The Books I Read In October

Fiction

'The Guns of Navarone' by Alistair Maclean

Along with 'Where Eagles Dare' (1968 from MacLean's 1967 novel), 'The Guns of Navarone' (1961, based on this 1957 novel) is the war movie that I rewatch. I guess in part it is because these are action movies which, though in the context of the Second World War have very much a fictional setting rather than one close to actual history. I wrote a pastiche of this story, 'Blanketed' in my anthology, 'Another World’s War: What If? Stories of the Second World War' (2015) featuring an attack on Battery Mirus - more on that emplacement in a bit.

I sometimes come across the novels in charity shops and I read the one for 'Where Eagles Dare' back in 2019: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2019/08/books-i-listened-toread-in-august.html  I got into a discussion of the differences between the novel and movie for this one over on BlueSky and so when I saw the novel locally, thought it a good idea to pick it up to compare.

The basic plot is the same. A small group of Allied soldiers/SOE operatives, travels to the fictional island of Navarone, which lies close to the coast of Turkey. The pair of large naval guns installed as a shore battery are preventing the evacuation of Allied troops from an island farther north, back to Egypt and a German invasion of the island is imminent. I may be wrong but I had the sense that MacLean had been influenced by the German Battery Mirus, a collection of four Russian 13cm battleship guns set up on occupied Guernsey. They had a range of 51Km (32 miles) so protected a wide zone around that side of the Contentin Peninsula. However, I now read that the more likely inspiration were the eleven Italian 15.2cm guns on the Greek island of Leros, taken over by the Germans when Italy changed sides in 1943.

The team consists of five men but includes the astounding mountaineer New Zealander Captain Keith Mallory and the Greek resistance fighter, Lieutenant Colonel Andrea Stavrou, plus an American, Corporal Dusty Miller who is the explosives expert. This is where the novel and movie begin to diverge as in the latter, it is an Englishman James Miller (we see his name briefly on a file near the start of the movie, though online he is called 'John'), played by David Niven. The other characters in the book are Scotsman Petty Officer Telegraphist Casey Brown, an engineer and (naval) Lieutnant Andrew Stevens very like Mallory in being fluent in Greek and a skilled mountaineer. However, in the novel we have much more reflection on what the men are thinking as they go about their missions and Stevens keeps condemning himself as a coward.

Two other characters from the movie, Major Roy Franklin, who breaks his leg in the initial climb and Greek Resistance fighter, Spyros Pappadimos, are absent. In the novel Stevens is the one who breaks his leg and rather than ending up in a hospital, effectively feeding the German soldiers misleading information he is abandoned on a mountainside to die. Brown in the movie is said to be a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and while such men were recruited into the early days of SOE they were then generally avoided on suspicion of being politically unreliable. Brown is killed fighting a German soldier to secure a boat in the movie, but in the book survives to the end.

The other large difference in the novel, is that the Greek Resisters on the island that the team connect with are both men, Louki and Panayis who does not speak English, who guide the team across Navarone. In the movie these two are replaced by two women, Maria Pappadimos, Spyros's mother and a young woman, who has been traumatised speechless, Anna. There is treachery as in the movie though it is Miller who proves executioner whereas facing the same situation in the movie, he cannot bring himself to do it and instead Maria does feeling utterly betrayed by the woman she has been supporting. In both the book and the movie, the wounds of the traitors, notably to their ankles, prove to be false and they both wreck Miller's equipment.

Much the rest of the story turns out the same. There are some of the most dramatic scenes which feature in the movie such as fleeing through the trees and escaping down a (convenient) tunnel through the rock Stavrou distracting techniques when they are questioned by the Germans. However, things like the team going into the village centre and singing with the locals, does not feature, perhaps as it is rather sentimental and I imagine it was in part the film-makers wanting to show a good side of the local population. Certainly the killing of the traitor lacks the emotional impact that the movie version does. Towards the end when the team are traipsing around not achieving a great deal, it loses momentum compared to the movie, where the tension is heightened by Spyros and other locals attacking the Germans and Brown's fight. 

I sometimes face criticism of my own stories, especially ones set in wartime, because they feature women and having women speaking. I always found this a very peculiar criticism that to me seemed illogical. However, as I have aged and read more of these 'classic' action novels and indeed similar ones published this century, I realise that many of the books do not feature a single woman, not even in passing. That is the case with this novel. We do not even see a woman in a village or in the fields or anywhere, let alone as part of the Resistance as they were. Overall, while we see the thoughts of the characters and the fact that they are not bold heroes, is interesting, but in the end I found this novel unsatisfying; uncertain how to proceed. I would recommend watching the movie over reading the book, any time.

'The Track of Sand' by Andrea Camilleri

This is the twelth Montalbano novel and has the crime committed right outside the inspector's house when a horse is beaten to death on the beach there. This leads him being drawn into both charity and illegal horse-racing in parts of Sicily. It is muddied by the fact that the horse was taken from the stables of the very wealthy Saverio Lo Duca along with one of his own horses. It is not clear if Lo Duca or the owner of the apparent dead horse, a jockey, Rachele, is the target of this attack/attempt at intimidation. On that basis, it is an interesting story showing the inspector, alongside his usual gourmet meals, mixing with the upper classes. However, there is some weakness in terms of the plot. First neither Montalbano or his colleague notice the horse's corpse being transported away when they are a very short distance away in the house. Then Montalbano who has a vital clue in a pocket, which he does not notice until the end. These things seem rather contrived. Alongside the usual rows over the telephone with his girlfriend, yet again Montalbano cheats on her, this time with Rachele who is a very demanding woman. Overall, it is alright. It starts of interestingly, but due to the flaws is not the best of the series.

'Ark' by Stephen Baxter

As I see copies of this book around on its own, I had not realised that it is actually the follows 'Flood' (2008). Given how much is unresolved by the end of the novel, I have the sense that a concluding book in the trilogy was intended but never written. I am not overly a fan of hard science fiction whereas Baxter is a chartered engineer and fellow of the British Interplanetary Society. Thus, his science is sound, though at times, as with this book, still difficult to find feasible. I really should have learnt my lesson from how poor I felt his Long Earth (2012-16) pentalogy with Terry Pratchett was.

As you might expect given that context, this novel is about an 'ark' that carries humans to another planet, or in fact two of them. It covers the period from the 2010-2080s. The humans have to leave because in addition to rising sea levels due to global warming, for some reason vast stores of underground water start coming to the surface so that by the 2050s even the highest mountains on Earth are covered with water.

It is very much an American story but with a smattering of other nationalities, but we do not see whether China or the European Union do anything similar. About half of the novel is taken up with the raising of the select children/young people who are going to go on the ark, as the waters close in steadily on their bases in the Rockies, with millions of refugees preceding them, leading to an increasingly dystopian society before they are drowned. The rivalry and the tensions between the prospective crew and candidates who come in or are removed from the final list, really do seem to sum up US attitudes in the 21st Century. There is an elitist and pro-natalist undercurrent.

Though we see through multiple points of view, there is really no character we can feel any affinity for or really any sympathy for. The plans go awry so ultimately the carefully planned mix is disrupted by bullish gatecrashers. Even then it is clear that the voyage is going to turn into 'The Lord of the Flies' (1954). The ship flies to Jupiter where it is reshaped to enable to go at faster-than-light speed in a bubble that appears to be driven to a kind of connection to a bubble universe.

The whole mission is plagued both by bad luck but also the selfishness of individuals and indeed insanity. The psychologist was dropped at the last moment in order to buy the favours of military commanders protecting the bases. Towards the end a gang lord, raping girls is overthrown but has to be kept alive due to his technical knowledge. A group of the youngest crew (children are born on the voyage, which for some lasts a further thirty years beyond the original plan) literally break out of the ship, believing they are in nothing more than a simulation and they die bloodily as they find they are actually in space. The surviving crew reach the intended planet only to find it is heavily tilted on its axis and any inhabitants would have to scurry about its narrow stretches of land to cope with the strange seasons. 

One small group goes to this 'Earth II' but we never hear their fate. We see those who travel another thirty years to 'Earth III' round a dimmer M class sun, a planet which is tidal locked so always has one side facing its sun. The third group actually return to Earth and are taken in by the Ark 2 settlement on the bottom of the ocean over what was Yellowstone Park.

Overall the book is a mess. It covers such long periods that it has to be episodic. It then splits into three narratives of which we see only two. The characters, unlikable at the start, become intolerable by the end. I suppose Baxter was simply trying to point out all the stories about space arks would never be feasible. You certainly feel by the end 'what was the point?' and as a result, why it might have been logical, likely, you feel the same about the book. I regret having bought it.

I should really re-read my own reviews before buying books. Looking back to my review of 'The Long Cosmos' https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/11/books-i-readlistened-to-in-november.html I see I wrote "I have stopped reading work by Pratchett and certainly will steer clear of anything by Baxter. This was really an expensive disappointment." I should have followed my own advice!

'Brighton Rock' by Graham Greene

This is another book that I saw the movie (the 1948 one, not the 2011 one) of before coming to the novel. This was published in 1938 and at the start of the movie they make it clear it showed the criminals of pre-war Brighton perhaps to avoid dissuading people from returning there now the war was over. The story features a man called Pinkie, aged 17 and in fact referred to as 'The Boy' in much of the narrative who, following the murder of the previous gang leader in London, Kite, has taken over a small gang of villains who make money by running a protection racket on bookmakers at the race course. It is not clear really why - apparently it was an article about Kite controlling slot machines in Brighton, though that is not overly clear in the novel - but they want the death of Charles 'Fred' Hale. 

Hale unfortunately has been sent by the newspaper he works for as one of the common summer promotions for people to find tickets he distributes in order to win a prize or if they recognise him and say a certain phrase they can win £10 (worth about £1-2000 these days). He knows he is being hunted and so tries to get a woman to stay with him as protection. While unsuccessful he is noted by drunken busybody Ida Arnold who effectively becomes the detective of the novel, digging into what went on, haranguing witnesses and members of Pinkie's gang.

Hale is murdered though it appears he died of natural causes. Pinkie, however, tries to make sure that evidence of where Hale was, when, is covered up and this means he encounters Rose, a waitress from the cafe where Hale ate who saw not only useful information but has noted Pinkie covering up evidence. At a time when a wife could not testify against her husband, Pinkie hooks up with her and steadily presses her to marry him, which ironically she sees as an escape from the dreary, very poor life she has come from. Things are fallng apart for Pinkie even before the novel starts are deteriorate as it progresses. He has to murder one of his own gang and is effectively driven out of business by wealthy, successful Jewish gangster Colleoni.

The novel has all of those traits that are shot through Greene's fiction. It has a very seedy setting. It has women who are pressured into collaborating with dubious men. Pinkie, Rose and Pinkie's gang are Catholics so there is a lot of self-questioning and Rose in particular feels damned which actually makes her more reckless and willing to go down with Pinkie. He comes across as a tough man and is willing to use violence, notably slashing rivals with cuthroat razors, but he is very much like young men of the present-day manosphere, with real hang-ups about sex and actually a virulent misogyny. Only the risk that Rose will testify against him moderates his behaviour. He is a teetotaller but comes to drink as the novel progresses, so it does seem to be rather the story of a man already falling, going the last final steps, at least from a Catholic perpsective. I did wonder if the record recording of Pinkie's voice was a gimmick of the movie, but it does feature in the novel too, but in the novel it holds an even more bleak outcome come than the slight ray of relief the movie provides at the end.

Overall, much of what you would expect from Greene. One thing that marks it out from the seedy novels of his I have read recently, is its portayal of Brighton. It makes constant use of real places, shops, hotels, etc. around the town and to me this gave it a grounding that is not present when Greene uses a fictional setting.

Non-Fiction

'Modern British Politics: parties and pressure groups in the collectivist age' by Samuel H. Beer

This book as the full title suggests takes a very interesting perspective on the British political scene of the last 200 years. You might take 'pressure group' to be something very specific as we have known it since the 1960s. However, Beer uses it in the broadest sense and shows how it encompassed vested interests of all kinds such as aristocratic and wealthy families, landed interests, particular sectors of business and industry, before the trades unions and then single-issue campaign groups.

While he delineates phases in the development of the political scene, from the Old Tory through to the Collectivist era, actually he repeatedly notes commonalities, not simply between the Conservatives and Liberals but then between the Conservatives and Labour too. Indeed due to Liberal individualism in terms of the pressures wielded within the parties, the more corporatist parties of the mid- to late 20th Century are closer to each other. The largest distinction being that Labour's conference and National Executive Council wield far more power over policy than anything equivalent in the Conservative Party where there is factionalism but in part little different to what a politician of the early 19th Century would recognise.

Though I have the 1982 edition and it even shows a reference to the SDP on the front cover, in fact the changes from the 1969 edition are minimal and the narrative and analysis peter out in the late 1960s when analysis of the various pressures facing the governments of the 1970s, the rule of a minority government and the final harm trade unions did to Labour, would have really benefited from his analysis.

While points of tension over policy - Gaitskell's leadership gets much attention - feature, this book gives a refreshing perspective on policy-making and how while the parliamentary party is the public face of the party much goes on below that level, especially in the Labour Party, not necessarily apparent to the bulk of the electorate. Beer's analysis is generally sound, though being an American, despite what he has described, he does seem at times to forget that British political parties are always confederations much more than US ones are and for the most part can live with such diversity of perspectives within their ranks. The lesser influence of the party on policy does rather conceal the divisions within the Conservative Party, very apparent during decolonisation and then again with the advent of supposedly monetarist policy.

The prime gain from this book is its approach and I would be interested to see a book which applied this to the last three decades of the 20th Century and indeed beyond.

'The Creation of The Principality of Antioch, 1098-1130' by Thomas Ashridge

This book came out in 2000 but I have been dipping into it since around 2014 and so thought it was about time I read it cover-to-cover. I realise that I was moving in some of the same circles as Ashridge at the time he was writing and publishing it, but as far as I recall our paths never crossed. Anyway, it might seem an obscure topic, but for some reason I have long been fascinated by the Crusader States, four realms created between what is now Syria and southern Israel at the end of the 11th Century and declined until being snuffed out entirely at the end of the 13th. Though based on crusading, they actually proved to be crossroads of cultures, not just Western European (largely Norman and French, plus Italian merchants) but Byzantine, Arab, Turkic and later Mongol. States which were rooted in feudalism evolved in innovative ways bringing ideas from the West and adapting local structures.

Antioch - now Antakya in southern Türkiye had been founded in 300 BCE by one of Alexander the Great's generals. It was where St. Peter became first patriarch so effectively establishing what came to be the Catholic and Orthodox churches before moving on to Rome and it was associated with various other saints. It had been part of the Byzantine Empire until 1084 when conquered by the Seljuks the dominant part of the Turkic population expanding from central Asia into western Asia, at the time. After an epic siege it was taken by the First Crusade in 1098 but rather than being returned to the Byzantine Empire, the second of the crusader states, the Principality of Antioch was established, enduing until falling to the Mamluk Sultanate in 1268.

While Jerusalem, which became the capital of the third crusader state, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, had its outstanding sites and importance for three religions, Antioch, was incredibly impressive. A city that was over 700 years old already at the time of the establishment of the principality, it encompassed two mountains within walls that boasted more than 400 towers. It had a cathedral in a cave and from the heights, a river passed through a special gate to fall as a waterfall into the city.

This book feels very much like a doctoral thesis which has been turned into a monologue and there is absolutely no problem with that as I feel it stops the author becoming complacent, perhaps even arrogant in his writing. He proceeds with real academic rigour which I would recommend as a model to anyone writing an academic history book. He draws on sources from all the perspectives that are available and at each step alerts us where he might see bias or unreliable accounts. He is honest when he does not or cannot know certain facts. Where there are different possibilites, he lays them out for the reader and leaves it to them to decide between them, or indeed, simply acknowledge that we cannot know the actual answer.

Despite this caution, this measured analysis, the book is crisp in the writing. It has clarity even when dealing with the complexities of the succession to the principality; who was regent to whom; who had control of Antioch and indeed its neighbour the County of Edessa and the motives for how the various rulers and commanders behaved, both the secular and the religious. It shows very well the hybrid government structure that evolved in the principality in particular blending Norman and Byzantine approaches. He also names everyone he can find and sketches out their careers.

Overall, while biased myself, I feel this gives a great insight into a corner of medieval history which is often rushed past in broader foci, even covering the crusades. However, I also feel the book while accessible to a general reader is a good model of how to produce a successful academic analysis of a time and place.