“If Dreyfus is innocent, the generals are scoundrels”

This is my review of The Dreyfus Affair: The Story of the Most Infamous Miscarriage of Justice in French History by Piers Paul Read.

When the passage of time might be expected to have washed away memories, this is only one of several recent books keeping alive "The Dreyfus Affair" in which a Jewish captain was found guilty of espionage in 1894 at an inept and corrupt court martial. Not only is truth stranger than fiction here, but it exposes the deep rift between on one hand the Catholics, bitter over past persecution by the French revolutionaries, yet still considered too influential in education and the army, and on the other hand the secular republicans, often seen as in league with a "syndicate" of wealthy Jews following their "liberation" by the French National Assembly in 1791.

So keen is the author to set the scene that we do not hear much about Dreyfus until Chapter 5. Although leavened with many fascinating details, such as the twisted sense of honour of the military men who arrested Dreyfus, leaving a gun loaded with a single bullet in reach as a hint for him to "do the right thing", this deeply researched study makes exhausting reading at times. This is due partly to the large number of characters with long complicated names, often in inverse length to their importance, also to the author's inability to resist distracting us with facts about them, even if marginal to the main theme.

1890s Paris is presented as a kind of Ruritania with leading figures swapping mistresses, indulging in duels, and accepting bribes to conceal embarrassing facts like the bankruptcy of the Panama Canal Company. Just as expenses scandals at Westminster are made to seem small beer, the excesses of our media pale into significance compared to the bilious anti-semitic outpourings from the pens of "respected" Catholic journalists. There are fascinating parallels with today: Dreyfus was convicted at one stage by a "dodgy dossier"; the need to protect national security was made a reason for not producing vital evidence which was shown, if at all, to the prosecution but not the defence; those who knew or came to believe that Dreyfus was innocent felt that establishing this was less important than maintaining the reputation of the army, whose senior staff had mistreated him. The recent controversy over the French striker Anelka's use of the "quenelle" or reverse nazi salute favoured by his friend the comedian Dieudonné show that the issues surrounding Dreyfus retain their substance, in a different form.

The books succeeds on both a broad historical and personal level. For the sake of his health and his family, did Dreyfus have any option but to accept a pardon even if it implied admission of guilt? Sadly, this capitulation divided his supporters, some to the extent of becoming estranged from him and each other. The final sad irony is the fate that met his loyal wife after his death: to spend her final years hiding from the Nazis in, of all things, a convent.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The Dreyfus Affair: The Story of the Most Infamous Miscarriage of Justice in French History

What Lizzie and Darcy did next

This is my review of Death Comes to Pemberley [DVD].

Not having read P.D. James's novel, which I suspect is an advantage, I found the film version entertaining. This is not a simpering costume drama, but reminded me of the vitality of the Poldark series in its earlier episodes.

P.D. James cleverly pinpoints an ideal plot thread: the existence of the embittered rogue Wickham who keeps turning up like a bad penny to threaten the reputation of Darcy's family. Wickham's apparent crime drives a wedge between Elizabeth and Darcy in quite subtly developed and moving scenes. The parallel dilemma as to whether Darcy's sister Georgiana should make a safe marriage for reasons of property and status, or a riskier one for love is also well handled.

Flashbacks to important dialogues in the original "Pride and Prejudice" are skilfully woven into the plot. Moments of humour are provided by revisiting well-loved situations such as Mrs. Bennett's vulgarity and lack of tact, and her husband's continual attempts to escape her, as in his pleasure at being able to hide in Darcy's library. There is some excellent acting of some "minor" parts, such as the stoical housekeeper with the capacity to rise to every occasion, keeping the staff under her thumb yet kindhearted with it. Trevor Eve does a good job as the cynical neighbouring landowner and magistrate. The scenes of Chatsworth, and, I believe, Yorkshire woodlands and hills are beautiful, the dialogue often sharp, and the plot neither too predictable nor ludicrous, with a suitably nail-biting climax and denouement – apart from a few small queries such as why Wickham, his wife and Denny were travelling on their fateful coach journey on the evening before the ball they intended to gatecrash. Also, Elizabeth and Darcy seem to dress rather plainly for such grand people, and to travel round with remarkably little pomp and protection. Perhaps there is also a tad too much hamminess with people almost drowning themselves out of grief or nearly ending it all with a cutthroat razor.

