Books I Read In November

 Fiction

'Assassin's Apprentice' by Robin Hobb [Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden]

I am not sure why I have not come across Hobb before. She is quite a prolific fantasy author and while I was reading a 2014 reissue this book, the first in the Farseer Trilogy, it had come out in 1995 when I was living in London. I do not know if this book counts as a Young Adult novel. I know a lot of fantasy written by women gets dumped in that category by default even if not written intentionally for that audience. Also in my day there were simply children's books and then books read by adults, rather than this division and sub-division. I do not see what is gained by these categories - New Adult, i.e. 18-30s, is one of the latest and why they cannot simply read books for adults I do not know. A lot of this, I am sure stems from algorithms wanting to push certain books to individual customers. However, I think it can put up barriers to readers seeking new things to read because they are not in the 'right' category. I started reading books both by Terry Pratchett and Michael Moorcock when I was 12 when Moorcock's work in particular might have been seen as too 'old' for me, but was still reading them 40 years later, in part because they produced so many. By then Pratchett books could be seen as far too 'young' for me.

Anyway, with that off my chest, I think this book may feel a bit like a YA story as it follows a character from about age 6 to 16. Fitz (he is allocated various names) is the bastard son of the crown prince in the fantasy realm of the Kingdom of the Six Duchies. The novel follows his training as a tender of dogs (which he can reach out to telepathically), as a courtier and as an assassin. He is also poorly trained in how to use the Skill, telepathic communication between selected people. A lot of it is a coming of age story though with some horribly cruel elements in it that almost made me abandon the book at the time. The Kingdom is facing attack by pirates who strip hostages of their humanity and turn them loose in their old towns to wreak havoc and there is a lot of court intrigue plus politics of marriage and assassination with a neighbouring kingdom as the assault of the pirates seems unstoppable.

Though there are some elements which seem typical of fantasy writing, a kind of default Western or at least (North-West) European medieval setting, I can see why the book was popular at the time because the 'magic' is largely mental and above all, there is a well-developed political system, which actually is often a good foundation for successful fantasy and science fiction series. One thing Hobb does well is have believable characters. Some are so flawed or nasty to almost be intolerable. However, you have faith that they could be real people despite the fantasy setting and yet their behaviour meshes well the society and culture they are shown in. Thus, overall, despite wanting to abandon the book at times due to the cruelty portrayed, I think this is a well written fantasy novel and if I saw any more in this series or the others Hobb produced, I would pick them up.

'A Scandalous Man' by Gavin Esler

I was interested to compare this book to 'Head of State' (2014) by Andrew Marr, another British politics TV presented which I read back in 2018: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2018/11/books-i-listened-toread-in-november.html  I must say that this book, published in 2008, is far better written than that one. It features a fictional Conservative Minister from the Thatcher days who fell from grace after an affair, some that was quite common in the 1980s, though these days even the prime minister can ride out such behaviour when it comes to light. Burnett is largely well drawn. He becomes entangled with the CIA and is involved in supplying chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. The novel jumps between his political activities of the past and 2005 when his estranged son, Harry, is trying to find out why his father attempted to commit suicide and also what he had really got up to in the 1980s; there is also a narrative around the family coming back together.

Some bits are levered in stretching credulity. Harry happens to be studying Arabic in a class with a MI5 officer and two men who will be involved in the 7th July 2005 terrorist outrages and happens to meet a Turkish woman who becomes the love of his life, just as his father had a relationship with an Iraqi-American broadcaster. The ending also seems rather contorted though still in some ways authentic. In contrast, Robin Burnett's guilt at what he has done in office seems forced, indeed false. I am unaware of any of Thatcher's ministers who regretted their behaviour during their time in office and who went to work for a refugee charity rather than taking up a high-paid job for some company, typically with ongoing dubious connections.

The one thing that saves the book is Esler's writing. Reviewing the book when it came out in 2008, Melissa Benn, hardly a fan of Conservatism, noted this deftness: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/07/fiction3  Esler succeeds in even making people like Benn and myself feel engaged with Robin Burnett, let alone his son, people we would probably go a long way to avoid in real life. You are swept on by the lightness of touch and it carries you over the bits that in another book, like one written by Marr would have you drawing up short and complaining. It is a shame that Esler has not written more books because he has a skill in writing that means he stands out from among those TV presenters who have turned to fiction, notably in the thriller genre. Despite some flaws which you feel with some more experience, Esler could have corrected, I was surprised to zip through this book. While I might not have liked most of the characters, I was certainly interested in what was going to happen to them.

'The Witch Hunter' by Bernard Knight

While this is the eighth book in the Crowner John series set in late 12th Century Exeter, it is different to the preceding ones. There are murders but these are carried out through mob violence. There is no mystery as at each stage it is known, at least to the reader, who is driving on the killings and who carried them out. What the book is more about are concerns which have often featured in the series, primarily the power of influential individuals to have the law run in their favour. A widow feeling that her husband who died of a heart attack, was murdered by witchcraft is able to use connections with the church to produce a literal witch hunt and the rapid execution or murder of a number of 'cunning' women, effectively 'barefoot' doctors working in Exeter or the neighbouring villages. Sir John De Wolfe's antagonist, his brother-in-law, the Sheriff of Devon, Sir Richard de Revelle tries to turn the campaign against John's mistress and her inn, in which John had invested, is burnt to the ground. However, finally after seven books De Revelle - a real man who served as sheriff - perhaps has gone too far in his greed and his arrogance. This book feels like a turning point in the series with the fate of the sheriff in the balance and even John's clerk Thomas de Peyne looking to have a reprieve in being barred from the clergy.

Knight does well in bringing a fresh approach to the series. While the story eschews the mystery element it remains well engaging as John seeks to quell mob violence and make safe his friend and his lover. The fact that even though you know the killers, you are uncertain how everything will unfold and who will prevail, continues to make the novel engaging even without a mystery to it.

Non-fiction

'The Occupation of the Rhineland, 1918-1929' by Brigadier General Sir James E. Edmonds

This book was one of the British government's official histories of what became known as the First World War. Almost all the volumes bar this one and the one on British action in Persia were published 1922-49. Though work on this volume began in 1930 it was only due to persistence by Edmonds that it was completed in 1944, after substantial revisions. Only a couple of hundred copies were produced and kept within the government. It was only published to the public in 1987. It is a dry and at times very technical account of the British forces and administration that took not just part in the occupation of the Rhineland but was also involved in providing security to the plebiscites in East Prussia and Silesia. Some of the detail will only appeal to military history fans who like to know precisely where specific battalions were at particular times. For those with a more general interest, it does provide an interesting perspective on the enforcement of the armistice and then the Treaty of Versailles, largely from the British angle, but naturally bringing in elements of their co-occupiers, especially the French, but also the Belgians, Italians and Americans.

Edmonds had to be driven to reduce some of the negative commentary on the Germans in revisions of the books, especially in the inter-war, post-Locarno Pact era. However, even the clinical accounts of what went on show how much the German military and authorities evaded the requirements placed on them almost from the moment that the armistice was signed. The mistreatment and then abandonment of Entente prisoners-of-war is not an aspect which gets mentioned. The German evasions such as in provision of resources and complaints about the terms of the armistice and the following treaty; the lying about how many trained, armed men there were, seem incessant and done in a very arrogant way. It is clear that almost everyone the British had to deal with subscribed to the myth of the 'stab in the back' and so blamed revolutionaries and the politicians rather than perceiving Germany as having been truly defeated.

The book does provide a useful counter-balance to the GCSE-level view that the Treaty of Versailles was too 'harsh', through showing how much of it was evaded, both in financial and military terms. It shows how the Germans exploited willingness by the British to make adjustments, e.g. with the Locarno Pact, to press for more and more as if this is what they deserved. The British, in contrast to the French, played right into the hands of German nationalists, largely because of the constant desire to reduce the cost of the occupation. Time after time, British forces were shaved and shaved again to save money until the time when their presence was effectively cosmetic. While standard histories point to Hitler reintroducing conscription in 1935, it is clear from this book that the German military in all the preceding years since the armistice had been working hard to maintain a 'shadow' army of trained and indeed armed men in a string of disguises. This helps explain how the Nazis were so quickly able to mobilise, because the 100,000-strong army of the Weimar years had been a myth.

One can certainly understand from this account why in 1943-45 there was an insistence on going right to Berlin and showing the Germans that they had truly been defeated. However, the lesson of the extent of the cost of occupation for the British had been lost and history largely repeated itself with the formation of Bizonia in just over two years after the end of the Second World War, as again, exhausted just as in 1918, Britain had to scale down and then abandon a thorough occupation. Of course, truly committing to a genuine occupation in 1919 and enforcing it throughout, may have at least hampered the rapid German return to being a threat post-1933. Given how extensively the Germans complained about even the benign British occupation, it would have been no worse if they had enforced it thoroughly. The abandonment of German passive resistance to the French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in 1923-25 shows that while they complained, practically they could do little when the Allies reacted for real. Neglecting enforcement out of some misguided acceptance of German propaganda simply made it easier for the Second World War to occur in Europe. In this context, appeasement can be seen as simply the continuation of a policy adopted right in 1918, at least by the British.

Overall, while a rather dry book, it does bring useful perspectives on the relationship between Britain and Germany in the inter-war period and how the British, desperate to save money above all else, bent so far in pandering to the Germans, a policy which continued even once the nationalist coalitions had been replaced by the Nazi dictatorship.