Books

Consoled by the certainty of inner liberty

This is my review of Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.

The recent film version prompted me to reread “Suite Française”, in which Part 1, “Tempête en juin” comprises vivid accounts of various Parisians escaping by car or on foot from the feared imminent German invasion of 1940, only to find themselves strafed from the air by enemy fire, or struggling to find adequate bed and board. Irene Nemirovsky’s characters are often stereotypes: the rich are mostly concerned to protect their possessions and status, and rapidly regress under pressure. A wealthy connoisseur of art, his car loaded with carefully packed porcelain, callously steals cans of petrol from a gullible young couple when he runs out of fuel. A pious mother who has encouraged her children to share their sweets with others descends to scolding them for this when she finds there is no food left to buy in the shops en route. The poor with little to lose are often more generous.

Part 2, “Dolce”, the core of the recent film, is much less fragmented, focusing on the effects of the military occupation on the small provincial town of Bussy. While the sight of German soldiers arouses bitter thoughts in the wives and mothers whose men are dead or missing at the Front, the young single girls are rapidly attracted to the soldiers, like moths to a flame, as are the swarms of local children. A complex relationship develops in which the locals resent having to hand over their firearms and horses, but the shopkeepers enjoy the chance to sell goods at inflated prices. The “heroine”, Lucille has led a quiet life, dominated by her wealthy but embittered mother-in-law, Madame Angellier, obsessed by the loss of her son emprisoned in Germany. Lucille has rather more ambivalent feelings about the husband she was pressurised into marrying who has turned out to be unfaithful, openly expressing disappointment that she has proved much less well off than he was led to believe. When Mme Angellier is obliged to billet Lieutenant Bruno Von Falk, Lucille finds herself drawn to an "enemy" she has been instructed to cold shoulder, yet feels drawn to as an individual.

A continual insight in this novel is the way people in war suffer because they are forced to “follow the herd”, losing their individuality in the process. The characters with “finer feelings” share the sense of being consoled by what the put-upon bank clerk Maruice Michaud describes to his wife as “the certainty of my inner liberty….this precious and inalterable gift, which it rests only with me to lose or to conserve..The first thing is to live. From day to day. Endure, wait, hope”.

Irene Nemirovsky, does not flinch from allowing the violent hand of fate to strike down some characters on a fairly arbitrary basis, as was the case for the author herself. Already obliged to wear the yellow star, she was deported to Auchswitz only to be gassed shortly after completion of the second part of her novel. So, the intended five-section, one thousand page French equivalent of “War and Peace” was sketched out but tragically never completed.

Read in French, “Suite Française” has a particularly powerful impact. When writing about the weather, scenery, the rural way of life, animals – especially cats – the author’s lyrical style reminds me of Colette’s. She had the ability to capture and explore people’s internal thoughts, their shifting perceptions and the development of their relationships, often expressed with a wry sense of humour.

Since she cannot have had time to edit it, the work is remarkably coherent and well-developed. The poignancy of her fate casts a shadow over the book as one reads.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Suite Francaise

The day’s deep indifference to what is said

This is my review of The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín.

In this novella, Mary the mother of Jesus – although he is never referred to by name – recalls aspects of her son's life, the preaching, miracles and his crucifixion. Her take on events is original, and may offend some believers. It does not trouble me that Tóibín may have altered the order of events and inserted some "inaccuracies" in what is anyway a controversial reality.

According to Mary, the disciples were misfits and her son used his talents to lead them into trouble. She implies that he raised Lazarus from the dead with reluctance, as if he knew it to be a misuse of his powers. Certainly, Lazarus's sister Martha was "afraid that what she had asked for was being granted" and it is clear that Lazarus is unnerved and bewildered by his experience of death, and no one feels at ease with him afterwards, wanting but not daring to ask questions.

Mary perceives her son's talk in public as "high flown" and "riddles, using strange proud terms to describe himself and his task in the world", a kind of manic grandiosity when he describes himself as the Son of God.

Mary describes how, to her abiding shame, she ran from the scene of the crucifixion before her son was dead, to avoid the risk of being captured herself. Afterwards, she is dogged by earnest men, I assume the gospel writers, who wish to extract every word of her first hand testament for posterity. One of them is delighted by her dream of seeing her son raised from the dead, which implies that her memories will be twisted to suit the facts of a new religion, or discarded if they do not fit. Hiding in Ephesus from the authorities who killed her son, Mary is drawn to the goddess Artemis who gives her a sense of release. When her minders assure her that her son has redeemed the world through his death she responds that "It was not worth it".

The prose style is striking, eloquent, often poetical – not the first person "voice" of a simple, illiterate woman living in the middle east two thousand years ago, but rather that of the writer. This had the effect of distancing me somewhat from Mary's grief, although I found the work gripping. It seemed to lose its way a little after the crucifixion, but comes to a clear conclusion.

In my attempt to confirm what the Irish Catholic, at least by upbringing, author meant to convey, I discovered that this book was first produced as a stage monologue, in the Broadway production of which, "Mary is seen smoking what appear to be joints of marijuana and swigging from a commercially labelled liquor bottle". This concerns me as so much of the strength of the piece seems to lie in the quality of prose writing to be read and reflected upon individually, rather than declaimed with dramatic effects. I appreciate that the lyrical style lends itself to being spoken aloud, which may appeal more to some people.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

The Testament of Mary

A great traveller in the world

This is my review of Thomas Cromwell: The untold story of Henry VIII’s most faithful servant by Tracy Borman.

Thomas Cromwell is perhaps best known for the Dissolution of the Monasteries, both to raise money for Henry Vlll and to disband subversive centres of loyalty to the Pope. He also masterminded the legislation required to make the King head of the Church of England and to declare invalid his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

Tracy Borman portrays Cromwell as a man of contrasts. He was ruthless in disposing of enemies by "act of attainder" which meant they could be convicted and executed without the right to put their case in court. He used torture to extort a probably false confession that the circle of young men surrounding Anne Boleyn, including her own brother, had been her lovers. Yet when his friend the poet Thomas Wyatt was inadvertently arrested in this affair, Cromwell found the time to reassure and get him released. There is irrefutable evidence that Cromwell took bribes, for instance in return for letting farmers stay on their lands affected by dissolution of religious houses. When enlarging his property at Austin Friars, he moved the garden fences to encroach twenty-two feet on neighbours' land, confident that no one would dare to challenge a rising star in the King's service. Yet he regularly ensured that dozens of poor people were fed at his gate, and often helped friends and acquaintances in trouble.

Largely self-taught, highly intelligent with a remarkable capacity for hard work, Cromwell also possessed a perhaps unexpected wit and charm. In the poisonous, back-stabbing hothouse of the Tudor court where Cromwell was despised for his working class origins as a blacksmith's son, he had to be a tough risk-taker to achieve what he did, although arguably he went too far in frustrating and humiliating his nemesis the mighty Duke of Norfolk. Ostensibly Cromwell's undoing was the unfortunate choice of an unattractive fourth bride for Henry, "the Flanders mare", Anne of Cleves. In fact, he overreached himself in deviating from his usual pragmatism to follow a sincere belief – his continued support for the introduction of Protestantism, one of his main achievements being the installation of an bible in English in a large number of churches. This alarmed a King who was at heart a conventional Catholic (papacy apart) and allowed himself to be convinced that Cromwell was plotting his downfall. Capricious and paranoid with advancing age, "a little over seven months after the former chief minister's execution" the king was heard to reproach his ministers for having persuaded him "upon light pretexts" to execute " the most faithful servant he ever had".

Tracy Borman has made a complex history accessible to those with no prior knowledge, also providing enough fresh detail to hold an informed reader. My sole criticism is the lack of consistency in including some quotations in modern spelling, others in the written anarchy of the day which make them hard to read, together with the way many words have changed in usage. Cromwell's spelling seems particularly mangled: " your most….obbeysand ….subiett and most lamentable seruant and prysoner".

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Thomas Cromwell: The untold story of Henry VIII’s most faithful servant

Subversion of the framing by “the 1 per cent”

This is my review of The Price of Inequality by Joseph Stiglitz.

High-flying US economist “gone native”, Joseph Stiglitz provides a blistering attack on “the government of the 1% by the 1% for the 1%” in which this privileged minority has gained a massive proportion of national income and wealth, at an increasing rate, using its influence to “frame” the perceptions of the rest of the population who think it “fair” for the top 20% to have 30% of the wealth, without realising that the actual figure is 85%. The American dream of “the land of opportunity” is, he claims, a myth.

British readers are reminded strongly of our own situation as he describes the increase in poverty at the bottom end of the scale with cuts in benefits and income supplements, the hollowing out of middle class employment and polarisation of the workforce between “high” and “low” skills. The young are particularly affected by the burden of debts for university courses of often dubious quality which have led not to well paid jobs but rather ill-paid zero hours contracts.

Perhaps writing this at a time of undue optimism over the uprising of youth in the Arab Spring, he cites the parallel “Occupy” movements in the West which suggested people have had enough of the inequality which inevitably results in a less stable and, ironically, productive society. Matters were brought to a head by the financial crisis of 2007-8, stemming from the failure to regulate banks, and their cynical predatory lending of sub-prime mortgages to those unable to repay, which led in turn to the costly government bail-out of banks “too large to fail” – yet another example of the unfair protection of the wealthy at the expense of the poor. As Stiglitz points out, it would have been cheaper and more equitable to give state assistance directly to the struggling mortgage holders, enabling them to stay in their homes, thus maintaining communities, and to pay the lenders a proportion of the equity when they eventually come to sell. This may of course be an example of the perhaps Utopian approach Stiglitz follows in his ultimate set of proposals for “the way forward” in a better alternative world.

He has some intriguing revelations, such as the fact that despite Ben Bernanke’s stated support for transparency, the Federal Reserve was forced to admit that before the 2008 crisis it had even been lending money to foreign banks. “In the months after Lehman brothers collapsed, large banks like Goldman Sachs were borrowing large amounts from the Fed, whilst simultaneously announcing publicly that they were in excellent health.”

I was interested in his assertion that, rather than use austerity measures against the poor to cut deficits, it makes more sense to reduce some of the causes of the debt, such as the inflated cost of government procurement e.g. of military supplies, or the excessive charges demanded by pharmaceutical firms for the drugs needed by Medicare for the aged.

Stiglitz has a gift for explaining economic principles – excessive deregulation, “rent-seeking” by the rich, the inequity of monopoly, the underestimated costs of “negative externalities” like pollution – in very clear and accessible terms. My only criticism on this score is that the whole tortuous business of derivatives, flash trading and Credit Default Swaps could have been explained a little more clearly for the general reader, together with the way taxation of companies can be manipulated to increase fairness.

His wide-ranging reform agenda at the end is a little rushed and compressed, with some policies such as “maintenance of full employment” (which he argues to be more important than focusing on inflation) or “correcting trade balances” or “legal reform to increase democratic access to justice” being complex topics each deserving a book in its own right. He is effectively advocating a form of democratic socialism which may be more familiar to Europeans yet revolutionary to free market individualistic “stand-on-your-own-feet” Americans. I keep wanting to tell him that all this has been attempted, but is much harder than he makes it sound, to the extent that many well-intentioned politicians have rowed back on their idealism. However, it is refreshing to find an eminent American economist so full of conviction with his heart in the right place – he must really irritate some of his former right-wing colleagues of the 1%.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

The Price of Inequality

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

This is my review of On Liberty by Shami Chakrabarti.

Shami Chakrabarti’s media appearances always win my admiration for her passionate sincerity, eloquence and the humour bubbling up beneath the intense conviction. So, I had high expectations of this account of more than a decade of employment, mostly as Director, of Liberty, formed in 1934 as the National Council of Civil Liberties in response to the brutal police handling of the Jarrow hunger marchers.

The author concentrates for the most part on her work, rather than personal life, reminding us in the process of the wide-ranging erosion of our civil liberties during the turbulent first decade of this century, which we too readily forget in the face of the rise of the Islamic State which we failed to foresee, the strangling of the Arab Spring in countries like Egypt, the tragedy of Syria and ongoing appalling treatment of the Palestinians.

Often, it is not until the section of a new law is implemented that its lack of clarity or potential to cause injustice is exposed. So it is that Liberty has campaigned against police restrictions on the right to demonstrate peacefully; extradition of British citizens to countries where they may find it impossible to mount a defence and be subject to harsher law; the holding without charge of non-UK nationals suspected of terrorism – Liberty’s mantra is “Charge or release”. Shami Chakrabarti deplores the reduction in legal aid for the poor, and mocks the blunt use of ASBOs rather than measures to address the causes of delinquency. She cites Tony Blair’s own anecdote of the youth who explained that he couldn’t vote for him as he had been banned from the school where the ballot was to be held, plus the sadder ludicrous example of the suicidal woman banned from setting foot on bridges.

Shami Chakrabarti has particularly harsh comments for the Labour Party which might have been expected to protect liberties more than the right: Tony Blair’s desire for six month “Control Orders” on suspected terrorists was eventually wittled down to a twenty-eight day detention power, far longer than that permitted in the States or France, and a flagrant contradiction of the Common Law principle of a person being innocent until proved guilty. These Orders, like the attempts to return suspected terrorists to countries of origin where they might be tortured were all based on the fear and security concerns triggered by 9/11.

Shami Chakrabarti likes clichés, and alternates a chatty style with some tortuous sentences (possibly written in a hurry) which I sometimes struggled to understand. Since even strong supporters of Liberty will take issue with some of the stances she has taken, I would have liked more recognition on her part of considered differing viewpoints, such as the problem that some asylum seekers are really economic migrants, and that too fast a pace of entry puts an excessive stress on UK infrastructure, housing supply and the indigenous poor.

Liberty’s work is controversial since it may defend the rights of criminals and bogus claimants , but that is not the point. As Shami Chakrabarti reiterates, what matters is that justice, fairness and equality under sound laws are upheld, on the basis that if they are not, eventually one’s own rights will be at risk. “You don’t know what you had till it’s gone.”

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

On Liberty

In pages of patchy insight

This is my review of In Times of Fading Light by Eugen Ruge.

The fact that the author, like his "anti-hero" Alexander, left Berlin just before the fall of the Wall, gives an authentic ring to this saga of four generations of a family living in East Germany under Communism and later unification. The chapters switch back and forth, adopting different viewpoints between 1952 and 2001. This allows us to see the characters' estimation of each other, and adds the intriguing spice of knowing how their lives will turn out, but not yet how or why.

Each chapter is like a short story – for me, the most perceptive and entertaining were the accounts of self-absorbed and semi-senile former Communist party activist Wilhelm's ninetieth birthday. He cold shoulders a couple whose son has defected to the West, unaware that his grandson has just done the same. In the eyes of his great-grandson Markus, whose desire to be an animal keeper is fated to remain unachieved, Wilhelm resembles a sharply observed pterodactyl, who on a generous impulse gives him his stuffed iguana.

Although I was fascinated by the theme and wanted to admire this book, it proved hard going. Perhaps owing to the translation, the style often seems leaden. Scenes are continually overloaded with mundane, wordy descriptions, which is doubly irritating since some of the major incidents are never fully explained. There is a tendency to recall events rather than enact them, although the shifting timeframe would readily permit this more dramatic approach. So, it is merely conveyed in the odd paragraph how Kurt ruined his own health and inadvertently brought about his brother Werner's death by sending him a mildly subversive letter which landed them both in a Soviet camp. Any sense of guilt that Kurt may feel, the traumatic effect on his mother Irina, are never explored in any depth.

I looked mostly in vain for the sense of menace combined with crass futility of life under the Stasi that one finds in, for example, the superb film, "The lives of others". The most sinister scene for me is when, returning to Berlin after a period of exile in Mexico, Charlotte becomes convinced that the plum job which has lured her back is a trick. The smoker in a dark leather coat who keeps directing probing glances her way is the first of several who will eventually lead her and Wilhelm into custody, signed confessions and ultimate disappearance. "Where were the people whose names are never mentioned anymore? Who not only didn't exist but had never existed?" Yet, when we next meet them, Charlotte and Wilhelm are comfortably employed in their promised posts, in a world of servants, string-pulling and relative luxury.

For me, a real sense of the grimness of East Germany rarely comes through, as in the powerful scene in which Kurt pursues his rebellious son Alexander through the rundown streets in the vain search for a restaurant that will serve a decent meal. "A subway train rattled by – but the subway trains here ran on an overhead line, while the suburban trains ran underground. The world turned upside down …….. passengers like cardboard cut-outs descending into hell."

A potentially brilliant novel which for me does not quite come off.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

In Times of Fading Light

Getting heated over cool reason

This is my review of A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy by Jonathan Israel.

A prolific expert on the Enlightenment, Jonathan Israel tends to produce books of daunting length, so this is relatively short at about 240 pages. He is keen to prove that historians have tended to neglect, even deny, the profound ideological influence of radical Enlightenment C18 thinkers on the outbreak of the French Revolution. Only the diffusion of works by such writers as Diderot and d'Holbach, designed to achieve a revolution of ideas as the first step to real change, can explain the events triggered by the meeting of the Estates General in 1789.

Jonathan Israel explores in detail the "irreconcilable" division between the Radical and Moderate Enlightenments. The former believed in the use of reason, with a secular morality divorced from the distorting effects of superstitious religions, although some radical thinkers appreciated ethical Christian teaching. They called for equality, which required a representative democracy, freed from the self-seeking tyranny of kings and aristocrats, for tolerance and freedom of expression. To the moderates, this was at best over-optimistic and naïve. Tradition and the existing order were essential to maintain the fabric of society and God-given moral values. It is interesting to realise that the revered Voltaire belonged to this camp, corresponding with Frederick the Great of Prussia to deplore the idea of giving "enlightenment" to ordinary people who would be unable to cope with it. Similarly, the "moderate" Locke's support for the equality of the soul but not of physical status, meant that he could invest in the North American slave trade with a clear conscience and advocate the establishment of a new nobility in the Carolinas.

Ironically, members of the Counter-Enlightenment converged with the bloody French dictator Robespierre in condemning the Radical Enlightenment as a clinical, mechanistic approach to society, seeking to subvert natural human sentiment.

Frequent convoluted sentences and condensed ideas together with a tendency to list philosophers or their works call for prior knowledge and make for a challenging read. I found the best way to deal with the book was to skim through once for an overview, and then to work back through more slowly to grasp some of the more complex ideas, such as Spinoza's controversial and fundamental theory that mind and body are "one substance" or material, thus "reducing God and nature to the same thing, excluding all miracles and spirits separate from bodies, and evoking reason as the soul guide to human life, jettisoning tradition".

The result is that I have learned a good deal about the complexity of the Enlightenment and the conflicting ideas of its main protagonists. Writers on this fascinating theme tend to focus on different aspects, presenting contrasting views of philosophers and ranging over a wide field in a discursive and often confusing fashion, so piecing one's knowledge together from a variety of sources feels like gluing together a collection of shattered pots with intriguing designs.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy

Loving – living in his way

This is my review of Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut.

E.M.Forster, known as Morgan, hates the stuffy conventions and snobbish prejudices of middle-class Edwardian society, yet is unable to break away from living with his mother who reaches the ripe old age of ninety. He recognises his sexuality, but for years is only able to express it abroad, in Egypt or India, by forming risky unequal relationships with young men from the other side of the race and class divides. In similar vein to Colm Tóibín's novel, "The Master", based on Henry James, Damon Galgut has chosen to fictionalise Forster's life rather than produce a biography, no doubt because this gives free rein for his creative imagination to get inside the author's head and embroider facts to suit his interpretation. He is at liberty to pick and choose what he wishes to include and emphasise.

Although I often found Morgan's furtive fumblings quite tedious, it is undeniable that Galgut's subtle prose has the power to enable heterosexual readers to understand the complex, shifting feelings of a sensitive and introspective gay man seeking fulfilment at a time when this was against the law, or the topic of mocking gossip. In one telling scene, an English official in Egypt is prepared to help get one of Morgan's young native friends out of a scrape, but is desperate to counsel him against the liaison, without ever managing to overcome his reticence to speak plainly. "Tall and dry, composed of jointed segments like a large, untidy bird, Robin seemed always uncomfortable, but more than usually so at this moment".

The title "Arctic Summer", re-using that of a novel which Forster was unable to complete, conveys the concept of being "blocked" in two senses – as a writer, and a man. In the kind of profound insight in which Damon Galgut excels, it is only in the final pages that he uses the term "Arctic summer" to describe how Morgan catches sight of himself in a café mirror, in which the angle of the light makes him seem to "stand alone in the middle of an immense whiteness – nothing moving, nothing alive". This coincides with his pain at overhearing the gossip of two strangers who have recognised him as a famous author, "He's a timid soul. They say he hasn't really lived at all, except in his mind."

Another important thread is the often painful process of writing, in particular Morgan's struggle to complete what came to be regarded as his masterpiece, "A Passage to India". Inspired by his first visit to that land, he knows that he must write about it, but for years cannot see how to bring it to fruition. Impressed by the "spiritual hostility" of the Kailasa cave, he is convinced he has found what he has been searching for, "a terrible incident, a crime of some kind. But when he tried to focus on what it was, it became unclear, all of it retreated from him".

Galgut also conveys the strong sense of place that makes Morgan a successful travel writer: walking back from an evening with a poet who has described the history of Alexandria, Morgan realises for the first time how old the city is although there is little trace of its history beneath the "ordinary and banal" modern buildings – this highlights, of course, the tragedy of the recent loss of ancient buildings and carvings in countries like Syria.

My only criticism of the book is that some of characters, like Morgan's English male friends, seem undeveloped and two-dimensional, but this may be intentional to show how little they really impinge on Forster's introspective world – plus they all seem to let him down by getting married as a way out of their dilemma.

With his well-crafted, expressive prose, full of insight, flashes of humour (I enjoyed the one-sided row with the combative D.H. Lawrence) and poignancy, Damon Galgut is an unusual writer who deserves to be more widely read and praised.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Arctic Summer

The risks of happiness

This is my review of Delicacy: Film Tie-in Edition by David Foenkinos.

Beautiful Nathalie, whose kneecaps alone make men swoon, has an idyllic marriage to handsome high-flier François, a burgeoning career in her own right, and the sense of proportion to rise above the jealousy of work colleagues. What could go wrong? Yet, "Such happiness can make you afraid". Disaster inevitably strikes. The rest of this light romance is the tale of Nathalie first failing to come to terms with sudden bereavement, then finding unlikely happiness with a man whom her scandalised colleagues regard as totally unworthy.

There is plenty of wry humour in this story, and some moving insights into grief, as when Nathalie is struck by the placement of a book mark: the pages before belong to the time when François was still alive, those after to when he ceased to exist – to such a degree that she might have imagined him.

Although David Foenkinos seems capable of writing what you might call "literary fiction", he seems to be playing to the gallery here with some gimmicky formulae, such as interspersing the main text with short chapters, some only a sentence in length, by way of digression. For instance, after a passing reference to astrology, Chapter 34 is a list of Nathalie's small work team – most of whom we never meet – and their star signs. On another occasion, after a character has punched someone, a "chapter" gives us the result of one of Mohammed Ali's matches.

More serious charges are that the somewhat two-dimensional characters seem to fall in love out of lust or emotional neediness, and that the author tends to tell us what we should think about them rather than reveal it.

This is an easy read in French with some useful idioms, but if French were my native language, I would not wish to spend time on "La délicatesse", nor would I bother with it in translation. It has lent itself to a light-weight film starring Audrey Tautou, but the fact I cannot remember how its plot varies from the original book speaks volumes.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

Delicacy: Film Tie-in Edition

That time gone forever

This is my review of Train Dreams by Denis Johnson.

This novella which contrives to pack more into 115 pages than many a rambling, self-indulgent saga, captures the lives of Americans living on the harsh yet beautiful frontier of the north-western states in the first half of the twentieth century. The main character is Robert Grainier, a simple, semi-literate casual labourer who repairs railroad bridges and hauls forest timber. A brief period of personal happiness with an acre of land in the Moyea Valley, a wife and baby daughter, is destroyed by a ferocious forest fire. Yet, Grainger finds the dignity and resilience to rebuild a life which may seem insignificant, but forms part of the great wave of human effort to settle a continent. This is what gives an ostensibly sad book a note of optimism.

Although he spends most of his life in mourning, there are frequent touches of humour – comic scenes arise unexpectedly, as when he agrees to help a disreputable friend, who wants to assist a widow in moving house so he can lay hands on her money – , lurking superstitions about "wolf-girls" and touches of the surreal fed by the scale of the surrounding wilderness, contact with the local Kootenai Indians, and the nocturnal howling of wolves and coyotes, which Grainger begins to copy to gain a sense of release. There is a keen sense of nature, as when Grainger notices " it was full-on spring, sunny and beautiful. and the Moyea Valley showed a lot of green against the dark of the burn. The ground was healing….A mustard-tinged fog of pine pollen drifted through the valley when the wind came up".

The strength of the book lies in the quality of the clear and vivid prose, which struck me as poetical before I knew that the author has won prizes for his verse.

Here is a description of the aftermath of the fire, which you may appreciate if you have visited areas like the Yellowstone National Park:

“The world was gray, white, black and acrid, without a single live animal or plant, no longer burning yet still full of the warmth and life of the fire….he felt his heart’s sorrow blackened and purified, as if it were an actual lump of matter from which all of the hopeful, crazy thinking was burning away. He drove through a layer of ash deep enough, in some places, that he couldn’t make out the roadbed any better than if he’d driven through winter snows”.

I would place Denis Johnson on a par with Cormac McCarthy, but without the brutality.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Train Dreams