Traveller's Return

Paul Theroux – The Ghost Train to the Eastern Star (2008)
Travel – 480 pages – my copy (paperback; 2009) bought from Waterstones in September 2009 for £8.99
- 4 nods out of 5 -

The Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is Theroux’s revisit on the journey he completed when in his early thirties, as described in The Great Railway Bazaar. The book made his name famous and earned him a fortune: but why the return for a man in his mid sixties? The motivation, it seems, is to see if the world he once knew was still out there.

Theroux journeys from London through Europe to Turkey, across the ‘Stans’ to India, around South East Asia, up and down Japan, ending by cutting across Russia on the Trans-Siberian railway. As in the Great Railway Bazaar, the majority of this travelling is done onboard a train, the time spent amassed to not days or weeks, but rather months.

Throughout all, Theroux employs the techniques and skills he possesses as a novelist to bring the countries he visits and the people he meets to life. As he writes:

‘Travel means living among strangers, their characteristic stinks and sour perfumes, eating their food, listening to their dramas, enduring their opinions, often with no language in common, being always on the move towards an uncertain destination, creating an itinerary that is continually shifting…’ (p.89).

This descriptive style is aided by Theroux’s ever inquisitive, forever eager nature. No, he wasn’t ‘a hawk’ in his travels, but ‘more a butterfly’ (p.60).

Theroux notes the poor of India, the snow peaks of northern Japan, the scarred memories of Cambodia, the crazed dictator of Turkmenistan who renamed the days of the week, as well as bread after his mother; as well as the Jains in India who do not eat living things, not even bacteria or mould, going with the philosophy – ‘Why should they be killed because of me?’ (p.183). Every page is full of revelation and wonder: one particular highlight is the visit to Arthur C. Clarke’s home in Sri Lanka, in which the famous writer ‘appeared in a wheelchair, the familiar, smiling, bespectacled, man; upright, balding, but rather frail, even in this heat with a blanket over his skinny legs. He looked like the sort of alien he had described in his prose fantasies’ (p.239).

The continuing theme of the book is that of return: this trip is Theroux’s return to the railways of Asia, of a revisit to his former ways and his former self. He meets former acquaintances from the Great Railway Bazaar, such as the family who run the hotel in Myanmar; the greetings and their stories making this truly heart-warming encounters. Yet there is also the feeling of Theroux’s loneliness and sadness, the realisation that his time on this planet is passing – in stark contrast to the younger man who wrote the earlier volume in the 1970s. This is expressed nowhere more clearly than in the meeting of Oo Nawng, the cyclist driver in Burma whom Theroux befriends and gives as a present money in which to pay for his rent and buy a new rickshaw (p.277). As Theroux notes, ‘Like me, he too was a ghost – invisible, ageing, just looking on, a kind of helpless haunter’ (p.276).

The Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, like The Great Railway Bazaar, is a fantastic travel book. Both describe the same journey, but are, ultimately, written by two different people. This recent edition to the Theroux catalogue is of a man in his twilight years: reflective and introspective, yet still with a thirst for knowledge. Although the world he once knew no longer exist, he is a traveller ever ready for the journey and its mysteries.

We, the Survival Machines

Richard Dawkins – The Selfish Gene (1976)
Popular Science – 330 pages – my copy (2006 edition paperback) borrowed from the Dawkins loving Jamie
- 4 nods out of 5 -

Ever since its first print run in the mid 1970s, The Selfish Gene has proved to be a popular, influential book: it set Dawkins up on a stellar career that he has enjoyed over three decades, whilst bringing the ideas of evolution to a mass audience. Some of this attention has been, admits Dawkins, quite controversial. The scientist has been keen to dispel the notion of endorsing a selfish ‘Me-Me-Me’ society, even going as far as adding a new chapter – ‘Nice Guys Finish First’ in newer editions.

Dawkins’ central argument is how we, chiefly human beings, are ‘survival machines’ for our genes: as the world became more complicated, the machines have become all the more diverse to succeed in replicating for future generations. ‘Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting,’ says Dawkins, while ‘genes, like diamonds, are forever’ (p.35).

He scoffs at the notion that our genes fight for the good of the species, instead emphasising that they look out for number one: if helping out number one involves giving assistance to number two, then it is carried out – but the sole aim remains the same. This hypothesis is tested throughout the book in a wide range of chapters, extending from relationships between sexes and generations.

The book becomes most absorbing when Dawkins suggests that people have ‘the power to rebel against the dictates of the genes’ (p.59-60): our use of contraception is a particular case in point. And while the book is filled with the animal world, Dawkins admits that ‘man is a very special case’ (p.60). He takes this matter further in the chapter on Memes (a Dawkins’ coined term) which he deems ‘the new replicators’. It is a pity this idea is crammed into one sole chapter only.

Yet, if this is all good news for bookish readers, just what is the bad? A chief gripe is Dawkins’ writing style: simply put, he is a mediocre author. He babbles and repeats himself, whilst his analogies become wearying as the book continues. The oarsmen in the boat-race makes rational sense, yet his description of the plot of the 1970s film A for Andromeda is pointless and a waste of space (see p.53). At worst, Dawkins sounds patronizing, condescending his "laymen" audience: never a trait to aspire to when reaching out for the mass market.

He repeatedly takes his hypothesis to its furthest limits in each of the chapters, draining the conversational tea-bag of all its worth, thus sucking out the excitement he initially creates when introducing each topic. Meanwhile, the new chapters added for newer editions are distinctly light-weight: the second one serves the primary function as an advertisement for another book (The Extended Phenotype). Furthermore, the work of Trivers, Maynard Smith and Hamilton are constantly referred to; this heavy weight of citing is so dense that the Worm suspects the young Dawkins of pandering to his elders and his peers.

One certain Book Worm fan has grave doubts about my assessment of Dawkins; perhaps even going as far as to state that the Worm has a vendetta against him. But this, quite simply, is not true. The Selfish Gene is an intriguing book, a book which this review recommends to all of those not yet acquainted with Dawkins. He succeeds in bringing his subject – with all its complexity – to the wider world. For that, the Worm applauds his efforts; and likewise, will continue in reading the Dawkins back catalogue in search of that golden 5 nodder.

History 101

E.H. Carr - What is History? (1961)
History Theory – 160 pages – my copy (paperback; 1977) bought for £2 from the Barbican Book Cupboard in 2006 with the penned words: ‘Brian William Ferguson, Perth, Scotland, 1978’.
- 3 nods out of 5 -

A good question deserves, likewise, a good response: What is History? E.H. Carr is the man fitting for such a task: one of the eminent historians of his time, he taught at both Oxford and Cambridge, while publishing many notable modern histories upon Soviet Russia. His book, What is History?, is a collection of lectures he gave in early 1961 to young, budding students of the subject: his intention to enlighten and explain.

In these lectures, Carr deals with the historian, the facts of history, society, History’s clashes with Science (though Carr hated the use of a capital ‘h’); causation in history and also the, somewhat paradoxical, future of history. An array of matters are asked, fitting into Carr’s belief that ‘the historian…is an animal who incessantly asks the question: "Why?"’ (p.86).

The chief argument of the book is Carr’s insistence that it is impossible to fully understand the events of the past. This clashes with the late Victorian view that everything would be gathered and made clear with the progress of time, that an absolute of History could be achieved, as could absolutes in other fields, such as the Sciences. Such beliefs were torn to pieces in a vastly changed world – mid-twentieth century – to that of the nineteenth: two world wars, alongside new discoveries put paid to this previously secure mind-set. Carr argues that our viewpoint on history will change from generation to generation, that despite the use of objective methods our interpretation of the past is condemned to be subjective due to the historian being a part of history himself.

Throughout the text, Carr believes in the worthiness of history as a discipline, believing that we can get much from it:

‘To learn about the present in the light of the past means also to learn about the past in the light of the present. The function of history is to promote a profounder understanding of both past and present through the interrelation between them’ (p.68).

What is History? is a fine addition to the canon of historical theory, and remains one of the ‘must-reads’ of history students. The arguments remain clear and concise – if not spectacular – and although Carr will remain in the grip of those fond of history, his collection of lectures would benefit any reader of inquisitive disposition.

Time For Heroes

Charles Dickens – Hard Times (1954)
Novel – 310 pages – my copy (paperback; 1985) bought for 50p from Plymouth Library, October 2009
- 4 nods out of 5 -

The Oliver Twists and David Copperfields are the common heroes of the literary landscape of Dickens; always comfortable stacked upon the book shelves of shops and continually, sometimes relentlessly remade by film makers and, particularly, the BBC. Hard Times may be a lesser known quantity; but alongside its book-siblings it is never put in the shade.

One of Dickens’ more later novels, Hard Times is a story with many plots and sub-plots, characters that being strong then fade away; yet it is not the narrative that makes it such an interesting read, but rather its attack on the prevalent belief in the Victorian world that everyone and everything must be accounted for and put to good use.

‘Now, what I want is, Facts!’ exclaims Mr Gradgrind in the book’s opening (p.47). Gradgrind and his fellow fact-fiend, Bounderby (described wonderfully as ‘the bully of humility’) pursue the shaping of society in their image. Dickens, himself a former child of the workhouse, attacks and makes a mockery of what is primarily the Benthamite philosophy; unfolding the events and the characters into expressing their feelings, their desires and their fears.

This is not to say that the book does not contain more than its fair share of Dickensian qualities: there are the characters (Bounderby in particular) as well as the dismal, dreary landscape, this time in the north of England; ‘a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever’ (p.65). Furthermore, there is the return of a lost relative: the seeming hallmark of all Dickens novels!

Although the anticipated mother’s reunion is a dampener on the proceedings, even more annoying is the dialect speech of one of the workers, Stephen: ‘…Gonnows I ha’ none how that’s o’ my makin’…’ (p.174). More than two paragraphs is enough for the Worm to shout: ‘No more!’ However, the quality is so high that such a niggling critique can easily be ignored. Most of the prose confirms Dickens position as one of our greatest, most loved novelists:

‘He stood bare-headed in the road, watching her quick disappearance. As the shining stars were to the heavy candle in the window, so was Rachel, in the rugged fancy of this man, to the common experiences of his life’ (p.126).

This time is, indeed, one in which a call for heroes is needed; Dickens answers this with the invention of Stephen, the run-down yet thoroughly honest work-man. Whilst the true hero here is not a person, as such, but rather the qualities of love and affection; qualities which, stresses Dickens, are needed to overcome the darkness of a modern world.

Know Your Rights

Thomas Paine – Rights of Man (1792)
Political Tract – 270 pages – my copy (1985; paperback) bought for £1 from the Comic Book Exchange in Notting Hill, London, in 2007
- 5 nods out of 5 -

We’ve all heard of those large, looming figures that claimed American independence from the British crown. Washington, Jefferson and the much cited Hancock; however, there is one man who for much of the past two hundred years has been forgotten. That man is Tom Paine. Recent decades have seen an increase in his popularity; historians have re-enacted him, novelists have spoke for him, whilst Bob Dylan rhymed him (see track two on John Wesley Harding).

This revivial rests on Paine’s influential works, of which Rights of Man arguably made the largest impact. It was written in the beginnings of the French Revolution, before it turned bloody and Napoleon arrived on the scene; Paine’s raison d’etre to contest the claims of another spokesman upon the revolution, Edmund Burke (though a man with reforming ambitions, Burke was, at heart, conservative and a believer in monarchy and tradition). In the words of Eric Foner, ‘the Burke-Paine debate was the classic confrontation between tradition and innovation, hierarchy and equality, order and revolution’.

Paine strikes at the heart of tradion, attacking the right of monarchy: ‘A French bastard landing with an armed banditti and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original’ (p.9). The insults heaped upon Paine provoke laughter today: ‘I know a place in America called Point-no-Point; because as you proceed along the shore, gay and flowery as Mr Burke’s language, it continually recedes and presents itself at a distance before you; but when you have got as far as you can go, there is no point at all. Just thus it is with Mr Burke’s three hundred and fifty-six pages’ (p.49). These wonderful, biting comments never desist; Paine always adhering to his belief that Burke's words 'is darkness attempting to illuminate light' (p.45). The language remains fresh and readable to us today; one of the reason's for Paine's success was the accessability of his works, a lesson continued by other Paine adorers, such as William Cobbett in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Yet Rights of Man is much more than a continuance of an argument. Paine believes in revolution and the good it can bring to the people; always fighting for progress and the welfare of all mankind; as he boasts: 'my country is the world, and my religion is to do good' (p.228). In the second part of the book, he sets out a possible welfare system to help the poorest of the country - one of the first of writers to commit such a vision to print.

Hindsight now shows Paine to be naive in his blinkered support of revolution. Little was he to know that it would turn sour and bloody as heads were sliced from bodies, while his predications of the future ('I do not believe that monarchy and aristocracy will continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries in Europe’ (p.156)) were wide off the mark; the monarchies of the world continuing, if with their feathers clipped, in the twenty-first century.

Although his influence may wax and wane, it will never be extinguished. Paine admirably stated, 'it is a duty which every man owes to society to point them out' (p.156). Sadly, the world could use more Tom Paine's today; those who will adhere to his commitment of helping manking.

Britannia Ruled the Waves

Niall Ferguson – Empire (2003)
History – 380 pages – my copy (2007; Penguin paperback) purchased for £2.99 from the Bookcase in Chiswick, London, July 2009
- 3 nods out of 5 -

Niall Ferguson has made a name for himself as one of Britain’s eminent working historians. Primarily publishing economic histories – concentrating on the Rothschild family – he has also turned his pen to America and, more recently, world wars. What then holds the value in yet another book upon the British Empire, its birth and its eventual eclipse?

The shelves are filled with so many tales upon this small island’s large holdings, from the glowing portraits to the critical studies and lamblasts from an unforgiving, modern generation. Ferguson, though, has no wish to stick the sword deeper into the corpse. Instead, he argues that his family was shaped by empire, his study – though covering its excesses and abuses – being ultimately positive in argument and tone.

The reader gets the familiar story: the explorer beginnings in Tudor times, confidence under the Stuarts, the great expansion in Victorian times, resulting in the disasterous wars in the twentieth century and the end of the journey, ‘empire for sale’. Amongst this, Ferguson performs admirably well; a writer of considerable skill he highlights various interesting tidbits and facts; such as the Maroons of Jamaica and the adventurers from Clive of India to Rhodes of Africa.

Though not a full-blooded apologist, Ferguson concludes with examining Britain's sacrificies in the Second World War, the period that Churchill coined the country's "finest hour". Ferguson suggests:

‘Yet what made it so fine, so authentically noble, was that the Empire’s victory could only ever have been Pyrrhic. In the end, the British sacrificed her Empire to stop the Germans, Japanese and Italians from keeping theirs. Did not that sacrifice alone expunge all the Empire’s other sins?’

An interesting question for the critics of empire, the many of who have recently been winning the debate on the validity and morality of Britain’s colonial adventures and abuses. However, the issue is much too wide to be simply packaged into such a question. Empire meant many things to many differing people from all walks of life; yes, some benefited, yet many did not - including the average-Joe-Briton himself.

Ultimately, it is the same tired story, told once again. Britain, it would seem, is forever fascinated with its more glorious past. Yes, we once ruled the waves. Now the empire rules the history shelves of our bookstores.

Everest

Leo Tolstoy – War & Peace (1869)
Novel – 1,300 pages - my copy (paperback; 1998) bought for £2.99 in a charity shop in Liskeard, early 2008
- 4 nods out of 5 -

Tolstoy’s War & Peace is a mammoth book; the champion of heavyweights; a lord among giants; the Mount Everest of all novels. This paperback edition alone comprises over one thousand and three hundred pages, the book’s spine cracking near breaking point long before I reached the book’s climax.

So, what is it all about? The novel takes place between the years of 1805 to 1813 (with an epilogue expanding to the 1820s); a time in which Napoleon rules Europe, the result of which is the French invading Russian soil on their march to Moscow. As the title suggests, the reader is switched back and forth from the tranquil bourgeois life of the higher classes in Moscow and St Petersburg to the rough and tumble of the front line of war, beginning in Austerlitz in 1805 and ending on the battlefields in the heart of Russia.

There is a vast cast of characters, centring principally on two families (the warm hearted Rostovs and the austere Bolkonskys), as well as the loveable and confused Pierre Bezukhov. We witness the loves and broken hearts (and broken bones), the squabbles and matches of these characters throughout these years; such as Andrei’s supposed death, Natasha’s absconding with a rival lover, the angry and disciplined Prince Bolkonsky and the ever inquisitive Pierre’s travels and tribulations in society. It is reminiscent of traditional English family saga novels – an influence on Tolstoy – and his romantic ink can be easily viewed throughout, such as in Nicholas and Sonya’s kiss:

‘ "Quite different and yet the same," thought Nicholas looking at her face all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and kissed her on the lips that wore a moustache and had a smell of burnt cork.’ (p.565).

The characters are alive and vibrant, yet this is not the total sum of the book. Tolstoy philosophises on life in combat and in general, the digressions becoming so numerous as the book proceeds that it is estimated that in Books Three and Four they fill one chapter in six, as well as the entirety of the second epilogue. This is reflected best in the thoughts and words of the characters, such as when Pierre reflects of life on the battlefield: ‘Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important, it’s all the same – only to save oneself form it as best one can…. Only not to see it, that dreadful it!’ (p.575)

However, it is frustratingly worn into the book via Tolstoy direct; his mission seemingly to confront historians of the period and their bias on hailing Napoleon as a learned and magnificent leader. No, there is no such thing as a Great Man in History who decides the fate and destiny of millions of people - states Tolstoy – and he continues to hammer this point, much to the reader’s annoyance. His argument runs thus:

‘When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing below wants to eat it? Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in which all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist who finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so forth, is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it.’ (p.648).

Due to Tolstoy’s feud with the historians of the time this book – at times mesmerising and thrilling – suffers as a result. The author is hell-bent on the revision of the history:
‘Had Napoleon then forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and have proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable’ (p.840)

But is anything in life inevitable? Only death. The book is a large mammoth, and due to its scope and the years it took to write, it appears at times to be directionless – the pages being moved along only by the feet of the advancing French. There are many wasteful pages and it could have been suitably trimmed back. This may sound a sacrilegious suggestion, but I have the strength (or audacity?) to see the worth in the latest frenzy of abridged and shortened classic novels. The soul of the book’s pages could be preserved without the seemingly pointless events of Pierre’s jaunts with the Freemasons.

Yet War & Peace remains one of the heavyweights of the novel – even if some critics have concluded it may not, in fact, be a novel (this is shown in Tolstoy’s employment of mathematics in his philosophical discussions, for example: ‘Consequently the four were equal to the fifteen, and therefore 4x=15y. Consequently x/y=15/4…’ (p.1105)). It recently received the somewhat dubious honour of being ranked second on a list of books that people claimed to have read in order to impress people, number one belonging to Orwell’s 1984. Such is its vastness and quality, Tolstoy’s book will long continue to amaze and astonish the reader.

Cider Drinking Fascists

Todd Gray - Blackshirts in Devon (2006)
Local History – 300 pages – my copy bought from Waterstones for £14.99 in summer of 2008
- 2 nods out of 2 -

The fascists in Devon? – in the land of cream teas, of grassy moorland, of the farmer and the janner? For a brief flurry in the mid 1930s, it appeared that the Right in Might would indeed, prove right. In the fascinating premise of this book, Todd Gray delves into Devon’s murkier, darker secrets; his quest to pose the question on just how large a presence fascism held in the west-country.

The scope of the book is wide and interesting to anyone with a passion for local history. Gray examines the activity in Plymouth (1933-34), the later concentration at Exeter (later 1930s) and the Blackshirts and their lives during the Second World War. The towns are well documented, but so are the smaller villages of Devon, giving the book its full deserts in its title on being truly about Devon.

However, Blackshirts in Devon is not the tour de force of local historical writing it perhaps should be, say, on comparison with A.L. Rowse’s Tudor Cornwall. Immediately apparent is Gray’s limits in writing ability; to put it bluntly, he is a poor author. The book is home to many interesting facts, gleamed from painstaking research, yet they have been squandered in a shoddy and confusing narrative (if narrative is the right term?). The book is cut into three parts, dependant on date (i.e.: part one is 1933-34; part two 1935-39), which makes complete sense; however, within the details are misplaced in no coherent whole, meaning that the reader must re-read previously stated details whilst waiting thirty or forty pages to continue on a previous thread. Why was it done in this way? Perhaps it is due to the lack of a central, driving force. There a few interesting characters (especially noted in the third part – the strongest of the book), and the study would have been better served on a central, controlling figure, in a condensed but arguably stronger examination. Yet the ultimate truth must be admitted: there was simply not a great deal of Blackshirt activity in Devon in this period.

The bulk of Gray’s research rests mostly on newspapers and fascist literature – some of which are excellent finds. Yet the book is missing that essential human ingredient of the words in their own words. It is understandable that few testimonials had in circulation, given the nature of the political activity and now more so due to the distance from this period – around seventy years. However, such investigation has been undertaken in even greater hushed, darker pasts, such as Nazi Germany and the occupied France during the Second World War.

Most infuriatingly are the continual mistakes present in the book’s layout and text. The graphic of title and sub-title are consistently confused, whilst further errors are founding basic areas such as spelling and referencing. I ask the question: Where was the proof-reader? Sadly, these detract from the book’s whole and importance; perhaps eliminations could be undertaken in a later edition.

The scope of the issue saves Gray’s book from joining other dubious titles in the Worm’s 1 nodder sin-bin. Despite its flaws, Blackshirts in Devon remains an illuminating read for anyone with an interest in Devon; yet further afield, it is one of quaint interest.

What in the Dickens!

Walter Allen - The English Novel (1954)
Literary critique - 360 pages - my copy a Penguin paperback bought for 50p in a charity shop
- 2 nods out of 5 -

Walter Allen’s long standing critique on the English novel is a competent read, a book well worn by the pen marks of students in the post-war period. The title could as easily be read as a question, rather than statement; a question in which each literary nation asks itself. The American novel? The French novel? The Russian novel? All attempts are the same, exactly just what is it?

The novel itself is a hard thing to define. Allen himself exerts much energy to tell the reader what it isn’t; on writing on Swift he states ‘though possessing many of the attributes of a novelist, cannot be called one’ (p.42). Allen attempts to show us the qualities that make a novel, this following statement being particular useful: ‘Like any other artist the novelist is a maker. He is making an imitation, an imitation of the life of man on earth’ (p.14).

The English Novel traces novelists from ‘The Beginnings’, from the eighteenth century (Allen concentrating on the Big Four: Fielding, Richardson, Smollet and Stern), through the nineteenth century (principally Dickens, James, Wells) to what was to Allen, more recent modernist works (such as Joyce, Woolf and Lawrance). The nineteenth century holds a large bias, with four of the book’s seven chapters featuring in it. Allen argues the case, that it was in this period (the 1880s to be more precise) that the ‘more serious conception of the novel as art’ was pondered (p.260). Chief causes of this, he lists as greater literacy rates and easier, cheaper methods of printing.

This un-presuming, modest book (its subtitle: ‘A Short Critical History’) never threatens to be anything more than a guide to further reading. Allen does not pour vitriol on the pages; playing the role of acting as interested and jubilant uncle to a nephew who has yet to pick up a copy of Dickens’ David Copperfield. One of its chief problems is acknowledged by the author in the opening preface:

‘If in a book on the novel of 150,000 words there is room only for 6,000 words on Dickens, the greatest genius among our novelists, how much space is one to give to Joyce Cary or Mr Greene’ (p.11).

And, in any case, what is 6,000 words of a critic talking on Dickens, when the reader could easily pick up a book on Dickens himself and directly enjoy the source.

God Save the Queen

David Starkey - Monarchy (2006)
History – 360 pages – my copy (paperback) borrowed from Pete
- 3 nods out of 5 -

David Starkey has made a name for himself with his silver, piston tongue and large glasses that sit upon his combed hair. He is, in short, the typical television personality historian: keen to put down others and lavish grand statements upon a public; for the benefit of winning attention.

Starkey’s general interest has long been the Tudor period, on which he once acclaimed in a television interview, when things really got interesting in England. Monarchy begins in this period, continuing to the present day, taking in Henry VIII, Elizabeth’s I & II, the beheaded Charles, the mad George III and, of course, Victoria. The book is aimed at the layman and, as such, has become a best-seller, cementing Starkey’s name alongside other media personalities like Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson.

However, both Schama and Ferguson do greater justice to their audience. Monarchy may well be an effortless read; but time and again Starkey patronizes his readership, constantly repeating the story, never going in depth, never even threatening to argue fresh insight. This is shown in his lack of concrete referencing and the committing of the ultimate scholarly crime: getting the facts all mixed up. I allude to a particular point (in pages 22-23), when referring to an uprising in Cornwall in the early years of Henry Tudor’s reign. He misses the actual date by a year (1496 rather than 1497) and doesn’t seem to recognise there were in fact two disturbances: one against tax hikes (as led by An Gof) and the one in support of the pretender to the throne (Perkin Warbeck). The revolt led by An Gof succeeded in closing in on London, though it was never a ‘close-run thing’ as Starkey believes (p.23). It was, it appears, to be a rout: the Cornish rebels were easily apprehended, the leaders taken to the capital for quartering and death.

So, if this is wrong, can the remainder of Starkey’s pages be confidently trusted? The answer, in short, is no. But such is the strength of the book’s narrative, that it can certainly be enjoyed. The years of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are featured most prominently, from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 onwards. This is when Britain was forged, when the vicious religious disputes were put into the past, and when this small island became a great, world power. Unlike many modern historians, Starkey is unembarrassed about Britain’s empire, never pandering to the critics’ dislike of its grizzly realities (slavery, of bondage; of ruining others to line the pockets of our rich).

Starkey is unabashedly a romantic for monarchy; for King and Queen. The name Windsor, he states, is ‘redolent of all things English. Shakespeare. Pageantry. Sweet, old-fashioned smells’ (p.297). Yet despite his attachment, he warns that the monarchs may yet fade away, ‘having bored us and itself to death’ (p.297). This shows in the last chapter of his work, in glossing over a century of kings and queens of modern Britain in one chapter. But this, in many ways, makes perfect sense. Our monarchs are no longer integral to the nation, not to our day-to-day running of our lives, and nor to our future.

Suicide Pact

Nick Hornby – A Long Way Down (2005)
Novel – 250 pages – my copy (hardback) bought for 50p from Plymouth Library
- 2 nods out of 5 -

A Long Way Down is a novel about the coming together of four characters who accidently meet on top of a noted London suicide spot on New Year’s Eve. Rather than kill themselves they decide to share their thoughts and feelings with one another, becoming a tightly bond gang, there to help one another though the tough times.

So far it has the makings of typical Hollywood trash (though perhaps substitute suicide with the threat of not being able to go the prom). But fear not, as Hornby, being British, makes them squabble throughout all the book’s pages in suitable fashion fitting for this rain-soaked island. The characters consist of Martin (disgraced TV presenter, jailed for having sex with a fifteen year old); JJ (an American who has endured the breakup of his band and his girlfriend walking out on him); Jesse (a disturbed teenager girl whose elder sister went missing); and Maureen (a fifty-something woman who can no longer cope being the sole carer for his mentally disabled son).

The book is told via the four perspectives, flicking from one to the other every four or five pages; and whilst it starts strongly (particularly Maureen’s opening narration) this tactic ultimately confuses reader and author alike. The chief problem here is that despite which character is talking, Hornby’s voice is undisputedly heard behind them. Take, for instance, Hornby’s favourite past-time of pointless analogies:

‘But it isn’t like that. I’m sure it must have been an ingredient, sort of thing, but it wasn’t the whole recipe. Say I’m spaghetti Bolognese, well I reckon Jen is the tomatoes. Maybe the onions. Or even just the garlic. But she’s not the meat or the pasta.’ (p.107).

If it’s not pasta, then it’s a sponge, or not that then a TV show, or if not that some other trifling matter. My gripe is not with the analogies per se, but rather that every character repeatedly uses them; thus committing the crime of authorial intrusion, or worst, sloppy writing.
This would be forgivable if the book contained the humour of Hornby’s earlier books, Fever Pitch and High Fidelity particularly. Yet the fountain here appears to have run dry, giving more credence to the critical finger waving at Hornby’s recent output.

The book has one similarity to his previous outings: Hornby’s complete inability to comprehensively finish a novel. High Fidelity’s climax occurred forty pages before its end; whilst the ending to About A Boy was so misguided that the film tried rectifying it with another. A Long Way Down is the worst yet, attempting a climax with a meeting of all the central character’s close relations, it goes off the boil, Hornby seemingly typing away until feeling tired, bunching the foursome together over a coffee at the book’s end.

Has Nick Hornby – one of our most celebrated British writers of recent times – gone off the boil for good? A Long Way Down continues in the un-thrilling vein of previous novel How To Be Good. The energy of High Fidelity has fizzled. It is the Worm’s sincere hope it will return.

Of the Failure, the Hero, and the Hammer

John Gillingham & Ralph A. Griffiths

Medieval Britain: A Very Short Introduction (2000)
History – 150 pages – my copy (paperback; 2000) bought for 50p in Plymouth Library
- 2 nods out of 5 -

The series ‘A Very Short Introduction’ has apparent ambitions of annexing the shelves of all good book stores. A browse in your nearest Waterstones will reveal a whole rack devoted to the books, ranging from historical to scientific issues, whilst taking in a whole host of other topics, some a tad needlessly (such as the one centred on ‘Love’?). Yes, they are opportunistic cash cows, with each edition now nearing the ten pound mark, whilst much of the text is nabbed from earlier publications – my very own read was originally printed in The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, way back in 1984! Yet what of the quality?

This gentle, breezy read never has pretensions of grandeur, yet provides an informative run-through of four centuries of history, from the arrival of William the Conqueror to that of the Tudors. The authors chart the squabbles between kings and princes, sprinkled with some gruesome deaths: William Rufus shot by an arrow in a hunting “accident” (I say “accident” as medieval conspiracy theorists run rampant on other thoughts) and Edward II supposedly done to death by a red hot poker up the rear-end. It all has the making of a soap opera, albeit a rather gruesome and morbid one. Charted are the failures of King John, the heroics of King Richard, and the severe fist of King Edward – the hammer of the Scots.

Only in a couple of instances do the authors go beyond the call of duty in the sketching of these royal characters, commenting on the economy and social change of the period. Yet, full analysis is beyond the scope of such a short book (though appended is a comprehensive further reading list for the die-hard medieval enthusiast).

The series of introductory booklets march on, intent on covering every period and every notable person in history (and perhaps, eventually, every non-notable too). For those with no knowledge of the period in question, Gillingham’s and Griffiths’ chapters are a sufficient, if un-exceptional read.

We, the Second Elizabethans

A.N. Wilson - Our Times: The Age of Elizabeth II (2008)
History – 420 pages – my copy (2008; paperback) from Waterstones for £9.99 in September 2009
- 3 nods out of 5 -

A history of the reign of Elizabeth is perhaps a tad premature, considering that our monarch still sits, living and breathing, upon the British throne. Her longevity is widely noted, with years yet to remain with her face adorned on bank-notes. Yet A.N. Wilson, a man of Second Elizabethan England (being born in 1950), paints a vast portrait of the age, following in the chronology of his previous studies, The Victorians and After the Victorians.

What has happened in the past fifty-five years? Well, quite a lot. From Churchill to Brown, from a world power to that of European partner, Britain has overseen remarkable change. Wilson recounts shifts in society, in morality and in our beliefs, from a 1950s in which homosexuality was outlawed, to today’s supposed multi-cultural land. He charts Ireland, woman’s liberation and the change of the entertainment industry and media. Such wildly different events, yet the book itself is divided into typical chapters more fitting a political history (such as ‘Churchill and Eden’, ‘Macmillan’ and ‘The Lady’). And, ultimately, the primary focus is in the goings-on at Westminster, with the whole book holding a bias towards the South-East of England, the Conservatives, and the higher echelons of society; the clear over-statement of the book coming in praise for Prince Charles: ‘Were we to write down the virtues of Prince Charles, and his achievements, he would undoubtedly emerge as a, if not the, hero of this book’ (p.319).

Wilson is at his best in his vivid and colourful descriptions, such as the one on Ian Paisley:

‘With his tall, bulky gait, his brilliantined hair, his thick lips which seemed in their liquid sibilance positively to savour the anti-papalist insults which fell from them, with his strong Ulster brogue and his alarmingly powerfully lungs, larynx and vocal chords….’ (p.170).

Whilst his scathing comments on the ills of society are full of humour, such as the many on benefits in 2008:

[Eating] ‘the consoling junk food beloved by American proles, they came to resemble them, waddling from Iceland to Burger King or Dunkin’ Donuts in their huge blue jeans, pushing their obese tots in groaning strollers’ (p.415).

All of which shows a true novelist’s touch – Wilson himself being the writer of much fiction (as well as biographies on notables such as Tolstoy). One of the chief problems, however, is in the sheer scale of material – the picture credits alone show an eclectic range, from Churchill to the Krays, from Dad’s Army to Jeffery Archer, from Lady Diana to Tom Baker. Of course, such a collection says much for the past half a century and our country, yet my primary concern is Wilson’s construction within the text of piecing such contrasting people and issues together. At many times in the book he abruptly stops typing on one matter, cutting straight to another. Was this a question of time or of space? Either way, it leaves accusations of a lack of sight of the overview flow of the pages.

Wilson stresses the changing morals of Britain in this period. He believes there is no modern equivalent of the artists, the writers and the greats of the past. ‘Then, Great Britain was the greatest power in the world. Compare it with the Britain of 2008 and the language of decline and fall becomes inevitable’ (p.413). Is this a strict lamentation? Not exactly. Wilson strikes out the merry past, stating that the ‘Britain which saw Elizabeth II’s Coronation, and the Britain which will see her funeral are in reality two different, equally awful, places’ (p.413). Despite the many improvements we benefit from today – of a more tolerant, plentiful, cared for land – Wilson believes it has come at a cost to the death of a coherent society. Britain, he concludes, ceased to exist: ‘She had become a missing person’ (p.422).

The book would have benefited enormously if Wilson had spent more energy enquiring as to when this happened. Yet, such a job is perhaps for a future historian, and not for a contemporary. Our Times, it certainly is, and is interest for anyone in our recent past.

A Railroad Man

Mark Oliver Everett - Things the Grandchildren Should Know (2008)
Autobiography – 240 pages – my copy (2008; paperback) from Waterstones for £7.99 in September 2009
- 3 nods out of 5 -

Feel like an old railroad man
Ridin’ out on the bluemont line
Hummin’ along old dominion blues
Not much to see and not much left to lose
(Railroad Man, Eels, 2005)

Mark Oliver Everett is popularly known as ‘E’, the man behind the alternative and influential rock outfit Eels. Songs such as Susan’s House, Novacaine for the Soul and a whole spate oddly released on Shrek movie soundtracks have enlightened many a music enthuasiastcs night. But what lies behind the genius of such tracks?

A much confused family, for starters. This family comprises of a noted and intelligent father who died when Everett was in his late teens; a sister who killed herself after many failed attempts at suicide; while his mum, the last of his immediate family, shortly followed with cancer. Such events, and the over-riding loneliness of his life have been shown in many of his albums and its songs; most notably Electro-Shock Blues, about breakdown of the late 1990s of his family, and his 2005 album, Blinking Lights.

Things the Grandchildren Should Know, then, follows in this vein but in word format. He describes his childhood – the strongest section of the book – as a young and confused kid, lurching from one thing to the next. When feeling at a complete loss he decides to go with the only thing he has, his talent, and move to LA to find a music career to harness his uniqueness: ‘…that was a mission I was on. To keep whittling away until whatever it was that I had that was uniquely mine really started to shine’ (p.82). Bit by bit, he claims his place alongside the rock Gods, a long way off from his wannabe days when washing cars across from the large building of Polygram Records: ‘I would stand there with the hose in my man and look up at the building with reverence, like it was a monument’ (p.82).

However, the rock aspects of his life take a secondary importance to his domestic concerns, which as briefed upon, were devastating. His sister, whom he deeply loved, succumbed to drugs; whilst his mother succumbed to cancer. ‘I held her hand and talked to her, unsure if there was any use in it. I told her that we were all there for her and how much we loved her. Eventually her breathing began to slow down until it was very, very slow. And then there was one last, slow exhale with no inhale after it.’ (p.157).

It is this human, emotional aspect which makes Things the Grandchildren Should Know such a fulfilling read. Throughout all, Everett is under little pretence: he lays it bare, as awkward as that might be. Most of his life he has spent alone, and it is this loneliness that affects the reader deeply: ‘I’d go back to my sweltering apartment and lie on the mattress on the floor listening to Bob Dylan, the man with the secret sense of destiny, singing ‘Sign on the Window’ on the boom box while I cried and thought of giving up an dying’ (p.83).

Despite such openness, the autobiography is ultimately stunted in Everett’s lack of authorial control. A great attempt at his first stab of writing a book, yet the structure of the book suffers, with words and anecdotes being splattered upon the page, denigrating its coherent whole. Whilst the recent years get little of a look in as does his childhood. A further, more biting accusation, would be Everett’s fascination with death, bringing to our attention every funeral he is encountered, being stretched too far for dramatics, such as his ‘hot, blonde cousin’ who died in the 9/11 attacks on America (p.3).

Everett is undoubtedly a man of many talents. The written word may join the many others he occupies. It is the Worm’s sincere hope that he will follow this book up with later instalments, recounting to the world what has been an eventful, emotional and enlightening life.

World On Fire

Niall Ferguson - The War of the World (2006)
History – 700 pages – my copy (paperback; 2007) bought from Waterstones for £12.99 in August 2009
- 4 nods out of 5 -

I hear you ask the question immediately: ‘Why the need for another book on the wars of the first half of the twentieth century?’ And ordinarily, I would agree with you; the Kaiser and the Fuhrer have both been comprehensively studied by scholars and laymen alike for many decades. Another addition to an already bloated shelf brings with it accusations of a lazy, unimaginative historian; a writer keen for quick riches in a popular historical market. However, let the record make it strictly clear: Niall Ferguson is not cut of such cloth.

Widely noted as one of the eminent British historians of current times, Ferguson has all the hallmarks of a successful writer of enquiry and fact, mixed in with a novelist’s touch for drama. Involved at both Harvard and Oxford, he has made the successful transition to television documentary; his face fitting for today’s multi-media, being snapped on the inside book cover in his confident Del-Monte suit. His writing style is always competent and comprehensive, and at times simply stunning (such as his detailing of Stalin, ‘the most paranoid, untrusting’ individual in modern times trusting Hitler, ‘the most unscrupulous liar in history’ (p.428)). The War of the World is his interpretation on the slaughter and carnage of the two world wars, in which he covers old ground (for example, the attacks on the appeaser and failure that was Neville Chamberlain) whilst amassing a wide range of sources – including many new ones previously untapped. Indeed, the footnotes are so numerous that Ferguson apologises for not being able to actually include them in the book’s edition, instead publishing them on his website.

Ferguson argues that the twentieth century was the bloodiest period in human history – adding an interesting appendix to back up this claim. Throughout all – using a dramatist’s touch – he shocks the reader; even those already familiar with the atrocities of the time. Such an example is of a Polish man shot by Ukrainians during the Second World War, a family friend watching the following gruesome fate of his family:

‘First, they raped his wife. Then, they proceeded to execute her by tying her up to a nearby tree and cutting off her breasts. As she hung there bleeding to death, they began to hurl her two-year-old son against the house wall repeatedly until his spirit left his body. Finally, they shot her two daughters. When their bloody deeds were done and all had perished, they threw the bodies into a deep well in front of the house. Then, they set the house ablaze’ (p.456)

Shocking it is, yet that is not its only function in Ferguson’s narrative. As stated, this was the death of a Pole by Ukrainian hands – not that of popularised Nazi on democrat, or Nazi on Jew. Ferguson argues that when society breaks down, as in the case of war, all hell is let loose – the underlying antagonisms (those between culture, religion and race) are unleashed, and sometimes with horrific results. The reason why the first half of the twentieth century was the bloodiest was not one of technology and more potent bombs – if that were so then we would today be nuclear toast – rather, it was due to a world-wide social breakdown.

It is in the book’s conclusion when Ferguson attempts to summarise this understanding, citing Freud’s observations on war and peace. Man, he noted, was made of ‘well known opposites, Love and Hate’. Man has ability to create wonders, but also has the capacity to destroy (what Freud labels the ‘death instinct’). And fatalistically, says we cannot ‘suppress humanity’s aggressive tendencies’.

‘Why do we, you and I and many another, protest so vehemently against war, instead of just accepting it as another of life’s odious importunities? For it seems a natural enough thing, biologically sound and practically unavoidable’ (p.634).

The urges to rape, murder and destroy are suppressed in a civilised, ordered society. When chaos is unleashed, the existing frictions between us provide the spark to propel the explosive. ‘We remain,’ concludes Ferguson, ‘our own worst enemies’ (p.646).

Yet if that is all hot, what is not? That accusations could be made about the covering of old ground has already been mentioned; more exact would be Ferguson’s ultimate inability to successfully tie all the pieces of the story into a co-ordinated knot, such as welding the Japanese war with those in Europe. Of course, this is itself perhaps an impossible task, due to the distances of geography and philosophy. Though it must be stated that many interesting comparisons are drawn up, including that between Hitler’s and Roosevelt’s accession in 1933 (p.223), and that between Britain and Japan’s imperial ambitions (p.285-286). Furthermore, like many historians, Ferguson commits the crime of concentrating too heavily on the Nazis; whilst always falling back on his comfortable economic upbringing, stressing the monetary ties between nations (stressing the pre-1914 globalisation and the Great Crash of 1929). The author takes an accountant’s delight in listing facts and figures, many times dulling the reader, when a sufficient amount would have enlightened.

Simply put, Ferguson has attempted to bite too much of the apple, trying to comment on Britain’s decline, America’s ascent, the fascist regimes, the communist regimes, Third World wars whilst all the time noting racial violence. A book of under a thousand pages could never possibly complete such a task. Therefore, as a combined and continuous "War of the World", it doesn’t stand the weight of scrutiny.

Ferguson’s War of the World is a must read for anyone interested in the wars and horrors of the twentieth century; and more crucially, for those who want an attempt in answering the thought-provoking questions Ferguson never endingly poses to his readers.

An Uninteresting Murder

Jed Rubenfeld - The Interpretation of Murder (2006)
Novel – 530 pages – my copy (paperback; 2007) borrowed
- 2 nods out of 5 -

The Interpretation of Murder is a fictional-fact novel – yes, one of those which have come into great fashion in recent years – set in the New York of 1909. A murder happens which leads to Younger, the chief protagonist, using his psychiatry skills in helping catch the killer. Helping him in this pursuit is Sigmund Freud - prominently noted in the book’s blurb -who counsels Younger to clarity and giving him the strength of his convictions.

All of which sounds quite splendid; however, that is not quite the case. Simply put, there are too many characters, too many murders (and attempted murders) and too many plots being discussed in the book’s 500 pages (again, far too many). For instance, the reader is pitted with two characters in the hero role, various love interests, and various villains. As the saying goes, ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth.’ The impression the Worm took away from this novel was that of two stories meshed into one, as if Younger’s story (written in first perspective) wasn’t juicy enough for Rubenfeld’s publishers, thus prompting him to include a few grizzly murders and dead females stuffed in baskets (written, complexingly, in third perspective). Due to this, the book fails in its chief concerns: to continually build suspense. Rather, it ebbs and flows, beyond the author’s control.

This is not to say the author’s intrusion is not found; it fills every page and is inescapable. Rubenfeld’s background holds the key: a student of law, with the result being a prose as stifled and stilted as that found in parliamentary acts. Furthermore, all of his previous study – in the fields of Freud and Shakespeare – are dumped into the novel (for instance, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is continuously, unconvincingly and monotonously debated, much to the Worm’s chagrin).

And what of the sentences themselves? His description leaves much to be desired: ‘Jimmy Littlemore wasn’t bad-looking, but he wasn’t quite good-looking either’ (p.34). Whilst there is the constant authorial interference, breaking up the story as a drunk would in a pub conversation: ‘Among the various sounds one can hear indoors in the nighttime, some are instantly recognizable. There is, for example, the unmistakable pattering of a small animal…’ (p.177). What is Rubenfeld trying to accomplish here, exactly? Surely the story itself should do all the talking for him.

The book’s redeeming feature is the inclusion of Freud, whilst his attempt to collate fiction and fact are admirable, even if never wholly successful. A more adventurous and capable writer would have involved Freud to a greater extent. As it stands, The Interpretation of Murder remains a book with many flaws, yet a novel for the psychologist enthusiast.

The Land that Time Forgot

Robin Lane Fox - The Classical World – An epic history of Greece & Rome (2005)
History – 600 pages - my copy (paperback; 2006) purchased from Waterstones for £9.99 in 2008
- 3 nods out of 5 -

In spanning the classical world – a period from the fall of Troy to Hadrian’s reign of the Roman Empire – Robin Lane Fox has attempted to cram over one thousand years of history into one book. More than that, he not only concentrates on one society, but several; chiefly those of ancient Greece and the Roman Republic and Empire.

The book comments on a whole multitude: the Archaic Greek world; the Persian wars, the rivalling city states of Sparta and Athens; Alexander the Great; the rise of the Roman Republic and its eventual transformation into Empire. A weighty list indeed to contain in a book, yet Lane Fox does an admirable job of detailing all humanly possible. The Greeks and their Macedonian cousins consume half the author’s attention, whilst the Romans have the last 300 pages devoted to them. It is to the Romans in which Lane Fox comes closest to capturing the reader’s attention, notably the tumultuous time in which Caesar conquered Rome and became dictator, the effects of which changed the political landscape of the Western world forever.

In his introduction, the author speaks grandly of employing contemporary thinking – from advances in medicine, social sciences and literary studies – in an attempt to put fresh questions to the evidence before him. However, the results are not all spectacular as would be supposed. Despite listing an array of historical characters, and devoting whole chapters to some of the principal names (such as Socrates, Alexander the Great and Cicero) at no point does the reader feel as if they are being treated to the fresh insight initially promised.

Perhaps this has more to do with Lane Fox’s preference to debate on archaeological findings; his chapter on the last days of Pompeii is one of his strongest. But the more concrete reason is behind the author’s lack of strong prose and colourful characterisation. Towards the book’s end, when emperor after emperor is rattled off, it becomes weighty to reading eyes, like a large stone being dragged to a the finish point.

Six hundred pages simply doesn’t do this vast time period justice; and more cuttingly, six hundred pages simply is beyond the author’s ability. However, as an introductory guide into these times, the people and the issues, Robin Lane Fox’s book suffices as a worthy addition to the book shelf.

A Rapist in the White House

Christopher Hitchens – No One Left to Lie To (1999)
Politics – 150 pages - my copy a borrowed paperback
- 4 nods out of 5 -

Talk of your political, pen-welding assassinations: Hitchens’ portrait of the Bill Clinton administration ranks high in any list of those in modern times. No One Left to Lie To is an eye-opening critique of the supposed reformer and great pretender to the claim of leader of the free world; of the man who infamously declared to the world: ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman.’

Combining an incisive writing style with honed journalistic instincts, Hitchens puts his all into the cause of undermining the former U.S. President. Written in the late 1990s, at the height of anti-Clinton feeling, the former leader’s character is mercilessly ripped into: he is a liar, a draft dodger, a fake and a phoney, a pretend peace loving hippy, the wolf in lamb’s clothing.

Hitchens’ attacks are unrelenting; making a greater impact on the reader is his denouncing of Clinton’s supposed avoidance of proper welfare reform, the lining of his own pockets, supposed ‘war crimes’, before the climax of asking the question: ‘Is there a rapist in the Oval office?’ This last statement refers to Clinton’s numerous sexual liaisons with females in his past: Lewinsky was not the only bed companion.

Hitchens does a comprehensive job of pointing out to the reader Clinton’s sexual aggressiveness, clearing the females themselves of the White House’s claim that they are simply in it for a piece of gold and a slice of the spotlight (one of which declared her desperation to remain unnamed due to the shame it would bring on her middle-class, respectable suburban family). Further condemning is the waste of time the whole of his sexual escapades put on Presidential time and money – the claimed ‘cock-tax’; as well as the White House’s eagerness to cover foreign failures– such as bombs dropping in the Middle East – with the adultery crisis (Clinton’s ‘weapons of mass distraction’).

Equally effective is the chapter that concentrates on the woman ‘in the shadow of the conman’, the First Lady, Hiliary Clinton. These statements are a small sample: ‘She is a tyrant and a bully when she can dare to be, and an ingratiating populist when that will serve…and has never found that any of her numerous misfortunes or embarrassments are her own fault, because the fault invariably lies with others…[and] like him, she is not just a liar but a lie; a phoney construct of shreds and patches and hysterical, self-pitying, demagogic improvisations.’ Hard-hitting stuff, indeed. Firing in the humour, Hitchens devotes two pages to Hiliary’s supposed verbal cock-ups and publicity gaffs, of which include:

‘On a visit to New Zealand, she claimed to have been named for Sir Edmund Hillary’s ascent of Everest; a triumph that occurred some years after her birth and christening. I insert this true story partly for comic relief, as showing an especially fantastic sense of self-reinvention as well as a desperate, musterous willingness to pander for the Kiwi vote.’

