Books I Read In February

 Fiction

'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell' by Susanna Clarke

A huge (782-page) hardback copy of this book was given to me by a big fan of the novel. His tastes sum up the nature of the book. While he likes science fiction and fantasy novels and movies, he is also a fan of Anthony Trollope and Vikram Seth. This book is fantasy novel, set 1806-1817 but in a world where magic is real and for a large part of the Middle Ages, England was divided into two kingdoms with the northern one ruled from Newcastle by John Uskglass, the so-called Raven King, a man trained in magic while in Faerie as a child. The style of the novel is that of Austen (more 'Mansfield Park' than 'Pride and Prejudice'), Dickens and indeed Trollope, though without the humour. As the title of the book might suggest, like an early 19th Century novel it focuses on the relationship between the two eponymous men. There is action and some adventure, especially in the closing stages but a lot of the book is about how the two characters revive English Magic - other parts of the world remain devoid of it - and their increasingly different views on how it should be treated.

Neither man is a hero. Gilbert Norrell wants a personal monopoly on magic and works hard to buy up every book from the 'golden' and 'silver' ages of magic of the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods. He tries to clamp down on any practitioners, including his own servants. In contrast Strange wants to acknowledge past contact with Faerie; make use of routes between mirrors; widen access to magic and so seeks to publish books and establish schools of magic. Yet, his ambitions also lead him to be neglectful of his lovely wife who is abducted by a Faerie king who is never named but intervenes throughout the book for his own selfish, indeed wicked aims. Both magicians work for the government and some of the most interesting scenes are when Strange goes abroad (Norrell keeps very much to his house now in London) to work with the army in the Peninsular War and later many of the exceptional genuine incidents of the Battle of Waterloo are explained as being the result of Strange's magic.

Some of the minor characters are particularly interesting. Stephen Black is a black butler of Sir Walter Pole, the politician whose fiancée Norrell brings back to life as a way of becoming established in London society but at a huge cost in terms of the deal he has to make with the unnamed faerie king. Black becomes a protégée of this king who constantly drags him off to dreary festivities in his kingdom but because he cannot understand 19th Century society is convinced Stephen will become King of England. Both Lady Pole and Arabella Strange become ensnared by and suffer at the hands of this faerie king. The theme of women suffering both psychologically and physically due to the ambitions of their husbands is one that runs right through the novel. John Childermass, Norrell's valet who is developing his own magic skills and Vinculus a street magician are also interesting characters. I felt the novel strengthened when Black and Childermass becomes more of protagonists.

The strength of the novel is the world building that Clarke does, both portraying society of the time and the actual politicians with the mixing in of a magic world - reinforced by numerous lengthy footnotes to books and legends from this alternate world. If you are into mainstream fantasy rather than 19th Century society novels, then the pace will feel very slow. In addition, the focus on the tensions between the two magicians might seem unexciting unless you found 'Mansfield Park' engaging. The work that went into it and the deftness with story telling and skilful pastiche writing are to be admired, especially as this was Clarke's first book. I am interested to read 'The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories' (2006) set in the same universe but with a focus on women.

'The Wild Wood' by Charles de Lint

Given that he has published 28 novels since 1984 in addition to novellas and young adult fiction, I was really surprised that I had never seen a book by De Lint ever before. I can only put this down to him being Canadian and not read by people in the places I have lived. Picking up this book from a charity stand in a supermarket, I thought it was simply a contemporary novel. In part it is. It is set in an area of Canada which I thought was near the Ontario-Quebec border, but seems to be fictional. It is about a painter who has relocated to a remote forested area into a wooden house built by neighbours who she is relatively close to, though they are spread out over quite a geographical area of forest and lake, though within relatively easy drive of some urban centres. What I was unaware of is that De Lint is seen as the originator of urban fantasy and this book soon turns out to be a magic realist novel. There are gritty aspects of Eithnie's youth - notably a miscarriage - and especially that of her cousin, Sharleen, who becomes a support as things turn weird for Eithnie.

If you know that De Lint writes fantastical stories then you quickly understand that the stalker is not a human threat; this is not going to to turn into a horror-thriller with her trying to escape a murderer in remote woodlands. Instead spirits of the polluted forest and lakes are seeking to have humans who will support them going into the future. Eithnie is originally terrified by them but learns to get on with natural spirits on a visit to two artist friends in Arizona. Then the book goes off the deep end and really should carry some warning. As it does not, at least in the edition I have, I will alert you to the fact that eventually Eithnie is impregnated by a wooden man/tree spirit and ends up having its child. I do not know what the plant version of bestiality is, but this is what happens in this book. In line with stories around Faerie, which this explicitly becomes, the child will not remain in our world but go into the spirit world as a bridge.

There are some bits of the book which are pleasant. The portrayal of the Canadian wilderness is evocative. The characters and the interactions between them are believable. This could have been a decent contemporary novel about an artist refinding their inspiration and having a nice relationship with her mysterious but handsome and manly neighbour. However, it takes a turn into something quite different which is intentionally unsettling, even though packaged up (both in terms of the story and the cover) in a rather twee context. Maybe it was a good thing I had not come across De Lint's work before and I will certainly not be seeking it out. The one plus point about this book is that in my edition it is only 205 pages long. I often mourn that science fiction and fantasy books, unlike in the late 1960s/early 1970s are rarely tolerated as being that concise and I wish more were. Maybe De Lint was allowed to get away with it as on the surface this looks like literary fiction rather than fantasy. It maybe because it started out as part of a collection commissioned in 1994 by Brian Foud. This novel as a standalone book does caution me to read up on authors before I buy their books, even if from a charity stand.

'The Poet' by Michael Connelly

I had not realised that Connelly had published this book in 1996 while still producing the Harry Bosch series. There are references to the series of murders featured in this novel in other Connelly books. The main character is Jack McEvoy a crime feature journalist for a newspaper in Denver. When his twin brother, a murder detective, is found apparently having committed suicide, close to where their sister drowned, McEvoy begins to investigate. Soon her uncovers a whole series of apparent suicides by murder detectives leading on various cases featuring murders of children or people associated with the care of children. The book alternates between McEvoy traipsing across the USA, for the most part in the company of FBI agents and a paedophile and murderer named William Gladden who may be connected to the murders McEvoy is looking into but in what way, even when he becomes the prime suspect, we do not know. It is never pleasant reading from the perspective of a criminal in detective stories, but especially this one who is open about his abuse of children and remains with the corpse of an adult victim over a period of days. 

I can see why Connelly introduced the Gladden aspect as in general this is not a particularly exciting book. Yes we expect some police procedure but here we get police, FBI and journalistic procedure. There is a lot of McEvoy sitting around in hotel rooms connecting his computer's modem them disconnecting it so he can make lots of phonecalls. The faked suicide though intriguing seems very contrived. There are some moments of tension and action towards the end and a good twist. However, you have had to wade through a lot of stuff to get to these parts. The relationship between the protagonist and a ballsy female FBI agent feels very stereotypical; almost Connelly's default setting. The expanse of the case really weakens the gritty immediacy of Connelly's best stories; too much in this is down the end of a phoneline.

Non-Fiction

'The Nation State and National Self-Determination' by Alfred Cobban

In theory the edition I bought of this book was the 1969 revised edition of Cobban's 1945 book. However, aside from some scanty sections on self-determination in Asia and Africa in the 1940s-60s, throughout it was difficult to tell where at all it had been updated. Though the section on nations within the USSR was sound, Soviet suppression of nationalities in Eastern Europe was not developed. The strongest parts of the book are around the development of nationalism in the late 19th Century and especially in terms of the contradictory imposition of it through the Peace Treaties of 1919-20; 1923 and the Nazi abuse of the concept. The population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s and the ejection of Germans from Eastern European states in 1945, are not featured or insufficiently.

The book keeps coming back to the philosophical and intellectual roots of self-determination. As Cobban admits many of his arguments are circular yet he tends to go through them again and again, such as how pragmatic in terms of economy and borders peacemakers should be; seeing whether self-determination requires or drives on democracy; asking how 'far' self-determination can go, for example, in terms of nations such as the Welsh, Bretons and Catalans - though in the latter case utterly neglecting Franco's suppression of regionalism. In a very colonialist attitude, even in the largely post-colonial age by 1969, he portrays much African nationalism as tribal. He recognises that colonialism has lumped together various tribes and divided others but in contrast to his portrayal of Europe, sees this as something the new African countries have to deal with pragmatically not through self-determination. He makes no mention of the confederations attempted in Africa and the Middle East. He gets very confused by the Israel/Palestine situation and seems overly optimistic of a multi-nation solution. 

On US foreign/imperial policy Cobban presents a false picture of it having abandoned its interventionism of the 19th and early 20th Centuries, whereas in the name of the Cold War direct and indirect intervention across the Caribbean, Central and Southern America became even more active than before and indeed a kind of Monroe Doctrine was extended to the oil regions of the Middle East under the Eisenhower Doctrine.

I can understand why there was a need to update this book. However, the revisions were highly limited and even before getting on to post-1945 there are odd ellipses which simply multiply when Cobban is addressing the Cold War era as if while he could disentangle the complexities of the inter-war era he was at a loss in the post-1945 contexts. The philosophical element which could have endured through the decades is circular and consequently weak anyway. The value in this book is primarily around the different pressures on and from self-determination at the time of the post-First World War peace treaties.

Books I Read In August

 Fiction

'The Long Firm' by Jake Arnott

Arnott is one of those authors who burst into the public eye only to rather fade out. He is still around, but none of his subsequent books has attracted the attention that this one did. I was given a copy when it came out in 1999. However, I was really put off reading it by the dramatisation broadcast in 2004. I have similarly been put off reading 'The Last Kingdom' books by Bernard Cornwell that I had been given as a result of the BBC's four series of them. I think when you find the characters uninspiring or irritating on screen you cannot face wading through the books. If my copy of  'The Long Firm' had not been a birthday present, I think I would have given it to charity as I have now done with the Cornwell ones. The passing 21 years has done it no favours. It looked pretty clichéd back in 1999 and looks even more so now that we have had multiple movies and dramas about 1960s gangsters and the people around them.

The book covers 1961-79 and traces parts of the career of gangster Harry Starks. However, each chapter is written from the perspective of someone who comes into his orbit: a 'kept' rent boy, a life peer, a mildly successful movie actress, a low-level drugs dealer and a criminology lecturer. They are all very stereotypical of the people around the Kray Twins, who are some of the few real people featured in the book. One of the narrators is called Jack the Hat, no doubt influenced by or meant to be Jack 'the Hat' McVitie who was murdered by the Krays in 1967. It consists of accounts of typical crimes of the period, from selling electrical goods on credit, to intimidation, drug dealing and running night clubs and pornography shops. Starks mixes with boxers and even Judy Garland. In prison in the 1970s, he studies a university course and involves an academic who could easily have been a replica of Howard Kirk from Malcolm Bradbury's 'The History Man' (1975). It is as if someone sat down with a checklist of the necessary 'ingredients' of a gangster novel set in the era. All the characters of those around the Krays are there, but so are all the activities, even down to dodgy investments in Nigeria, the corrupt vice squad detective, prisoners studying degrees and 1970s feminists becoming lesbians.

 Using the technique of seeing the main character through other's eyes works well and for some of the time, Arnott can keep up a distinct voice for them. However, to me, there were no surprises it has absolutely everything you would expect. Given that we are now another 20 years on, I imagine there will be more readers for whom the era is unfamiliar and so they can approach it much more as a historical novel. Having read it, what surprised me ultimately was not that Arnott is now in relative obscurity that somehow he attracted so much attention at the time. I can only put this down to him having a blatantly homosexual anti-hero as the spine of the book and some people feeling, even as late as 1999, that that was somehow radical.

'A Sea of Troubles' by Donna Leon

This is the tenth in Leon's Brunetti series and the last of those that I was given. Unlike some of the others in the series, this one is tightly written without her wandering off into elements that seem unrelated to the story or have a spasmodic focus on the main mystery. This one takes place on the southern portion of the spit which encloses the lagoon of Venice. This allows Leon to focus on a small, tightly knit community in an almost unique location. When two fisherman are founded to have been murdered on their clam boat before it was set on fire, Brunetti has to find out what rivalries in the village and factors from outside may have triggered this event. Unable to penetrate the village he sends in two of his officers undercover.

The scenery and the nature of the village are well portrayed as is the investigation in such a community. There is a sense of jeopardy, as it is not Brunetti but other officers who are in amongst the situation. I feel the only weakness is the boats going out into the horrendous storm at the end. I accept that Leon wanted an epic finish but the fact that a local takes their boat out in conditions which they would be familiar with and their neighbours were expecting stretched credibility. For Brunetti to follow especially when an officer was in danger, is a different thing. Overall, this is one of the better of Leon's novels, though I have heard from people who have read later ones (there are now 24 books in the series, the latest came out in March 2020), that they remain a mixed bag.

'Snakewood' by Adrian Selby

Alongside 'Imperium' (2006) which I read back in June: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/06/books-i-read-in-june.html this is probably the best book I have read this year. While I had heard of the fantasy sub-genre, 'grimdark', I was unfamiliar with books that fell into that category. Apparently it is fantasy which features amoral characters and does not hold back from portraying bloody scenes or the lead characters facing bitter or dire consequences of their actions. This book is set in a fantasy world portrayed in a lovely line drawn map at the front, though some of the most vital locations in the story are missed off it. It is in the form of a portfolio of evidence gathered by the son of one of the protagonists from various letters, journals and personal testimony of those involved. While this overcomes the challenge that books straddling continents can face of how to have witnesses in different locations, it can be a little confusing at times, especially as to chronology. However, conversely, it does permit a richness to the story and allows the author to talk about many places he is clearly excited to have imagined.

The story is almost like a Western. It is set 15 years after a renowned group of military advisors/warriors, Kailen's Twenty, have broken up. Someone is now murdering each in turn and there is a race to alert the remaining members and to take a stand against the avenger(s). The society portrayed is a typical fantasy late medieval/Renaissance setting, with familiar tropes such as a group of city states and wildlands from which barbarian hordes ride out from. However, rather than magic it is herbalism and chemistry which provides the edge. In battles, warriors are fired up on 'brews' which heighten their strength and senses. Poisons and bags of spores or that burst into flames are habitually used in battles. These take a high price from the users. That is a different approach and leads to situations that would not occur in other fantasy contexts. Fitting the grimdark line, there is a weariness about many of the characters and vicious behaviour, people focused just on their personal advantage and one vengeance triggers another.

At times, especially near the start, the combination of battle terminology with speech rendered in dialect can make it hard for the reader to really comprehend what is going on. However, as you become more familiar with the terms, it gets easier. The flash-back at the end to the Twenty's glory days really jars. The story is finished and throwing this in then disrupts the closing of the book. However, I found the book engaging if very full of detail and while there are familiar tropes, Selby brings in sufficient freshness to raise this book over many other fantasy novels. This was a successful debut in 2016 and I will look out for subsequent books by him.

Non-Fiction

'A History of Modern France. Volume 3: 1871-1962' by Alfred Cobban

This volume proved to be far better than the preceding two, especially Volume 2. I wonder if an editor took tighter control over Cobban's writing or if because this volume was expanded from the final part of what had been Volume 2, it allowed him to approach it in a more effective way. Despite the opportunities provided by Pétain and De Gaulle, even Clemenceau, Blum and Laval, in this volume, Cobban steps right away from the 'great man' approach of the previous two books. Instead he shows effectively how despite people outside France seeing it as a country of revolution, sustained social conservatism and had a constant pull on politics, repeatedly taking governments away from the necessary social and particularly economic reforms.  Despite the turbulence of the politics of the Third and Fourth Republics, indeed of the wartime regimes too, he does not get bogged down in the details, instead picking out the important themes. 

Paying attention to the enduring contest between conservative pro-clerical forces on ones side and the anti-clerical, more liberal republican people facing them he is able to contextualise well developments such as the Boulanger situation, the Dreyfus Affair and how in 1940 France was defeated primarily by those French who wanted an end the republic as it was by the German tanks that French forces could have out-matched. As before, Cobban does well in providing details of the cultural background and developments, especially when these bisect with the political. While it is the period of French history I know most about and despite the age of the book, I came away feeling that I had learnt new details and in particular had seen people, policies and events connected up in a way which was enlightening.

Books I Read In July

Fiction

'Friends in High Places' by Donna Leon

Perhaps it is because she is an American that Leon has an interest in issues around social class. Her protagonist, Guido Brunetti is the son-in-law of a Venetian count. Social standing and protecting it is an element of a number of her books, but becomes very apparent here. By this stage in the series, this is the ninth book, Leon had become very adept at starting with disparate threads, in this case informing us of the rules around construction in the restricted space of Venice and the associated corruption. However, with a bit of a jolt we then find how Brunetti's problems with his own apartment connect into murder. It comes together well and it is a little refreshing to have a different kind of motive which while it appears initially to be more Italian corruption, is one we can believe motivates people even more now twenty years after this book was published. I have the tenth book to read and then some other random ones from the series I have picked up from charity shops. However, I must say, despite sometimes the narrative seeming to jump a little or spend too long on unimportant aspects, these are easy to read crime dramas which come up with often refreshing solutions.

'Kaleidoscope' by Harry Turtledove

This is another collection of Turtledove's short stories, published in 1990 with stories dating back to 1984, it is older than 'Counting Up, Counting Down' which I read in December: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2019/12/books-i-read-in-december.html  'And So to Bed' features an alternate world where earlier versions of humans co-exist with homo sapiens and have found refuge on North America which, as the story is set in 1661, is being opened up by Europeans. The story is told from the perspective of Samuel Pepys and shows how the existence of these other versions of humans allow him to propose evolution some three hundred years earlier. 'Bluff' is an interesting science fiction story set on a planet where humans arrive to find a humanoid species which sees their inner thoughts as being the voice of their gods. This is a fascinating premise and is handled well. It is a good reminder to those writing science fiction that alienness is not simply physical. 'A Difficult Undertaking' is a straightforward story of a siege in Turtledove's Videssos setting, a kind of Byzantine Empire and is pretty entertaining. '

The Weather's Fine' takes an interesting premise that time is like weather and so different parts of North America on different days can be in different 20th Century decades. The protagonist had a good relationship with his girlfriend in the 1960s but not in the 1970s so it is about how they work around this. Time conditioning can keep a building at a certain decade. I think more could have been done with this story and it was a bit depressing that the couple could not work through their issues or separate properly but were condemned to live in fixed behaviours dependent on the decade they were in. 'Crybaby' is a horrible story, a typical demonic child one which really would fit better in a 'Tales of the Unexpected' setting than here. Apparently, Turtledove's wife will not read this story and I can understand why.

'Hindsight' set in the 1950s about a science fiction author who is writing stories before the authors have managed to complete them and is revealed to be a time traveller who is trying to steer the USA down better paths than it followed in our 1960s and 1970s. The story is well handled, not just in terms of the technology, but the different behaviour of someone from the 1980s to those from thirty years' earlier. The blurred line between science fiction and science writing is well done too. A nice story all round. 'Gentlemen of the Shade' is another good one. Turtledove is always sharp when he brings a new spin on vampires as can be seen in his 'Under St. Peters' which is available to read free online now. In this story a club of vampires in late Victorian London hunt down Jack the Ripper who is one of their kind. It is well handled in terms of practicalities and in terms of the atmosphere of the time and place.

'The Boring Beast' is a silly spoof fantasy story which annoyed me. 'The Road Not Taken' is an interesting exercise in looking at how a species might acquire some technology that we see as hyper-advanced but lack technologies that we see as mundane. The encounter with alien invaders equipped for war as if it was the 17th Century is interesting and again reminds writers not to go down easy or lazy paths when portraying alien civilisations. 'The Castle of the Sparrowhawk' is a kind of fairy tale/parable about a challenge in a Middle Eastern land, which did not appeal to me; 'The Summer Garden' is very similar with the protagonist paying a bitter price for their 'victory'. There is a lot less sex in this book than in 'Counting Up, Counting Down' but 'The Girl Who Took Lessons' - it is actually a woman not a girl - is sordid and feels more like a 'joke' a man would tell in a bar. It is a pity it was included in this collection.

'The Last Article' is the other main alternate history story, featuring the German invasion of India in the 1940s, having defeated the British, and coming up against the passive resistance of Gandhi and Nehru. It might be controversial these days to paint British colonial rule as any better than Nazi hegemony, but Turtledove cleverly does highlight the differences and why that would enable the Nazis to defeat Gandhi when the British authorities failed to do so.

Overall an interesting collection with some great highlights. Importantly I would recommend it to science fiction writers to remind them where you can go when portraying aliens similar but different to us.

'Harlequin' by Bernard Cornwell

This is the first in a trilogy set during the early phases of the Hundred Years' War in the 14th Century. It follows an English archer, Thomas of Hookton from fighting a raid by the French on his home village on the south coast of England through battles in Brittany and Normandy coming to a climax at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. As you would expect with Cornwell the portrayal of life at the time and the battles are rendered very well. Unlike some historical authors who cover wars, Cornwell is also good at including a range of interesting female characters with distinct motives. I am concerned though that one who becomes Thomas's 'wife' towards the end of the book is clearly stated to be 15. He might argue it was seen as appropriate at the time but it is uncomfortable to see as a modern reader.

There is a lot of intrigue with lots of people out to kill Thomas, though he also makes friends among the opposite side. This is a strength of Cornwell's writing in that while combat plays an important part he does not skimp on characterisations which make his books that much richer. The sub-plot about seeking the Lance of St. George, let alone the Holy Grail, seems unnecessary and I can only think he included this either as a McGuffin or because publishers asked for it. I have the other two books in the trilogy and am looking forward to seeing what the characters do next.

'Dead Man's Land' by Robert Ryan

This novel features Conan Doyle's Dr. Watson solving a series of murders on and behind the frontline of British forces in Belgium during the First World War. Ryan has done meticulous research but unfortunately at times, especially in the early parts of the book, he tends to 'info dump', given immense detail about the hierarchy of treatment of the wounded rather than revealing it to us. The date when the novel is set is difficult to pin down. The book starts with Watson being commissioned as a major in October 1914, but as the book progresses, with reference to the Gallipoli Campaign (February 1915 - January 1916) and Winston Churchill serving as a lieutenant colonel on the Western Front (November 1915 - May 1916) as well as references to particular gases and aircraft, it is not clear when the action is happening. Given the involvement of Churchill and particular weaponry, notably poison gas, this is important and this uncertainty was an irritant as I was reading.

At times the book feels fragmented, in part because of the serial killing in different parts of the front. Added to that Sherlock Holmes makes odd appearances back in England and these elements are not integrated well into the story. They make him appear even more of a deus ex machina that would be the case anyway. The same can be said for the German sniper. We read about his attempts to assassinate Churchill and his various roles. However, he is not really a full part of the story and his role in the denouement could easily have been filled by an unknown character. The sections covering these two characters feel bolted on. Overall, however, the book improves as it goes on and Ryan provides a good motive for the killings fitting with the time. It could have been a much stronger book if the structure was streamlined and in other places what was happening, when, was made more explicit. The detail of the medical provision, especially the conveyor belt for the wounded, was fascinating especially at times when Ryan shows these things rather than lectures us on them.

'The Long Mars' by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

There is a comment on the cover of this book from a reviewer at 'SFX' magazine saying '"Pratchett and Baxter ... skipping along their quantum string like giddy schoolboys ...'" That sums up the problem with not just this book but its predecessors http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/05/books-i-read-in-may.html and http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/06/books-i-read-in-june.html  Pratchett and Baxter seem to have a thousand ideas for alternate versions of worlds and as more of the characters travel into many tens of millions of variants away from our Earth, they get to look at many of them. However, in large part it is like flicking through a catalogue and we only see them briefly. The action when it happens is like a number of vignettes which are only distantly connected to each other. In fact with three characters exploring alternate versions of Mars, even less exciting as most versions are desolate deserts, there is a real detachment between the returning characters. 

As in The Long War when we seem to be building to an important climax, the authors turn away. We just hear reports of them not finding the team they left on an Earth which is a moon of a larger planet; we see nothing of them deciding to bring The Next - a group of arrogant super-humans back to our Earth and minimal detail of how imprisoned Next are got out and get away to some unknown version of Earth. It is as if the most gripping elements of the story have been cut out so as not to distract from the beauty of all the geological, even astronomical variants, the authors could think up. I think they would have done better to have anthologies of short stories in different contexts rather than piling them all into what is supposed to be a single novel.

The other problem that continues from the previous books is how unsympathetic so many of the characters are. In this book smug Russians are added to smug Americans and smug Chinese. Then the Next come along and they are very smug humans who feel it is their right to enslave the 'dim-bulb' population which encompasses the rest of humanity. While it is good to have irritants and antagonists, when even the supposed 'heroes' are not people you could tolerate spending five minutes with because they would constantly patronise you, it is difficult for the reader to get a handle on the story. Again it is like flicking through the brochure or, even, someone else simply flicking through in your sight, expecting you to be invested in something that does nothing really to engage with you.

Non-Fiction

'A History of Modern France. Volume 2: 1799-1871' by Alfred Cobban

As I noted when reviewing Volume 1, for Cobban it seems that Louis XIV was the perfect leader of France and anyone else will struggle to come close to him in ability. I suppose that it is no surprise that a history written in the mid-20th Century focuses has a 'great man' history perspective. However, as Cobban judges so many of the country's leaders harshly, even ridiculing them at times, it really distorts what he is trying to cover. He views Napoleon Bonaparte as a Corsican bandit who could do nothing good for France. He sees Louis XVIII and Louis-Philippe as ineffectual, muddle-headed rulers. He gives a little to Napoleon III but then sees him as ineffective from quite an early period in his reign and as in fact utterly marginalised in the closing years of his rule. Cobban outlines all the political manoeuvring but seems impatient with it as if frustrated that no-one in France could appoint an effective king. 

This level of subjectivity and the repeated derogatory comments on the various rulers and politicians not only makes reading the book irritating, it weakens his accounts of the complex situations of what was happening in this period. The best parts of the book are when he (occasionally) steps away from the peak of the political system and looks at societal and economic aspects. With these he does reasonably well in showing the exceptionalism of France, why it did not modernise the way some neighbouring states did and its population stagnated through the 19th Century when others were growing sharply. Completing the book, I felt I had learnt little especially on the post-1815 period which tends to be neglected in general histories of Europe. Allowing Cobban to judge so much on the basis of his particular animosity to certain men, really undermined this book.

Books I Read In June

Fiction
'The Victoria Vanishes' by Christopher Fowler
This was originally, when published in 2008, the final book in the hexalogy of Bryant and May novels, though ultimately he has gone on to write another 11 novels and 2 anthologies. I have no idea why these books are popular. They have curiosity value, but really lack life. The fact that in four of the original six, this one included, the protagonists, heading a peculiar division of the Home Office but in their 80s, means a lot of time is spent with them discussing old age rather than advancing the story. Why he did not write more set in decades when they were younger, I have no idea.

The bones of this plot, that a serial killer is injecting a poison into middle-aged women in various London pubs, but a conspiracy involving chemical warfare behind it, sounds like a decent television thriller of the 1980s. Fowler clearly loves London and fills the books with immense details about its history, in this case eccentric pubs. Of those he lists I have actually visited about a quarter so I know their appeal. However, such nostalgia does not make for a gripping crime story. It is probably best to treat these novels rather as a kind of slice-of-life book around the lives of some odd police officers. Fowler has won awards for the humour of his novels. However, I have struggled to find it. They are whimsical rather than funny. Though this one has a decently interesting crime at the heart of it, as with the previous books in the sequence, I found this novel stodgy and a little dull; certainly lacking energy.

'The Long War' by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
This is the second book in the pentalogy and as with the  first: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2020/05/books-i-read-in-may.html there are wonderful ideas in the book, but neither of the authors seem to know what to do with them. We do see the perspective of some Chinese explorers which tempers a little the US-centricism of the first book, though not much. Too often you feel you are reading a survivalist novel with a string of characters being smug about how much better they are at existing in the multiplicity of alternate Earths than every one else they meet. There are some bursts of real cruelty especially when humans interact with canine humanoids that are particularly nasty.

As with the first book, there is a lot of simply tramping about across all these versions. The 'war' of the title is more a sit-down protest which gets skipped over in an unsatisfying, pat way. The problem of the 'trolls', gentle hivemind humanoids who are fleeing from human-occupied versions is again not really resolved and a overly simple solution is delivered. Overall this book is like sight-seeing with a party of insufferably smug individuals. There are brief moments of tension, but for most of the time, it is people lecturing each other in a very self-righteous way and passing through a string of variants with very little actually going on.

'Imperium' by Robert Harris
I have read 'Fatherland' (1992) and 'Enigma' (1995) - both of which have more effective endings in the movie versions than in the books; 'Archangel' (1998) and I have listened to the audio book of 'Munich' (2017), without being overly impressed by Harris novels. The dramatisations tend to have a better narrative especially at the end. This novel, published in 2006, the first in a trilogy, is the best book I have read this year. It focuses on the career of Roman lawyer and politician Marcus Cicero (106-43 BCE) in two periods of his rise to power, seen from the perspective of his slave secretary, Tiro (perhaps 103-4 BCE). You might imagine a novel about Roman court cases and political manoeuvres would be very dry. However, Harris succeeds in bringing the range of characters vividly to life and he has a knack of explaining the complexities of the Roman Republic's legal and political systems almost without you noticing. Added to that, he has mastered the necessary skill of historical authors of making you feel real jeopardy when in fact you know the outcome. The fact that, unlike some reviewers, I never had to translate the speeches of Cicero at school may have made it fresher for me than those who were forced to dig deep into Classics. Overall, it was a really engaging book with far more life than the other novels I read this month and indeed throughout 2020. I will certainly look out for the second and third books in the series.

Non-fiction
'The Penguin History of Medieval Europe' by Maurice Keen
Keen points out at the start of the book that he cannot encompass all of Europe. In fact his focus is narrower than that. Scandinavia, Russia and Ireland never get a mention. England really only features due to the Hundred Years' War. There are brief mentions of Spain and Portugal and of Eastern Europe and the Byzantine Empire only in connection to Ottoman advances. The prime focus of this book is on France, the Holy Roman Empire and parts of Italy, mainly the Papacy and its territory. In large part that is due to the narrative thread binding the book, which runs from the start of the 9th Century to the mid-15th Century. This thread is how Europeans went from viewing their region as a super-state, Christendom to having a far greater national identity and how the various secular rulers effectively won out over Papal hegemony. Within these constraints, the book works effectively. It features all the political events but contextualises them well with views of the economic, social and intellectual background to what was going on. Given its focus on over 600 years, it is good at showing the long-term developments as a counterpoint to the rapid conflicts and religious disputes. Despite its age - published in 1968 - it remains a reasonable introduction to the period at the heart, if not the periphery, of Europe.

'A History of Modern France, Volume 1: 1715-1799' by Alfred Cobban
This is the first in the version of Cobban's book when he had expanded it to three volumes. Having been reprinted in 1965, even when I bought it as a student in the mid-1980s it was old. Since then many of the gaps in the history of the period have been filled. However, as I continue clearing out the numerous history books that I bought in the 1980s and 1990s, I felt obliged to read it.

It is not a bad book, though it is overshadowed by Cobban's love for King Louis XIV and his reign. That king's death opens the book, but throughout you can clearly see that he was disappointed that none of his successors either as monarchs or running the republic, could come close to that glory. He does not even rate Napoleon Bonaparte highly though the book closes with him coming to power as First Consul. The most effective parts of the book are in outlining the demographic, economic and philosophical developments that preceded the Revolution. He shines a light on those areas, such as the last few years of the 1780s before the outbreak of revolution, which still seem to get neglected. He is good at showing how foreign adventures and internal corruption weakened the regime of Louis XVI so much as to make some serious changes inevitable.

The book is weaker on the Revolution. Though Cobban does well at puncturing the myths about Robespierre, as he does earlier with those around Madame de Pompadour, like too many general history authors he careers through the chopping and changing of the revolution far too frantically. He provides sufficient detail but as a long lump, rather than breaking it down effectively into the multiple phases he runs through. Segmenting the account of the Revolution would have made it have greater impact. Instead as is too often the case the reader simply has a picture of chaos with constantly changing faction and politicians' names. Ultimately, Cobban finds the Revolution as not as revolutionary as might be expected and while nothing for him can match the golden era of Louis XIV, he notes that what follows the Revolution is highly conservative with many of the attitudes it threw up, fading very quickly.

There are good elements to the book, especially in the pre-1789 period. However, overall the hand of the author is far too apparent throughout and you are left with the sense that the book is largely bemoaning the fact France could not get back to the state it had under Louis XIV and that is not the way a good history book should be written.