Although I am not a fan of this kind of sequel, it works quite well here, and I suspect the book may be even better.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Death Comes to Pemberley [DVD]

The Girl on the Train – Fateful Freewheeling

This is my review of The Girl on the Train [DVD] [2009].

Triggered by the real-life incident of a girl who claimed to be the victim of an anti-semitic attack in Paris, this is a tale of cause and effect, the consequences of a random conjunction of events.

Beautiful but scatty, Jeanne’s half-hearted attempts to obtain work as a secretary lead by chance to an interview at the office of successful Jewish lawyer Samuel Bleistein, sometime admirer of her widowed mother played by Catherine Deneuve. Jeanne’s habit of rollerblading everywhere, red hair blowing in the wind, brings her to the notice of an enigmatic, uncomfortably direct and determined young man, Frank. Through a sequence of events, we see how Jeanne is driven to take a dramatic course of action but her motivation for this remained unclear to me.

Beautifully shot with many passing insights into human behaviour and relations, some moments of humour, shock over unexpected violence, or pathos (such as sympathy for Bleistein’s grandson Nathan with his self-absorbed, capricious parents), the film has a fragmented quality, and one observes it without feeling very moved. Although the sense of building up to some kind of dramatic climax held my attention, the rather flat, admittedly realistic ending left me feeling a little dissatisfied.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


The Girl on the Train [DVD] [2009]

Knowing when to quit

This is my review of Homeland – Season 3 [DVD].

Any mass market action thriller is likely to tie itself into knots of implausibility with dollops of repetition by its third series, and Homeland 3 is no exception. Just how many times will Brodie be confined in hideous gaols, Carrie get sectioned after failing to take her meds, or Dana be led astray by a crazy boyfriend?

Homeland 1 caught my attention with its novel approach, for an American series, of being prepared to show the United States government, military and CIA in a frequently unfavourable light, clearly flawed and lacking a monopoly of the moral high ground. The tough marine Brodie may have been brainwashed but seems genuinely drawn to Islam and able to relate to an alternative way of life.

Unfortunately, in Series 3, much of the potential for a subtle psychological thread which would enable viewers to appreciate the series at different levels has been frittered away. For the most part, the writers seem to have lost the plot, with Saul for one behaving in an increasingly bizarre way.

The drama rallies to reach an exciting and interesting climax in Episode 9, but tails off to an unsatisfying postscript to Episode 10 which left me with a bad taste in the mouth. Designed to pave the way for Series 4, was it the usual, and in this case inappropriate, corny, soft-centred American "ending" or a deliberate portrayal of the surviving characters as amoral and self-serving monsters?

Both `Borgen' and `The Killing' are claimed to have ended with Series 3, and the makers of Homeland might have done well to take the same option, not least since ironically they have reached a more clear-cut conclusion.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Homeland – Season 3 [DVD]

Nosing out the truth

This is my review of Identical by Scott Turow.

Cass Gianis is about to be released from his twenty-five year jail sentence for the murder of Dita, spoilt daughter of a wealthy Greek American tycoon, Zeus Kronon. This is bad timing for his identical twin brother Paul's campaign to be elected as Democrat mayor, not least because Dita's grief-stricken brother Hal, infuriated by his failure to stop the release, hits out with the damaging claim that Paul too "had a hand in Dita's murder".

As ever, Turow makes skilful use of legal knowledge to give an authentic ring to a story based on issues of court procedure, modern forensics and DNA. The complex plot twists will surprise even readers with a knack for working out the truth.

Despite finding this a page-turner, I was disappointed by the failure to develop the potential of an interesting drama based on a Greek myth it is best not to check out until the end. In view of his lifelong fascination with twins, Turow provides remarkably little exploration of the relationship between the identical Paul and Cass. Such focus is largely on investigators, former FBI special agent, now Hal's security manager, lesbian Evon Miller and the ageing private investigator Tim Brodie, haunted by the fear of what he might have missed in the murder case first time round. To place more of the "point of view" on the twins and Paul's wife Sofia would have made writing a greater challenge, since it would have been harder to maintain the mystery, but distancing us from these characters makes us care about them less. Why create such a subtle portrayal of minor player Judge Du Bois Lands who is anxious to prove his incorruptibility to the man who shopped his bribe-taking father, but omit do so for Paul and Cass?

Although I quite like the slick, hardboiled tone of American crime fiction, peppered with terms I don't quite understand, the jerky clunkiness of some of Turow's prose grated on me. The switching between first name and surname for minor characters is distracting – it took me a while to figure out that Mel and Tooney are the same person. Too much information is provided in rushed or condensed explanations. In a tale perhaps overloaded with characters, various members of the Kronon and Gianis families who are significant to the plot are reduced to caricatures or cyphers.

This may be one of those books that work better as a film. Did Turow have this in mind, when he created an order of scenes and often sharp dialogue readily adapatable to a filmscript?

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Identical

A fascinating read apart from the baseball

This is my review of One Summer: America 1927 (Bryson) by Bill Bryson.

At a talk to promote "One Summer", Bill Bryson identified the "twin pillars" of this book as Lindbergh's transatlantic flight in the "Spirit of St Louis", a cue to describe the initial development of US air travel, and "Babe Ruth's" impressive score of home runs in baseball – a perhaps somewhat incomprehensible theme of limited interest for non-Americans readers!

However, his research revealed many other intriguing activities in progress at the time: the controversial executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, who may or may not have been murderous anarchists; botched attempts to enforce prohibition, including the state's instructions for wine meant for industrial use to be "denatured" with poisons like strychnine, leading to the manslaughter of respectable citizens; the carving of presidents' heads in Mount Rushmore, too far from any road to be readily visible; the filming of Al Jolson in "The Jazz Age", the first major "talking picture" that marked the death knell of the silent movie age; the bankers' decision to reduce interest rates, claimed to trigger the 1929 Crash, and so on.

Still on form with his gently mocking humour, Bill Bryson demonstrates again his gift for unearthing quirky details. For instance, he cites an architect's impracticable idea for elevated aircraft landing platforms supported at each corner by a skyscraper. It is salutary to be reminded how dangerous air travel was, with many aviators dying in explosions in failed take-offs or disappearing without trace into sea fogs.

Some disturbing insights into American morality lie beneath the jolly surface, such as the Detroit-based Father Christmas dressed as a Ku Klux Klan member complete with fiery cross, which did not seem to spark violent protests at the time. This foreshadows the bigotry which paved the way for the development of McCarthyism post World War 2. Then there is the ready acceptance of "negative eugenics", queasily apparent in the racial superiority implied by the portrayal of Tarzan in the popular stories of the day.

The text seems padded out to extend rather thin material for one summer to fill 500 pages, as for the rather tedious details of a murder case remarkable only for the extent to which a new mass media managed to create such interest in it. To explain an event in 1927, Bryson often goes back even to the previous century to provide further details. I was irritated by the continual breaking off from say, coverage of Lindbergh, to ramble into a different topic for a while. I would have preferred a more thematic approach to give an appreciation of 1920s America in general.

Also, you would think that Bill Bryson of all people would realise that non-Americans aren't that interested in baseball……

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

One Summer: America 1927 (Bryson)

Making a difference

This is my review of Borgen: Series 3 [DVD].

I have met someone who enjoyed `Borgen' starting with Series 3 Episode 9, but recommend watching this from the beginning of Series 1 to understand all the relationships and the context of events!

Promoting this as the last in a series of three is a strategy worthy of Birgitte Nyborg, leaving the audience wanting more yet with the door open for another series in the future, although enough loose ends have been tied to make a 'satisfactory ending'.

Birgitte opens Series 3 as a glamorous, jet-setting corporate executive with a suave English architect as her love interest, but disappointment over the loss of principle in the Moderate party and the addictive challenge of influencing events through negotiation lure her back into Danish politics. In the second major ongoing thread of the saga, the cynical and emotionally conflicted Kaspar Juul has perhaps unconvincingly left the cut and thrust of politics for the at times trivial world of the TV political chat show. Katrine Fønsmark, now the mother of his child, is excited by the risk of leaving her star role as TV presenter to act as Birgitte's new spin doctor.

The new series takes a few episodes to 'settle down', with the political twists delivered at the usual cracking pace, and too many scenes handled in short sound-bites as one struggles to catch both the subtitles and the actors' body language. It is sometimes as if the writers cannot bear to leave any angle uncovered. Once episodes begin to concentrate on fewer issues, such as the overuse of hormones in pork, or complex questions of immigration or the rights of sex workers, real `hot topics' in many European countries, the series improves.

It's a relief yet unnerving when the subtitles disappear and Birgitte begins to converse in flawless English, somehow changing her character in the process.

'Borgen' maintains its edge over most series by covering often in some depth a range of personal issues to at least some of which everyone can relate: a woman's problem in juggling a small child with a career, the ongoing intimacy or moments of jealousy after a relationship has officially ended, the strain of working with an ambitious young boss who wants to work in a different way.

Yes, this is essentially high class soap opera, but it is often moving, humorous or thought-provoking. Consistently entertaining, it avoids a conclusion that is either corny, oversentimental or predictable in its detailed outcomes.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Borgen: Series 3 [DVD]

Qui sommes-nous au juste?

This is my review of Ce Que Le Jour Doit a La Nuit by Yasmina Khadra.

When Younes is transported from dire poverty in the slums of 1930s colonial Algeria to live under the new name of Jonas with his prosperous uncle, good looks ease his path but do not save him from the snobbery of new acquaintances who will never forget he is an Arab. The story is strong on descriptions of native poverty, and also on Jonas's conflicted emotions and loyalties when civil war breaks out over the demand for Algerian independence. Jonas is continually drawn back to his old home, haunted by memories of relatives and neighbours. Under pressure, he feels impelled to speak out on behalf of the oppressed Arabs, he even begins to learn about the history of the struggle, but although you may be carried along by the expectation that he is about to take up arms against his former friends, this may not be in his passive and introspective nature.

Against the background of the deteriorating political and social situation, Khadra confronts Jonas with a moral dilemma which changes the course of his whole life. I sympathise with readers who are unconvinced by his behaviour – which is of course necessary to sustain the plot – and admit to finding him almost masochistic, wallowing in adverse situations.

The story seems long, often repetitive and over-reliant on coincidences. The passages describing carefree teenage years with friends are rather dull and stereotyped, although perhaps necessary as rose-tinted memories on which he can dwell in later life. The style of emotional passages is somewhat overblown. This suggests the likelihood of a rather sentimental film version, which I plan to avoid.

The text is cliché-ridden, a mixed blessing for a non-French reader: I noted many idioms, but it was time-consuming looking them up. Does Khadra use so many stock platitudes because he was taught English as a second language? Khadra is of course a man, who adopted the female pseudonym of `Yasmina' to avoid adverse repercussions whilst he was still employed by the Algerian army.

The novel fosters a greater appreciation of the term `Nostalgerie', coined to describe the tendency of 'pieds-noirs', exiled in France, to exaggerate the pleasures of life in pre-independence Algeria, refusing to face up to recent changes, rather like some of the characters at the end of this novel, although not Khadra himself.

Jonas reaches some telling conclusions about life, but these might have come better at the end. For me, the dramatic climax and appropriate ending is Chapter 17, which could have been revamped to come after Chapter 19, thus removing the Final Section 4, set in the early C21, which ties up loose ends, but drags the story on too long into the realms of sentimentality and leaving nothing to the imagination.

Much shorter, more tightly written and plotted, `Les Hirondelles de Kaboul' seems a considerably more profound and moving work, perhaps ironically in view of Khadra's Algerian origins.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Ce Que Le Jour Doit a La Nuit

Love and grudges growing underground

This is my review of The Progress Of Love by Alice Munro.

Alice Munro, whose short stories remind me of the work of the "groundbreaking" Katherine Mansfield, seems to break every "rule" of creative writing courses. On a rough estimate frequently up to around 13,000 words in length, stories digress and ramble from a central theme that has to be deduced, although it may remain unclear until the end. Plot is unimportant, although certain "key" events emerge in what sometimes proves to be a carefully planned order.

