Watching paint dry on the house that Jack built

This is my review of Dora Bruder (Folio (Gallimard)) by Patrick Modiano.

In an example of "autofiction", "fictionalizing a real event in a writer's life", Modiano is obsessed for years by his chance discovery in a Paris newspaper dating from December 1941 of a "missing person's notice" for the fifteen-year-old Dora Bruder. She is the only daughter of Jewish immigrants who have sent her to a local Catholic boarding school perhaps partly in an attempt to protect her. Half-Jewish himself, the author readily identifies with the poignancy of her position in seizing a brief freedom before the largescale "round-up" of Jews, including women and children, the following year.

Modiano embarks on a forensic study of records to find out more about her, made hard by the widespread destruction of documents once it was clear that the Nazis had lost. He fills the gaps with speculation which I often found irritating since it is based on such thin data: did she travel between home and school by metro, with or without her parents, and by which stations? As he traces the streets she must have frequented, repeatedly wandering them himself in a mood of reflective nostalgia, I began to wish he had included a few maps and photographs. With his interest extending to her Jewish neighbours, he notes how large areas of the locality have been demolished as if in an attempt to erase some of the guilt of French involvement in the holocaust. At the same time, he manages to weave in experiences from his own troubled teenage, even drawing parallels with his brief arrest for causing a "breach of the peace" with his father and his running away from home. He is annoyingly vague about these events, for which ironically he has the details.

There is great potential in his approach of trying to piece together the past, exploring half-memories and lingering influences of previous lives conducted in streets which are partly remarkably unchanged, partly derelict, partly superimposed by a new wave of construction and a heedless modern existence. It could be argued that the factual description and heavy reliance on speculation highlight the pathos of the theme: that people could be deported to Auchwitz for omitting to wear a yellow star often enough for mean-spirited neighbours to notice. Yet for me, the banality and most of all the excessive repetition of details were at times intolerable. Modiano's insistence on providing several times over, for instance, precise addresses and information on whether street numbers are odd or even made me wonder if he had OCD. Detractors have criticised the fact that many of Modiano's novels have the same basic approach of gathering information to trace the past of a missing person, and this deters me from reading more of his work, apart from his autobiographical "Un Pedigree" (for another book group) although his straightforward prose is good practice for improving one's French.

Some reviewers have compared Modiano's work to Sebald's "Austerlitz", which for me was a much more striking, impressively original and moving work, more worthy, I would have said, of a Nobel Prize.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Dora Bruder (Folio (Gallimard))

Seeing the wood for the trees

This is my review of Henry VIII (Penguin Monarchs): The Quest for Fame by John Guy.

The "Penguin Monarchs" series sets out to provide a separate concise and readable introduction to each of the British rulers from Athelstan to Elizabeth ll, written by a different specialist in each case. Well-known for his accessible coverage of the Tudor period, John Guy has chosen to focus on Henry's quest for fame. This was not achieved in quite the fashion intended, since he is mainly infamous for his often mistreated six wives, whereas his desire to be crowned in Paris as the rightful King of France or to become the "the arbiter of international disputes" came to nothing.

Perhaps because the details are quite condensed, the author succeeds in highlighting some key aspects of Henry's personality and the motivation for his actions. Charismatic in his youth, handsome, shrewd, interested in the arts yet also athletic, prepared to promote competent men of lowly origin like Wolsey or Cromwell, he could have left a positive legacy. Yet, childhood experiences of Yorkist rebellions triggered the fear which bred his almost paranoid mistrust of others, perhaps also fed by his calculating father's cynical example. With the additional effects of the physical excesses which ruined his health, and the impatience and arrogance which made some see him as "the most dangerous and cruel man in the world", inevitably many of his policies became corrupted.

To free England from papal authority and end the greed of the great monasteries may have been beneficial in the long-term, but these ideas were the unintended by-product of Henry's obsession to find a way to divorce an infertile wife for one who could provide the male heir needed to secure not only his dynasty but the security of the realm. Also, to use the monks' plundered wealth to finance unnecessary and abortive wars or to execute those who would not renounce the old faith were indefensible acts. Henry's concern to judge people via the legal system and to legalise change using Parliament was laudable but the resultant manipulation of justice by his henchmen and crushing of true democracy were tyrannical. His belief that the King of England really was Christ's deputy ironically led him to seek to re-impose what was in effect a form of Catholicism without the Pope.

The author's concluding points are telling: Henry's vast and costly wardrobe designed to impress, Holbein's portraits which revealed "the sitter's soul" in an unflattering way which Henry perhaps fortunately failed to observe, and, in true "Ozymandias" style, the grandiose planned mausoleum left unassembled in a workshop until the bronze was sold off a century later – to fund a future war. There's also a useful bibliography at the end for those who wish to know more.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Henry VIII (Penguin Monarchs): The Quest for Fame

Caught in the light

This is my review of Mr. Turner (Two-Disc Special Edition) [DVD] [2014].

We are introduced to Mr Turner as a middle-aged man, with only hints of his past life as the talented son of a Cockney barber, or his rise to fame as a painter entertained by aristocrats and displayed at the Royal Academy. Nor is there any clear explanation of his messy personal life, with inconvenient visits from a shrewish ex-mistress, justifiably angry over his neglect of her and their two daughters, one now with a child of her own.

Timothy Spall portrays Turner as eccentric and boorish, yet capable of deep affection as shown to the jolly old father who mixes his paints and makes up picture frames, in between shopping for a pig's head in the local market. Perhaps Turner's misogyny, also suggested by the casual sexual exploitation of his downtrodden and doting servant Hannah, stems from the trauma of having a schizophrenic mother carted off to Bedlam when he was a small boy. However, painting is not the sole channel of his sensitivity and vision: he can be moved to tears by Dido's Lament, and, admittedly in a drunken haze, shows empathy for poor Effie, the oppressed wife of Ruskin, portrayed here as a ghastly prig whom Turner delights us by taking down a peg or two.

Although we are shown Turner ageing, pained to hear the public turning against his later more abstract works, and finding solace in a secretive relationship with the Widow Booth, this film is a series of scenes which combine to form a vivid impression not only of Turner as a man but also of early nineteenth century life. The film's attention to period detail is impressive with the inclusion of a myriad of characters who may appear only in passing. It is like being a fly on the wall, or bird in flight, observing Turner silhouetted against the kind of sunset light which endlessly fascinated him, leaning on the rail of a ferry bound for Margate, weaving his way along narrow crowded quays to Mrs Booths' lodging, greeting other great painters at the Royal Academy or being rowed towards the Temeraire as friends joke over the likelihood of his painting it: "I shall cogitate upon it," he drawls.

We see Turner's insatiable curiosity as when he visits a photographer for the first time, quizzing the supercilious man who mistakes him initially for an ignoramus. Or when, showing a respect for women when they demonstrate talent, he invites a natural philosopher home to demonstrate how nails may be magnetized by the colours of the spectrum – at the forefront of scientific thinking at the time.

Most scenes are low-key, often quirky yet revealing, such as Turner being pestered for money by an unsuccessful painter, or the pails set round his domestic display room to catch the drips of rainwater through the ceiling. There are also some powerful dramatic scenes, as when Turner rejects a wealthy businessman's offer to buy up his works for a vast sum, since he has resolved to leave them to the nation to be viewed "gratis". Sadly, they were not to be retained in one place as he had hoped.

On reflection, I decided this is an outstanding film which makes one think about Turner as a man, flawed and complex, and want to find out more about him and his times. Yet, the massive hyping made me expect to be impressed, so that some of the earlier scenes, such as the improbably atrocious music at an aristocratic soirée were a disappointment.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Mr. Turner (Two-Disc Special Edition) [DVD] [2014]

Only the truth

This is my review of The Undertaking by Audrey Magee.

The undertaking is Peter Faber's marriage "in absentia" to Katharina Spinell, a Berlin bank clerk whom he has yet to meet. The motives are mercenary on both sides: he wants ten days' leave from the Russian front which makes more sense in the following chapters recounting his ordeals in Kharkov and Stalingrad, whereas she is attracted by the prospect of his war pension if he dies. As loyal followers of the Reich, accepting Nazi propaganda without question, they are happy to fall in with Hitler's half-baked scheme for keeping up population growth at the height of battle. To their surprise, although perhaps partly because of the unreal situation, they develop the mutual love which motivates them to survive many vicissitudes.

Apart from this spark of hope, "The Undertaking" pulls no punches when it comes to the portrayal of war, as the pair begin to realise, in their very different situations, that German soldiers are not invincible against an inferior foe, the Russians are not the useless, cowardly peasants they have been led to expect, and the war will not be a rapidly won victory. It takes a while for the penny to drop with two main characters who are portrayed in a realistic rather than flattering and heroic light. Without any compunction, Katharina joins her callous parents in occupying a luxurious flat from which a Jewish family has been driven; on his "honeymoon", Faber takes part without question in the nocturnal eviction of Jews organised by the sinister fixer Doctor Reinart and he persists in believing a fellow soldier is a communist of doubtful loyalty because he is Russian – unable to grasp the tragedy that, as a Russian born in German territory, the poor man belongs nowhere. Yet the reader knows that Faber and Katharina will be punished more than they deserve, since Faber is on a march to Kharkov and Stalingrad, while Berlin is destined to be looted by drunken Russians who will perpetrate mass rape out of revenge.

The author is quite clever in glossing over historical details which does not matter, as she seems true to the spirit of the times: the moral confusion, the reduction of human beings to a basic animal state under duress, and the inescapable hand of chance. Gripping but bleak, well-constructed with some excellent dramatic moments and insights into the main characters' thinking, the story reaches a well-judged conclusion, which leaves the reader with a good deal to mull over.

"The Undertaking" is in my opinion superior to a number of recent novels which have received much more attention and hype.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

The Undertaking

Out of mazy emotion

This is my review of The Cleaner of Chartres by Salley Vickers.

Although it shares with the bestselling “Miss Garnett’s Angel” the topics of church restoration and the ghostly background presence of a “Gabriel”, this novel has a sufficiently distinct storyline. A little exotic in her colourful skirts, Agnes works as a cleaner at Chartres Cathedral, whether as a means of forgetting the past or in atonement for some past deed is unclear until the end.

Switching between past and present, the novel reveals the sadness of her previous life after being found abandoned in his orchard on St. Agnes Eve by a kindly farmer who thinks she will be better off with the nuns than in a children’s home. Labelled “retarded” owing to her inability to read, she is struck by a chain of misfortunes as a teenager, with inadequate support from both the blinkered nuns and a bungling medical service. The ambiguity as to her guilt or innocence in all this and the tension as to how matters will be resolved in the present make this a page-turner, together with the wrily humorous yet also often poignant portrayal of a variety of characters, the beautiful descriptions of Chartres Cathedral which make you either want to visit it or wish you had paid more attention when you did, and the intriguing details on the history and mythology surrounding it – even if these are too often embedded in a rather clunky fashion into the monologues of the handsome hunk Alain waiting in his conservationist’s scaffolding to carry off the appealing Agnes.

There are a few too many coincidences in the plot, which occasionally teeters on the brink of Mills and Boonland. The greatest flaw for me is the tendency to digress into too much detail at every opportunity: when a character remembers finding her husband kissing the maid, you have to be told exactly which wines she had in mind on her unexpected visit to the kitchen, but some will find this adds charm to the novel. Knowing that the author has worked as a psychotherapist, I sometimes felt that she has been unable to resist the temptation to weave in too much of the welter of experience and analysis stemming from her work. Despite this, the story is in the main saved from mawkishness by her wit and insight. I think I found it more moving than the better known “Miss Garnett’s Angel” and recommend it, although I suspect it will appeal mainly to female readers.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The Cleaner of Chartres

“Le Jeune homme vert” (Folio) (French Edition) by Michel Déon – Une vie pleine de promesses

This is my review of Le Jeune homme vert (Folio) (French Edition) by Michel Déon.

A C20 take on “Tom Jones”, this novel’s original French title of “Le jeune homme vert”, denoting the hero Jean’s initial natural naivety, has been lost in translation to become, “The Foundling Boy”.

Jean is discovered in a Moses basket on the doorstep of a simple, kindly childless couple. The wife Jeanne claims him as her own to bring up, taking a stand against the attempted interference of Mme de Courseau, the imperious lady of the local manor. Jean turns out to be handsome, robust, charming and irresistible to women, yet somehow manages to remain fundamentally decent and unassuming. Despite doing quite well in his school leaving exam, Jean begins to drift through life with no clear aim. He takes the opportunity to travel, mainly to England where he accepts the hospitality of some wealthy or dubious (sometimes both) characters. When he needs money to live, or wishes to stay near his parents in rural Normandy, Jean works at a variety of dead-end jobs of the kitchen porter or nightclub bouncer variety. In the process, he learns a good deal about life, human nature and love. The urge also grows to discover his real parentage: he is not too bothered about the identity of the father which may never be known, but is keen to know who is mother is. The insights jotted in his private journal reveal a certain cynicism. For instance, he notes that keeping friends separate from one another is often a good idea.

The story rambles along with so many digressions that I began to suspect the author of padding out a thin plot. Some of the early chapters are hardly about Jean at all, but rather the local landowner Antoine Courseau. Bored with his cold wife and the duties of his inheritance, Antoine keeps taking off, often at high speed, in his latest Bugatti, drawn inexorably to the warmth and light of the Mediterranean coast and to his waitress lover Marie-Dévote. Perhaps a little shell-shocked by World War 1, Antoine seeks out old comrades-in-arms with whom he has more in common than his family.

The appeal of this book lies its powerful evocation of time and place, in particular France on the brink of World War 2, sleepwalking into disaster with the complacent assumption that, if it comes to it, the Germans will be beaten back in a few weeks. The coverage of events in England is less convincing, as are some of the more exotic characters leading an often extravagant lifestyle such as the mysterious Prince with his black chauffeur Salah, or the conman Palfy.

The author’s tendency to reveal the future fate of a particular character, or to note whether or not he/she will reappear in the story later is an irritating distraction – like having an over-enthusiastic person leaning over your shoulder to tell you what’s going to happen next – and this unnecessary device tends to break any sense of immersion in the story.

Yet, despite this and the occasional “longueurs”, I enjoyed many of the vivid descriptions, quirky characters, wry humour and amusing incidents enough to want to read the sequel, “The Foundling’s War” – “Les Vingt Ans du jeune homme vert” in French. Written very much from a man’s viewpoint e.g. of women, I suspect it is likely to appeal more to male readers.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


Le Jeune homme vert (Folio) (French Edition)
 

“The Foundling Boy” by Michel Déon – Calm before the storm

This is my review of The Foundling Boy by Michel Déon.

A C20 take on “Tom Jones”, this novel’s original French title of “Le jeune homme vert”, denoting the hero Jean’s initial natural naivety, has been lost in translation to become, “The Foundling Boy”.

Jean is discovered in a Moses basket on the doorstep of a simple, kindly childless couple. The wife Jeanne claims him as her own to bring up, taking a stand against the attempted interference of Mme de Courseau, the imperious lady of the local manor. Jean turns out to be handsome, robust, charming and irresistible to women, yet somehow manages to remain fundamentally decent and unassuming. Despite doing quite well in his school leaving exam, Jean begins to drift through life with no clear aim. He takes the opportunity to travel, mainly to England where he accepts the hospitality of some wealthy or dubious (sometimes both) characters. When he needs money to live, or wishes to stay near his parents in rural Normandy, Jean works at a variety of dead-end jobs of the kitchen porter or nightclub bouncer variety. In the process, he learns a good deal about life, human nature and love. The urge also grows to discover his real parentage: he is not too bothered about the identity of the father which may never be known, but is keen to know who is mother is. The insights jotted in his private journal reveal a certain cynicism. For instance, he notes that keeping friends separate from one another is often a good idea.

The story rambles along with so many digressions that I began to suspect the author of padding out a thin plot. Some of the early chapters are hardly about Jean at all, but rather the local landowner Antoine Courseau. Bored with his cold wife and the duties of his inheritance, Antoine keeps taking off, often at high speed, in his latest Bugatti, drawn inexorably to the warmth and light of the Mediterranean coast and to his waitress lover Marie-Dévote. Perhaps a little shell-shocked by World War 1, Antoine seeks out old comrades-in-arms with whom he has more in common than his family.

The appeal of this book lies its powerful evocation of time and place, in particular France on the brink of World War 2, sleepwalking into disaster with the complacent assumption that, if it comes to it, the Germans will be beaten back in a few weeks. The coverage of events in England is less convincing, as are some of the more exotic characters leading an often extravagant lifestyle such as the mysterious Prince with his black chauffeur Salah, or the conman Palfy.

The author’s tendency to reveal the future fate of a particular character, or to note whether or not he/she will reappear in the story later is an irritating distraction – like having an over-enthusiastic person leaning over your shoulder to tell you what’s going to happen next – and this unnecessary device tends to break any sense of immersion in the story.

Yet, despite this and the occasional “longueurs”, I enjoyed many of the vivid descriptions, quirky characters, wry humour and amusing incidents enough to want to read the sequel, “The Foundling’s War” – “Les Vingt Ans du jeune homme vert” in French. Written very much from a man’s viewpoint e.g. of women, I suspect this is likely to appeal more to male readers.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


The Foundling Boy
 

Race to the top

This is my review of UPWORDS. 1996 PARKER GAMES. THE 3D GAME OF HIGH RISE WORD BUILDING..

Having been introduced to this recently as an alternative to scrabble, it takes a while to get used to the different technique of changing words by building them up vertically to a maximum of five tiles in height. This often means changing short simple words in a "race to the top", rather than aiming to achieve long ones with high value tiles on squares giving double/triple word or letter scores. I suspect Upwords is less sophisticated and satisfying than Scrabble in terms of the potential to create interesting words, but it presents a new and different challenge.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00IFD4ZW8/ref=nosim?tag=nowordlimitco-21NaNUPWORDS. 1996 PARKER GAMES. THE 3D GAME OF HIGH RISE WORD BUILDING.

“The Missing” [DVD] – Missing links

This is my review of The Missing [DVD].

On a carefree holiday in France, Tony and Emily suffer every parents’ worst nightmare when their five-year-old son Olly is abducted. With the heavy use of rapid switches back and forth in time, from the abduction in 2006 to the present day of 2014, it is often only possible to gauge the year from the colour and style of the distraught parents’ hair.

It turns out that the gripping, often unexpected plot twists of a detective thriller are in fact secondary to exploration of the psychology of losing a child. The couple pass through phases of clinging together for comfort, of anger and blame, of being brought together by occasional surges of hope, and of the simple inability to be together as before, with the constant memory of the missing Olly driving a wedge between them. Emily strives to move on and create a new life where she can be happy, but still glimpses the all too flesh-and-blood ghost of her son. Tony stubbornly refuses to give up the search, even at the cost of antagonising virtually everyone and losing his job, with only the bottle of wine he cannot afford to dull his senses.

Most of the characters are quite fully developed, with a subtlety which, for instance, can arouse some sympathy for a man struggling with paedophile tendencies. There is also the irony of the French detective Baptiste having suffered the pain of losing a child, but in a different way.

Overall, the acting, character development and settings are excellent. Although the plot twists are reasonably convincing or coherent in the main, I agree with reviewers who have felt that the drama would have been more effective with fewer episodes, achieved through editing out some of the “longueurs” of sub-plots.

There seems to be a current trend, perhaps set by “The Killing” for long, complex, gripping serials which seek to break the model of a “happy-ever-after-ending-against-the-odds-after-terrible-suffering” with an open or only partially explained conclusion. Apart from disappointing most viewers, this also leaves the cynical thought that the stage is set for another lucrative series, although in this case I have read that Series 2 involves a new, separate case. On reflection, I decided that the ending is quite clever in leaving viewers to argue over the final outcome. Also, is it one step beyond being able to cope with a sad ending to find the capacity to accept that, as in real life, you never discover for certain what happens or that matters do not work out as you might have wished?

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars


The Missing [DVD]
 

Three hundred dollars’ worth

This is my review of The Homesman [DVD] [2014].

In an unusual take on a mid-nineteenth century western, Hilary Swank produces a striking performance as Mary Bee Cuddy, an industrious and competent woman who is making a success of farming in a remote Nebraskan pioneer community. Although men respect her, no one is prepared to take such a bossy and plain woman as a wife. Instead, they trek east to find pretty, submissive women who are often completely unsuited to the hard rural life where there is no social security net to help those driven mad in the face of persistent crop failure, loneliness, infant mortality or perhaps the sheer scale of the treeless landscape which often resembles an ocean beneath the vast skies.

Mary Bee agrees to accompany three such "crazy" women on the demanding five week trek back east to the care of a kindly Iowan pastor. Realising that she cannot achieve this single-handed, she saves from a lynching the disreputable "George Briggs", no doubt one of many aliases, played by Tommy Lee Jones who also directs the picture. The outcome of the journey proves quite unpredictable, with a twist which viewers may find hard to accept, but which makes sense on reflection.

Apart from being well-acted, with superb photography and a haunting opening musical theme, this film has stunning photography of the bleak beauty of the Nebraskan high plains, some moments of comedy, but is essentially a grim tale. At times it regresses into a standard "shoot `em or burn `em" western, and some scenes designed to explain further the women's insanity are hard to take, and a little too disjointed. However, overall, the film's unusual theme makes it worth watching. It made me think more deeply than before about the particular plight of women trapped in pioneering communities about which they must often have been misled in advance. It also presents a somewhat nihilistic view of life in which people nevertheless continue to do good, perhaps in spite of themselves, achieving small successes even if they are soon forgotten. The inconclusive ending is very apt.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The Homesman [DVD] [2014]