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

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

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

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]

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)

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

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

No Sacred Hunger

This is my review of Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch.

In what is mainly a seafaring yarn, the East End urchin Jaffy Brown pats an escaped tiger on the nose, lives to tell the tale, is taken up by the menagerie owner Jamrach, eventually sets out on a whaling trip with a detour to catch a dragon for one of Jamrach's clients, and suffers appalling privations in the company of his longstanding friend Tim. I was interested to learn that Jamrach was an animal dealer in real life, although in fact he was fined for letting a tiger carry off a young bystander. It was a bit of a let down when the menagerie faded out of the story quite early on.

For much of this book I felt I was reading an adventure story for teenage boys, admittedly with rather more sex, booze, child abuse and graphic descriptions of cannibalism than some parents would like. At times I felt bored, perhaps because the plot is rather slight to sustain a work of some 350 pages, and I found many of the characters quite sketchily drawn and unengaging. In particular, I was unconvinced by the relationship between Jaffy and Tim's twin sister Ishbel, and felt that the opportunity was missed to develop the complex triangular relationship between these three, which could have given the story a stronger emotional core.

What impressed me most and may justify nomination for a prize, are the vivid, poetical descriptions which pour out of the writer's imagination: the sounds and smells of the Victorian Thames, the lively market in Watney Street, the colourful ports visited on the voyage, the dissection of a harpooned whale after an exhilarating chase, the strange appearance of waterspouts over the ocean, in all their deadly beauty. I was distracted by the fact that Jaffy expresses himself with all the articulate lyricism of a mature female writer, and wonder whether the book would have been better written in the third person (we are told that Jaffy educates himself later in life and I suppose he could be modelled on Joseph Conrad). Also, use of the third person would make the final outcome more uncertain.

At times, the frequent references to people and animals vomiting and "voiding from both ends" become tedious. Some of the descriptions keel over into rambling excess. The style veers times between stream of consciousness and "telling rather than showing".

From Chapter 9, my boredom was replaced by a sense of unbearable oppression over some unremittingly harrowing, repetitive scenes. This may of course be intentional. Sometimes, the detail of shocking events seems almost included for effect, and the reader becomes desensitised to it as a method of coping. Again, this could be deliberate on the author's part. I don't think the moral dilemma in the climax of the book (which I can't reveal), and the key characters' reaction to it are explored enough. Also, in the final details of Jaffy's homecoming, which you know will be achieved since he is the narrator, some potentially moving scenes fall rather flat.

For an adult seafaring yarn which brings characters too close to nature for comfort, I would recommend Barry Unsworth's "Sacred Hunger".

P.S Having met Carol Birch at a book event, I would give her 5 stars for being so approachable and unassuming, and her readings aloud from "Jamrach" are very vivid and moving.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Jamrach’s Menagerie

Amusing Take on Nostalgia for a Lost Paris

This is my review of Midnight in Paris [DVD][2011] [2012].

During a holiday in Paris with his prospective in-laws, Gil, a young Hollywood screenwriter who longs to get a novel published , finds himself transported each night on the stroke of midnight into the world in which he nostalgically thinks he should have been born – the 1920s Paris of Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway. At first, I thought this sounded too silly and feared the film would be full of pretentious arty allusions that I did not “get”.

In fact, the encounters with an array of writers, painters, film-makers and so on prove highly amusing even if you know little about them. The audience laughed out loud at the sight of Adrien Brody made up to resemble Dali, and there is the ongoing humour of Gil causing confusion by letting slip his knowledge of what is going to befall the various characters. There is also his infectious joy every time he recognises some famous face.

The modern-day scenes are also entertaining, with each character possessing a distinct personality even down to the minor characters of Michael Sheen’s “pedantic” academic, with an eye to an affair with Gil’s sexy but petulant fiancée Inez, or Carla Bruni acting quite well, if out of character, as a self-effacing tour guide.

The opening scenes of Paris, in sun and rain, remind us of the timeless allure of this city, and the background of Woody Allen’s beloved slow saxophone jazz, and the Cole Porter and Noel Coward tunes from the `20s, also help to capture the nostalgia for Paris which we all begin to understand if we don’t already feel it.

Owen Wilson is very effective as a mouthpiece for Woody Allen, capturing him even in the slightly scatty and bewildered air and tone of voice, but of course not resembling him at all in being tall, blond and blue-eyed.

This is light, with no claims to anything deep, and turns out to be very enjoyable and in some ways unexpectedly quite wise and thought-provoking about the way, no matter in which age they are born, people tend to hark back to an earlier golden age.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


Midnight in Paris [DVD][2011] [2012]