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

Bearing in mind that this fifth Shardlake novel is a guaranteed bestseller whatever the quality, Sansom has taken the trouble to produce an intriguing and well-researched mystery which is an improvement, I think, on the last adventure, “Revelation”. What always impresses me most about his writing is the portrayal of the Tudor period – which tends to be romanticised in our minds – as a brutal, police state, in which many people lived in fear. Yet, in the midst of all the corruption and greed, a thread of justice prevails, enabling Shardlake to right some wrongs in the end. I also like the way in which the “goodies” are not perfect: even Shardlake offers small bribes to get information, and agrees to help cover up a murderer’s identity on compassionate grounds. Also, everything does not end completely happily at the end, and some details are left open to the reader’s imagination.

I did not mind the fairly slow pace of much of the book, although I was reminded of schools’ history programmes on the radio fifty years ago, in which an observer travelled back in time to describe past societies at work. However, Sansom’s descriptions are vivid – I was interested in the detailed account of how Henry VIII’s fleet against the French is provisioned down at Portsmouth, how ordinary people mistrust the silver coinage because it has been debased with copper, how stands of fine oaks are beginning to be ripped out to make ships’ masts and charcoal for iron foundries, how a deer hunt is organised. The details of the “Mary Rose” are fascinating, particularly since the reader knows its fate – I was struck by the accounts of the nets over the decks to hinder the enemy from boarding, but also making escape impossible if the top-heavy ship were to keel over.

The stereotyping does not bother me either – it’s quite amusing to draw parallels between Shardlake and sidekick Barak, and, say, Morse with Lewis. I can also accept Shardlake’s perpetual folly in getting himself into impossibly tight spots, but always surviving by dint of physical strength and endurance which an ageing, disabled man is unlikely to possess. The rather modern way of thinking and talking used by Shardlake and Barak does not grate too much. My only major criticism is that the denouement never lives up to expectations, when, with a man of Sansom’s writing abilities (as shown in “Winter in Madrid”), it could. Once again, I am left feeling that the critical dramatic scenes in which the details of mysteries are revealed tend to be a bit “hammy” and are not written as subtly and convincingly as they could be.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

 

This is my review of Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.

At first I was engrossed by the wry humour and bordering on ludicrous but telling anecdotes which capture the lives of families in a “gentrified” US suburb, centred round one Patty and Walter Berglund. Although I did not understand all the Americanisms, the first chapter rang true for me. I thought afterwards that it would make a good satirical short story in its own right.

With the switch in the second section to Patty’s “autobiography suggested by a therapist”, my interest waned rapidly. Patty’s stilted use of the third person, often calling herself “the autobiographer”, jarred on me, together with her unlikely ability to reproduce verbatim conversations at which she was not present. I also agree with the criticism that Patty’s voice is too close to the narrator’s . In fact, all the characters tend to speak in the same witty, wizecracking way, which makes them less convincing.

The twice-used device of presenting sections of the narrative in a third person autobiography in the style of a novel which is then used as a way of communicating with other characters, does not work for me. Also, Patty’s and Walter’s extreme shifts in emotion seem exaggerated to the point of caricature, so that one does feel for them as one should.

It puzzles me that Franzen is more concerned about a few minor typing errors (I read the offending version and hardly noticed them – and wasn’t the pulping of thousands of copies a contribution to the waste of resources which he lambasts in the story?), than he is about the possible inclusion of too many self-indulgent ramblings and rants.

His theme of the paradox of freedom in the early C21 is interesting. This is set in the context of the disruptive effects of the Iraqi war, and issues of global pollution, overpopulation and global economic instability. It does not matter to me that some of the facts – names of US politicians etc – are already dated. Frantzen has a fertile imagination, giving rise to some entertaining incidents, and his dialogues are often sharp and pithy.

All this is undermined for me by the fact that he does not know when to prune, and when to stop. Conversations are often too long, and drift into cues for the author to express his views. The whole thing is bogged down in excessive detail and inclusion of “unnecessary” scenes which destroy the momentum of the tale. It is sometimes hard to distinguish major from minor characters. For instance, it took me a while to realise that Richard Katz is more central to the theme than either Eliza or Carter, and for pages he is a 2D character to whom I cannot relate.

Worst of all for me is Franzen’s tendency to pontificate, often in quite a clunky or turgid, over-earnest style, to tell me what is going to happen, what to think about someone’s behaviour or personality, or just to hold forth on some aspect of American life.

The author may have been aiming for a modern day “War and Peace” in the style of Updike-cum-Bellow but I am left thinking that if this book had been shorter, more ruthlessly pruned and edited, with a tighter structure, particularly in the first half, it would have had more of an impact – even made a brilliant novel.

Having said this, I have certainly thought a good deal about the plot, characters and evocation of American landscapes since finishing “Freedom”…..

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

 

This is my review of The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell.

This intriguing, well-observed, at times intolerably sad and shocking tale is a cross-over between popular and literary fiction. The author reveals the drama with great skill, weaving back and forth in time from the different viewpoints of the three main female characters: Esme, her sister Kitty and great-niece, Iris. We piece together the chain of events, stemming from Esme’s lively curiosity and inability to conform to the stifling middle-class values of the early C20, which lead to her incarceration in a mental hospital for over sixty years. It is salutary to learn, or be reminded, that a number of women really did suffer this fate. This contrasts with the freedom taken for granted by Iris, two generations on, as she runs her own quirky business, lives independently with a dog but no partner, and has temporary affairs, always drawn back to what feels like an incestuous relationship with her married step-brother.

