Books

Another Case of Truth more Dramatic than Fiction

This is my review of The Sinking of the Laconia and the U-Boat War: Disaster in the Mid-Atlantic by James Duffy.

A recent television drama on the sinking of the Laconia during WW2 prompted me to obtain this book. With the aim of putting the already well-documented Laconia incident in context, it provides plenty of examples to show that Hartenstein, Captain of the U-boat U-156 which torpedoed the Laconia, was not alone in putting himself out in the attempt to rescure survivors once they had ceased any attempt to retaliate. German U-boat crews regularly pulled people out of the water, helped them into lifeboats or even on board the submarine, provided food, blankets, medical aid when needed and gave directions to the nearest coast, helped to repair lifeboats, even towed them to passing ships that would take them to safety.

What has made the Laconia incident so striking is the sheer number of survivors, meaning that Hartenstein did not have the capacity and enough supplies to meet their needs without calling for help. As photographs bear out, at one point the entire deck of the sub was crowded with some 200 survivors. There is also the issue of their composition: the Laconia was found to be carrying up to 1800 Italian prisoners of war. The fact that many were trapped below decks as the Laconia sunk was likely to cause diplomatic tension between the Germans and their Italian allies, so Hartenstein was under pressure to do what he could to save the rest.

If Hartenstein had been able to carry out his plan of calling on available U-boats and enemy "Allied" craft to relieve him of his human burden, virtually all those surviving the inital onslaught would have been saved. Sadly, an American bomber on the mid-Atlantic refuelling base of Ascension Island was given by officers who were probably not in full possession of the facts the terse and fateful order "Sink sub at once". Hartenstein had no option but to order the survivors to jump overboard, cut loose the lifeboats, and make a rapid dive for his own crew's survival.

Although the level of detail is sometimes too much for a general reader to take, this book is full of fascinating information. To reduce the risk of attack, ships used to follow a zigzag course, very wasteful of fuel. Only on moonless nights could they risk travel in a straight line, with all lights blacked out. The subs used diesel fuel at the surface but battery power under water. They faced risks on a daily basis when it was necessary to rise to the surface to use diesel power to recharge these batteries.

After the Laconia incident, Admiral Donitz was obliged to issue the infamous "Laconia Order" forbidding U-boats from taking enemy survivors on board. For this he suffered opprobrium, and was imprisoned after the war for his aggressive attacks on Allied shipping. However, Donitz probably refused in the sense of managing not to obey Hitler's order for U-boat commanders to kill the crews of sunken ships, even if they were on lifeboats.

This book leaves it to us to debate the morality of launching a torpedo with the aim of killing as many people as possible, but then risking one's own life to save the survivors of this action. Hartenstein, a brave and humane man with the misfortune to live under the authority of a crazy dictator lost his own life when the U-156 was blown up a few months later.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The Sinking of the Laconia and the U-Boat War: Disaster in the Mid-Atlantic

Striking if Overblown Insight on Life in Trinidad

This is my review of The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey.

My view of this book see-sawed violently as I read it. Starting with the over-used ploy of the description of a shocking event, in this case the beating of a young boy by corrupt policemen, the novel launches into a study of Englishman George Harwood and his French wife Sabine, who have lived on Trinidad for fifty years. It dissects their rum-fuelled love-hate relationship with each other and the island.

For many pages I read without feeling absorbed, noticing the stilted, banal scenes, characters who did not quite ring true. I was interested to realise that George's interviews for the " Trinidad Guardian" are with real people still living at the time of writing, and wondered if one of them , the famous calypso singer "The Mighty Sparrow" takes exception to being described as the suspected father of a poor, illegitimate Trinidadian boy.

Gradually, I found myself impressed by some of the vivid descriptions, say of the colourful island vegetation, which I found to be very apt when I googled their images. For instance, we see George's favourite month of May described in language which implies his casual promiscuity.

