Books

“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)
 

“Three Men in a Boat” by Jerome K. Jerome – Messing about in boats

This is my review of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.

When I read this as quite a young child, it seemed hilarious. I’m referring, for instance, to George and Harris rushing round in search of the butter, until realising that one of them had sat in it. Struggling dutifully through it more recently for a book group, it seemed rather silly and very dated, although I could still laugh at the succession of locals claiming to have caught the ever weightier trout encased on a pub wall, only for it to turn out to be made of plaster, when one of the clumsy three accidentally knocked it down.

I found a bit of research on the story much more interesting. Publication in 1889 was earlier than I had imagined i.e. not Edwardian. After the passing of the 1870 Education Act, and the extension of cheap rail fares giving people ready access the Thames, there was a sharp increase in the demand for amusing, easily read books and in the appreciation of boating as a pastime. This was perhaps a comic novel ahead of its time, much Victorian reading matter still being a bit sententious and worthy. So, there was a sharp contrast between the popularity of the book (which has never been out of print), and the snooty response of critics, even in Punch.

The author himself came from a once prosperous middle-class family which had fallen on hard times. So, despite his grammar school education, he had to start work as a young teenager, which obviously gave him a wide experience of life and the ability to relate to ordinary people. His unusual name was partly due to his father Jerome Clapp adding another Jerome to make it sound more distinguished. The “Klapka” came from a Hungarian who lodged with the family for a while.

I can see that what is really a series of amusing anecdotes, observations on daily life and snippets of local history on the areas bordering the Thames is appealing to us now in its innocence and nostalgic portrayal of a lost age. This probably remains a classic which you should read, the younger the better, although I doubt if a tale of three gormless middle-aged men rowing up the Thames more than a century ago would appeal much to this audience.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars


Three Men in a Boat
 

Swallow whole

This is my review of A boy with potential: A choirboy’s sinister discovery (Crime shorts Book 1) by Rosalind Minett.

This well-written and expertly constructed tale sustains a sense of sinister tension to the end, but with underlying poignancy over the extent to which "oyster boy" – who ironically has misinterpreted the one piece of kind attention he receives – is a victim of other people's casual abuse. Although I agree that there is the material here for a novel, it makes a particular impact in its current concise format.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

A boy with potential: A choirboy’s sinister discovery (Crime shorts Book 1)

The Children Act by Ian McEwan: Living by the rules

This is my review of The Children Act by Ian McEwan.

This slim novel is yet another example of “less is more” in that it makes a greater impact than many a long rambling epic. Fiona is a leading High Court judge, specialising in the application of the “Children Act” of the title with its double meaning. Her heavy and harrowing workload leaves little time to deal with the shock of an unexpected crisis in a longstanding and until now apparently happy marriage.

Always keen to be thorough and fair, she decides that the urgent case of a boy, stricken with leukaemia just short of his eighteenth birthday, who has supported his Jehovah Witness parents’ refusal to agree to the blood transfusion that will save his life, obliges her to visit him in hospital to gauge his capacity to make such a decision. Her good intentions are based on the principle that “the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration”. In the ensuing drama, she learns more than she has bargained for about the complexity of dealing with a young person’s “welfare”.

Ian McEwan’s crystal prose with never a redundant word or a woolly sentence commands admiration, yet can make human relations seem somewhat clinical. Yet, I prefer this to a mawkish tone and in general his forensic analysis and clarity of writing serve to punch the reader with the raw emotion of a situation. Although everything is written from Fiona’s viewpoint, the reactions of the other players, both major and minor, are portrayed very vividly. I was completely convinced by the beautiful and over-sensitive boy Adam.

Although I understand why some readers have criticised McEwan for his focus on the privileged, upper middle-class world of a Gray’s Inn lawyer, for me this seems part of the point, if unintentionally: Fiona and her colleagues represent the confident, with taken-for-granted superiority, élite who make decisions on legal reforms and play Solomon in the lives of lesser mortals.

If the book has a weakness, it may be the somewhat condensed “telling” of a number of Fiona’s cases, combined with the author’s concern with current issues leading him to overload the plot with the world’s ills. You could of course argue that all this illustrates the almost frantic variety and stress of Fiona’s job. I also found the “climax” of the book is a little contrived, when Fiona receives what seems like bad news, without our being told what it is, just before going on stage for a piano performance, for which McEwan’s writing lost its usual spare precision and became rather pretentious and “knowing” about music.

This is a thought-provoking book on several levels: the right to decide on life and death, the psychology of ageing and the state of Britain. It is serious, compelling, yet lightened with touches of McEwan’s wry wit

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars


The Children Act
 

Dubious means to questionable ends

This is my review of World War Two: Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West by Laurence Rees.

This is a fascinating examination of the relations between Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt. I had always assumed that after the defeat of Hitler it was too much hassle for the Allies to press on and drive the Soviet Communists out of Eastern Europe, particularly since they had shown themselves to be such resilient and determined fighters. It was a shock to realise how readily Churchill accepted the USSR’s retention of eastern Poland which it had overrun during its notorious pact with the Nazis in 1939-41. His glib rationalisation that Poland would simply be taking “two steps westward” was all the more ironical since it was the German occupation of western Poland which had “necessitated” the Second World War in the first place.

Churchill was also devious in appeasing Stalin by implying that he was about to launch a Second Front in France – thereby taking some of the pressure off the Soviets fighting in Eastern Europe – when he clearly had no intention of doing so. Despite his many faults and atrocities, Stalin was justified in resenting how the Soviets ended up bearing the brunt of the bloody battles with Germany, as indicated by the shocking disparity between the Russian and Allied death tolls.

In yet another ironic twist, Churchill and Roosevelt both failed to see how much they were being manipulated by the wily Stalin. They even harboured the illusion that Stalin’s hands were tied by some shadowy Politburo in the background. To observers, Stalin’s mastery was often all too evident. As Eden commented, “If I had to pick a team to go into a conference room, Stalin would be my first choice.” Although the author reminds us of the Kafkaesque repression of free speech in the USSR and punishment of able people who might pose some kind of threat to Stalin, Western leaders turned a blind eye to, for instance, the evidence that it was the Soviets who had massacred Poles in the Katyn area. On the other hand, what else could the West do when faced by the need to stop the Nazis? It is possible that, without Russia as any ally, Hitler would have conquered Britain.

Churchill’s ruthlessness is evident in his political decision to order the despatch of convoys to supply the Russians once they had become allies, even though he knew of the high risk of German attacks in Arctic waters: for him, a 50% or more success rate made it worthwhile. Even more pitiless, Stalin ordered the wholesale and undiscriminating deportation of the Crimean Tatars to the hostile arid wastes of Uzbekistan, because some of them had collaborated with Germans but it was too much effort to identify them accurately.

Although this is an unsystematic and therefore only partial account of World War 2, it is a book well worth reading both for those who thought they knew about the War and for others too young to remember it. The only caveat is whether time would be better spent trying to understand the terrible wars which are still raging at present.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

World War Two: Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West

Sweet tart with a heart

This is my review of Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon by Kate Williams.

The unsophisticated daughter of a Creole family whose Martinique sugar plantations ran on slave labour, Josephine was shipped to France for what proved a tragic and short-lived arranged marriage. Widowed with two young children in the dangerous and unstable world of the French Revolution, she soon acquired the requisite skills to become the mistress of a succession of wealthy and powerful men, culminating with Napoleon.

Her extravagance was shocking in its excess, her behaviour manipulative and devious, perhaps the most appalling example being her eagerness to marry her daughter off to one of Napoleon's least appealing brothers, in an attempt to compensate for her own inability to provide the French leader with a son and heir.

Despite all her faults, the author is clearly on Josephine's side, and emphasises the qualities which made her attractive to men and popular with the public: she was graceful, a good listener, and kind to those in trouble. Her main achievements seem to have been providing an attractive figurehead to offset Napoleon's boorish and intimidating image, her public relations role in organising social events and dealing with people, and the private passion for gardens, including, exotic plants, birds and wild animals imported from abroad, which led her to develop the beautiful estate of Malmaison.

This is an entertaining biography with some moments of real poignancy, as when, having at last steeled himself to announce his divorce of Josephine, Napoleon still hankers for her company so much that he cannot resist coming over to Malmaison to walk with her in the rain.

On the other hand, the somewhat tabloid style and focus on the more sensational aspects of Josephine's life made me wince at times, or feel the need to look to other sources to verify the author's interpretations, particularly of Napoleon. She presents him as a capricious and crude megalomaniac, chronically indecisive at times, but over-prescriptive at others, a shameless sexual predator once success provides the confidence to demand "droits du seigneur". I agree with the reviewer who has criticised the "one-dimensional" portrayal, which gives an inadequate impression and exploration of his greatness.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon

Caves of ice

This is my review of The Ice Palace (Modern Classics) by Tarjei Vesaas.

Although this novel was first published in the 1960s, I have only recently come across it and realised that Tarjei Vesaas who died in 1970, is regarded as one of Norway’s finest writers.

Vesaas gets inside the heads of the two eleven-year-old girls who are his two main characters. Sis is intrigued by the arrival of “new girl” Unn who plays the loner, perhaps because of her mother’s recent death which has brought her to live with an aunt in a remote rural community. In her excitement over the prospect of an intense pre-teen age friendship with Sis, Unn plays truant from school and sets off across a large frozen lake to investigate the “ice palace”, which has formed at a distant waterfall. In this excellent translation by Elizabeth Rokkan, her fateful journey is one of the most striking pieces of description I have ever read. “Bent bracken stood in the ice like delicate drawings”.

Ensuing events are fairly few and simple in this short novel, but it becomes a gripping page turner by reason of the sustained tension, the portrayal of nature by turns menacing and of exquisite beauty, and the subtilty of the characters’ communication. This is a very Scandinavian novel, in which we really feel the long darkness of the winter night, threatening when one is alone; the strength of the steel-ice on the lake despite its tendency to blast “long fissures, narrow as a knife-blade, from the surface down into the depths” with a thunderous noise like gunshot; the magical Kubla Khan-like caves of the ice palace; the sequence of seasonal change from early winter ice through all-concealing snow to the eventual thaw. There is also the mysterious appeal of Unn who implies a secret she will not reveal.

If this remarkable and memorable book has a flaw, it is the structure towards the end in which a possible dramatic climax is revealed and then followed by something of an anti-climax. You could of course argue that Vessas is not interested in creating drama, but rather in portraying the events of ordinary life, in this case the natural development of a girl on the verge of growing up, learning from her experiences, and in rendering them extraordinary by the poetic quality of his prose.

I shall make a point of looking out for other works by this author.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

The Ice Palace (Modern Classics)

“Don’t give up on idealism”

This is my review of No et moi (Littérature française) (French Edition) by Delphine (de) Vigan.

An abnormally high IQ has landed thirteen-year-old Lou in a class two years ahead of her age where, physically small by any standard, she is an introverted loner, with the added burden of being an only child whose mother has been traumatised by a recent family tragedy. Terrified by the prospect of having to give a presentation, Lou blurts out her proposed theme of “the homeless” based on a real interview. She has in mind No, a down-and-out eighteen-year-old who haunts the Austerlitz railway station in Paris, where she has aroused Lou’s interest and stimulated her overactive imagination.

It is apparent from the outset that the strong rapport and friendship which develops between the two is unlikely to lead to a happy ending in the real world. This well-developed story is saved from mawkishness by the humorous aspects of Lou’s eccentric hobbies and her tendency to take people too literally at times, together with what she learns about life from her dealings with No. Lou’s sense of outrage over the plight of the homeless makes one regret one’s own adult loss of idealism. Her anguish that reality is not like one’s utopian dreams is replaced by acceptance, even whilst observing the madness of the “normal”, “sane” world.

This story works well as a novel for both teenagers and adult readers, particularly those wishing to put their French to use in a very readable text. There are a few false notes, such as initial suggestions that Lou might be autistic, whereas she struck me as far too neat and conformist in class, well-organised and empathetic for this to be the case. Her crush on the handsome but rebellious seventeen-year-old Lucas, who has been held back for two years in the same class, is convincing but their relationship seems a little corny at times. It is of course necessary to the plot for Lucas to have neglectful parents who have left him home alone in a flat where the three main characters can hang out free from adult interference.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

No et moi (Littérature française) (French Edition)

In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon’s Wars, 1793–1815 by Jenny Uglow – The devil in the detail

This is my review of In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon’s Wars, 1793–1815 by Jenny Uglow.

I was drawn to this book by admiration for Jenny Uglow’s excellent biography of Charles ll and my fascination with the Napoleonic period. The author has set out to write a social history from the viewpoint of a wide range of people living in Britain at a time when, in addition to the threat of a remarkably successful military opponent, they had to contend with the throes of the Industrial Revolution and a growing demand for democracy.

Using a framework of themed chapters, each ending with an impressive list of sources researched, Jenny Uglow quotes widely from letters and journals, and recounts the exploits of those who may not have had much truck with writing, such as the blacksmith who led a group of “labourers wearing skirts to look like housewives” who “marched through villages crying ‘We cannot starve”, and wrecked a mill that was supplying the navy rather than the people of Devon. He was hanged at the same mill “with great ceremony”, whereas other ringleaders sometimes escaped with the lesser punishment of transportation.

Jenny Uglow contrasts a hidebound parson who feared that the French Revolution would spark unrest in England, with the respectable, liberal-minded men who joined more anarchic colleagues in urban pressure groups calling for political reform. At first quite nonchalant about a foreign uprising which he expected to be short-lived, first minister of state William Pitt was driven in due course to take a tougher line, banning societies and public meetings and suppressing free speech as ferociously as a modern dictator. The author is good on the direct effects of the war with France, such as the way troops waiting in coastal ports for the order to attack commandeered so much food that the local people began to go hungry.

I was less impressed by chapters which seemed to ramble off at a tangent into a morass of detail. An example of this is “Warp and Weft” which seems to belong more to a book specifically on the Industrial Revolution. I learned that “to add strength to the cotton, weavers added `fustian’, wool or linen yarns, to make the warp”, and that Robert Peel, son of a future Prime Minister, employed in his factories children who had no shoes or stockings, visiting Poor Law Guardians being informed “if they gave them shoes they would run away”. These points had to be teased out of a mass of information on a few weavers and mill owners – arbitrarily chosen except perhaps that they happened to have left records.

The brain can only absorb so much “dissociated” fact and it becomes distracting to be continually asking, “Why am I reading this? What does it have do with the impact of Napoleon on the lives of ordinary people in the British Isles?” I realise that this is a question of taste, and some people thrive on detail, plus it may be of value to students, but I would have preferred a shorter text with a stronger focus on the Napoleonic Wars and their impact on Britain. I coped with the book by skipping through some passages to find what interested me, but that is not entirely satisfactory in what I do not think is intended to be a reference work.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon’s Wars, 1793–1815
 

“Lamentation” by C.J. Sansom

This is my review of Lamentation (The Shardlake series) by C. J. Sansom.

Since it is advisable to have read at least some of the previous five books in this series – say the opening “Dissolution”, “Sovereign” and “Heartstone”, it is unnecessary to provide much explanation of the narrator Shardlake, a shrewd lawyer whose persistence and integrity make him ideal for the role of private investigator in the dangerous and twisted world of Tudor England. In this case, against his better judgement, a mixture of loyalty and understandable if hopeless devotion for Henry V111’s last wife, Catherine Parr, lead him to accept the task of retrieving her manuscript, “Lamentation of a Sinner”, which the King is likely to regard as heretical.

Sansom’s Shardlake novels are always a mine of thoroughly researched information about life of people in all walks of Tudor life. Even if he distorts some facts for dramatic purposes, this serves as an entertaining way of grasping the shifting politics of Henry V111’s court. What intrigues me most, well-conveyed in “Lamentation” is the sense of insecurity and fear under Henry, as strong as in any modern-day police state. The king himself is desperate to maintain his own position and dynasty, and prepared to do whatever is necessary to achieve this, but not to take personal responsibility for his actions. So, as a sick man approaching the death which it is treason to mention, doubts over the safety of his soul draw Henry back to the Catholic mass, under the influence of men like Bishop Gardiner who want to see reformers burned alive if they deny that the bread and wine of Communion turns into the actual body of Christ. Yet, Henry’s desire to keep his position as the Head of the Church in England makes it impossible to cede authority back to the Pope, pulling him back towards Protestants on whom he can rely to keep his heir Edward in full control of both Church and State in the future.

Sansom makes this the basis of an often swashbuckling yet also poignant drama. “I did not want to attend the burning” is a masterful opening hook. Yet, Sansom immediately backtracks to introduce us to a range of main characters who are all developed in some depth to show their personalities and motives.

I agree with some detractors who have found the pace a little pedestrian at times: the length has been padded out with frequent dusty rides on the ageing steed Genesis, hiring of wherries on the Thames and admission by pass to Whitehall. Analysis of what may be afoot is chewed over too often, so that some potentially very dramatic moments do not come as a surprise. The language used tends to be too modern, as is some of the behaviour at social gatherings. I appreciate that many fans will appreciate the chance to immerse themselves in the world of Shardlake as long as possible. Overall, a plot that at times seems overcomplicated in fact comes to a strong, unpredictable and intriguing denouement. I was also impressed by the way Shardlake’s own outlook evolves in this story.

I am sure this will not be the last in the series, although fear for Shardlake should he survive into the Catholic bigotry of Mary’s reign.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


Lamentation (The Shardlake series)