At first I thought that Esme had been implausibly unaffected psychologically by her ordeal, and that the mental institution was not nearly as grim as it would have been in reality. Gradually, the full horror of the regime Esme has suffered becomes apparent, all the more so because it is revealed subtly, with much implied and left to the imagination. It also becomes clear how Esme manages to hold on to her sanity by “vanishing” or retreating in her mind back to the happier moments of her life in India as a young child, or with the sister for whom she had a great affection. Part of the suspense lies in wondering what violence may be unleashed in the outwardly calm and rationale, if eccentric, Esme, when she allows herself to release some of the emotion that has been suppressed.

The plot relies on a few details which seem quite unlikely, but it is fairly easy to overlook this. Although other reviewers have criticised the ending, it seems on reflection to be perhaps the best the author could have come up with, leading as it does to debate on how and why it occurs, and what is likely to happen next.

The strength of this book lies in the fact that, although the theme is depressing in theory, and the sheer waste of Esme’s life is appalling, these aspects are offset by numerous humorous incidents together with her sheer vitality, thought-provoking comments on life and powers of endurance.

This story is likely to stay with you longer than other more pretentious and self-regarding works.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

 

This is my review of The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing.

It is easy to understand why “The Grass is Singing” made such an impact in 1950, because the “no holds barred” presentation of naked racism, from which I suspect many current writers would now shy, must have served the purpose of shaming people into confronting their own prejudice, or galvanising them into trying to change the culture. The book may now seem a bit dated, with the end of apartheid in South Africa and of white colonialism in Southern Rhodesia – now Zimbabwe – where the book is set. Also, the recent revolution in feminism and sexual equality may make it less likely that a woman like Mary Turner would endure her grim life on a remote farm until it drove her mad.

However, the racism remains shocking, with the added point that it helps one to understand, although not condone, the recent “turning of tables”, with Mugabe’s extremism and the violence perpetrated on white farmers by embittered and impoverished black Zimbabweans.

From the first page, we are catapulted into the drama of the murder of Mary Turner, wife of a unsuccessful farmer, and witness the cynical closing of ranks of the local white community – Mary has somewhow broken the code of “keeping on top of the situation” by failing to control her native staff in the right way – not least the “house boy”, actually physically impressive man, Moses, who has accepted responsibility for her death. The rest of the book is a description of Mary’s life, showing the train of events leading inexorably to her murder. It provides a minutely observed analysis of her ongoing state of mind, shifts in her thinking and motivation, and her ultimate mental deterioration. The same applies to her husband Dick. The two are clearly incompatible, and destroy each other, but show redeeming features and finer qualities, so that one empathises with them both, despite Dick’s weakness and Mary’s excessive cruelty towards the workers.

Then there is the aspect which I admire most of all – Doris Lessing’s vivid evocation of the African landscape, the sights, scents, wildlife, shifting weather and seasons. This is what also struck me most in her very different and perhaps even more famous work, “The Golden Notebook”. She has the gift for bringing alive a continent one may never have seen, in all its wild beauty and oppressive heat – the bush is poised to reclaim in a few months the homestead and farm which Dick has slaved for years to cultivate.

At times, the bleak sadness of Mary’s life felt unendurable, and I was forced to put the book aside for a few hours. Towards the end, the sexual tension, perverted mutual hatred and fascination betwen Mary and Moses, is built up with great skill. I agree with reviewers who have said that the final chapter, although very powerful and imaginative, loses some of the striking clarity of the earlier prose as regards the behaviour of the two protagonists, Mary and Moses. Perhaps Doris Lessing intends to portray the confusion of Mary’s madness, but I am left a little uncertain as to what Moses’ precise motives for the murder are (plus I was half-expecting a final plot twist!). On a second reading,I saw how Moses might have been driven by misplaced jealousy rather than just the desire to dominate Mary.

On technical grounds, you could perhaps criticise Lessing for using too much of a “telling” style of narrative. Nevertheless, this Nobel-prize winning classic is worth reading, to remind one of what “good writing” – written from the heart, without any artifice but with startling insight – really is in a world where one’s mind can be blunted with the over-hyped pap of too many current bestsellers.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

 

This is my review of The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig.

“The Post Office Girl” deserves to be more widely read. It has clearly not suffered in translation. The crystal-clear prose captures the changing moods of Christine, the young Austrian woman whose childhood and youth have been blighted by the effects of WW1. Running a village post office single-handed for a stifling bureaucracy, caring for a sick mother prematurely aged by war work, Christine’a life is transformed overnight when a rich aunt visiting from America casually invites her to stay at a luxury Swiss hotel. Christine is utterly entranced by the sudden immersion in wealth and apparent freedom. Her delight and eruption of enthusiasm and confidence attract fair-weather friends who imagine she is wealthy. When the aunt abruptly withdraws her hospitality, Christine returns to a dull routine made all the less tolerable because she has seen that the grass is greener! Then she meets a kindred spirit, Ferdinand, a young man who has been similarly embittered by ill fortune – the loss of his family fortune in hyperinflation, his years spent as a prisoner in Siberia which have left him disabled. The two then conceive a plan of action which will enable them to assert their freedom from the trap of their current lives.

Parts of this book make for gloomy “Jude the Obscure”- type reading, and Ferdinand’s self-absorbed rants did get on my nerves BUT my respect for the book was increased greatly through considering its context. Zweig was a wealthy Austrian Jew who was appalled by the destruction of European culture by the Great War and the rise of Hitler. Influenced by Freud (whom he knew personally) he was interested in the way that a chance event may trigger self awareness and a sense of being really alive. Zweig and this wife died in a suicide pact in 1942, so that it is haunting to reflect that he had his characters contemplate an extreme solution which he was prepared to carry out himself.

Although the relentless bleakness of some passages is at first repellent, Zweig has the power to enable you to view life from different perspectives, even to the extent of seeing a logic in apparent madness, and fulfilment in tragedy.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars