The Rites of Ming

This is my review of China: A History by John Keay.

This thorough, systematic history provides an informative and readable textbook.

I like the introduction which challenges the myths which have arisen over The Great Wall, the Grand Canal, the Long March and even the Giant Panda. Although I appreciate the author's point that a history of China calls for a focus on the distant past because its culture is so "historically conscious" that "the remote is often more relevant", I am not sure that the author actually identifies this relevance very often! Yet it is salutary to realise how relatively advanced the Chinese have been for so long, compared to the west.

However, taking 300 pages to cover the first two thousand years without quite reaching the date of the Norman Conquest of England proved too much detail for me to absorb. My solution as a "general interest reader" was to move to Chapter 14 on "The Rites of Ming", the time span 1405-1620, i.e. contemporaneous with the late Renaissance in Europe. Although the characters do not come alive as individuals like, say, the Tudors, it is interesting to read about the size and scale of the Chinese voyages of the famous eunuch Zheng He with up to 300 ships, the largest over 130 metres long compared with the pioneering voyage of Columbus with only three ships, none longer than 20 metres. Yet, rather than dominate the seas, the Chinese fleets were laid by to rot, after the emperor's decision (or was it that of the scholar-bureaucrat mandarins?) to turn his back on overseas enterprise. The conflicts between the emperor, who despite his "heavenly power" could only "dispose", and the mandarins who "proposed" his actions are also intriguing.

It is hard to keep track of the various states, so that more small maps at relevant points would have been useful.

I recommend this book as a useful text to have on one's shelf for reference, although I am personally more interested in the last couple of centuries of Chinese history i.e. its contact with the west.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

China: A History

Powerful Story and Beautiful Prose Marred by Flawed Structure

This is my review of The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna.

This tale of the intertwined lives of three men living through the aftermath of a terrible civil war in 1990s Sierra Leone has the potential for a moving and thought- provoking drama.

It begins with Elias Cole as he suffers a slow painful death, haunted by memories of his obsessive love for Safia, the lovely wife of a charismatic colleague. Driven by the apparent desire to make some death-bed confession, but on his own terms, his calculating and manipulative personality is revealed.

Then there is Adrian, the introspective British psychiatrist with some vague urge to do good in a developing country struggling to recover from its shattered state. In fact, he is escaping from his marriage, for reasons that remain unclear. His affair with the beautiful Mamakay, who makes a sudden appearance well into the book, does not entirely convince me, and the guilt he feels for abandoning his wife and daughter is insufficiently explored.

Thirdly we have Kai, the young doctor traumatised by the horrors of the war, his nightmares alternating with nostalgic memories of his girlfriend Nenubah, whom I imagined for a long time to have perished tragically in the fighting. Kai makes the decision to emigrate to the States, lured by the encouragement of his best friend Tejani, but it is unlikely that he would do this without worrying more about the fate of Abass , the young nephew for whom he acts as a father. I also found the graphic descriptions of Kai conducting operations unnecessary – they serve only to give the author an opportunity to show off medical knowledge gained to give the book an authentic touch.

Forna creates a vivid impression of the scenery and way of life in Sierra Leone. There are many descriptive passages of haunting beauty, but also self-conscious exercises in creative writing. It may be intentional to create a slow pace in which fleeting impressions seem as meaningful as major events, but the constant focus on small details, say of Adrian watching a stranger play with her child on a Norfolk beach, distracts the reader too much from the thrust of the story and blurs the plot. For instance, the arrest of Julius, his subsequent fate, his wife Safia's reaction, and Elias Cole's acts of betrayal should be much more striking events, rather than buried in descriptions of other things. There should be more of a sense of impending unrest, say in Elias's Cole's account of past events.

It is probably quite brave, certainly challenging, for a female author to switch between the viewpoints and complicated lives of three male characters. However, this structure, together with continual moves back and forth in time with the frequent reporting of dramatic events, rather than enacting them "live", further combine to fragment the storyline and weaken the impact of any drama.

There is also the very irritating habit of changing tense from past to present and back. Perhaps the present tense is meant to give more of a sense of immediacy, which makes it odd that it is applied to descriptions, say of Kai scrubbing up for an operation, rather than his dramatic explanation of the reason for his trauma.

There are too many shadowy characters introduced only to drift away or storylines which remain underdeveloped, such as the case of Adrian's patient Agnes, his relationship with his mother, even with Ileana…I could provide many more examples. We seem to be involved in the plots of several novels, tangled together.

For me, the flawed structure became a real barrier to appreciating and admiring the work, which resembles a promising but sprawling draft in need of editing and reorganisation.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

The Memory of Love

Inspiration for Reading Groups

This is my review of Bloomsbury Essential Guide for Reading Groups by Susan Osborne.

This is very helpful for suggesting ideas for books when a group is floundering round for the next set of titles. Classified by theme e.g. childhood, growing up, growing older, death and how we cope with it, friendship, etcetera, it features 75 titles – mostly written during the past 20 years, and safely between pulp fiction chicklit and obscure highbrow fiction. We are given a summary of each book – perhaps a little more info than I would like in some cases, a potted biography of the author, background to the novel, discussion topics and related resources e.g. interviews with the author.

The author has clearly put a good deal of work into this, and it is certainly labour-saving for a reading group organiser, also summarising a range of resources available, such as websites of literary magazines which review books.

I was initially sceptical because the opening advice on setting up a group seems a bit obvious and patronising e.g. “the easiest way to start a reading group is to begin with friends”…”If you have a small group, two missing members might mean that you want to reschedule”

A few useful points have been omitted such as the fact that sometimes sets of books can be obtained through the local library. The University of the Third Age deserves a mention. How to obtain books – e.g. secondhand through Amazon for as little as one penny plus postage is also worth flagging up. Working through local community groups and having a space on a website, or one’s own website is another area to include.

This very useful book lends itself to having an “online” version which can be updated regularly.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


Bloomsbury Essential Guide for Reading Groups

Still intriguing, but is it going off the boil?

This is my review of The Leopard: A Harry Hole thriller (Oslo Sequence 6) by Jo Nesbo.

Compulsive reading but often distasteful and utterly implausible. The opening pages seem to display the trademark features of a Harry Hole novel: the author enters the mind of a victim about to die horribly by an unusual and horrible device, then switches directly to the mind of, it seems, the crazy serial killer.

Yet I soon began to notice a difference. Perhaps with a film script in mind, or in order to appeal to an even larger international audience – people with a reading age of eight- Nesbo forsakes his customary interweaving of past and present for a straightforward linear plot – less confusing, but also less interesting. The style is slick and thin – short paragraphs, staccato sentences and few of the references to life in Norway that give the earlier novels a distinctive touch. At times, it verges on the cartoonish: "Harry Hole, she thought. Gotcha." There is too much of the corny: one of the first of the rare "lengthy" descriptions is of the improbably beautiful and sensitive new female detective sidekick Kaja.

So, I almost decided to give up on this book which seemed on balance no better than a run-of-the-mill,crudely written, casually brutal pulp fiction pot boiler.

Then, the twists in the plot began to catch my interest. I found myself reading on to discover how on earth Harry would get out of the next hole – is that a reason for his name? – how some fresh conundrum would be solved, or which of the possible villians would turn out to be a red herring, which for real.

As ever, this often crass and amoral tale throws up some intriguing twists such as the murderer who is manipulated out of revenge by a man he has wronged, and touches on philosophical questions, such as whether and when mercy killing can be justified. I just wish these could be developed a little more thoughtfully.

There is clearly space in the overall scheme for at least one more Harry Hole novel, but is it time to take last orders on this series? Is it all getting too formulaic? Also, Harry's liver must be on the brink of giving out. It is increasingly hard to believe that this mutiliated and scarred character can appeal to a string of beautiful woman, and retain the physical strength to escape from tight corners and fight off powerful adversaries.

This overlong novel hiccups to a close with "just one more chapter" to dot another "i" or cross a "t". Nesbo seems too involved in his flawed creation to call it a day…..

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

The Leopard: A Harry Hole thriller (Oslo Sequence 6)

Funny if dated

This is my review of Travels with my Aunt (Twentieth Century Classics) by Graham Greene.

Henry Pulling, a staid former bank manager, is induced to accompany his eccentric Aunt Agatha on her travels, only to find himself shaken out of his dull rut of retirement and gaining a new perspective on the moral values he has always taken for granted.

Despite references to smoking pot and Andy Warhol, this book seems a little dated even for the sixties when it first appeared. It reads more like an Evelyn Waugh type novel from the 1930s. Farcical and light-weight, it entertained me for a while, being very funny and imaginative in places, with the fluid style with which Greene made writing appear deceptively easy.

By the middle, I was growing bored with Aunt Agatha's endless recollections of past lovers, all of whom seem implausible and two dimensional. The details of her tricks to get money through the customs are somewhat tedious and confusing. She began to seem an unsympathetic character, manipulative and callous in her treatment of the loyal caricature Wordsworth, and vindictive towards the woman who has remained faithful to a former lover they have both shared. I could never quite believe in Agatha's enduring relationship with the unappealing Visconti.

The story builds up well to quite an effective climax, in which the darker side of Greene's writing reveals itself – the preoccupation with Catholicism, and a cynical view of human nature, as conveyed by the party to which Visconti invites former enemies and potential business associates but no real friends.

Some of the travel writing, such as the description of Asuncion is quite vivid and interesting.

I like the way Greene uses the story as a vehicle to expound his own insights, observations and theories about life. For instance, his views on tea bags:

"one of them was raising a little bag, like a drowned animal, from his cup at the end of a cord. At that distressing point I felt very far away from England".

Or, the following exchange:

"Surely that's only a legend."

"There speaks a protestant…Any Catholic knows that a legend which is believed has the same value and effect as the truth. Look at the cult of the saints."

I sensed that Greene himself may have grown bored with the novel before completing it but he is such a skilled writer that it's still worth reading, if not as good as it could have been.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Travels with my Aunt (Twentieth Century Classics)

Informative and Readable

This is my review of Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East by Martin Sixsmith.

This is popular history at its best.

Selection of the key points from the past millennium of Russian history is made to seem deceptively simple. Sixsmith continually makes connections to bring characters and events alive. For instance, his description of Ivan the Terrible veering from "pestering" Elizabeth 1 with marriage proposals to raining insults on her following a trade dispute made me realise that their reigns overlapped.

Sixsmith consistently draws parallels between events, enabling us to see patterns. In the C9, the Slavs of Novgorod begged the Viking Rurik of Rus (hence the modern name for Russia) to rule over them, just as many Russians welcomed the strong line taken by Putin in 1999, as he rolled back the "liberalising" measures of the 1990s, arguing that a more autocratic "managed democracy" was necessary to maintain order in a vast country where liberal values lacked "deep historical traditions".

The author cites how, way back in 1015, after King Vladimir naively left his kingdom to be ruled equally by his twelve sons, two of them submitted to being murdered rather than risk a civil war by resisting their brother Svyatipolk's bid for power. This sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the group is likened to the action of Komarov, the veteran cosmonaut who set off on a Soyuz flight dogged by technical faults, which he did not expect to survive, because otherwise "they" would send Yuri Gargarin (the first Russian in space) instead of him.

Yet again, links are made between the chaos after the 1917 Revolution, and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1917, there was the confused period of "dual power" when, both occupying the same building, the liberal "Provisional Government feared the raw strength of the Soviet Worker's Deputies, but the Soviet apparently feared the responsibility of governing", until the Bolsheviks "hijacked ..freedom and democracy" and imposed a centralised dictatorship even harsher than the one they had overthrown" . In 1991, having let the genie of pressure for democratic freedom out of the bottle, and survived an attempted right-wing coup, Gorbachev was pushed out of the presidency by the shrewder popular hero Yeltsin, although the latter's liberal reforms were doomed to fail.

This is the clearest explanation I have read of both the 1917 Revolution, and the chain of events of the last two decades, including such misjudgements as the valuation of state assets at only 9 billion dollars (150 million people receiving a 60 dollar voucher each which they of course sold off for short-term gain to a handful of oligarchs like Abramovitch) and the scandal of the "sale for loans" of the residual industries to Russian oligarchs.

Sixsmith seems quite hard on Lenin, and no doubt experts will find much of his analysis simplistic. However, I recommend this very readable and informative overview of a fascinating country – the kind of book I would retain as part of a permanent "personal library".

