The Berlin Wall - Frederick Taylor

Frederick Taylor - The Berlin Wall (2006)
History – 450 pages – my copy (paperback; 2009) bought for £3.99 from a discount bookstore in Chiswick, London, in August 2010
- 3 nods out of 5 -

Last year saw the twentieth anniversary of the end of the Berlin Wall. A generation has passed since one of the largest of artificial and sinister divides crumbled, and destroyed along with it was the “old” way of living: of separation and fear. If time is called a healer, time is also the historian’s best friend; bringing with it retrospection and that valuable tool hindsight.

Frederick Taylor has made a name for himself by bringing modern German history to the British reading public. The Berlin Wall is a construct of love as well as dedication, with Taylor holding a long time fascination with the people of Berlin. And such attraction clearly shows amongst the book’s pages; here is a well researched and enthusiastic account of the Berlin wall, from its awful inception in 1961 to its celebratory end in 1989.

Centring primarily on the early sixties, Taylor gives the back-story to the divide of East and West, of the rise of the SED in the communist sphere and the more bourgeois allied sector. The fall out and recrimination of the Second World War brought about the wall’s construction, while Taylor shows the wall’s continuing presence as the result of the lack of agreement between communist and capitalist.

Taylor brings in the key characters, such as Walter Ulbricht and Willy Brandt; whilst sparing enough time for a cameo role for John F. Kennedy. And even though this is principally a story of the political “stars” and personalities, the author also brings in many personal stories and the tragedies of those who tried to escape the east, only to meet their early deaths.

So, if the research and the setting ticks all boxes, why is Taylor’s book not a 5 nodder? One of the Worm’s principal nit-picks is the large emphasis upon 1961 – the reader continues forward at snail-pace, even re-treading old ground. Lyndon Johnson’s visit is given the attention of chapter, which contrasts with the book’s hastily constructed conclusion. Yet the greater accusation is Taylor’s unquenchable thirst for a digression; his personal stories add warmth, but unfortunately for the reader, much of his digressions bring us away from the wall and into other political spheres.

The Berlin Wall is a well researched book; but a book that aims at becoming the authoritative text upon the wall’s life and death. However, this is an unaccomplished aim, with Taylor not being the man nor the author of talent to deliver this. His book tries too hard to hit an audience in all sectors. Such an authoritative history will be penned by a hand that has the power to weld such detail – great and small – into a history of true quality.

Charles Duke of Cornwall - Michael Williams

Michael Williams – Charles, Duke of Cornwall (1977)
Biography – 80 pages – my copy (paperback; 1977) bought for 50p from Plymouth Library
- 1 nod out of 5 -

A request to immediately ask: don’t judge. The Worm justifies the purchase of this biography on Prince Charles for “research purposes”, regarding the Duchy and the preceding earldom of Cornwall from the medieval era. At least that is what the Worm told the cashier in Plymouth Library when he parted with his hard-earned pence. But if fifty pence had not been spared, this short biography on Charles’ role as Duke of Cornwall would have been lost to the ether, forever.

The author, Michael Williams, takes the reader through a short tour of Charles’ duties as Duke of Cornwall, his visits to the west-country, and the history of the Duchy itself. Though an amiable host, Williams is nothing more than court jester to the Duke, applauding Charles for his warmth and his jokes - even going as far to suggest that if it were not for a future fit for a king then Charles could have become an accomplished comedian!

Published in the Queen’s Jubilee – 1977 – this book never pretends to be anything more than a contemporary royal fanzine. Due to the worn pages of the book and the sentiments expressed, it exerts a certain charm… but the ether still surely beckons.

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker – Dracula (1897)
Novel – 450 pages – my copy (paperback; 1994) bought for 80p from a Cornish charity shop, sometime in 2008
- 3 nods out of 5 -

‘I’ve never ran from no one, but I’m terrified of you
See my heartbeat is a slow one, but I’m terrified of you
I’ve been around for ages, but I’m terrified of you…’
‘Dracula’s Wedding’, Outkast, 2003

The lyric above stands as testimony of the enduring popularity of Dracula. Written over one hundred years ago, the villain was a sensation in print, then upon the big screen in the 1930s, leading to repeated renditions in cinema and television, sung in song and rhymed in rap lyrics to the modern day.

It is easy to see the appeal: a venomous bad-guy, almost impossible to beat, who rips apart the innocents who come up against him. Bram Stoker conjured a magnificent beast, and his novel remains alive in the twenty-first century as it did at the tail-end of the nineteenth. And it is not the strength of the enemy alone that maintains such freshness; Stoker’s fast paced cutting between various viewpoints – including journals and newspaper articles – details the fears of the characters, while allowing Dracula himself to remain elusive and a teasing mystery.

But despite Dracula’s strength and wrath, there is one chief failing of Stoker’s novel: the aura of finality. Despite a large casualty during the plot – being poor Lucy – the remaining ensemble carry on, page after page, counting down to the inevitable showdown with the Count. It is the conclusion so many of our horror, our mystery, our action and our science fiction writers cannot do without: the triumph of good over evil. Critiques can find easy reasoning for such an end, including the mighty of the Victorian British Empire versus alien forces, of Christian goodness against the unbeliever; but whatever it may be labelled, the lack of ending climax remains lacklustre and unwanted.

Such a failing is not helped by the padding of many characters. If Quincy Morris is slightly animated – the stereotypical Victorian American – and if Dr Seward is the most reflective, thoughtful of the band of vampire crusaders, there is plenty of dead wood in Jonathan Harker and the non-entity that is Lord Godalming. An ace, however, is at hand in the form of Dr Van Hesling. Here is a lively and entertaining construct, an injection of blood to colour the pages – vitally needed towards the book’s end when the band take to the continent in what is a tepid search for Dracula.

Quite bluntly, for today’s reader, Dracula is too long and perhaps a touch too tame. But although the majority of the characters and their desperate pleas for God’s salvation may bite upon our patience, here stands a bona fide Class A villain. As such, Dracula stands upon other villainous classics – notably Frankenstein – as a read not to be missed, despite its flaws.

Blood & Guts - Roy Porter

Roy Porter - Blood & Guts (2002)
Science Related – 200 pages – my copy (hardback; 2002) bought for £1 from Plymouth Library
- 2 nods out of 5 -

Blood and Guts – what an intriguing title! That was the Worm’s first impression when picking up Roy Porter’s short history of medicine, promising a quick and succinct journey through the ages in all themes and issues. Exactly what a reader would need when attempting to fill in the gaps of a large and complex history, full off interesting snippets of trivia and facts.

Although the title suggests a playful tone – including the book’s cover in which a cartoon of an eighteenth century gentleman squirms as a doctor, rather painfully, inserts a needle into his nose – Porter’s prose starkly contrasts. The reader is given a rather dry recitation of past ages, covering the major themes: disease, doctors, the laboratory, therapies, surgeries, and the hospital. Rather than the expected easy narration – ala Bill Bryson – we are dipped into various terminologies, theories and practitioners. There is so much, in such a short space, it is akin to information overload.

However, a greater accusation to the author’s abilities is the book’s likeness to articles upon Wikipedia. There is little humour, little excitement; but rather a Gradgrind reliance upon facts, facts and just the facts. The Worm has no wish to tarnish Porter’s credentials: the book’s jacket trumpets them just fine (before his recent passing he was Professor in Social History of Medicine at University College London). But this knowledge does not translate to a science lay-worm.

Blood & Guts has one redeeming feature: its illustrations. Each of them are wonderful and enlightening, with images throughout history fantastically picked by the author to adorn the text. True 5 nodder illustration; but the book itself fails to deliver on the Worm’s initial expectations. For the fun and the facts, a reader would be better served by buying a copy of Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Invisible Republic - Greil Marcus

Greil Marcus – Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes (1997)
Music – 270 pages – my copy (paperback; 1998) bought for 99p from Plymouth’s Works in June 2010
- 2 nods out of 5 -

One would assume a book with Bob Dylan’s name in the subtitle, joined with a photograph of Bob Dylan upon the cover, as well as the promise of a study of Bob Dylan’s music would actually manage to mention Bob Dylan. The Worm assumed just as much; but with Greil Marcus, assumption appears to have no weight in his books upon music and culture.

Ostensibly, Invisible Republic is a study of Bob Dylan’s time with The Band in the basement of a house known as the Big Pink during 1967. Their time in this basement brought about history’s most famous bootleg: The Basement Tapes. At first used as successful cover fodder for many acts in the late 1960s, they were official released in the mid 1970s, though various versions still do the rounds upon printed bootlegs and the internet. The recordings came at a juncture for Dylan: after the peace movement and fame of the earlier sixties, after he went electric, after those three defining albums (Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde) and after his motorbike accident and convalescence.

Marcus gives us this back-story, concentrating upon Dylan’s shock turn to electric guitar in his performances with The Band (or The Hawks, as they were then known). Heckled from the crowd as ‘Judas’ for turning his back on folk, Dylan surged onwards and upwards. The reader then expects a critique of The Basement Tapes, when Marcus completes a 180 and suddenly we’re catapulted into the past of America. It is, to put it mildly, a bumpy ride.

In fact, during this ride Marcus does his best to steer clear of land and towns relating to Dylan and the tapes (bar spending thirty pages upon the song ‘Lo and Behold!’). Instead we are treated to outlaws and protests, to folk singers and metaphysical babblings. Even the aspects that are devoted to Dylan are best left unread, due to their churning sycophantic nature; such as his description of Dylan in the early sixties as ‘no longer merely a singer, or a songwriter, or even a poet, let alone simply a folk musician. In a signal way, he was the Folk, and also a prophet’ (xii). Please, someone, pass the Worm a bucket to vomit in.

What keeps Invisible Republic from joining other infamous books in the 1 nodder sin-bin is Marcus’ sheer disregard of playing by the rules. Yes, he rambles and digresses; but one thing is for sure: this is clearly his show. The message for the reader is, ‘Buckle in and experience the ride.’

101 Cornish Lives - Maurice Smelt

Maurice Smelt – 101 Cornish Lives (2006)
Local History – 250 pages – my copy (paperback; 2006) a gift from Emma, and signed from Mr. Smelting himself
- 2 nods out of 5 -

Throughout history there are thousands upon thousands of forgotten lives and elapsed events. Of course, the big cheeses of history continue onwards: Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Hitler; but for those local luminaries, each passing generation sounds as a nail hitting the wood of a coffin. All the more celebration, then, for local histories! Here the author, Maurice Smelt, presents the reader with one hundred and one Cornish lives; those born at the “fag-end of the country” and went on to become inventors, travellers and great sportsmen.

Smelt’s language never threatens to excite, a gentle plod through some of the most noteworthy and important names in Cornish history. And as common for standard local histories, a game develops of ‘spot the mistake’; this book’s obvious error appearing on page 18, when the philanthropist Ralph Allen is noted as making a fortune for himself in 1620 and serving as mayor of Bath in 1642; even though a page earlier he is stated as being born in 1694. Such mistakes are not a light crime, and are further compounded when reading of Smelt’s academic past (including Major Scholar of Trinity Hall, Cambridge).

But at no point does Smelt falter in his writing, providing us with quick and digestible portraits of famous Cornishmen, from Sir Bevil Grenville to Richard Trevithick, from the past of St Piran to the modern day World Trade Centre hero Rick Rescorla. Smelt is most confident and entertaining in his words upon novelists, poets and historians, including Charles Causley, Crosbie Garstin, Arthur Quiller-Couch and A.L. Rowse. But perhaps the most striking are the complete unknowns who are brought back to life, notably that of the exceptional Mary Bryant, the dubious Tibet monk in Cyril Henry Hoskins, and the erratic and lunatic John Tom.

Of course, it is the usual small county/town/village laying claim to whatever they can lay their hands on; such is the case with world champion boxer Bob Fitzsimmons who left Cornwall when a mere toddler. But on the whole, 101 Cornish Lives is an admirable attempt at bringing the once famous and infamous back to the written page.

Funeral In Berlin - Len Deighton

Len Deighton – Funeral In Berlin (1964)
Novel – 380 pages – my copy (paperback) borrowed from Mr. Mooney in August 2010
- 2 nods out of 5 -

Deighton has become a by-word for spy-fiction. No, not the crusading hero kind of James Bond et al, but rather the thinking man’s spy; not indestructible and completely human. Len Deighton has authored a skyscraper tower of books, from popular novels to non-fiction upon war, and even cookery. This, then, is an author multi-faceted with a large writing tool-kit.

All of which made the Worm’s read of Funeral In Berlin all the more frustrating. One of his earlier novels, the book follows the journey of the un-named principal protagonist within the Berlin mouse-trap of the early 1960s. The Wall has gone up, guns are aimed and ready upon both sides, and the two super-powers of the world have their finger on the trigger of atomic bombs.

But although the setting is ripe for friction, the plot and characterisation is lacking in depth and quality. The plot – simple enough – is filled out with banal visits to, what can be considered for the time, strange and exotic locations. Our un-named hero may not be as dull and unconvincing as James Bond, but there remains a certain finality as to how the story will end. Deighton does not fall into the trap of depicting caricature “bad-guys”; but also fails in providing us with a threat of terror.

Rather than allowing these characters to breathe and speak for themselves, Deighton fills in the character for the reader, repeatedly telling us their habits and mindset. The single chapter headings on each of the main characters initially appears a breath of fresh air within pace of action, but most of it is un-necessary and ultimately detracts from the mysteriousness of the plot itself.

Furthermore, the book becomes steeped in Cold War terminology; Deighton even provides a glossary of terms, from poisonous insecticides to Soviet security systems – again, disrupting the flow of the plot. But this is the lesser crime of the novel’s failings; this is a spy novel, and by default the spy-fan must be given a real, authentic taste of the theme.

Funeral In Berlin remains a big hit with readers; for the Worm it was a poor re-introduction back into Deighton’s back catalogue of fiction. It is a case of twice bitten; but the Worm will be back. Cold War fiction is a dense jungle, and much of it remains to be explored.