Sunday 31 July 2011

Year In Review: 2010-11

Well, dear readers, another end to a fine book reading year has come. It was a year in which classic American novels were devoured (The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby), fine modern works of history read (Postwar, Rubicon), a fine feast of plays enjoyed (from misters Shakespeare and Gogol), much poetry lapped up (from Wilfred Owen to Seamus Heaney), key political texts considered (The Communist Manifesto, Machiavelli’s The Prince, and our old friend Tom Paine) as well as the usual smattering of the odd and damn right silly, including a scenario of Michael Portillo becoming Prime Minister as well as the invention of the toilet.

It is the second year of the Worm’s crusading book reading adventures; but alas, a year that fell short of the first volume in 2009-10. This year fifty-three books were devoured; in the shade to last year’s robust dollop of sixty-eight. The Worm hoists the white flag in submission, but truly believes in quality over quantity: and there was much quality in these pages! So, if we may, we move onto the top ten reads of the past twelve months:


The Top Ten Reads of 2010-11:

1. The Sound & The Fury (1929) – William Faulkner
Breathtaking book that concentrates on the three brothers of the Compson family, and each of their focus and relationships with their sister, Caddy (she of the muddy drawers climbing the pear tree!). A true modernist work of fiction, the Worm strongly urges to buy, beg, steal or borrow a copy today. 5 nods.
Read the review here: http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2011/06/sound-fury-william-faulkner.html

2. Common Sense (1776) – Thomas Paine
The book that helped to spark the American Revolution; Paine writes with an intensity and ferocity that all can understand and marvel in. He speaks with compassion for the ideals of democracy, and this pamphlet should be studied in schools across the world. 5 nods.
Read it here: http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2010/10/common-sense-thomas-paine.html

3. Poems (1920) – Wilfred Owen
Having found inspiration on the front line during the First World War, Owen wrote a batch of beautify and eye-opening poems before dying the week before Armistice Day in 1918. Tragedy and anguish lay on these pages, confirming Owen’s place as one of our most loved of poets. 5 nods.
Read it here: http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2011/07/poems-wilfred-owen.html

4. The Communist Manifesto (1848) – Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
One of the key influential political texts of the past one hundred and fifty years, with a banking crisis around us, perhaps it is time to get back up to speed with pals Karl & Friedrich. Their prose still stirs a passion, calling all working men to unite! 5 nods.
Read it here: http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2010/09/communist-manifesto-marx-engels.html

5. The Catcher In The Rye (1945) – J.D. Salinger
A novel that excites and inflames all who read it; who cannot resist the efforts of Holden Caulfield to free himself from the grip of the phonies. Salinger’s classic is a must-read of modern literature. 5 nods.
Read it here: http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2010/08/catcher-in-rye-jd-salinger.html

6. Postwar (2005) – Tony Judt
Judt encompasses the chaotic and confusing recent decades of European history into one book – and very much succeeds. Postwar is for anybody who wishes to get to obtain a greater understanding of the continent of Europe. 5 nods.
Read it here: http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2011/06/postwar-tony-judt.html

7. Julius Caesar (1599) – William Shakespeare
Follow the trials and tribulations, not of Caesar, but of Brutus and his quest to safe the dying body of the Roman Republic. Shakespeare puts in his usual magic of oratory and gruesome deaths. 4 nods.
Read it here: http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2011/05/julius-caesar-william-shakespeare.html

8. Oryx & Crake (2003) – Margaret Atwood
A disturbing, frightening and yet thoroughly entertaining dystopian vision of a world of genetically modified creatures. With many similarities with previous classic texts such as Brave New World, this stands as a premier Atwood read. 4 nods.
Read it here: http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2011/05/oryx-and-crake-margaret-atwood.html

9. Rubicon (2003) – Tom Holland
Holland has made narrative history “sexy” once again. There is no easier read on the fall of the Roman Republic than this; re-engage with Caesar, Cato and Cicero with the popcorn ready. 4 nods.
Read it here: http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2011/03/rubicon-tom-holland.html

10. The Middle Parts of Fortune (1929) – Frederick Manning
One of the finest books on war ever written. Take not the Worm’s critique, but rather the great stature and recommendation of Hemingway. For anyone wishing to understanding conflict, grab a copy today. 4 nods.
Read it here: http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2011/01/middle-parts-of-fortune-frederick.html

The above are true classics, and perhaps the Worm feels a tad ashamed in not dishing out 5 nodders across the board for these top tens; but as many of you know, a 5 nodder is a hard fought thing and must surpass all of the Worm’s rigid and scientific nodder tests (kept in a secret laboratory beneath Worm Manor).

Including this top ten, there are honourable mentions for the following that fell just short of the top ten: Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve, Seamus Heaney’s collection of poems from 1966-1987, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven and Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector. Fantastic reads that kept the Worm aloft and full of hope over this past year.

With regards to author loyalty, a few familiar names reappeared (with various results), including Bill Bryson’s slightly disappointing History of Private Life and Bret Easton Ellis’ even more deflating novel The Rules of Attraction. Of course these chaps will return in the year ahead, let’s hope for more generous nods in future. Thank goodness for the recurring reads of Thomas Paine and William Shakespeare, true gold standards of the written word.

The 1 nodder sin-bin was enlarged by some truly terrible reads: Emma Mansfield’s cash-in Little Book of Cornwall and Wallace Reyburn’s dreadful Flushed With Pride. The Shredder Award goes to Michael Williams’ pathetic biography on Prince Charles and his role as Duke of Cornwall. To the bin with you all, foul creatures of the printed page!

And onto the awards of the past year, in what has been styled The Noddies:

Read of the Year:
The Sound & The Fury (1929) – William Faulkner

Novel of the Year:
The Sound & The Fury (1929) – William Faulkner

Short Fiction:
Dubliners (1914) – James Joyce

Play of the Year:
Julius Caesar (1599) – William Shakespeare

Poetry:
Poems (1920) – Wilfred Owen

History:
Postwar (2005) – Tony Judt

Political:
Common Sense (1776) – Thomas Paine

Auto/Biographical:
The Frock Coated Communist (2009) – Tristam Hunt

Local Book:
Cornwall A History (2004) – Philip Payton

Largest Read:
Postwar (2005) at 850 pages

Modest Read:
Charles Duke of Cornwall (1977) at 80 pages

Oldest Read:
The Prince (1532) - Niccolo Machiavelli

Niche Title:
Flushed With Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper (1969) – Wallace Reyburn

The Shredder Award:
Charles Duke of Cornwall (1977)- Michael Williams.


Hooray for the winners, who will be canonised on this blog and emphasised and promoted to all who come into the path of the Worm.

The Worm will continue to read, to criticise and praise each page of prose that comes his way. A toast to the past two years, and a toast to those years of the future. The retinas are in focus, the four eyes have much life in them yet.

Monday 18 July 2011

The Government Inspector - Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol – The Government Inspector (1836)
Play – read on the iBooks app for the iPhone during June 2011
- 4 nods out of 5 -


The Government Inspector is a celebrated Russian classic, with commentators going as far as to label it ‘a national institution.’ It is both comedy and government critique, delighting audiences ever since its first performance in the mid-nineteenth century when Tsar of the time, Nicolas I, is reputed to have commented: ‘How true!’

Gogol’s play follows the misadventures of Khlestakov who is mistaken as a government inspector in a provincial town. Alarm builds in the community as everyone fears a reprisal from the Tsarist government, with the plot of play showing the locals attempts to bribe the mistaken inspector. Such bribes the unscrupulous Khlestakov eagerly accepts.

The play excels as a comedy. Despite the mistaken identity gag perhaps wearing thin towards its end, the continuing comedy of errors is a device used down to the present day in modern sitcoms, from Fawlty Towers to Fraser. In a British setting it would be easy to see John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty in the role of the town’s governor. For instance, read Gogol’s directions for this character: ‘Coarse in his judgements, he passes rapidly from fear to joy, from servility to arrogance.’ Basil Fawlty, indeed.

But it is in the play’s implicit critique of the government of the day in which it proves most important. Comments against the Tsar meant a visit to Siberia in Imperial and Soviet Russia, meaning the writers of these periods found other means to get their message to the masses, in the form of their plays and stories; something Gogol has gone down in history for. As Gogol states himself in a letter of the period:

‘I resolved to gather together all the bad in Russia I then knew into one heap, all the injustice that was practised in those places and in those human relations in which more than in anything justice is demanded of men, and to have one big laugh over it all.’

Not that it done Gogol the slightest bit of good, as he left his homeland in search of greater freedom abroad. The Government Inspector may be deemed a classic Russian work of art; however, it shades in comparison to Gogol’s much greater Lost Souls. As an introduction to Gogol, the play is ever ready to impress; but perhaps the reader should look at first to his comedic and surreal The Nose.

Friday 15 July 2011

Bandits - Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard – Bandits (1987)
Novel – 340 pages – my copy (paperback; 1995) bought from Plymouth Waterstone’s a good many a-year ago
- 2 nods out of 5 –


Many years ago, Elmore Leonard and the Four Eyed Book Worm were good friends. Leonard was a regular in the Worm’s bag, journeying from place to place as the Worm made excuses from his studying commitments to spend some quality time with his pal. Many stories were read during this period, one of which was Bandits. But then the quality time became sparser and sparser, the Worm moved onto new fields, and Leonard was left in boxes, waiting for the day when the seal of cellotape was to be broken, when the pages would be freed and felt by fingers once more.

A re-acquaintance with an old friend is never a bad thing. As such, the Worm decided to re-read Bandits, perhaps a decade after its first sitting. Back then it had left an impression of both thrilling and enlightening. How would its second day in court fare?

The positives: Elmore Leonard is known as a master of dialogue. Bandits, despite being lesser known than his major works (such as Get Shorty and Rum Punch, to name but a few that have been turned into successful Hollywood films) it has that same magic touch of quotation marks. What’s more, in Bandits the complex issue of the Nicaraguan Civil War is brought into focus, well crafted in the ignorance of the central character, Jack Delaney’s prodding questions.

The negatives: perhaps this novel is the reason why crime novelists get such a bad press. A tired plot is made to trundle on until its inevitable climax, with characters added for dramatic padding (the IRA arms trader Boylan for dramatic effect; Cullen for comedic effect). Leonard’s been down this road a million times, and even his characters know it:

‘ “Shit,” Jack said, “you’re right. Okay, I’m gonna get around the curve and then punch it. We’re gonna fly across the bridge and then make a quick right on North Beach and lose his ass.”
That’s what they did.’

Despite this, the Worm strongly recommends that all novel lovers out there become acquainted (or re-acquainted) with Elmore Leonard’s books. He’s a credit to the crime genre and a true master of dialogue; but perhaps leave Bandits until a later read.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Cornwall: A History - Philip Payton

Philip Payton – Cornwall: A History (2004)
History – 300 pages – my copy (paperback; 2004) purchased from Plymouth Waterstone’s back in 2005
- 3 nods out of 5 -


You have the main men, the big daddies, the number ones of any field or profession; in Cornish history that position goes to Philip Payton. Historian and writer on the history of this county/land/duchy (delete as politically appropriate), Payton’s position as an authority on this topic is shown nowhere more clearly than in this panoramic history.

Cornwall: A History spans the time of pre-history in the chapter Ancient Stones right through to the modern age in Whither Cornwall. In-between the reader is taken on a journey across the ancient Celts, the friction between Cornwall and England, the rebellions of 1497, the disappearance of the Cornish language, the boom of the industrial age and the decline of the twentieth century. Each generation reinventing and reasserting just what it is to be Cornish.

Payton’s authority is shown in the breadth and depth of his research, bringing in histiographical debate from various sources. However, all of this research comes at a price, namely in Payton’s often stilted and forced language that is often clouded in academic debate.

As such, this history of Cornwall is not one for the casual reader or somebody wishing an introduction to this ancient land – that is a honour reserved for F.E. Halliday’s far more readable Cornish book. Payton’s study is one primarily for other Cornish historians. As such, his vast array of facts and quotations is better enjoyed for those wishing to tread further into the surprising debates of Cornwall’s history.

Saturday 9 July 2011

Understand the Middle East - Stewart Ross

Stewart Ross - Understand the Middle East (Since 1945) (2010)
History – 300 pages – my copy (paperback; 2010) bought for £1.99 from Plymouth Works in June 2011
- 2 nods out of 5 -


There cannot be many issues more complex than the modern history of the Middle East. Many have tried; most have failed. Yet it remains a fascinating and heartbreaking region to read and to study.

Stewart Ross completes an admirable job, putting in place a chronology of the major events in recent decades. The early half of the twentieth century, with its dominating imperial presence, is recounted, as is the creation of Israel and its resulting wars. The turmoil in Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine are documented, as are the various peace attempts, notably Camp David. The emphasis of the book lurches further east as the year approaches 1979, with the revolution in Iran, the Iran-Iraq war, and the US-UK wars against Iraq in the 1990s to the modern day. And throughout these pages are the large figures of Nasser, of Arafat and of Begin.

Perhaps the book’s charm – and this is true of the majority of the books in the Teach Yourself series – is its complete reluctance to become tangled up in these large issues. They are explained, yet rarely debated. Ross recounts the continuing imperial presence of the USA, but whether this is for good or for bad is left to the reader to decide.

Obviously intended as an introduction to the region’s events and problems, this book served its purpose in stoking further interest for the Worm. As such, readers out there could do no better with their two pound coin than purchasing a copy today.

Thursday 7 July 2011

The Beatles: Unseen Archives - Tim Hill & Marie Clayton

Tim Hill & Marie Clayton (eds) - The Beatles: Unseen Archives (2010)
Music/Pictorial – 390 pages – my copy (hardback; 2010) a present at Xmas 2010
- 2 nods out of 5 -


Another book on The Beatles? I hear the groans already, of critics and bookcases the world over. After near on half a century of flogging the guts out of the Fab Four, many are asking: is there anything left to expose or sell? All of which makes this recent addition to the catalogue – boasting of ‘Unseen Archives’ – a suspicious and anti-climatic book, indeed.

The book is a simple chronology, from the early years (Ticket to Ride) to the end days (You Never Give Me Your Money). A calendar of events kicks off each of these chapters, with a simple and uninspiring write-up of the goings on of John, Paul, Ringo and er…the other one (only joking George). We read of their humble beginnings, Beatle-Mania, and the innovative later albums: standard fare for the usual churn out for the large Beatles fan-base.

But what saves this book from the doom of the 1 nodder motley crew is its fantastic array of photographs from the 1960 to the 1970s and beyond. We see the Fab Four backstage lighting cigars, the dodgy moustaches of the Sgt Pepper era, the trip to India, as well as a vast array of embarrassing snaps of McCartney’s 1980s mullet.

Unseen Archives is a book fit for any coffee table, yet without any real substance and weight. But its purpose was never meant to inform, yet rather simply entertain. It is perfect fodder for the Christmas stocking, and despite its obvious flaws, every Beatles fan would be delighted to receive it as a present.

Tuesday 5 July 2011

Football Nation - Andrew Ward & John Williams

Andrew Ward & John Williams - Football Nation (2009)
History – 420 pages – my copy (paperback; 2010) bought for £2.99 from Plymouth Works, May 2011
- 3 nods out of 5 -


‘They say football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that’ – Bill Shankly, football great.

Football Nation is a diverse collection of chapters documenting ‘sixty years of the beautiful game’. A shared effort, between Messrs Ward and Williams, it recounts the state of football in the 1940s, its rise in popularity in the 1960s, its problems with debt and hooliganism, to the glitzy money mad modern day.

For football fans, this book is a welcome arrival to the stacks of sub-stand sports literature on the shelves. Ward and Williams dig into known history (1958 Munich air disaster, the 1966 World Cup etc) as well as unearthing hidden gems in football’s story: those who gave so much, yet have been forgotten (the Worm’s favourite being Norman Chester). The book never concentrates on the likes of Top Ten Goals, Top Ten Players (etc, etc, etc) of popular culture, but rather on the roots of the game, of the introduction of black players, of those at the bottom, playing for pure love and devotion.

The really interesting thing about this book is its complete confidence in experimenting with various styles, from the essay to oral history, from radio script to play. Some of the fictional chapters hint a little of an A-Level student, looking at ways to impress the marking lecturer; yet their existence adds to this book and its attempt to record the last sixty years of football in Britain.

For the football fan, this book is an interesting and lively read; perfect Christmas and birthday present material. And of the many who turn their nose when a round ball is kicked: this book provides a window into the beautiful game, a window not to be ignored.

Sunday 3 July 2011

Poems - Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen – Poems (1920)
Poetry – read via iBooks app on the iPhone, May 2011
- 5 nods out of 5 -


The war poets are a revered bunch. Combining what are often seen as conflicting pursuits – the bloodiness of war and the craft of poetry – during the First World War. Over the past one hundred years their names and work have echoed down the decades with vibrancy and strength: Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves to name but a few. The Worm’s favourite is the focus of this brief review; his name? Wilfred Owen.

Having found inspiration from the front line in France during 1917, Owen wrote a batch of beautiful and eye-opening poems; all before dying a week before Armistice Day in 1918 in a truly tragic end. And there is much in this collection that harks of tragedy, just browse the titles alone: Anthem for Doomed Youth, Wild with all Regrets, The Dead-Beat and Futility.

But it is such tragedy that breathes such life into these poems. Owen has the knack of getting to the core of the matter, exposing war for all its terrifying horror; as shown in Disabled, when a boy lies about his age to join the army, only to end by losing his legs. Or as in SIW, when a man shots himself to spare him from the atrocity on the front line:

‘One dawn, our wire patrol
Carried him. This time, Death had not missed.
We could do nothing, but wipe his bleeding cough
Could it be accident? Rifles go off
Not sniped? No. (Later they found the English ball.)’

Before concluding:

‘It was the reasoned crisis of his soul.
Against the fires that would not burn him whole.’

Such command of language ensures Owen’s place as one of the premier war poets. The Worm would even venture to suggest Wilfred Owen has a place amongst the very elite of English poets. The continuing sadness is the early end of his life, leaving us only wondering at what poetry might have come in later life. As he himself, perhaps somewhat erroneously, wrote in The End: ‘Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified; Nor my titanic tears the sea be dried.’

Friday 1 July 2011

A Study in Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – A Study in Scarlet (1887)
Novel – read via the Classicly app for the iPhone, May 2011
- 3 nods out of 5 -


Some people never go out of fashion: Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, Martin Scorsese, Richard Attenborough and Sherlock Holmes. From his beginning in the Victorian era, Holmes has continued to thrill audiences in an array of creations in continuing dramas, radio plays and movies (currently there are both a BBC series and an ongoing film franchise). There is no other more popular fictional detective than the magnifying glass welding Holmes.

Although the short stories have proved the more popular (56 short stories and only four full length novels), A Study in Scarlet is noted as the very first appearance of the detective, of the meeting of Holmes and Watson, in what was the start of a beautiful friendship. Holmes investigative skills are apparent in a smug, confident and appealing manner; the title of the book revealed in one of his statements: ‘There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.’

As was the custom with the vast majority of Conan Doyle’s Holmes stories, Watson is the chief narrator; but the novel is rather intriguing in its switch from Watson to an over viewing third-person narrative. Holmes apprehends the story’s murderer at this juncture, with the novel removed from the streets of London to the plains of Utah, as the murderer’s own story is revealed in a complex mix of revenge and Mormonism.

The novel attracted little attention when originally published; but yet the Holmes legend would grow via an array of short stories. Here the character was created, and up and up it would grow until it became embedded in our popular culture, decade after decade.