In an interesting parallel with the radicalism of present day second generation migrants, Sam’s Jewish parents arrived in London just before the passing of the 1906 Aliens Act which restricted right of entry, and the grinding poverty and inequality suffered as a child in the Cable Street area triggered his lifelong passion for the Communist cause.

The book falls into three parts. The first is an account of David’s family life from a political viewpoint up to his own resignation from the Communist Party because membership was deemed incompatible with his BBC journalist role.

The second part deals with the interesting ethical dilemmas on which he came to reflect in later life. This is when he discovered that, although the bugging of comrades’ families by MI5 was often ludicrous and pointless, some had, for instance, helped the atomic spy Fuchs to pass information to the Russians. He was also forced to accept that his own father, so often praised for his brilliance and charm, had in fact attempted to restrict freedom of expression by writers in the name of “political correctness” and advocated Stalinist “socialist realism” to counter the threat of American capitalist culture. This brings the author to speculate how repressive a British Communist Party would have been if it had ever gained power, particularly with so many members’ unquestioning reverence for Stalin as “ the great leader”. David Aaronovitch describes vividly how Communist families and friendships were torn apart when disillusionment drove some to quit the Party over Krushchev’s destruction of Stalin’s reputation in 1956, closely followed by Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Uprising.

The third part reworks the family history to expose on a personal level the hidden truth, which the author only laid bare after his parents’ death. Family psychotherapy sessions recorded under pseudonyms by the famous therapist Skynner, and probably instigated by David’s mother Lavender to remedy his difficult behaviour, in fact revealed the dysfunctional nature of his parents’ marriage. Much of his mother Lavender’s harshness towards him appears to have been displacement activity, not just for her stressful life but also deep unhappiness over Sam’s infidelity. The extracts from her diary and intimate details of marital deception, even violence, may stem from the author’s journalistic necessity to provide supporting evidence but I can understand why the manner and intimate detail of his revelations angered some readers, since they made me feel forced into reluctant voyeurism. What began as a wry take on an unusual family ends up as an exercise in public therapy for the author. This book reminds me of Maxim Leo’s “Red Love” analysing an East Germany family, also thought provoking.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists