Rooksmoor's Tablets of Lead

Friday, 30 May 2014

The Book I Read In May

Fiction
'Thud!' by Terry Pratchett
I am the opposite of most people and read far less when on holiday than at work. Having been kicked out of my job three weeks earlier than I had been anticipated for 'showing insufficient leadership', 'worrying too much about "treading on other people's toes"' (and anyone who has read the travails of my career will know why I felt I had to do that) and 'not speaking to enough of the right people' despite liaising with tens of them in my department and other departments. Anyway, this has meant a forced holiday as they were still obliged to pay me. The department went into crisis as so many staff are leaving. Out of an office of four, one member of staff remains and myself, their manager has also gone.

A consequence of not having work once more is that I have read very little and only finished one book this month. 'Thud!' sometimes is reviewed as not being up to the standard of some of Pratchett's other work. One key flaw as often happens with very successful authors is that people are unwilling to tell them to cut back on what they produce. This could have been a much tighter story if reduced from the 430+ pages in my edition down by 100 pages. I think the prime reason why reviewers do not rate it is because unlike many of Pratchett's book, for example focusing on vampires or the postal service, the target of this one is not a topic many general readers engage with. The focus is policing ethnic violence, in this case between trolls and dwarfs. In itself it hardly sounds an exciting topic. However, this makes the book one of the sharpest satires of Pratchett's work.

In some ways this is one of Pratchett's more adult books. I do not mean that in the sense of adult meaning pornographic, though there are references to the girlfriend of guardsman Nobby Nobbs being a pole dancer and a scene with a female werewolf and female vampire naked and covered in mud. More that the topics are less likely to be engaging for younger readers. This is not simply about racial antagonism and how history can be distorted to work for extremists, but also with the sub-plot of Commander Vimes as a father. In some ways the stories involving the police of Ankh-Morpork should be read as a sequence as even more than those set in the Unseen University, they follow on, especially focusing on the career of Vimes and his staff. In many ways it also feels a very British book and perhaps that reflects the challenges faced are more like those of the UK police than say, for example, US police forces.

This story also involves actual murders and quite gruesome ones at that. There is also a Cthullu touch to the story with an element of an ancient evil seeking to control events. Overall, this book is less humorous than others in the Discworld series, but it is a more thought provoking book and I imagine that was Pratchett's intention. It certainly challenges easy assumptions about racial differences and antagonism by exploring them in a fantasy world. Something that not a great deal of even humorless fantasy addresses, rather portraying a clear good vs. evil approach, rather than the multiple shades of grey seen here. It is a book worthwhile reading, but be prepared for it to differ from other books in the series.

Wednesday, 30 April 2014

The Books I Read in April

Non-Fiction
'Hidden History. The Secret Origins of the First World War' by Gerry Docherty & Jim MacGregor
If you read one book about the origins of the First World War this year, it must be this one. On the surface you might believe it is a conspiracy theory book. The bombastic language of the authors rather contributes to that impression. However, this book has been thoroughly researched and is referenced throughout. It builds on work in the 1970s of US academic Professor Carroll Quigley. It shows that rather than Britain being a rather hesitant entrant into the First World War, leading politicians and businessmen had been seeking a showdown with Germany since the early 1900s. It is known that empire-builder Cecil Rhodes had ambitions for British dominance and established groups to foster connections between the USA and Great Britain to secure on a racial basis the leading position of the Anglo-Saxons. This work was continued by Alfred Milner. Recognising the growing strength of Germany, the men who shared Milner's interests went to great efforts to establish situations to weaken Germany. As is known anti-German feeling was fostered through fiction and newspaper stories in the 1900s even when Germany had given up on its attempts to build a superior navy.

Though the sense of a group of politicians, civil servants and businessmen building a path to war, may seem incredible, it is on different to what is often seen as being the case in the groups around the Kaiser. In addition, we know that arms companies had a vested interest in provoking war, so the involvement of businessmen comes as no surprise. The book certainly helps to explain many things that appear pretty strange in the two decades before the First World War. How was it that Britain with a German royal family, ended up in alliance with Russia and France which had been Britain's prime rivals in the late 19th century? Why was so much fuss made over the Moroccan Crises of 1905 and 1911 only for them to be resolved quickly? Why did the British switch for sympathising with Austria-Hungary over the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to emphasising the need to go to war against the country within the space of a month? Why was foreign policy kept in the hands simply of Sir Edward Grey? Why were military plans made with both Belgium and France kept from many ministers let alone parliament? Why was there no real Cabinet discussion on going to war let alone a vote in parliament?

All these things are known facts of British history at the time, but are not questioned or excused with statements which seem irrational. The book highlights how many documents were removed from the archives of the Entente states at the end of the war and how many ended up locked up in Stanford University. Again these are known facts often overlooked, but which have meant histories of the origins of the war have only been able to access a limited number of documents portraying a particular story. This book needs much wider coverage and to be addressed by academic historians. While it does not excuse Germany for its part in the war, it certainly puts it in a broader context and shows that rather than sitting on the sidelines in the lead-up to the war, a very limited number of British politicians with friends in Russia, France and Serbia were thoroughly involved in leading Europe down the path to war. I highly recommend this book.

Fiction
'The Confession of Brother Haluin' by Ellis Peters
This is the fifteenth Brother Cadfael book and differs from the ones I have recently as it goes outside Shrewsbury into eastern Shropshire, near to Litchfield. Cadfael goes on a mission to aid a monk, Haluin, who is doing penance in thanks for surviving a fall which severely injured him. In going to the tomb of a young woman whose death he believes he caused, Haluin triggers off a process of the unravelling of lies and misunderstanding between two families. The murder in this novel is actually a side issue. It is more focused on Haluin seeking redemption and the impact on a range of people, particularly a number of women that his presence and the subsequent revelations bring about. There is quite a lot of travelling in this book, but its focus on a smaller number of people and on the nature of rural rather than urban England at the time, still affected by the Harrying of the North, adds a different dimension to this book. Less is wrapped up by the end in this book than in some others and the outcomes for a number of the leading characters will not seem satisfactory for modern readers though they might have seemed so in the time when the novel is set.

Thursday, 17 April 2014

What If the Treaty of Sèvres Had Been Enforced?

My views on this topic can be found in my e-book ‘In Other Trenches: Alternate Outcomes of the First World War’ It is available for purchase on Amazon. Please note that the 2^nd Edition is now on sale which has been thoroughly revised and rewritten in response to feedback about the 1^st Edition that you will see online:

http://www.amazon.com/Other-Trenches-Alternate-Outcomes-First-ebook/dp/B00ILVJ4C0/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342569&sr=1-2

UK readers might prefer to access it through:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/In-Other-Trenches-Alternate-Outcomes-ebook/dp/B00ILVJ4C0/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342371&sr=1-2

Canadian readers can access it through: http://www.amazon.ca/Other-Trenches-Alternate-Outcomes-First-ebook/dp/B00ILVJ4C0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342669&sr=1-1

Australian readers can access it through: http://www.amazon.com.au/In-Other-Trenches-Alternate-Outcomes-ebook/dp/B00ILVJ4C0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395342833&sr=1-1