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East

“Russia’s Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall” by Jonathan Haslam – Fascinating subject – often confusing read

This is my review of Russia’s Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall by Jonathan Haslam.

This deeply serious history, unadorned by any photographs, even on the cover, is distinctive for presenting the Cold War from a Soviet perspective, and for making use of “previously inaccessible” archives. It increased my understanding of, say the level of US ignorance of European geopolitics during and just after World War II, and of Stalin’s machinations, largely based on fear of the intentions of any person or state that might threaten his power. It contains many pithy and revealing quotations. The extent of leakage of British and US correspondence and plans via Russian spies is also intriguing.

However, I found this a hard read. The author makes little attempt to consider the needs of his readers. Some of the main events, such as the terms of the Yalta Agreement are referred to as if one is already familiar with them. This rather begs the question as to why one would need to read the book. Space which could have been used for brief explanations is instead taken up with a string of “minor characters” who, when they prove hard to recall on an unforseeable reappearance, sometimes cannot be found in the rather inadequate index. I also found a few distracting typos e.g. 1939 instead of 1919. I formed the impression that this book has been culled rapidly from copious notes by a busy academic, with the result that some paragraphs seem full of non sequiturs, which even after several readings may remain fairly unclear. For instance, on page 72 a paragraph begins:

“In March 1946 London and Washington finally cemented intelligence cooperation with the UK-USA agreement which updated its predecessor, BRUSA, concluded in 1943. Kennan’s long telegram relaunched his idling career. It arrived just as the White House had to make sense of continued failure to redress Truman’s attention.” Why is this section separated by a good deal of digression from that on page 71 which explains some of the contents of the telegram?

Likewise, on page 82, a section headed “The Truman Doctrine”, does not clearly explain what this is. “The Truman doctrine was thus proclaimed in a ‘panic move’. Addressing Congress on March 12, Truman anathematized communism in general on the false assumption that it was entirely directed from the Kremlin as it had been before 1941.” Very interesting, but what exactly was the Doctrine, and why should communism be condemned on the above grounds?

Worse than this, on page 95, a section headed, “No more communist uprisings for now” launches into references to the PCF and PCI policy (whatever they are) and references to Thorez, without making the context at all clear, even after the reader has struggled to work it out using the index. It all makes for a confusing read.

Owing to the need to cover systematically the period from 1917 to the fall of the Berlin Wall, this boils down to a rather dense poitical history of modern Russia, often jumping from one sub-section to another with a very different theme, rather than a succinct analysis of the “Cold War”.

With better editing, this could be an excellent book. As it stands, it calls for a reader with a good deal of time and patience. Perhaps its value is mainly as a reference book for students. I have made a note to return to it after I have tried a few other takes on Soviet Russia, and the “Cold War” to see what it may add at that stage of my understanding

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars


Russia’s Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall
 

“Comedy in a Minor Key” by Hans Keilson – Too Low Key?

This is my review of Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson.

I was inspired to read this by the recent obituary for the author Hans Keilson, who died aged 101. Forced to flee as a young Jewish man from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands, he drew on this experience to write this short novel about a Dutch couple, Wim and Marie, who agree to hide a Jewish man in their spare room, only to find themselves confronted with the problem of how to dispose of his body after his untimely death.

With its focus on the mundane practicalities of ordinary life, this book seem very realistic, but is mostly saved from seeming boring by the author’s ability to create drama out of simple incidents. Without giving too much away, there is the scene where Nico, the Jew in hiding, is drawn downstairs by the smell of milk burning on the stove at the very moment when the fishmonger knocks on the door, expecting to gut some fish in the kitchen for Marie. Even though you know that “it will be all right”, this is a situation of real tension, as is also the case when Wim and the doctor remove the body from the house under cover of darkness. Having said this, I think the book would have benefited from more heightened drama, say at the end when the couple are uncertain whether or not they have “got away” with their subversive act of harbouring a Jewish refugee.

Revealing his insight as the psychiatrist he later became, the author provides telling descriptions of the characters’ small shifts in emotion. For instance, despite his gratitude, Nico hates a vase that Wim brings home and begrudges the couple their pleasure in it, because it symbolises the freedom that he has lost to go out and buy a luxury item on a whim (no pun intended).

I agree with the reviewer who found the shifting back and forth in time at the beginning rather confusing, although I do not think it matters unduly. However, in terms of structure, it might have been more moving to show the relationship growing up between Nico and his saviours, without knowing from the outset that he is going to die. When this death comes, it could have been portrayed as more of a shock. I also found the characters a little wooden at times, and did not care about them as much as I thought I should.

Although much of the translation is excellent, a few passages seem rather trite, such as the account of Wim and Marie’s relationship after Nico has died. I think this weakness has to be laid at the author’s door, and the final pages – which should be the climax of the book – are somewhat rushed and, as stated above, to be a missed opportunity for a final burst of powerful drama.

I am left uncertain as to how “good” a writer Keilson was. Is his understated approach a strength, or the result of a limited capacity to express himself? He has used his knowledge to create a compelling situation, but could he have done more with it?

Perhaps we should appreciate a writer who steers clear of overblown prose. The odd observation stands out, such as the use of the description of the door of Nico’s room after his death to convey how his visit has changed the couple’s lives permanently:

“The black door handle remained at the horizontal, as always.

But it seemed to them both that the door was closed in a way it had never been closed before.”

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


Comedy in a Minor Key
 

Watching paint dry

This is my review of Fields of Glory by Jean Rouaud.

This English translation of the original Goncourt Prize winner, "Les Champs d'honneur" is useful for deciphering some of the obscurer French paragraphs, but I found the style intolerably stiff and unnatural. Is the translator a German speaker? This might account for what seemed like the over-literal translation which cries out to be edited line by line to create some semblance of natural flow.

The story itself may resonate for French people with memories of taciturn chain-smoking grandfathers driving leaky Citroen 2CVs through the interminable drizzle of the Lower Loire. With the admitted extra handicap of being an English speaker reading the original French version "Les Champs d'honneur" in translation, I found the whole chapters devoted to driving a beaten up 2CV, the rain, or the religious mania of a spinster aunt the literary equivalent of watching paint dry.

There were some striking descriptions, say of the landscape of Provence, and the book culminates in some haunting scenes on the experience of a gas attack in the First World War, or the exhumation of a brother, hastily buried by a stranger after a battle, but for me the build up to this was too slow and tortuous.

I gradually realised that the book was a study of how the First World War blighted the lives of not only the generation who suffered it directly but also their descendants. However, in "working backwards" through a series of in the main very mundane incidents with attention to minute detail of little interest, not to mention the endless digressions, I felt that I was reading fragments of a story in a fog.

I was always unclear in exactly which decade the narrator's boyhood was set and I was left quite confused by the last chapter at the cemetery (it's an unremittingly gloomy book) as to the blood relationship between the various characters, which until then I thought I just about understood.

⭐⭐ 2 Stars

Fields of Glory

Fragmented in the Mist

This is my review of Les Champs d’Honneur by Jean Rouaud.

This may resonate for French people with memories of taciturn chain-smoking grandfathers driving leaky Citroen 2CVs through the interminable drizzle of the Lower Loire. With the admitted extra handicap of being an English speaker reading this in translation, I found the whole chapters devoted to driving a beaten up 2CV, the rain, or the religious mania of a spinster aunt the literary equivalent of watching paint dry.

There were some striking descriptions, say of the landscape of Provence, and the book culminates in some haunting scenes on the experience of a gas attack in the First World War, or the exhumation of a brother, hastily buried by a stranger after a battle, but for me the build up to this was too slow and tortuous.

I gradually realised that the book was a study of how the First World War blighted the lives of not only the generation who suffered it directly but also their descendants. However, in "working backwards" through a series of in the main very mundane incidents with attention to minute detail of little interest, not to mention the endless digressions, I felt that I was reading fragments of a story in a fog.

I was always unclear in exactly which decade the narrator's boyhood was set and I was left quite confused by the last chapter at the cemetery (it's an unremittingly gloomy book) as to the blood relationship between the various characters, which until then I thought I just about understood.

The only motivation for reading this book was to improve my "literary" French, in which regard it serves a useful purpose.

I used the translation by Ralph Manheim to guide me through some of the obscurer passages. It did not help that the translation seems very stilted and I had to wonder if English was Manheim's first language!

⭐⭐ 2 Stars

Les Champs d’Honneur