Sabine's habit of talking to the surrounding green hills which she sees as a voluptuous reclining woman seducing George and her appreciation of Trinidad's beauty, contrast with her hatred of the country's corruption and its failure to progress once free from white domination, and the way it makes her feel an outsider.

She hates George too at times for choosing to ignore all this, so that he can exploit the situation, indulge in the free way of life, the scope to grow rich through land purchase, enjoy "the sounds and smells….smiles and shapes", the "bewitching" local women and booze, in a way that would never have been possible in England.

The first part of the book proves to be a novella set in 2006, building up to a dramatic conclusion which I felt for a time should be the end of the whole book. Since the next section moves back in time, to the Harwood's innocent arrival on Trinidad in 1956, I had to force myself to continue because of the numerous hints already provided as to what had happened in the past.

I remain unsure as to whether a structure that moves back in time is a good idea. The reader may gain a sense of "one-upmanship" through knowing more than the characters, but on balance this does not compensate for the loss of suspense.

However, once the narration becomes first person, Sabine's viewpoint from part 2 onwards, it seems to come more alive, grow more moving, and the quality of the writing also improves.

I remain unconvinced by the idea of Sabine loving the unsuccessful leader Eric Williams, the first black leader of an independent Trinidad who promises the people progress, but fails to deliver. I also think the story is not just about the exploitation of Trinidadians first by whites, then by their own leaders. It is also about issues of feminism – the way some women are attracted by powerful men, and allow themselves to be dominated by men, as well as the sense of regret many women have over failing to achieve much in their lives.

The book "goes on too long" and the attempt to create a resounding finale in 1970, after moving back from 2006 to 1956, then forward again, makes for a final chapter with some of the overblown or ludicrous paragraphs which mar an otherwise striking novel.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

Impressive Courage or Ignorance is Bliss

This is my review of Wagons West: The Epic Story of America’s Overland Trails by Frank McLynn.

I was inspired to read this after watching the recent film about "Meek's Cutoff" in which a small number of pioneers hire an unreliable guide to show them a short cut on the Oregon Trail. The true story proves to have been much more dramatic, involving more than 1000 people and perhaps 300 wagons. Soon clearly lost, the party ran dangerously low on food and fresh water at times, or found more than they bargained for in the form of torrential rivers which could only be crossed by dismantling their wagons piece by piece. Resentment against Meek rose so high at one point that he came close to being hanged from a gibbet made from raising up the tongues of three wagons and tying them together in the kind of summary justice often practised in a society which had to maintain its own system of law and order. In fact, the travellers were often remarkably lenient. The punishment for killing a man in angry self defence might be expulsion from the group, perhaps to be readmitted fairly quickly.

"Wagon's West" provides a useful history of the background to the great pioneer movement which began in earnest in the 1840s. The young nation of the United States did not yet clearly control the western part of the continent: Oregon was still effectively a British province, and California part of the decayed Mexican Empire. The first pioneers were neither religious refugees – apart from the Mormon trek of 1847 to establish Salt Lake City – nor were they the poorest elements of society. It took moderate means to assemble a wagon and provisions for the trek along the Oregon Trail, or to branch off it at the staging post of Fort Hall to reach California.

I agree that the "blow by blow" account of the first great treks from 1841 is repetitive at times, and includes far too many characters for one to absorb. Clearer, better positioned maps would be helpful, together with a few more photographs, although Google images provide a fascinating accompaniment to descriptions of landmarks like Chimney Rock, or the many rivers, mountains and forts described en route.

McLynn conveys well the courage and resilience of people who would set out with only sketchy knowledge of a route which would cover hundreds of miles and take weeks. It helps one to understand why so many modern-day Americans are so opposed to the idea of relying on state aid. Of course, the travellers were mostly farmers or skilled craftsmen like blacksmiths, and used to living off the land. Descriptions of encounters with vast herds of buffaloes, using their droppings as fuel in the absence of timber for firewood, rattlesnakes bunking with prairie dogs, Indians who wanted some compensation for encroachment on their territory, stole horses or shot at oxen so they would be abandoned to provide them with food, the petty bickering triggered by the sheer boredom of travelling mile upon mile, or the hardship of running short of vital supplies, the crazy jockeying for position to take the lead, rather like the road rage of car drivers today – all this makes for a fascinating read.

Just when you feel that you have had enough, McLynn changes tack slightly, with a chapter on the infamous "Donner Party" who became stranded in snow on a treacherous cut-off, and may have resorted to cannibalism: other sources now dispute this horrific twist which McLynn presents as Gospel. The chapter on the Mormon Trek is particularly interesting, showing how an autocratic, manipulative leader, Brigham Young, maintained discipline to provide an impressive example of rapid colonisation. The Epilogue ends with the Gold Rush of 1848, which disrupted the former relatively orderly pattern of migration. McLynn describes how, in the craze to get to the riches first, people set out with too many goods and abandoned them after only a few miles, littering the landscape, so that the traders who had sold them could easily collect them up again for resale. The Westerns with which we are so familiar do not appear at all far-fetched.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Wagons West: The Epic Story of America’s Overland Trails

An Islamic Morality Tale

This is my review of Les hirondelles de Kaboul: Roman by Yasmina Khadra.

Although I read this in French – and it is excellent practice for improving one's French – I thought it best to post a review in my native English.

The swallows are the veiled women of Kabul, who flit through the ruined alleys like fugitives in a perpetual "half-life" of oppression.

It is ironical that all the reviews to date have been written on the English translation. The original French version of this tale – which I am sure must be "better" for those who can access it – uses vivid, striking language to capture the atmosphere of a war-torn city under the bigoted rule of the Taliban, which gives free rein to bullies and fanatics: people survive by keeping their heads down.

We see constant examples of casual brutality and sexism which shock our sanitised western sensibilities.

When a man admits to his worries over his sick wife, a friend condemns him for such a display of his own weakness. The remedy is obvious: he should cast his wife aside for a younger model!

A sensitive young man is aroused by the madness of a crowd to join in the stoning of a woman he does not even know, a momentary lapse on his part which costs him the love of his would-be emancipated wife.

As a final irony, men who feel "dishonoured" when a lunatic tears aside their wives' veils trample on the women in their haste to get at him.

This short, simple tale of cause and effect reminds me of a medieval morality play, as the lives of the various characters begin to impinge on each other and events build to a plausible but inevitably tragic climax.

I have no idea as to the authenticity of this story written by an Algerian army officer under a female pseudonym to avoid censorship at the time. Despite its bleak theme, and at times somewhat overblown prose (which somehow seems acceptable in French), the story of the chain reaction of damage wrought by fanatical repression remains in one's memory.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Les hirondelles de Kaboul: Roman

The Rites of Ming

This is my review of China: A History by John Keay.

This thorough, systematic history provides an informative and readable textbook.

I like the introduction which challenges the myths which have arisen over The Great Wall, the Grand Canal, the Long March and even the Giant Panda. Although I appreciate the author's point that a history of China calls for a focus on the distant past because its culture is so "historically conscious" that "the remote is often more relevant", I am not sure that the author actually identifies this relevance very often! Yet it is salutary to realise how relatively advanced the Chinese have been for so long, compared to the west.

However, taking 300 pages to cover the first two thousand years without quite reaching the date of the Norman Conquest of England proved too much detail for me to absorb. My solution as a "general interest reader" was to move to Chapter 14 on "The Rites of Ming", the time span 1405-1620, i.e. contemporaneous with the late Renaissance in Europe. Although the characters do not come alive as individuals like, say, the Tudors, it is interesting to read about the size and scale of the Chinese voyages of the famous eunuch Zheng He with up to 300 ships, the largest over 130 metres long compared with the pioneering voyage of Columbus with only three ships, none longer than 20 metres. Yet, rather than dominate the seas, the Chinese fleets were laid by to rot, after the emperor's decision (or was it that of the scholar-bureaucrat mandarins?) to turn his back on overseas enterprise. The conflicts between the emperor, who despite his "heavenly power" could only "dispose", and the mandarins who "proposed" his actions are also intriguing.

