Prime Minister Portillo - Duncan Black & Iain Dale (eds.)

Duncan Black & Iain Dale (eds.) – Prime Minister Portillo: and other things that never happened (2003)
Politics – 370 pages – my copy (hardback; 2003) bought for £1 from Plymouth library in July 2010
- 2 nods out of 5 -

Counterfactual histories came in vogue during the early noughties; we had Nazi banners upon Big Ben, a New World colonised by Soviet Russians and a nuclear holocaust wasteland of the 1980s. Most are military based, while the better ones usually involve Niall Ferguson, but where at the “what ifs” of political history?

Editors Duncan Black and Iain Dale responded in 2003 with this edition: Prime Minister Portillo (and other things that never happened). The book’s front cover image, of Portillo smiling at Number 10 Downing Street, proves as an entrance that whatever may be upon the pages will not be as fantastic and surreal as Hitler planting the Nazi flag upon the Moon. This, being British, was going to be all the more subtle and unassuming.

Unfortunately for the reader, the lack of excitement pours cold water upon the book’s promise of taking us upon alternate realities. Take some of the essay titles themselves as proof: ‘What if Benn had beaten Healey in 1981?’ and ‘What if Labour had won in 1970?’ were hardly ever going to set heartbeats racing. Sure, the editors attempt at bringing in larger events, such as Lenin’s arrival in Petrograd in 1917, of John F. Kennedy escaping bullets, but ultimately, too many of these chapters fail to galvanise interest.

The highlights include John Charmley’s essay – ‘What if Halifax had become Prime Minister in 1940?’ – written in the role as historian in an alternative reality; in which Churchill is a joke, rather than a legend. Rather than the “do or die” attitude of historians upon the subject of waging war with Nazi Germany, Charmley instead suggests that staying out of a continental war, between Nazis and Communists, was the best strategy in the long-term.

Sadly, Charmley’s style is not copied throughout the majority of chapters. The general rule appears to be suggesting a momentous change, only to negate it completely. What if the Conservatives had won in 1964? Not much change is the unsatisfying conclusion. What if Ted Heath had gone to the country three weeks earlier in February 1974? Again, not such a big difference. All of which is baffling as to why these questions were picked in the first place. Is it either British political history is simply not that interesting, or that the writers have not made the right choices and developed the right material?

As it stands, these political counterfactuals were always predestined to fall off the library shelves and upon the discount pile – exactly where the Worm found and rescued it. But due to the lack of excitement, the test now is if can weather the future storms and stay upon the Worm’s own shelves. Like Portillo and his Tory leadership candidacy, the prospects are ominous.

Imperial Bedrooms - Bret Easton Ellis

Bret Easton Ellis - Imperial Bedrooms (2010)
Novel – 180 pages - my copy (hardback; 2010) bought for £8 from Waterstone’s, Drake’s Circus, in July 2010
- 3 nods out of 5 -

Brett Easton Ellis has made a career about on an ability to shock his audience: from the drug fuelled parties of a teenager wasteland to the mad and psychotic killings from the hands of Patrick Bateman. Blood has seeped from axes, from children toys and even a cash machine. But what becomes of a middle aged Ellis? Is the reader to expect this is the end of those terrors?

Of course not. Ellis responds to the forties by resurrecting his earliest characters from Less Than Zero, bringing them with him into a mid-life crisis of bloody proportions. Imperial Bedrooms follows Clay as he comes to terms with life on the wrong side of forty in the L.A. of the twenty first century.

The most striking aspect of Ellis’ latest novel is the appearance of an actual plot line, reflecting a continuing trend in his writing style, following on from the publication of Lunar Park in 2005. Ellis’ previous novels had characters meandering about, bumping into one another (amongst the drug taking, slashing and general feelings of apathy); whereas in Imperial Bedrooms we get the structure of a genre, that of thriller. The reader follows Clay during an unravelling, we watch as he picks up clues, the plot – if the Worm may indulge – indeed thickening. Unfortunately, most of this ‘plot’ is Clay talking to people on his iPhone, reading texts on his iPhone, sending off emails on, yes, you guessed, his iPhone.

There are the usual themes of Ellis’ fiction: alienation, loneliness, and the blurring of dream and reality. It follows the tone of Lunar Park, but Imperial Bedrooms is a poor successor. Less Than Zero had its youth to define and justify it; whereas the forty-something Clay has no redeeming qualities. The evil and twisted ending sex scenes – fitting for the pages of American Psycho itself – leave the reader confused, more than enlightened. But is this the novelist’s overall purpose? In the book’s opening pages, Clay himself disputes all that came before, the novel and the resulting movie of Less Than Zero, reacting to the previous ‘moral compass.’ Is Imperial Bedrooms, then, Ellis’ attempt to set the record straight? Who is to know amongst the confusion; all that is clear is the lack of guilt, the absence of remorse. Here, King Hedonism resigns supreme.

Imperial Bedrooms is a book of obvious limitations. But its thriller aspect, its overall short length – especially when so many books these days are bloated (Glamorama included) – make this a page turner and worthy 3 nodder.

Live Ethically - Peter McBride

Peter MacBride – Live Ethically (2008)
Lifestyle – 200 pages – my copy (paperback; 2010) bought for £9.99 from Waterstone’s, Drake’s Circus, in August 2010
- 2 nods out of 5 -

Yes, we all know we should reduce, reuse and recycle – but the initial struggle is picking up these useful patterns to aid us throughout our lives. Live Ethically is a beginner’s guide to do just that. In two hundred pages the author – Peter MacBride- takes us on a journey of energy usage, of ethical shopping, to our impact on travel and much more in-between.

Recent decades have brought onwards the promotion of ethical living, creating greater awareness our decisions have on the world around us. Much of this isn’t designated for the “hippy” element of society, nor for those educated or wealthy enough; to paraphrase my dear friend Tom Paine, this is common sense.

MacBride is an amiable host, helping the reader make these possible decisions a reality; from the simplicity of turning off a light to the possibility of switching banks to one that will be responsible with your money (no big bonuses and no funding of weapons of mass destruction). There is a sliding scale on each of these actions, therefore no need to feel daunted or overwhelmed. Throughout the book are adjoining illustrations, and more importantly an extensive list of websites in which to immediately visit to start making a life an ethical one.

What is refreshing about Live Ethically is the absence of preaching on the holiness of these ethical decisions and the brimstone and fire of our current lives. As an unassuming guide, this book isn’t a classic comparable to Shakespeare; but it may help the reader to open the mind.

Common Sense - Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine – Common Sense (1776)
Political – read as an iPhone app, August 2010
- 5 nods out of 5 -

A book that is said to have sparked the American Revolution; no small feat, for sure. But then Thomas Paine was no small man, exerting a large influence across the Western world during the later half of the revolutionary and changing eighteenth century.

Common Sense was published anonymously in 1776; it instantly gripped the readership of the Atlantic seaboard colonies, helping to clarify the American opposition to British dominance whilst also catapulting Paine to fame in the process. Historians have waxed lyrically about the pamphlet’s importance, and the Worm sees fit to continue in this rightful tradition.

Throughout this short and exciting pamphlet, Paine speaks of the ridiculousness of the English constitution, on the chance of hereditary succession, before moving onto the possible greatness of an independent, strong and vibrant America. It is crazy, he claims, for a small island to rule a mighty continent; and he backs this up with many concrete arguments: the gulf in distance between the two – a whole ocean – meant it was harder to communicate and govern; as well as the makeup of the American people coming from all of Europe and not just Britain herself. The biggest point was the selfishness of British involvement, there in America for its own profit and not for the benefit of the continental people.

Many of these points had been raised previously; however, Paine brought these points to the people. Unlike other political and philosophical writing of the time, Paine has done away with the Latin and learned references, instead preferring for an easy to read style upon a common language that makes his writing so easy and enjoyable to read today. Here are references for every man to understand, that of the Bible! Paine’s prose brings us passion, drama, ethics and a powerful, overriding belief in what is right.

As with his later works, Paine paints the ills of the time, as well as proscribing possible cures. Common Sense is awash with ideas for the future, even going into specifics (as he does in Rights of Man) of how a free America should be governed, including that of a revolving presidency between the original thirteen colonies.

Relative to the population of the time, the book is the most popular in American history. Characteristically, Paine donated his proceeds to the upkeep of the Continental Army, who were locking horns with the British, fighting for Paine’s vision of a free America. Common Sense is a must read for those with an interest in politics, in the founding of America and all lovers of liberty.

Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys – Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
Novel – 125 pages - my copy (Penguin paperback; 2001) bought frantically in December 2006 four days before my Literature exam
- 3 nods out of 5 -

Jane Eyre is noted as one of the finest novels of English fiction; enjoyed and studied by thousands each and every year. Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, written one hundred years later, is less well known. But both novels share a link; the first shows the manic character of Bertha, while the second brings out Bertha’s beginnings years before Jane’s arrival.

Bringing characters back to life upon the page is popular with readers, hence the continuing – perhaps monotonous – practice of writers sticking with particular detectives and families. Such re-imagining is rarely achieved to any high level; main reasons include the reconstruction of a character at conflict with our own memory of the first reading, as well as the reconstruction occurring not by the hands of the original author, but rather by a later writer seemingly bereft of their own ideas. Wide Sargasso Sea could be targeted for both of these reasons, being written a century after the original and with the character of Bertha transformed into the sensual, emotional and human Antoinette.

Rhys succeeds in taking the reader through an action packed story of 125 pages, taking in themes of love and marriage and wider issues of slavery and race. Set in the West Indies in the post-emancipation of slavery in the 1830s, the novel charts the innocent beginnings of Bertha in her original incarnation as Antoinette. Her family are outcasts, of the old slave owning class that are hated by the people of the island. Never finding a place in society, she believes she finds acceptance with a man who remains unnamed throughout the novel, but who is clearly Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre. The young Rochester is suspicious of the island and its ways, ending the novel as Antoinette’s jailer, removing her from the place of her birth, removing her name and her nature.

The West Indies are brought to full colour, as is to be expected by the native Jean Rhys. The landscape becomes overbearing for both our and Rochester’s eyes: ‘Everything is too much…Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too near’ (p.39). In many ways, it is a more alive and exciting novel than Bronte’s Jane Eyre, though its mysteriousness also acts as a barrier to truly embracing these characters.

The book ends back in more familiar climes in England, where the now branded Bertha takes a flame to Rochester’s home. ‘I was outside holding my candle. Now at last I know why I was brought here and what I have to do,’ come the lines from the concluding paragraph. What comes next is the engulfing fire, of Bertha’s death and Antoinette’s final liberation.

Despite the lack of great inter-textual fiction – and Wide Sargasso Sea, despite its fans, is not “great” – the idea itself will long continue to hold sway. For instance, what became of a middle aged Holden Caulfield at the end of The Catcher in the Rye, of the early years of Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, and even perhaps of the next instalment of Pooter’s The Diary of a Nobody.

The Frock Coated Communist - Tristram Hunt

Tristram Hunt – The Frock Coated Communist (2009)
Biography – 400 pages – my copy (paperback; 2010) a present from the one-and-only anti-socialist, Roy Cook, in April 2010
- 4 nods out of 5 -

The recent economic recession – the worst for eighty years – has made communism somewhat fashionable again. There have been new prints of the manifesto, documentaries upon Marx, and fresh evaluations of his “bulldog” Friedrich Engels.

Despite being the understudy for many years, to both contemporaries and commentators ever since, Engels has found a kind and considerate biographer in Tristram Hunt. The author - since May 2010 serving as MP for Stoke-On-Trent – has made a name for himself as one of Britain’s most promising historians. As enterprising as the likes of Niall Ferguson, he has shown himself at home in teaching, in study, upon the television, the radio, and amongst the sharp teeth of Westminster.

The reader is taken a journey throughout Engels’ life, from his birth into a Protestant bourgeois household, his birth as a revolutionary, his meeting with Marx, and later years as both the ‘Grand Lama of the Regent’s Park Road’ and ‘Marx’s Bulldog’. Hunt is great at constructing the narrative, at bringing in the (often complex) philosophical background, as well as providing colour to Engels and Marx; the author delighting at mining the wealth of letters sent between the pair over four decades. Furthermore, Hunt uses wide and extensive research, from Russian to German archives, to give us, the reader, a first class experience.

It is the opening chapters, of Engels’ communist awakening, in which Hunt keeps the reader entertained. From travelling to the Russian town of Engels in the book’s opening, to charting Engels’ young life in entertaining fashion. It is a shame the middle years do not fare well; but this is not unsurprising: Engels was becoming older, no longer dashing from country to country to give energy to the communist rise. The narrative is lost, Hunt preferring to note the general themes and threads of the 1850s, ‘60s and ‘70s until Engels’ retirement, when once again he could return full-time to his passion.

It is doubtful if Hunt’s study will become the principal study for readers, but it stands high and tall at bringing Engels back from the dead. In these uncertain economic times, the modern world could easily do with a living Engels and his vest for new ideas and methods.

The Dubliners - James Joyce

James Joyce – Dubliners (1914)
Fiction – 240 pages – my copy (paperback; 2000) bought for £1.50 from a second hand bookshop in Truro, summer of 2009
- 4 nods out of 5 -

James Joyce is one of the heavyweights of modern literature – a Muhammad Ali of the written page – revered from Dublin to London, and from Paris to New York. Before the perplexing and mammoth reads of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake came Dubliners; a collection of short stories amounting to Joyce’s first substantial work of fiction.

Similarly with all of Joyce’s other works, this collection concerns itself with all things Irish, from the death of the reverend in ‘The Sisters’, to the warring politicians of ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’, through to Gabriel’s’ ruminating in the very last story ‘The Dead’. The speech, the language, the tone and the theme – all more Irish than a pint of Dublin brewed Guinness.

These are the stories (bar that of ‘After the Race’) of common people, of whom bring Dublin to life. Although many of the stories may lack any action or actual plot, each is blessed with a Joycean ending epiphany; a dawning realisation of their purpose and their life. Due to the volume of characters, these range from the small to the sublime, with the constant being Joyce’s use of words. Take this example from ‘Araby’, the story of a boy who desires to purchase a gift for a girl:

‘Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned anguish and anger’ (p.28).

The thread of the stories is Dublin itself, and although the book does not follow a narrative, it does follow a progression of age; from the innocence and confusion of youth in the opening chapters, through to love and lust of the middle chapters, ending on those long in the tooth. The book’s ending story, ‘The Dead’, has garnered most attention, forming the basis of films; its fifty pages indicate Joyce’s admiration of its characters. But it cannot compare with the striking images of the first opening four stories, particularly ‘The Sisters’, ‘Araby’ and ‘Eveline’. Joyce appears more comfortable and intent when writing in a child’s perspective, something he would follow up in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

This edition – a modern Penguin Classics – benefits from a welcome Introduction and comprehensive notes from the hands of Terence Brown. Dubliners is a purchase for the student of Modernist literature, as well as an embracing opening to those yet still to meet this heavyweight of fiction.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1922)
Short Story – read as iPhone app in July 2010
- 3 nods out of 5 -

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) is, hands down, one of the most influential novels of the past one hundred years. But amongst his novels and his tempestuous relationship with his wife, Zelda, came a plethora of short stories, written for an instant cash injection to booster the Fitzgerald finances. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is one such story.

Originally published in Colliers Magazine (USA) in 1922, and later reprinted in various anthologies and collections. In recent times, the story has found wider popularity in the movie adaptation of 2008, starring Brad Pitt in the contrary and confused life of Benjamin Button.

The story follows the birth of Benjamin, born not as an infant, but rather an elderly man. Seen as a monstrosity, his father shaves his beard and insists on a proper upbringing: toys not cigars. Benjamin’s life is full of conflict, such being rejected from Yale as being seen as an elderly madcap, until the passing of time brings with it youth and strength. He marries, but husband and wife become estranged due to diverging interests; while at the close of the nineteenth century, Benjamin fights in the Spanish-American War, returning home to live a party lifestyle.

Yet by the commencement of the next war, Benjamin is ridiculed as an upstart kid for his appearance in military uniform, ready to fight the enemy again. He fulfils one of his life aims in returning to Yale, but his vibrancy is lost, day by day, as he becomes all the more younger and feeble. Eventually, Benjamin acts as “nephew” to his son, overtaken in intellect by his own grandson. As a toddler, he forgets all he has done, living a life of sense and desire only:

‘And then he remembered nothing. When he was hungry he cried – that was all. Through the noons and nights he breathed and over him there were soft mumblings and murmurings that he scarcely heard, and faintly differentiated smells, and light and darkness. Then it was all dark, and his white crib and the dim face that moved above him, and the warm sweet aroma of the milk, faded out altogether from his mind.’

The film adaptation vastly differs from the short story, from setting and time, to characters and upbringing. Though the greatest difference is in the short story’s humour and David Fincher’s seriousness (Fitzgerald deemed it the funniest story he had ever written), as well as the aging process of Benjamin: in the movie, he begins young as a child and learns and grows; whilst Fitzgerald has him born as an old man, with a full beard and a fondness for smoking cigars.

But the basic idea remains true: how time continues to change us, no matter who we are. It is stated Fitzgerald was inspired by Mark Twain’s comment upon our existence: ‘It is a pity that the best part of life comes at the beginning, and the worst part at the end.’

The Communist Manifesto - Marx & Engels

Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels – The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Political – 260 pages – my copy (Penguin Classics paperback; 2002) bought for £5.99 from Drake’s Circus Waterstones, Plymouth
- 5 nods out of 5 -

‘A spectre is haunting Europe’… so begins The Communist Manifesto. And not just Europe, but the world all over throughout the twentieth century, Communism was a domineering presence. At one point, in the 1950s, it appeared Soviet Russia was to overtake the USA and become the world’s only superpower. The origins of this assault upon capitalism can be traced back to Marx and Engels’ combined work.

Written whilst the 1848 European revolutions were breaking out, the Manifesto was the initial key guide for Marxist understanding: for years it became the centrepiece in Soviet classrooms. Its final words were repeated, chanted and believed: ‘Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITE!’ (p.258). But alas, the communist giant of Russia fell twenty years ago; China has metamorphosed into a hybrid capitalist-Marxist state; the Manifesto is no longer gospel, but rather, historical.

This edition – edited as a Penguin Classic – comes with an extended and delightful introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones. The reader is given a run-through of the history of the Manifesto, from its origins through to its inception. Not a blade of grass is missed: from the early Communist writings, the Young Hegelians, the impact of writers such as Adam Smith, including all the prefaces to various editions of the manifesto in the nineteenth century (Preface to the Polish Edition of 1892 anyone?). All of which makes it both comprehensive and welcomed.

The manifesto itself remains a strong seller, used in political, historical and philosophical classrooms. Reading it now, here in the confines of the twenty first century, much of what was promised is clearly incorrect. No, Engels was wrong when he believed Marxism was ‘destine to do for history what Darwin’s theory has done for biology’ (p.203); while its radical elements – abolishment of private property and the centralisation of media and communication – is frowned upon by the rise of individual freedoms in the past century.

But despite this, it remains a riveting read. Not just because we now know what came to pass, but because so much it holds common sense: equality between men and women, universal and free education for children, a graduated income tax, as well as the end of national friction and wars. Much of it is voiced in John Lennon’s Imagine: 'Imagine there's no countries…no religion too…’

If the question is open for debate upon all wars being those of class struggles, Marx and Engels were clear upon their critique of capitalism’s consuming desire to conquer all. It remains all the more valid in today’s economic climate, when a realisation is slowly dawning that live on a planet of finite resources and therefore cannot continue expanding. As the socialist duo pointed out, there is an ‘epidemic of overproduction’ (p.226), which will need a revision of our social and economic ties.

The future for Communism looks bleak. But a certainty remains, that Marx and Engels’ thrilling and enlightening read will long continue to sell in far and wide places, from Beijing to San Francisco, from Paris to Cairo; and even Plymouth Waterstones.

What If? - Robert Cowley (ed.)

Robert Cowley (ed.) – What If? (1999)
History – 400 pages – my copy (paperback; 2001) bought for £2.49 from the Oxfam Bookshop in Chiswick, London, sometime in 2008
- 3 nods out of 5 -

Simple parlour games, have said many historians in the past. But the “what ifs” of history have long lasting popularity with the reading public. This selection of articles, edited by Robert Cowely, continues in the same imaginary vein of previous incarnations; the front cover also true to form, with Hitler – remember him? – saluting victoriously at the head of the march of soldiers throughout history.

Cowley’s edited pieces are upon military outcomes, from the Greek fights against the Persians in 480 B.C., through to the second half of the twentieth century. It depicts the Mongols turning back from their European invasion, the Spanish Armada, the American Civil War, and of course, many scenarios from the Second World War (‘How Hitler Could Have Won the War’, ‘D Day Fails’ and so on…). Each article is easy to read, informative and ultimately, enjoyable. The layman is introduced to key battles in history, with each historian following the same format: background to event, the event itself, and the plausibility of different outcomes.

The unfortunate hindrance of What If? is the blatant American bias: we have the American fight for independence (3 articles), the American Civil War (3 articles), as well as the American involvement in the Second World War. By way of comparison, the Roman Empire is given a mere one article, while Asia (but for the Mongols) and African history is non-existent. These are the works of American military historians, writing for a primarily American audience; but it becomes highly annoying when all scenarios lead to how it effects the United States. Without Cortez, could there be the USA? Without Drake, could there be the USA? Without the Spartans….and so on.

At no point does Cowley’s selection threaten to grab the reader; unlike other “parlour games” of recent publication, most notably Niall Ferguson’s Virtual History (previously reviewed by the Worm, and given a handsome 4 nods). But as conversation fodder for eager pub quizzers, it is a fitting book for the shelf.