This is my review of Theory Of War by Joan Brady.

In the aftermath of the American Civil War, a penniless soldier sells a small boy called Jonathan, who may or may not be his own son, to Kansas farmer, Alvah Stoke, in search of some cheap and malleable labour. The irony is that, just after America has been torn apart in the cause of abolishing black slavery, a white boy is effectively made a slave, as it appears was actually the case for the author’s own grandfather whose life inspired this novel.

Deprived of love and affection, not merely education but even decent living conditions and food, Jonathan is soon the butt of bullying from Alvah’s son George, jealous of his intelligence, practical ingenuity, good looks and natural grace. So he is inexorably transformed from a sweet, inquisitive chatterbox into a wary and embittered youth, eventually able to make his escape on one of the new steam trains which capture his imagination. Despite his ability not merely to survive but to succeed against the odds, Jonathan’s psyche is poisoned by his very understandable fury over the years of abuse, and the desire for revenge focussed on George. Moving between scenes from Jonathan’s life to that of his granddaughter as she pieces together his story from his coded diary and the ramblings of his son, alcoholic doctor Atlas, Joan Brady shows how the destructive effects of slavery can blight a family for three generations.

This original, quirky novel drips with cynicism and venom (which happens to be the title of another of Brady’s novels) and includes some at times gratuitously unpleasant scenes, one of which almost caused me to give up. Yet despite this, and the extreme mental or physical ills which seem to beset many of the main characters, this book is a page turner. Apart from being “a good yarn”, with dazzling verbal pyrotechnics and some telling observations, it brings alive a sense of the landscape and pioneering spirit of the States, as railroads are forged west to California, new towns are formed, only to die in a few years, as in the brilliant descriptions of the town of Mogul, “ferried out in the desert” for the purpose of mining stignite. “Mogul was growing up with America, no sewers, no trees, no street lights, no running water: a full-blown boom town geared to the quick sale of everything, alive or dead, worldly or divine. Walls of saloon and Methodist chapel alike advertised whiskey, shaving cream, dried beef and – without so much as a change of paint colour or script style – God Himself and the virtues of cleanliness” and so on for page after page of wry, sparkling prose. Despite the perhaps over-laboured attempt to apply theories of warfare to Jonathan’s battle with George, regardless of the recurring message that life has no meaning, much as we may wish that it did, that “truth’s a convention, a fashion: it changes every year”, being alive is miraculous and wonderful.

It is a pity that this deservedly award-winning novelist, whose own life seems quite intriguing, has not written more and is not better known in this country.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Conclave by Robert Harris.

In his role as Dean, steeped in the rituals and politics of the Vatican, which may well be the cause of his recent crisis of faith, Cardinal Lomeli is peeved when the Pope refuses his request to retreat to a religious order, insisting that he is needed as a manager. Yet when the old man unexpectedly dies, all Lomeli’s skills are needed to ensure that a suitable successor is found out of the clearly far from perfect candidates. Inevitably, Lomeli’s diligence in this respect may give the impression that he is clearing the way for his own election. Since he is a decent man of integrity, would this be such a bad result? Could he be tempted by the prospect of power, or is the weight of responsibility and loss of freedom to roam through the streets unrecognised and browse in a bookshop too high a price to pay?

This psychological drama which I felt compelled to finish in a single day can be read on two levels: a simple question of who will win out in a fiercely fought competition to gain the coveted yet also daunting position of Pope, or a deeper analysis of the condition and influence of the Catholic church in the modern world. Robert Harris seems to me to be making a stinging indictment of the excessive wealth and privilege of the Vatican hierarchy and its ostrich-like divorce from real life. I was struck by the irony of the meek nuns who serve the meals, clean the rooms and provide secretarial support for the male staff and cardinals who take it all as their due.

There is no need for belief to be intrigued by the survival of the medieval ritual of locking 118 cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, segregating them from the rest of the world in the Vatican, until they have chosen one of their number by ballot to become the next Pope. Continuing his preoccupation with the pursuit and exercise of power, possibly offending some Catholics in the process, Robert Harris, has fleshed out the arcane process by his portrayal of the cardinals scheming like a typical bunch of secular politicians in the desire to advance the cause of a favoured candidate, or obtain the role in person.

All too human in their personal flaws, the main protagonists represent a range of characters from different continents and cultures: from the self-styled man of the people to the self-effacing intellectual; the socially progressive and tolerant to highly conservative. The most unworldly and principled may resort to dubious means for a good end or at least to avert what they regard as a bad one. An ambitious liberal may manipulate matters to a point bordering on the criminal, while a wheeler-dealer may destroy his chances through a sudden insistence on what he really believes.

How essential is it for the Church to maintain its unity against growing external pressures from say, atheism, secular moves for social equality, or an ever more militant Islam? Is this unity even feasible, when the ground-breaking step of electing an African cardinal as Pope would mean having a leader intolerant of homosexuality?

The detailed coverage of the prayers and rituals which Robert Harris has researched so thoroughly, the repetition of the procedure of casting the ballot until it is possible to ignite the chemicals which will give the pure white smoke of a result, has proved too dry for some readers. Admittedly, the lists of cardinals and their lengthy titles may have been overdone, but all this creates the necessary context for the drama.

I understand why some have found the ending implausible and somewhat abrupt, but on reflection I decided it was quite a clever, ironical twist, leaving matters open and the reader with further food for thought.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

 

This is my review of 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster.

When Paul Auster was fourteen, the boy next to him was struck by lightning and died. This traumatic evidence of how chance affects our life and death has influenced his writing profoundly, and forms the basis of the mammoth “4321” which narrates the early life of Archie Ferguson, cycling through four versions at each stage.

Characters may be prosperous and happily married in one scenario, failures, even criminal, at odds with their partners, without a partner or die prematurely in others. Ferguson himself is essentially the same: baseball-loving, precociously interested in books and classical music, introspective and observing those around him, developing inexorably into a writer. Since Ferguson is born in 1947, the same year as Paul Auster, the latter seems to be playing games with his own fictionalised autobiography.

The opening anecdote is promising: arriving at Ellis Island, Ferguson’s Jewish grandfather Reznilkoff cannot recall the name he has been advised to adopt and blurts out in Yiddish “Okh hob fargessen” – “I’ve forgotten”. But by only page 150, I felt I had been reading for hours but was less than a fifth of the way through, bogged down in unrelenting detail cutting me off from characters with whom I could engage.

Without the distraction of making notes or continually flicking back four chapters, it was hard to remember which Archie I was dealing with. This was irritating although I decided early on that it does not matter, the main point of the novel being to explore human relationships against the backdrop of the United States’ post-war Rosenberg Trial, Civil Rights, Vietnam conflict history. Those over sixty-five may respond to the nostalgia of recalling long-forgotten incidents, but younger readers, particularly if not American, may be unfamiliar with references which it is assumed one will understand.

The trouble is that Ferguson is not very interesting. His life, whether in a strapped-for-cash or wealthy version, is mostly quite mundane. The rare moments of high drama, such as a death or a serious crime, are stripped of their potential by the matter-of-fact descriptive style. Perhaps it is realistic that people cannot find words adequate to the the shock over Kennedy’s assassination, . “I just can’t believe it”…. “Unreal. A city wihout trees. A world without trees”. This leaves me cold, unlike my memory of Jackie Kennedy still in her bloodstained pink suit, apparently hours after the shooting.

Not only daunting in its length – 866 pages in the hardback version, it is cumbersome to read, too heavy to take on a bus, awkward just to hold open at the right page. Using a Kindle is a solution, but then it is harder to refer back quickly, plus a typical complex sentence is likely to last for several pages with the milestone ending of an interminable paragraph rarely in sight on a small screen.

The sheer garrulous verbosity makes the book seem even longer. Paul Auster can never resist including all the examples which have come to mind, rather than refine them down to one or two. He can’t just tell you that Ferguson was painting the kitchen ceiling when he heard of Ho Chi Minh’s death: you have to know it was “in a three-bedroomed apartment on Central Park West between Eighty-Third and Eighty-fourth Streets”, and that’s a modest example of prolixity. Lists of friends about whom one knows nothing at all are tedious, those of favourite literary works just seem a bit self-indulgent, even pretentious.

I found myself comparing “4321” with Philip Roth’s “Nemesis”, the product of another experienced writer’s “late stage” work, but making the same point about the devastating effects of chance in a much shorter, memorable novel.

I have enjoyed novels by Paul Auster, and will make a point of reading some more since I have bracketed him mentally alongside writers like Saul Bellow, but “4321” lacks the vitality and verbal skill of the equally ambitious “Humboldt’s Gift”. This too has been criticised for being an over-long ego trip! I came to the sad conclusion that the opportunity cost of finishing “4321”, in terms of the other books I could read in the same time, was simply too high.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

 

This is my review of Exit West by Mohsin Hamid.

In the same vein as “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” yet quite different in some respects, this short novel has an unusual, often insightful and moving take on the fraught issue of migration. Saeed and Nadia, two young professionals in an unnamed muslim city, first notice each other at a time when religious militants are beginning to disrupt daily life. One of the first hints of menace comes in the comment that the view from the flat which Saeed shares with his parents would in times of conflict be “like staring down the barrel of a rifle”. Saeed cannot visit Nadia’s flat openly, so he comes at night when she can drop down to him a woman’s black robe to provide a suitable disguise.

When militants gain overall control of the city, with close relatives killed, work places closed down, food in short supply, electricity and water supplies disrupted and Saeed and fearful of touching each other in public, they have little option but to flee. On realising that Mohsin Hamid has resorted to magic realism by having his characters slip through black doors which mysteriously appear to allow people to escape to unknown destinations, irritation almost provoked me to abandon the novel. In fact, he handles this device surprisingly well: apart from adding to the sense of being at the mercy of fate, it arguably it is a method of focusing on the migrant experience of adapting to a series of unfamiliar new settings, and also makes the impact of each cultural change all the sharper.

Mohsin Hamid imagines a London which has almost broken down under the volume of migration, with many of the vacant homes of wealthy residents taken over by squatters. There is a kind of pragmatic tolerance in the eventual decision to build settlements for the newcomers in the Green Belt.

He writes quite subtly of the different ways in which migrants respond: Saeed clings to aspects of their old life, seeking solace in prayer and the company of those of the same nationality, whereas despite her continued wearing of the black robe which keeps the unwelcome attentions of men at bay, the non-praying Nadia finds it easier to put the past behind her. The claustrophobia of close proximity impels them to go foraging alone, despite the risk of being separated if their phone contact is broken. In the disrupton and risk of their old lives, they feel most disoriented when general system failure cuts them off from the internet and online social networks, sophisticated links in stark contrast to their poverty and lack of personal control over their fate. Although maintaing an enduring concern for each other, their relationship is strained to the limit and altered by the changes imposed upon them.

The author arouses a strong sympathy for the migrants, combined with a growing sense that the lives of those in the countries receiving them must be inevitably changed at the same time. He writes at one point of the elderly Californian who feels a stranger in the locality where she has lived all her life which seems to have been taken over by “people who looked more at home than she was, even the homeless ones who spoke no English, more at home maybe because they were younger, and when she went out it seemed to her that she too had migrated, that everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same houses our whole lives, because we can’t help it. We are all migrants through time”.

Perhaps because he felt it necessary to express ideas beyond the experiences of Saeed and Nadia, Hohsin Hamid keeps briefly introducing fresh characters, unconnected to the main storyline line, who pass through the black doors into new lives. This tends to create a disjointed, distracting effect, for me the main shortcoming in an otherwise excellent book which I read in a single day, trying not to pass too quickly over the many acute observations.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

 

This is my review of The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton by Jane Smiley.

Despite caring little about the issue of slavery which is propelling 1850s America ever closer to civil war Lidie Harkness agrees to marry the thoughtful but arguably naïve New Englander, Thomas Newton, a committed “abolitionist”. A book-loving tomboy, who likes to ride a horse bareback, and once swam the treacherous Mississippi for the sheer challenge, she is lured by the adventure of becoming a settler’s wife, developing a “claim” on the “free soil”of the falsely promoted Kansas Territory. All too soon she experiences not only the harsh reality of life on the prairies, particularly in the freezing winter, but also the vicious hostility of the perhaps somewhat stereotyped residents of adjoining Missouri, unwilling to accept a democractically elected slave-free state, convinced that this will destroy the economic and social order.

Perhaps inspired by the divisions in her own family tree, with a grandfather’s branch Southern sympathisers, but her grandmother’s progressive abolitionists, Jane Smiley has researched in depth the fascinating question of whether or not to permit slavery in the newly established states as pioneers pushed further westwards. As a result, the book sometimes reads like a condensed history shoehorned into a novel. I was frustrated by the fact this is often hard to follow, without the disruption of breaking off to check the details elsewhere. It could be argued that, since the narrative is so strongly based on Lidie Newton’s viewpoint, her limited and confused understanding of events is realistic. Instead, she writes with much more precision and insight about filling in the chinks in her cabin walls or forming a relationship with the rashly purchased horse Jeremiah.

Jane Smiley clearly prefers writing in-depth about the complexity and contradictions of relations between individuals and the details of daily life. Although one cannot know how authentic this is, she has managed to sustain what reads like the “voice” of a young nineteenth century American woman – inexperienced and inevitably limited by her upbringing but perceptive and resilient, with a wry humour.

At first, I wondered why this book is not as widely known and praised as Jane Smiley’s “A Thousand Acres” but although it is a page turner in parts, I soon found it weighed down with tedious wordiness, a long list of examples when two or three would do, the same point made several different ways, repetition of words. In short, Lidie’s thoughts and the lengthy disquitisions of some characters could do with a good edt. Yet perhaps the author seeks to emulate the styles of C19 authors she admires, like Dickens, George Eliot and Anthony Trollope. This seems borne out by the way every chapter starts with a quotation from Lidie’s “bible”, “A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home” by Catherine Beecher Stowe, while every chapter and even page is titled with a brief indication of what is happening.

Having gritted my teeth to endure the style, I was absorbed by much of this book, and it certainly created an interest in learning more about American history in the run-up to the Civil War. However, in addition to being over-long and in need of more rigorous editing, it hinges on some unnecessarily implausible plot developments, and its ending seems unsatisfactory, too abrupt (after all the verbiage) and weak.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars