The Books I Read In June

 Fiction

'English Passengers' by Matthew Kneale

Writers are sometimes advised against writing multiple points of view in a story, but Kneale ignores this entirely, jumping between a whole host of perspectives, some in different times to the main flow of the action. At least he labels them, but it does make the book feel fragmented and longer than it actually is. The basis of the story is that in the 1850s a group of disparate men launch an expedition to Tasmania which they believe might have been the actual location of Eden. They hire a smuggler's ship to take them there. We see through the eyes of the captain, the various members of the expedition who generally hate each other, an Aborigine whose almost entire life we see in contrast to the other characters and various officials and their wives, based in Tasmania.

In many ways the book is very good at conjuring up the nature of lives in the time period and the perspectives people had, especially in the burgeoning colony. It shows the misery of the Aborigines slaughtered, dying of disease and relocated; even mistreated in death. It also shows the misery of prisoners held on Tasmania. None of the characters is really one you feel affinity with or even sympathy for. They are all hard and/or foolish people that are free with their hatred. As such it is a real task to get through this book and it is the first one I have struggled to finish in a very long time. While I admire the work Kneale has put into the research and the creation of the characters, this is not an enjoyable read at all.

'The Monogram Murders' by Sophie Hannah

This was the first of (so far) four continuation novels featuring Agatha Christie's character, private detective Hercule Poirot. It also introduces a new character, Inspector Edward Catchpool, rather than reusing some of Poirot's other companions. Hannah has experience in writing murder mysteries of her own. However, this book comes over as almost being too self-conscious that it is a Poirot novel. I guess Hannah (or perhaps the publishers) felt compelled to appeal to the audience of Poirot novels and probably especially the TV series. The early phases of the book are almost overly 'cosy' in the way that the Poirot books now tend to be represented rather than how they were viewed when first published.

Another factor is that Hannah seems to have forgotten how short many (most) Agatha Christie novels were, coming in around 65,000 words, much shorter than the 90,000+ words which is common for novels these days. The extra length certainly is apparent in the closing stages of the book when Poirot has assembled all the suspects and those involved, to explain what has been happening. This is far more common in TV productions than in the original book. Hannah puts in so many twists that this section of the book becomes very laboured and lacks the crispness of Christie's original.

The setting is fine as are the details of society in the 1910s and 1920s. Action goes between the Bloxham Hotel in London and a rural village, which while indulging in some stereotypes, does have interesting characters and especially motives. These help provide twists but a lot of the impact is lost in the overly complex timing and carrying out of the various killings. Overall, it is not a bad book, but there is a tension between continuing Christie's work and producing a book which is pitched more at what the expectations of a 21st Century audience are expected to be.

'Rivers of London' by Ben Aaronovitch

Given that this was the first in what is now a sequence of nine novels and nine separate graphic novels, I am surprised that I have not come across more of these before. It is a kind of mix between 'The Sorceror's Apprentice', 'Torchwood', the Bryant & May novels and Neverwhere'. It features police constable Peter Grant who works in London and finds he can see ghosts and is recruited to a special paranormal unit of the Metropolitan Police headed by a wizard. There is an interesting mix between the now common magic-alongside-everyday-society and the details of London that Aaronovitch includes. Grant mixing with the embodiments of the River Thames and its tributaries, is a really interesting aspect. There is a good range of characters and the mix between the fantastical and down-to-Earth relations and police work is well handled. It moves at a good pace and has interesting twists too. Me knowing many of the locations mentioned added something, but you do not need to be familiar with them to follow the story. Certainly if I see any others in the series at local charity shops, I will pick them up. Maybe they do not appeal to people here, now I live so far from London.

'Turbulence' by David Szalay

This is a short (136 pages in my edition) novel, that is a series of linked short stories, or indeed, vignettes, connected by flights. The thread is effectively the 'baton' is passed from the current lead character to someone they meet on their journey. It loops around the world, from London back to London and the first character we see, in a series of hops from airport to airport and into their hinterland. Szalay does show skill in quickly bringing out the different, diverse characters and a range of settings on different continents, showing us something, usually (mildly) startling, from their lives before moving on to the next. However, even more than with a short story collection, we do not really have time to get to know the characters. It was a brisk book that I read in a day, but felt that it was more like an exercise for a writing class than anything more substantial.

Non-Fiction

'Industry and Empire' by E.J. Hobsbawm

Covering the period of British history from 1750 to 1964, this book is about the Industrial Revolution. It is far better than Hobsbawm's Age of series that I have been reading in recent months: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-books-i-read-in-april.html I do not know if it was because this book formed part of The Pelican Economic History of Britain series and so Hobsbawm was kept under more editorial control. It certainly benefited his writing. While he does look out for nascent workers' movements and still believes that economic concerns were the sole motivator of imperialism, he keeps a much tighter focus on his topics. 

The book is very adept at distinguishing the differences, for example in the nature of industries, their different workers and capitalisation and their locations in a way which is often absent from broad sweeping statements some general histories rely on. Hobsbawm is careful to show that the 19th Century was not a continued story of British success and the 'workshop of the world' era was actually short lived. Throughout there are illuminating gems of analysis which despite the age of the book (published 1969) are refreshing and you are surprised seem to have been forgotten by subsequent historians, perhaps thrown out with anything else deemed Marxist in tone. Hobsbawm's perspective is not determinist whether in a Whig or Marxist way, but he is alert to the social impacts in a way that perhaps purely economic historians can otherwise be neglectful.

Hobsbawm published the book while the post-war boom was still going on. However, at the end of the book he does show real prescience in expecting the 1970s and beyond to see greater economic difficulties for Britain due to long-term waves in the economy. As we know from the Age of books despite the misery of the 1980s, he did cling to an optimism that it would not endure in the way it has in so much of Britain. Ironically, the approaches to the economy and society that he highlights in the early 19th Century have come back to become the 'norm' for business behaviour in the 21st Century. Things that Hobsbawn portrays as having been passed, unfortunately now seem common place, especially in the precariousness of employment and the poor quality of life for many workers in Britain.

Despite its age, I do recommend this as an insightful study of the British Industrial Revolution and feel it is a stronger book than some of Hobsbawm's others.

'Bismarck and German Unification' by David Hargreaves

This book is in the Documents and Debates series. It makes use of a range of translated sources at the time to draw attention to facets of the events it outlines. I had expected it to be like 'The Thirty Years War (1987) that I read last month: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-books-i-read-in-may.html However, the actual narration and analysis of history is much less than in that book. Its purpose is really to be read alongside other history books of the period to prepare students to answer questions of what those cover. As a result, while I am familiar with many of the details of the period and the developments, I learnt little new from this book. It did raise points of interest but expects the reader to go to other sources for explanation of these. Thus, while it contains interesting content, notably on the shifting views of Bismarck and the differences between his private and publicly-stated views, plus on the paths down which Austria and the southern German states might have gone, it is a rather frustrating book to read on its own. I have two other books in this series focused on British political and social history, but do not see much to gain from reading them, as I have other books which tell me more, e.g. Hobsbawm's book reviewed above.

While with elements of interest, the nature of my reading does not fit this kind of book which is much more a tool for students at a very particular stage of their studies to use for revision and practice in analysis of documents.