Yet it is not all so light hearted. For the main part, Hitchens concentrates on how Hiliary made a name of using underhand tactics of urging investigative journalists to dig up dirt on fellow politicians and of Clinton’s former love partners.

Ultimately, this short read comprises one of the most effective pieces of political and character assassinations of recent times. Throughout all, Hitchens has assumed the mantle of truth-bearer for the masses, un-tiring and un-ending in his tirades and welding of the pen (or is it, rather, the axe?). At the book’s end, the Worm was left with the impression that William Clinton was not one of the trumpeted chief reformers of recent times, instead believing in the statement that he is rather ‘a scoundrel and a perjurer and disgrace to the office he has held.’ No One Left to Lie To is an explosive read for anyone interested in American politics.

Into the Melting Pot

Martin Amis – The Moronic Inferno (and other visits to America) (1986)
Essay collection – 210 pages – my copy (1987; paperback) bought for £2.99 from the fantastic Oxfam bookshop in Chiswick, London, in early 2009.
- 3 nods out of 5 -

When asked to pen a travelogue of the U.S. of A., Martin Amis initially bulked at the challenge: ‘America is more like a world than a country’. Yet after reflection, he realised he had already, in effect, written such a book; it being amassed from his collection of essays on American life, printed during the late 1970s and 1980s in such prestigious titles as The Observer, the New Statesman and Vanity Fair. A little editing and pruning and viola: The Moronic Inferno is available on all good book shelves.

However, do not be alarmed at the seemingly opportunist nature of the book (after all, a collection of typed up essays doesn’t sound like a classic in the making, perhaps more akin to a quick profit for both publisher and author); The Moronic Inferno has enough within the pages to make the reader gasp in wonder at the land of America.

The essays are primarily centred on public figures of American life in this period, charting Elvis Presley, Hugh Hefner, and Steven Spielberg; whilst in conversation with some of the great heavyweights of twentieth century literature such as Truman Capote, Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. American life is studied, from the deeds of multi-talented and multi-complex Gore Vidal, to Ronald Reagan, to the New Evangelical Right to the psychotic killings that took place in Atlanta (one of the book's strongest essays).

Of course, due to the nature of the book there is no coherent narrative; however, it can be satisfactorily taken up in any place and read with amusement. The reader is given a great snapshot of the time of 1980s Reaganite America: before the fall of Communism, before the new millennium, before 9/11, before the pain of Bush and before the optimism of Obama. Perhaps much of Amis’ insightful comments can be placed in his being primarily an outsider (though with an American wife and in American residence); but the chief reason why the book is such a joy is because of the author’s intelligent, witty writing style. Though chiefly an author of fiction, Amis has mastered the form of the essay. The reason why the Worm can go no further than 3 nods is due to the book’s ultimate flaw: it’s stunted conception as a band of previously penned words. The Worm calls on Amis to take to the road – Jack Kerouac style – and write a true travel book on this fascinating ‘world’.

A Summit of Lacklustre Proportions

David J Bercuson & Holger H Herwig - One Christmas in Washington (2005)
History – 280 pages – my copy (2006; paperback) bought from the Works in Plymouth for £2.99
- 2 nods out of 5 -

History books on the Second World War will never go out of fashion. It seems that popping off a few hundred words on the Nazi menace or Allied fight-back is a certain way to bolster the CV, get your name on the shelves of shops, and maybe even line the pockets. Due to the ample amount of events to cover in the years from 1939 to 1945, the reader rarely fails to be mesmerised and informed. However, Bercuson and Herwig, authors of this book, do not succeed wholly on either front.

One Christmas in Washington primarily concerns the events from November 1941 to January 1942, a time in which the USA was dragged into the war after the cowardly bombing of Pearl Harbour. On hearing the news – at which Churchill expressed a somewhat perverted delight – the British PM hightailed it to Washington to meet with the President to forge an alliance to deal with the Japanese and Hitler and his henchmen.

Such a synopsis offers some mouth-watering prospects of insight and conflict. Yet rarely does the book come to life, which is perplexing when one considers the two staring figures, Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt: the British Bulldog and the only President to have won four elections. Both are gigantic figures in 20th century political history and both have had many inspiring and worthy biographies written upon them. But neither Bercuson and Herwig are of the right metal to chart this summit of epic proportions.

Throughout all the book’s 280 pages the writing style is flat and lacklustre. There are many other characters detailed, including the leaders, yet the reader is given standard short biographies of them, as one would find on any Wikipedia page. The range of sources appear stunted – primarily of a secondary nature – and this is one of the book’s chief failings. Nowhere is new ground trotted upon: no new analysis, no new insight.

It is left then to the anecdotes of Churchill to enliven the pages, of which include his conversations with White House staff (‘No member of the White House staff had ever seen the likes of Winston Churchill. Nor would any of them ever forget him’ (p.129)), his smoking and drinking and general winding up of the top brass in the American government. The most notable one details Roosevelt rushing into Churchill’s room with important news, only to find the rotund PM naked after enjoying a bath. Roosevelt made way to promptly exit before Churchill told him: ‘Think nothing of it. The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to conceal from the President of the United States’ (p.217). Despite Churchill later insisting the story was ‘nonsense’, it has stuck to his fame for decades since.

The Christmas conferences were ultimately vital in establishing the alliance that would eventually win the war – the world’s greatest and most vital – in 1945. It is a great pity that the authors were unable to capture this importance, missing a real slice of history. As such, One Christmas in Washington remains a standard read, only a book on the wish-list of Second World War buffs, and to Churchill’s fans in particular.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

William Shirer - Berlin Diary (1941)
Historical Diary – 600 pages

my copy an 1987 edition hardback borrowed from Pete
- 5 nods out of 5 -

Hitler and Nazism have had countless books penned in interest over the past seventy years. They continue to engulf the public imagination, with many notable academic figures commenting on them down the years. Yet it is one of the earliest accounts of Nazism that continues to be a shining star, a heavyweight amongst a mass of mediocrity – William Shirer was one of the first, and he’ll certainly be in contention as one of the last words of this tumultuous time.

It is Shirer’s subsequent, more comprehensive history on Nazism – The Rise & Fall of Nazi Germany - that is the better known; however, Berlin Diary combines both the comprehensive analysis of the later work, whilst adding adrenaline like quality that propel the book to position of a page-turner thriller.

Beginning in January 1934, it details seven years in Shirer’s life as a foreign correspondent, initially for the newspapers and later more successfully in the budding radio medium. He is there when Hitler takes full power; when he rearms; when he takes Austria, then Czechoslovakia; when war is declared from the allies, and there when the bombs fall on Berlin all around him. The reader is placed in the heart of the action; something other histories lack due to the gap between the events that actually happened to the time when they are described. He is commenting whilst the world stands on that fine wedge between war and peace. And yet for a man who has not the benefit of hindsight, Shirer does a remarkable job at his perceptive analysis on just what the Nazis are plotting and Europe’s dark fate.

Just why are the pages dazzling aware and insightful? Perhaps it is due to his position as an outsider, his nationally being American. Whilst liberalism died in Europe and fascism reigned, the reader is given an impression of Shirer as Orwell’s Winston Smith, The Last Man in Europe (furthermore, there are countless similarities with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighteen-Four – the rationing, the propaganda… the Worm is convinced that Orwell must have owned a copy of the Diary).

There are a couple of interesting points on Shirer’s old fashioned stereotypical view of the German believing he is right, that the rest of the world is wrong. As the days pass he becomes all the more anti-German, telling of the German “blank stare” they give him when he brings up the reasons behind their decision to go to war. But, as always, Shirer raises the questions as to the Nazi pulling the wool over their eyes: ‘What happens to the inner fabric of a people when they are fed lies…daily?’ (p.331). It is a question historians have been asking ever since.

A diary entry dated 23 February 1940 has Shirer lamenting: ‘My birthday. Thought of being 36 now and nothing accomplished, and how fast the middle years fly’ (p.260). Nothing accomplished? No, Mr Shirer, you were very much mistaken. This book is an essential must for anyone interested specifically in the Second World War, and more generally on the traits of the human character.

Hey, what's the Big Idea?

Paul Strathern, Oppenheimer & The Bomb (1998)
Science biography – 90 pages - 2 nods -

Paul Strathern, Einstein & Relativity (1997)
Science biography – 90 pages - 2 nods -

Paul Strathern, Hawking & Black Holes (1997)
Science biography – 90 pages - 2 nods

(all taken out from Plymouth Uni library, courtesy of Jay)

The Big Idea series is Paul Strathern’s attempt at detailing the lives of the past’s most eminent scientists, all within an accessible number of pages (always under one hundred). The Worm has entered this series with gusto, looking at the lives of Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Let the scientific pondering begin.

First to Oppenheimer. The detonation of the world’s very first atomic bomb provoked these words from its chief creator: ‘I am become Death, The Destroyer of worlds’. The words are a translation from the Sanskrit text Bhagavad-Gita; the tongue belonged to the scientist in question.

Hailed as “the father of the bomb”, Oppenheimer was involved in the atomic tests in the New Arizona desert in the early 1940s amidst the greater world conflict that engulfed the United States at the time. Called ‘Oppie’ by his friends, the reader is taken on a brief tour of his life: young academic, schizophrenic and suicidal, to the man who moulded great minds. He details some of his political ideology: his move to the left (loves of his life, as well as his brother, were communist) and his eventual falling out with the authorities. An out-right genius himself (learning languages as people eat hot dinners), his task during the Second World War was to gather a collection of other geniuses to get ahead in the arms race against the Germans. Of course, the rest is history: the Nazis surrendered and two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan.

And onto our second genius, one of Oppie’s contemporaries and perhaps the biggest brain of them all: Albert Einstein. The reader is treated to the usual stand-out points of Einstein’s life, the most notable feature being the relative late blossoming (being in his mid-twenties when first expounding some of the greatest theories of the twentieth century). Likened to Newton, Strathern rightly notes:

‘But Newton didn’t have to go to work every day, and didn’t live in a small apartment with a wife and baby. Einstein’s intellectual feat appears to be unparalleled in the history of the human mind.’ (p.47).

Einstein was not seen as a genius straight away by the seniors, but recognised by the more dynamic younger generation. When passed over for the post of professor at the University of Zurich, Adler – who was appointed – resigned, commenting: ‘If it is possible to obtain a man like Einstein for the university, it is absurd to appoint me.’ (p.64). Indeed, how was it possible to neglect a man on whom at moments in his life had access to ‘God’s thoughts’ (p.50)?

The life of Stephen Hawking completes this trilogy of twentieth century geniuses: perhaps a life more compelling than the previous two. Here was a young man of upcoming talent, alive in the swinging 60s, who was diagnosed with the condition of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (AML) – better known as motor neurone disease. It caused him to walk around with the use of stick in his early twenties; led him to needing a wheelchair, for his speech to become slurred, and to fail in the use of his hands. Whilst in the mid-1980s, a complication in breathing led to the vital decision taken by his wife for an emergency operation, the result of which lost the use of his voice, leading to the now famous computer-machine talker, wildly imitated around the world.

Yet this brain survived such adversity to triumph (and of the three mentioned, Hawking has the extra kudos of appearing in an episode of The Simpsons). Tight spots and tricky situations is a familiar theme with all three scientific amigos: Oppenheimer was hounded towards the end of his life for supposed Communist sympathies (the 1950s being the era of the McCarthyism witch-trials), whilst Einstein was unable to complete his Unified Field Theory – equating the micro and macro worlds (on the bedside at his death in 1955 lay a page of unfinished calculations). Such was the energy exerted on this never reached or broached theory, many commentators believe Einstein – one of the greatest of human minds – wasted much of his later life on a fruitless task.

Throughout each of the reads, multi-tasking author Paul Strathern (lecturer of philosophy and mathematics as well as writer of novels) has taken it upon himself to digest and expound lives of these men and their (sometimes) baffling theories into a book of fewer than 100 pages. This itself is quite an impressive feat; however, much of the pages are a pedestrian read. At no point did the text jump out and grab the Worm by the lapels; the only exception being the anecdotes, many of which have been recited time and again.

Strathern feels less comfortable when relating the theory of the bomb, when speaking of the theory of relativity, and even of black holes and string theory. Yet the books ultimate stunted nature lies deeper than this: it is the lack of connection between author and subject. This is something seen with greater clarity when reading the pages of Hawking’s life; a more enjoyable read, due primarily – I believe – to Strathern’s actual meeting Hawking (something obviously impossible to have achieved with either Oppenheimer or Einstein). Take this ending passage on Hawking, for example, detailing a group of students discussing equations:

‘The central figure of this group sits in a wheelchair wearing a bib. His cup is held by a nurse, who rests one hand on his forehead, lowering his head so that he can drink. His spectacles slip forward down his nose, and his slack lips slurp at the tea, as the young voices debate earnestly around him….. One of the group passes a typical bad-taste student comment, and the figure in the wheelchair beams his famous broad grin. He is in his element: the centre of his own mathematical universe, already the stuff of legend’ (p.84-85).

Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything has led to a rash of comedic-science-history books. Strathern’s attempts pre-date this spate, yet fails in enlightening and entertaining the reader to heights of delirium (as achieved by Bryson). Such great figures deserve words of greater quality. But as a self-professed introduction, Strathern’s Big Idea series suffices and earns their place on any curious reader’s bookshelf.

Satirical Born Killers?

Ben Elton, Popcorn
Novel – 300 pages – 1996 / hardback borrowed from Em
- 1 nod out of 5 -

Popcorn is the story of how a psychopathic murdering couple take hostage an Oscar winning Hollywood director who has made his fame and fortune detailing psychotic, murdering people taking people hostage. Under pressure from the authorities and in the hope of saving their own hides, the murdering couple – Wayne and Scout - hope to get the director - Bruce Delamtri – to take the wrap for the murders due to the influence of his movies on society.

Sounds like a passable storyline. However, throughout all is Elton’s continuing efforts to frustrate the reader. There are many pitfalls within these pages: from wooden, pointless characters (with the depth of a playing card) to the carbon-copy likeness to Tarantino dialogue and films of the same period. Yet it is Elton’s writing style itself which is the biggest culprit: the grammar may be good, but the quality is far from satisfactory. Elton has the annoying knack of turning away from the story to lecture the reader, an example of which:

‘Contrary to popular mythology, American police officers do not spend all day every day scraping corpses off walls and floors… Death is not uncommon in this job but it is not the norm either, and the two State Troopers weren’t so familiar with murder as to be indifferent to it’ (p.64).

Blah, blah; bore, bore. I found myself repeatedly throwing insults at the book’s pages and to Mr Elton’s smug photograph in particular. Firstly, it adds unnecessary words to an already bloated story; it is almost criminal that no sharp edit of the book was performed. And secondly, comes the vision the reader builds of the bespectacled Elton typing away the words, pompous grin on face, pausing every couple of minutes to sip at his own self-satisfying coffee. It may be the Worm’s own personal preference, but an author of fiction should take a back-seat and allow his words to do the talking for him.

Popcorn is hailed as a work of satire. Yet this is not satire in its known and enjoyed forms. Throughout the novel Elton seems to have the wit of a fourteen year old boy – devoid of a terse and mordant style - infected and enthused by a trip to a cinema, or illicit copy of a mid-1990s Tarantino film. Think Reservoir Dogs, think Pulp Fiction, and primarily, Natural Born Killers, of which, Tarantino wrote the original screenplay. And this, in essence, is what Popcorn is: a rehash of violence and supposed sharp dialogue. The much trumpeted so-called satire comes from its describing of the baseness of a Hollywood up its own arse, a Hollywood which takes no account of blame. Rarely does Elton succinctly get this message across, yet two notable exceptions include the book’s epilogue (in which the survivors of the final shooting rampage take to suing one another), and Bruce Delamtri’s comment on society:

‘Nothing is anybody’s fault. We don’t do wrong, we have problems. We’re victims, alcoholics, sexaholics. Do you know you can be a shopaholic? That’s right. People aren’t greedy any more, oh no. They’re shopoholics, victims of commercialism. Victims! People don’t fail any more. They experience negative success. We are building a culture of gutless, spineless, self-righteous, whining cry-babies who have an excuse for everything and take responsibility for nothing…’ (P.83)

Yet it is a shame that these highlights remain buried amongst an avalanche of dull words and clichéd statements. Yet what is most shocking is an endorsement on the book’s back cover by Douglas Adams: ‘One of the most brilliantly sustained and focussed pieces of satire I’ve ever read.’ It is even compared with Joseph Heller's Catch 22. The only logical explanation must be that Douglas Adams was in mocking jest when typing such a statement (or was trying to give a fellow novelist friend a helping hand). Now, Catch 22 was an piece of satire; a true 5 nodder!. Popcorn - a tiring read of 300 pages - is not.

What it is remains a motley assortment of dull plot and forgettable characters. Therefore, it is the Worm’s duty – according to the code of Bookish Honour – to place a prominent warning sign upon this novel and classify it with the miserly 1 nod it surely deserves.

The Running Man

Alan Sillitoe - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1959)
Short Story – 60 pages / my paperback published 2007 & borrowed
- 3 nods out of 5 –

‘There’s a war on’ claims Smith, the 17 year old who is confined to Borstal for robbing a baker’s shop; continuing: ‘between us and them’. Us, are the other Out-laws like Smith, Them being the In-laws; it is a conflict which can never be resolved, Smith believing both sides being unable to understand one another.

This short story by Sillitoe comprises of three parts: the opener which establishes Smith’s situation as a long distance runner, training for a Borstal run at which a cup will be awarded to the victor; the second in which Smith recounts his robbery and how he was caught (worth the read itself); whilst the ending chapter is that of the race itself. It is a run Smith can easily win, yet decides against doing so. This despite incurring the wrath of the Borstal governor, despite being sentenced to the most awful duties in the last six months of his internment. His decision to throw the race can be seen as his refusal to bow down to the way of the In-laws; even though such a decision wrecks his continuance of running – something which gives him time for enlightened thought and peace, to make him seem like both the ‘first man’ and the ‘last man’ on earth.

Smith’s decision is one which can be debated until blue in the face. He turns his back on “going straight”, “doing right”, “turning over a new leaf”; but he notes, that in doing what he does he is staying true to himself. This kind of honesty is one in which the governor and other insufferable In-laws will never know the full value of. Whilst its larger overtones – coming from the 1950s – unmistakably hints at the divide of classes in society. Well, we could expect nothing less from working class venom.

Keep On Rocking In The Free World

Simon Schama - The American Future: A History (2008)
History – 380 pages / Bought for £10 in Jan 2009 from Waterstones
- 5 nods out of 5 –

America is the land of plenty, of the free and of the brave; many have marvelled at its size and its people, while others have simply been bewildered. To Israel Zangwill, it was ‘God’s Crucible, the great Melting Pot’ whilst in the 1950s the broadcaster Arnold Toynbee stated that America was ‘a large, friendly dog in a very small town; every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair’. Such a country, rich in diversity, is a historical topic not undertaken lightly, a task celebrated historian Simon Schama has taken to hand.

One thing is immediately apparent: Schama’s foreign blood – even if we do consider his residence on the eastern seaboard for many years – aids him in his perception of America. A mammoth land, yet his book does not pretend to scale the heights of his previous three volumes on Britain’s history that covered the dawn of time to the present day. Rather, The American Future is a portrait of a country primarily based on the author’s taste and own experiences. Indeed, Schama is involved in the setting, action and dialogue within the book right from the off on the first page: ‘I can tell you exactly, give or take a minute or two, when American democracy came back from the dead because I was there’; in reference to the presidential battle of 2008 (the result of which remained unknown the time the book when to the printers). It does not pretend to be comprehensive history, but rather one in which Schama has dipped into and selected according to his own tastes: to rattle, to thrill, to sadden, to inform and enlarge our knowledge of this land and people.

The book is cut into four segments: in ‘American War’ he details the ongoing conflict upon the continent between Jefferson idealism (with its related pacifistic undertones) and Hamiltonian militarism), from the revolutionary period, through the Civil War, to the present day operations in the Middle East; which centres roughly on the Meigs family – a large proportion of whom have served and died in various branches of the armed forces. In the second part, ‘American Fervour’, Schama recounts us with numerous trials of faith and race, before tackling thornier questions of American’s existence: ‘What is an American?’ The final instalment, ‘American Plenty’, highlights the insatiable thirst that the United States has shown since its birth in striving forward, from gaining independence to the conquering of the west, and eventually the world: its long hailed ‘Manifest Destiny’.

The results keep the reader entertained, page after page; a feat all the more commendable if it is noted how Schama was under pressure of a schedule of not only the book but also the BBC documentary series. Throughout, Schama maintains a novelist’s touch in bringing to life the history of the past; and for this I salute him with five nods.

Rebel With A Cause?

Jay McInerney - Bright Lights, Big City (1984)
Novel – 180 pages / My copy (1985), bought for £2.50 from Barbican beardy dude sometime in 2006
- 2 nods out of 5 -

‘It’s six a.m. Do you know where you are?’ so begins McInerney’s short, crisp novel detailing a week in the life of, well, “You”. It is the mid-1980s, the excesses of city-living and the yuppie scene are documented - reminiscent of McInenery’s novelist friend, Bret Easton Ellis – the bright lights are from the big city of New York.

Written entirely in 2nd person perspective, the main character (a twenty-something who remains unnamed) spends most of his nights snorting ‘Bolivian Marching Powder’, speaking to girls and going in and out of clubs with his friend Tad; always ending up asleep alone. As “You” continues down this route of hedonism, his working commitments suffer (ending in the sack), whilst more of his personal trauma is revealed: that his wife has left him to model in Europe, and his mother passed away in the recent past.

Although at many times funny (notably so the scene towards the novel’s end when the main character comes face to face with his ex-partner Amanda), McInerney rarely hits the reader’s emotions; the exception to this being the description of the protagonist’s mother’s death, both holding hands with her parting words: ‘Don’t let me go.’ Yet there is an argument to be made that such remote emotions is central to understanding the character at this traumatic juncture in his life, and furthermore, the chief reason as to why the novelist has chosen such a distancing perspective.

As a snap-shot of a particular time – as well noting it as a debut novel - Bright Lights, Big City excels. McInerney’s prose is at times seamless: both intelligent and witty. Yet the very plot-line and weak characters make this ultimately a stunted read.

King of the Jungle

Paul Theroux - The Mosquito Coast
Novel – 380 pages – 1981 / my edition paperback (1987), bought for £2 from Barbican Second Hand Book Shop sometime in 2005
- 3 nods out of 5 -

A few years ago when at the age of twelve, I returned home from a family event and caught the second half of a movie which fascinated me. It detailed the life of an American family who for some reason – mysterious, as I missed the beginning – were located in what was presumably the rain-forest carrying ice to the natives. That film was The Mosquito Coast, staring River Phoenix and Harrison Ford. However, I didn’t know this at the time – there being no listings to tell me so – and therefore for years afterwards I would accost people at parties or other social gatherings, outlining the plot of the film in the hope that they could tell me its name. Eventually, Brian was able to muster the words from his lips: ‘The Mosquito Coast’.

I bought the book, read the first 100 pages, then promptly forgot about it (as happens, from time to time, if derailed from reading a novel). Now, it was time to finish my quest of Theroux’s novel.

The plot – other than ice being carried to natives – concerns the adventures of the Fox family; Allie Fox (Ford in the movie) is an ingenious inventor, yet is sick of America and the “vultures” that have infested it:

‘We eat when we’re not hungry, drink when we’re not thirsty, buy what we don’t need, and throw away everything that’s useful. Don’t sell a man what he wants – sell him what he doesn’t want. Pretend that he’s got eight feet and two stomachs and money to burn. That’s not illogical – it’s evil’ (p.83-84)

Deeming himself ‘the vanishing American’ (p.68), Fox takes his family to Central America to begin afresh, to make their own Garden of Eden. His inventions stun the natives but things start to turn sour and they are forced to abandon their community due to the threat of invaders, setting in a trend of misery and an ominous horizon.

The novel is told through the eyes of Fox’s son, Charlie (Phoenix in the film), who begins in awe of his father and what he can achieve, ending the book by rebelling against him for his family’s welfare. Throughout all, Theroux builds the tension, the interest climaxing in the middle of the novel with the explosion of the ice-making machine (labelled by Charlie as ‘Fat-Boy’). Yet it begins to tire towards its end, as the Fox family are forced to up-root and settle down repeatedly as Allie’s dream turns to dust.

If the plot does not sustain to the end, then the creation of Allie Fox surely does; all the characters that the family meet are argued and verbally beaten black and blue by Allie Fox. His constant reaffirmation of man’s power (‘Man is God’) is joined by growing megalomania and insanity, matched with Allie’s always interesting quotes on life.

Theroux’s book is an adventure novel for the vigorous spirit, a travel-logue of sorts - which is no surprise considering Theroux’s many travel books – that takes the reader to another world, with differing ideas, with devastating results. Visit The Mosquito Coast and enjoy the journey.

In Darkest Africa

Bill Bryson’s African Diary
Travel – 60 pages / 2002 / bought mine for £1.99 in Oxfam Book Shop, St Austell, Cornwall, June 2009
- 2 nods out of 5 -

A snippet for Bryson fans in-between his larger travelogues and what would be his mammoth A Short History of Nearly Everything, African Diary just about keeps the hunger for more Bryson trivia at bay…but only just.

Written principally as a charity project for CARE international, Bryson visits Kenya, commenting on its general poor state and the vast amount of aid needed. His visit takes in a destitute – and illegal – shanty town; a market in which women can club together to get out a loan for their crafts business; small villages off the beaten track – and all whilst conversing with local aid workers. Doesn’t sound like a great deal, however, accompanying is Bryson’s humour. Most interesting is the Gedi ruins, a town that remained undiscovered until the 1920s, where archaeologists ‘found beads from Venice, coins from China, an iron lamp from India, and scissors from Spain’ – yet the Gedi people are found nowhere on written, historical record! Sums up this mysterious and vast continent.

The largest problem of the book is its puny size: Bryson fans will be left wanting more. A book to devour over the space of a cup of tea (or two), Bryson still manages to open the reader’s eyes to another world, all done in his usual, easy-going manner. If Bryson should return to the life of air plane adventurer and train buccaneer, then another venture upon the “Dark Continent” would be strongly recommended.

Astonishing the Gods

Richard Dawkins – The God Delusion
Non-fiction – 2006 - 380 pages / Borrowed from the Dawkins loving Jamie
- 3 nods out of 5 -

For three decades Richard Dawkins has made a name for himself as sceptic and general fly in the ointment for religious buffs; a man who sticks in his oar in without hesitation if he feels that the truth is being tampered with. Why is it, then, that I do not wholly agree with his point of view? Admittedly, I do not know a great deal about Dawkins and his back catalogue of works (which includes The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker; The God Delusion is my first read. A wise choice for virginal eyes? Let's see…

The whole premise of the book is for Dawkins to not only refute the existence of God, but also to stress time and again that "He" is superfluous to human life. He makes a credible case at doing so – using illuminating quotes from many historical figures, including those such as Douglas Adams (to whom the book is dedicated), Einstein and Thomas Jefferson.

It is obvious that he is armed to the teeth about the debate in question: impressive bits of facts come out alongside interesting terms (such as ‘The Neville Chamberlain School of evolutionists’) and bits of research (such as ‘The Great Prayer Experiment’); all backed up by many delicious anecdotes that Dawkins regales the reader with, the majority of which concern his under-graduate Cambridge days.

This is all good, however, as Dawkins himself concedes (at the end of chapter 4) his argument of “God’s” non-existence is over; so what of the additional 200 pages? Dawkins decides to back up his original points, lurching from one argument to the next, in what is not a wholly convincing manner.Besides the waste of text, two of my largest gripes with the book are as follows: 1. Dawkins insistence to explain everything from a Darwinistic point of view. For example, he explains the roots of religion as coming from a need/instinct within our brains to listen out to a higher authority; but in doing so he completely discounts the political/social uses/vices of religion.

And 2. is Dawkins' belief that his point of view is the right one. This is to be expected in a book of 350 pages that is essentially one, long, drawn-out argument – Dawkins essentially sniping back at those who have attacked him. However, some of his comments in Chapter 9 – ‘Childhood, abuse and the escape from religion’ – appear misguided; he attacks the Amish for ‘their right to bring up “their children” in “their own” way’ (p.330), that ‘Amish children never volunteered to be Amish; they were born into it and they had no choice. (p.331). Hard criticism; and it must be asked, what does Dawkins suggest happen exactly - remove the children from the sinister clutches of their parents? And remove them into what exactly?: simply into another culture which has differing morals and ethical codes, of which there are countless amounts around the globe. Our Western bias should not permit to state that "our" way is right (the same, too, can be said of any view-point, either Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Amish or, indeed, atheist).*

The strongest of Dawkins' points is his insistence on what man can achieve (as soon in full splendour in his last chapter). His mission statement was to persuade people away from the pitfalls of religion. Of course, Bible nuts won't come within breathing distance of the book, so presumably his target audience are those like myself. Have I done away with God? I don't believe I'm urgent to rule in or rule out anything yet. As Eric Hoffer once wrote, 'The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a God or not'.

* Furthermore, in addition to the negative comments i've made to Dawkins' book, there is another comment i wish to argue against, being his comparison of Hitler to ancient figures such as Caligula and Genghis Khan (Hitler 'would not have stood out' (p.268)). This seemingly mis-interprets Nazism’s racial hatred – of which a considerable number of historians believe to be a revolutionary - if sinister - creation).