It is hard to keep track of the various states, so that more small maps at relevant points would have been useful.

I recommend this book as a useful text to have on one's shelf for reference, although I am personally more interested in the last couple of centuries of Chinese history i.e. its contact with the west.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

China: A History

Powerful Story and Beautiful Prose Marred by Flawed Structure

This is my review of The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna.

This tale of the intertwined lives of three men living through the aftermath of a terrible civil war in 1990s Sierra Leone has the potential for a moving and thought- provoking drama.

It begins with Elias Cole as he suffers a slow painful death, haunted by memories of his obsessive love for Safia, the lovely wife of a charismatic colleague. Driven by the apparent desire to make some death-bed confession, but on his own terms, his calculating and manipulative personality is revealed.

Then there is Adrian, the introspective British psychiatrist with some vague urge to do good in a developing country struggling to recover from its shattered state. In fact, he is escaping from his marriage, for reasons that remain unclear. His affair with the beautiful Mamakay, who makes a sudden appearance well into the book, does not entirely convince me, and the guilt he feels for abandoning his wife and daughter is insufficiently explored.

Thirdly we have Kai, the young doctor traumatised by the horrors of the war, his nightmares alternating with nostalgic memories of his girlfriend Nenubah, whom I imagined for a long time to have perished tragically in the fighting. Kai makes the decision to emigrate to the States, lured by the encouragement of his best friend Tejani, but it is unlikely that he would do this without worrying more about the fate of Abass , the young nephew for whom he acts as a father. I also found the graphic descriptions of Kai conducting operations unnecessary – they serve only to give the author an opportunity to show off medical knowledge gained to give the book an authentic touch.

Forna creates a vivid impression of the scenery and way of life in Sierra Leone. There are many descriptive passages of haunting beauty, but also self-conscious exercises in creative writing. It may be intentional to create a slow pace in which fleeting impressions seem as meaningful as major events, but the constant focus on small details, say of Adrian watching a stranger play with her child on a Norfolk beach, distracts the reader too much from the thrust of the story and blurs the plot. For instance, the arrest of Julius, his subsequent fate, his wife Safia's reaction, and Elias Cole's acts of betrayal should be much more striking events, rather than buried in descriptions of other things. There should be more of a sense of impending unrest, say in Elias's Cole's account of past events.

It is probably quite brave, certainly challenging, for a female author to switch between the viewpoints and complicated lives of three male characters. However, this structure, together with continual moves back and forth in time with the frequent reporting of dramatic events, rather than enacting them "live", further combine to fragment the storyline and weaken the impact of any drama.

There is also the very irritating habit of changing tense from past to present and back. Perhaps the present tense is meant to give more of a sense of immediacy, which makes it odd that it is applied to descriptions, say of Kai scrubbing up for an operation, rather than his dramatic explanation of the reason for his trauma.

There are too many shadowy characters introduced only to drift away or storylines which remain underdeveloped, such as the case of Adrian's patient Agnes, his relationship with his mother, even with Ileana…I could provide many more examples. We seem to be involved in the plots of several novels, tangled together.

For me, the flawed structure became a real barrier to appreciating and admiring the work, which resembles a promising but sprawling draft in need of editing and reorganisation.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

The Memory of Love

Inspiration for Reading Groups

This is my review of Bloomsbury Essential Guide for Reading Groups by Susan Osborne.

This is very helpful for suggesting ideas for books when a group is floundering round for the next set of titles. Classified by theme e.g. childhood, growing up, growing older, death and how we cope with it, friendship, etcetera, it features 75 titles – mostly written during the past 20 years, and safely between pulp fiction chicklit and obscure highbrow fiction. We are given a summary of each book – perhaps a little more info than I would like in some cases, a potted biography of the author, background to the novel, discussion topics and related resources e.g. interviews with the author.

The author has clearly put a good deal of work into this, and it is certainly labour-saving for a reading group organiser, also summarising a range of resources available, such as websites of literary magazines which review books.

I was initially sceptical because the opening advice on setting up a group seems a bit obvious and patronising e.g. “the easiest way to start a reading group is to begin with friends”…”If you have a small group, two missing members might mean that you want to reschedule”

A few useful points have been omitted such as the fact that sometimes sets of books can be obtained through the local library. The University of the Third Age deserves a mention. How to obtain books – e.g. secondhand through Amazon for as little as one penny plus postage is also worth flagging up. Working through local community groups and having a space on a website, or one’s own website is another area to include.

This very useful book lends itself to having an “online” version which can be updated regularly.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars


Bloomsbury Essential Guide for Reading Groups

Still intriguing, but is it going off the boil?

This is my review of The Leopard: A Harry Hole thriller (Oslo Sequence 6) by Jo Nesbo.

Compulsive reading but often distasteful and utterly implausible. The opening pages seem to display the trademark features of a Harry Hole novel: the author enters the mind of a victim about to die horribly by an unusual and horrible device, then switches directly to the mind of, it seems, the crazy serial killer.

Yet I soon began to notice a difference. Perhaps with a film script in mind, or in order to appeal to an even larger international audience – people with a reading age of eight- Nesbo forsakes his customary interweaving of past and present for a straightforward linear plot – less confusing, but also less interesting. The style is slick and thin – short paragraphs, staccato sentences and few of the references to life in Norway that give the earlier novels a distinctive touch. At times, it verges on the cartoonish: "Harry Hole, she thought. Gotcha." There is too much of the corny: one of the first of the rare "lengthy" descriptions is of the improbably beautiful and sensitive new female detective sidekick Kaja.

So, I almost decided to give up on this book which seemed on balance no better than a run-of-the-mill,crudely written, casually brutal pulp fiction pot boiler.

Then, the twists in the plot began to catch my interest. I found myself reading on to discover how on earth Harry would get out of the next hole – is that a reason for his name? – how some fresh conundrum would be solved, or which of the possible villians would turn out to be a red herring, which for real.

As ever, this often crass and amoral tale throws up some intriguing twists such as the murderer who is manipulated out of revenge by a man he has wronged, and touches on philosophical questions, such as whether and when mercy killing can be justified. I just wish these could be developed a little more thoughtfully.

There is clearly space in the overall scheme for at least one more Harry Hole novel, but is it time to take last orders on this series? Is it all getting too formulaic? Also, Harry's liver must be on the brink of giving out. It is increasingly hard to believe that this mutiliated and scarred character can appeal to a string of beautiful woman, and retain the physical strength to escape from tight corners and fight off powerful adversaries.

This overlong novel hiccups to a close with "just one more chapter" to dot another "i" or cross a "t". Nesbo seems too involved in his flawed creation to call it a day…..

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

The Leopard: A Harry Hole thriller (Oslo Sequence 6)

Funny if dated

This is my review of Travels with my Aunt (Twentieth Century Classics) by Graham Greene.

Henry Pulling, a staid former bank manager, is induced to accompany his eccentric Aunt Agatha on her travels, only to find himself shaken out of his dull rut of retirement and gaining a new perspective on the moral values he has always taken for granted.

Despite references to smoking pot and Andy Warhol, this book seems a little dated even for the sixties when it first appeared. It reads more like an Evelyn Waugh type novel from the 1930s. Farcical and light-weight, it entertained me for a while, being very funny and imaginative in places, with the fluid style with which Greene made writing appear deceptively easy.

By the middle, I was growing bored with Aunt Agatha's endless recollections of past lovers, all of whom seem implausible and two dimensional. The details of her tricks to get money through the customs are somewhat tedious and confusing. She began to seem an unsympathetic character, manipulative and callous in her treatment of the loyal caricature Wordsworth, and vindictive towards the woman who has remained faithful to a former lover they have both shared. I could never quite believe in Agatha's enduring relationship with the unappealing Visconti.

The story builds up well to quite an effective climax, in which the darker side of Greene's writing reveals itself – the preoccupation with Catholicism, and a cynical view of human nature, as conveyed by the party to which Visconti invites former enemies and potential business associates but no real friends.

Some of the travel writing, such as the description of Asuncion is quite vivid and interesting.

I like the way Greene uses the story as a vehicle to expound his own insights, observations and theories about life. For instance, his views on tea bags:

"one of them was raising a little bag, like a drowned animal, from his cup at the end of a cord. At that distressing point I felt very far away from England".

Or, the following exchange:

"Surely that's only a legend."

"There speaks a protestant…Any Catholic knows that a legend which is believed has the same value and effect as the truth. Look at the cult of the saints."

I sensed that Greene himself may have grown bored with the novel before completing it but he is such a skilled writer that it's still worth reading, if not as good as it could have been.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

Travels with my Aunt (Twentieth Century Classics)

Informative and Readable

This is my review of Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East by Martin Sixsmith.

This is popular history at its best.

Selection of the key points from the past millennium of Russian history is made to seem deceptively simple. Sixsmith continually makes connections to bring characters and events alive. For instance, his description of Ivan the Terrible veering from "pestering" Elizabeth 1 with marriage proposals to raining insults on her following a trade dispute made me realise that their reigns overlapped.

Sixsmith consistently draws parallels between events, enabling us to see patterns. In the C9, the Slavs of Novgorod begged the Viking Rurik of Rus (hence the modern name for Russia) to rule over them, just as many Russians welcomed the strong line taken by Putin in 1999, as he rolled back the "liberalising" measures of the 1990s, arguing that a more autocratic "managed democracy" was necessary to maintain order in a vast country where liberal values lacked "deep historical traditions".

The author cites how, way back in 1015, after King Vladimir naively left his kingdom to be ruled equally by his twelve sons, two of them submitted to being murdered rather than risk a civil war by resisting their brother Svyatipolk's bid for power. This sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the group is likened to the action of Komarov, the veteran cosmonaut who set off on a Soyuz flight dogged by technical faults, which he did not expect to survive, because otherwise "they" would send Yuri Gargarin (the first Russian in space) instead of him.

Yet again, links are made between the chaos after the 1917 Revolution, and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1917, there was the confused period of "dual power" when, both occupying the same building, the liberal "Provisional Government feared the raw strength of the Soviet Worker's Deputies, but the Soviet apparently feared the responsibility of governing", until the Bolsheviks "hijacked ..freedom and democracy" and imposed a centralised dictatorship even harsher than the one they had overthrown" . In 1991, having let the genie of pressure for democratic freedom out of the bottle, and survived an attempted right-wing coup, Gorbachev was pushed out of the presidency by the shrewder popular hero Yeltsin, although the latter's liberal reforms were doomed to fail.

This is the clearest explanation I have read of both the 1917 Revolution, and the chain of events of the last two decades, including such misjudgements as the valuation of state assets at only 9 billion dollars (150 million people receiving a 60 dollar voucher each which they of course sold off for short-term gain to a handful of oligarchs like Abramovitch) and the scandal of the "sale for loans" of the residual industries to Russian oligarchs.

Sixsmith seems quite hard on Lenin, and no doubt experts will find much of his analysis simplistic. However, I recommend this very readable and informative overview of a fascinating country – the kind of book I would retain as part of a permanent "personal library".

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East