Tension may arise over shocking events – like a person drowning – with anticipation fed by the knowledge that the crisis may come in the middle of the tale, then may be allowed drift away to a bland, even incomplete-seeming ending, or the drama may itself be defused abruptly, or ebb away. Munro's attention flits between people's insights, often derived from the minor events of life, a strong sense of place, or scraps of conversation which have an authentic ring, as if based on comments overheard (say, young children talking) but embellished to fit the situation.

Munro explores the thoughts and relationships of ordinary people carrying out their daily tasks in smalltown Canada against the backdrop of lakes, forests, changing weather and shape-changing winter snow. She draws heavily on her own situation: father a farmer, mother a perhaps stern teacher, who fell ill when Monro was still young, possibly creating the dilemma of whether the latter should sacrifice herself to stay at home as a carer, like many of the women in her tales, or strike out to claim her freedom as Munro did. She writes of early marriages, motherhood, divorce and second partners, all part of her own life. The question of losing one's memory with age clearly interests her, together with the way we sometimes distort the truth, almost deliberately twisting memories to how we would have them be, or accepting the convenient assumptions of others and making them the truth.

I agree with the view that her stories, though clearly too short to be novellas, are packed with as much content in terms of events, relationships and insights as many novels. I was also relieved to read that Joyce Carol Oates's review did not baulk at finding some stories wanting. It is true that what seem like important aspects, like the course of a developing relationship, are glossed over, leaving the reader feeling unengaged with "central" characters. Also, some stories seem overcomplicated, appearing to cover too much as what seems to be the central theme emerges.

For me, the most successful stories are `The progress of love' about a woman's relationship with her mother whose life she has clearly made huge efforts not to imitate, `Fits' which explores people's prurient reaction to violent death and almost angry disappointment with a witness who declines to feed their ghoulish curiosity, and `White dump' about the collapse of a marriage in which a mother-in-law may have played an unwitting part, and its lifelong effects on the daughter of the union.

Readers will draw different meanings from each story, and vary in those they prefer, or believe they understand. This anthology will repay rereading in the future, when one's perceptions may have changed.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The Progress Of Love

Found without translation

This is my review of Bel Canto (Italian Edition) by Ann Patchett.

In a botched attempt to capture the president of an unnamed South American dictatorship, terrorists resort to taking hostage a disparate group of foreigners who happen to be attending the birthday party of Japanese CEO Mr Hosokawa, where the star turn has been the performance of Roxane Coss, the renowned international soprano with whom he has become infatuated.

The potential for a tense drama is rapidly dissipated by the author's soft-centred, overblown style. To be fair, an exciting and pacy plot is clearly not her major concern. The siege of the Vice-President's house serves as a means of creating a bubble, isolated from the rest of the world, in which, relieved from normal pressures, routines and expectations, the characters have time to take stock of their lives, observe their surroundings from a fresh viewpoint, form unexpected relationships and identify talents they never knew they possessed.

At first, the uneven quality of the prose, the wordiness and focus on mundane details made tedious reading and I was tempted several times to give up. There is a child's fairy tale quality in the lengthy attempts to provide some logical support for unlikely situations. It was hard to engage with the large number of characters, most of them male but with a rather similar and female "voice" – the author's? Perhaps the slightly contrived, stagey nature of some scenes is part of a deliberate attempt to make the hostage-taking into a kind of opera.

Looking for reasons to continue, I noted the unusual, imaginative nature of the story. Ann Patchett creates a wide range of characters who prove to be quite interesting. There is the odd striking description, or telling insight, such as the fact that for many hostages and terrorists, the new way of life created under siege may be preferable to and more real than that outside, to which perhaps there can be no tolerable return. There are many moments of comedy, and others of real poignancy. An ongoing and fascinating theme is how people manage to communicate when they do not share a language.

So, I began to find "Bel Canto" more absorbing yet remain unconvinced that Gen, the Japanese interpreter, could be quite so skilful in so many languages, or that a young hostage could be quite so word and note perfect in imitating Roxanne's singing, to give two examples of implausible aspects. Unlike some reviewers, I thought the ending quite effective, although perhaps the epilogue went a bit too far in tying up loose ends.

Even if you have serious reservations over the quality of the writing, or the development of the plot, this is likely to stimulate lively and wide-ranging discussion in a book group.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Bel Canto (Italian Edition)