The Blair Years - Alistair Campbell

Alistair Campbell – The Blair Years (2007)
Politics – 750 pages – my copy (paperback;
- 2 nods

Since the fall-out of this year’s General Election and the resulting decline of New Labour, a plethora of political diaries have hit the shelves. Yes, their Westminster careers may be other, but there is still plenty of money to sweep up in all good bookstores everywhere. With Mandleson’s book doing its best at heightening tension in those in the Labour camp, Campbell’s own The Blair Years is a comparatively lame affair. Written before the end of New Labour, it is lightweight against today’s heavyweight of revelations. Indeed, Campbell himself is bringing out a hard-hitting and clawed version of his diaries to keep at bay the hunger of today’s demand.

So, what is Campbell’s book worth now in the political climate of 2010? It remains an interesting look into charting the rise of New Labour: from the opposition benches of the mid-nineties, to the euphoria of the 1997 landslide win, towards the notable decline and, yes, of course, the Iraq war (Legal? Illegal? The debate drags on…). The Blair Years succeeds in the detailing of Campbell’s close relationship with Tony Blair. We get a picture of Blair seldom seen in public or press: nervous, indecisive and worrying of the future.

But these extracts don’t dish out the dirt as future editions might be expected. Sure, there are attacks on various former cabinet ministers – such as Clare Short – but the targets are notably lightweight. Only rumblings on the ruptures between Brown and Blair, between Brown and Mandleson, between Brown and, well, everybody. Their soap-opera entanglements are of course second to the real nitty gritty of actual politics, yet we, the public, still bang the drum for more revelations.

Most of the pages note Campbell’s constant frustration and tiring of the job of propping up Blair and Co. A month doesn’t go by when he writes of his pending resignation. He refutes the accusation of Chief Spin Doctor, successfully detailing his side of events and his unwilling involvement in many media stories. But amongst this are cringing appraisals of Campbell’s work-rate, compliments mentioned from Bill Clinton, from Mrs Clinton, from Clinton’s aides and on and on and on.

Political diaries of the past prove of use for future evaluations of periods, the rock-bed of many a historian’s study. It would be stretching the truth to suggest The Blair Years will provide such a role; in appears condemned to be the poorer sibling of the more juicy out-pourings of Mandleson and the remainder of the New Labour cronies. O pity the poor historian.

Macbeth - William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare – Macbeth (1606)
Play – 200 pages – my copy (hardback; 1993) still kept from the Worm’s school days.
- 4 nods

4 nods? Why not the full 5! This is William Shakespeare, after all. For many years the Worm has resisted the need to relentlessly handclap Bill’s many successes. Yet the countless adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays – on stage, on television, on film, etc, etc, etc – clearly show how his work remains relevant. There are reboots and there are teen comedy translations; the reason why? Because these stories clearly delight.

Macbeth – otherwise called The Tragedy of Macbeth, or more commonly known with actors as ‘The Scottish Play’ – is an oddity in Shakespeare’s canon for being rather short. It is a play bristling with action, charting Macbeth’s dirty ambition to become ruler of Scotland. Nothing stands in his way, not mere men, not mere friends, nor even mere kings!

Of course, everyone knows the plot and its outcome. After butchering all who stand in his way, Macbeth himself is slain. It is a tragedy, with questions arising on free will and predestination. It is to the witches in which Macbeth’s ambition is born, turning a humble servant of King Duncan into his murderer.

The majority of characters remain simple vessels for the movement of story – such as the ill fated Duncan himself. But if the cast of Macbeth fail to scale the heights of Hamlet et al, the Macbeths themselves are enough to sustain the reader and audience member. Macbeth becomes rampant, whilst his wife – she who requested to become un-sexed – ends deluded: ‘Here’s the small of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!’

The play ends and justice is restored. Yet perhaps the Stuart audience of the day misread the natural balance; two of King James’ successors would be disposed! Macbeth remains popular with the action fans of the theatre – and long may the handclapping continue.

The Wild Palms - William Faulkner

William Faulkner – The Wild Palms (1939)
Novel – 240 pages – my copy (paperback; 1991) bought for £2.50 from the Beardie’s Bookstore on Plymouth Barbican, summer of 2009
- 2 nods

Mr Faulkner is widely regarded as one of the great novelists of American fiction. He penned some of the Worm’s personal favourite books, such as As I Lay Dying and the majestic The Sound and The Fury. The late 1920s and 1930s were a time of dazzling creativity for Faulkner; but what of his later novels, such as The Wild Palms, coming in the year when Hitler decided to cause havoc across Europe?

The Wild Palms most striking feature is that it perhaps isn’t a novel at all, but rather two novellas cut up and pieced together. The two stories are Wild Palms, in which a couple decide to forsake their carved out lives in the hope of living – to borrow the book’s blurb – ‘life on their own terms.’ The second story, Old Man, finds an escaped convict who cannot adjust to the outside world, having been incarcerated for so long.

To be quite blunt, neither story is exceptional. Whereas Faulkner’s earlier novels stunned, The Wild Palms merely plods along. Why the break up of two stories? Despite some critical attempts at constructing a single idea – ‘All are prisoners, if only of themselves’ – there is nothing unifying other than they both came from Faulkner’s hand. A different story could take the place of Old Man and the book would be no better nor worse for it.

Of the two, Wild Palms is the better story. It has movement, it has characters and it has thought. However, at no point do the likes of Harry or Charlotte grab the reader in the same ways that the likes of Caddy or Jason do from The Sound and The Fury. Here, the speech is contrived; the settings too similar of Hollywood; Faulkner, the once daring novelist, now tamed by the riches of screen-writing.

Like all great writers, Faulkner appears to have his faults, too. The Wild Palms is not an especially bad novel; but it is one that does not stand up to the heavyweight heights of its other succesful siblings.