R L Stevenson - Treasure Island

While reading recently about real life pirates, I decided to read R.L. Stevenson's classic novel Treasure Island. Reading it was a fascinating experience. I'd never read it before, yet the story was as familiar as if I had read it half a dozen times. No doubt this is because it is one of the most dramatised books ever published, being made repeatedly into a film and play.

So there is little point in detailing more in this review. Though it is worth noting that many of the popular conceptions about pirates had their beginnings here. Wooden legs, parrots on shoulders, Yo Ho Hoing, black spots and treasure islands. The popularity of the book must in part lie in its writing - the story is gripping and exciting, yet the characters are also wonderfully constructed. Blind Pew is terrifying as he taps his way around, the moment he grabs Jim Hawkins genuinely scary... Long John Silver is delightfully ambiguous in his morals and Hawkin's climatic battle with Mr. Hands is as exciting as gunfight ever imagined on the silver screen. The only characters that annoyed me, are the uptight and holier-than-thou Squire and Doctor. Stevenson slotting in some minor English gentry to demonstrate how the plebs ought to behave.

So if you're only experience of Treasure Island is the Muppet version, you really should dig out a free online copy of the original and follow Jim Hawkins into the South Seas.

Hilary Mantel - Bring up the Bodies

The second volume of Hilary Mantel's novelisation of the life of Thomas Cromwell carries on the dramatic story of the reign of Henry VIII. The first novel describes Cromwell's rise, from humble origins to the heights of power in the English court. Henry VIII is of course known for his wives, and Cromwell's role in securing the marriage of Henry to Anne Boleyn is a masterpiece of intrigue and political manoeuvring. At the heart of this volume is the dramatic change that occurs as Henry loses interest in Anne as a result of her failure to produce a male heir, and his growing interest in her successor, Jane Seymour.

Thomas Cromwell's role, balancing the forces ranged behind each of the women in this epic tale, is in reality the balance of some of the most powerful families in England. One struggling to hold on to power and remaining linked to the King, but terrified of being dragged down by the fallen angel; the others scheming to use the new found interest of the King to increase their power and wealth. As with the first volume, Mantel skilfully demonstrates the way that women in the Tudor aristocracy were merely pawns in a game of power. Few male aristocrats love their wives, preferring to sleep with prostitutes or other men's wives and hoping their own will produce a heir as quickly as possible. Cromwell himself is at the height of his powers, but the cracks are beginning to show.

Mantel's prose is sharp and to the point. Bring up the Bodies is a novel of dialogue and impressions, but ever so often the raw emotion of events breaks through. In her postscript, Mantel points out, that much of the story of Anne Boleyn's trial and her execution remains obscure. The impotence of Henry's victims in the face of the power of his court is tragic, so is their violent end. Mantel is not trying to write history through fiction. She's telling a story that links to the past, powered by real events, but driven by our ability to emphasis with characters from the past. Oddly, given the subject matter, this story of the Tudor Court, grabs the reader and doesn't let go.

Jim Crace - Harvest

The enclosures that took place in England were part of a process of the development of productive forces in the countryside. In medieval times, they were often about local lords consolidating wealth. From the English Civil War onward, the destruction of common land and its associated rights, and the enclosure of farmland was explicitly about constructing capitalistic economic relationships in the countryside.

But writing something like the above paragraph hides so much. It ignores the violence used against those who formerly worked the land. It does not include the displacement of families, or the way that former labourers were pushed into new jobs in dirty, dangerous factories. It misses out the pain and anguish of turning land from grain to sheep.

Jim Crace's brilliant novel Harvest does. Telescoping the changes that take place in a small, remote English farm into a short week, Crace captures the transformation that enclosure imposed upon the poorest in England.

One morning, at the end of harvest, the village awakes to fire. The signal fire set by new arrivals in the area, and a fire in the Master's dove cote. The impact of both these events forms a backdrop to the wider changes, initially represented by Mr. Quill who is engaged in drawing maps of the village. The villagers cannot comprehend the way the land is transformed into coloured boxes on a piece of paper.

Few can understand the radical transformation that is about to take place. The kindly local Master wants none of it, but it turns out that he is not the real owner. By dint of the laws of inheritance his brother in law arrives, desperate to transform the village's economic outlook. Some families will be turned into shepherds, but for the others - he'll build a church to preach charity. The outlook of this proto-capitalist is epitomized by his disbelief that the Master won't turn a beloved horse that has died into grease. Any opportunity for profit seems to be his mantra.

Jim Crace's village is timeless. But it is no pre-capitalist Utopia. The villagers struggle hard in the fields, finding relief in alcohol and sex. They dream of stopping work, but love and know their lands better than anyone else. They fear illness and injury and are sharply aware that even a small cut can prevent them contributing to the collective labour. While suffering is well known here, violence isn't, which makes the shock of the new even harder to deal with.

Brilliantly written, in clear, sharp prose, this is a wonderful novel of life in a changing countryside. It feels like a small glimpse into what happened in a thousand different villages, in a hundred different areas of the British Isles. The appalling reality of "primitive accumulation" brought to life.

James Jones - The Thin Red Line

There are plenty of novels out there about the experience of the infantry soldier in World War Two. The Thin Red Line however feels very different. James Jones' novel looks at the fighting  on the Pacific island of Guadalcanal as US soldiers fought to destroy entrenched Japanese positions. Jones treats the battles, which are mostly small engagements between handfuls of men, as a highly individual experience. Different characters fight, at the same time as digging through their fears, their nerves, their hatred of their comrades, their feelings of their superiors and their drunkenness.

As a result of this approach there is no real story except the development of the battle. As we follow various individuals we see how the relationships between soldiers grow, develop or collapse. The officers in particular, some talented, many more useless, are the major factors determining how the ordinary soldier feels. As the battle progresses men are sacrificed for ambition, as well as incompetence. The fear of sudden death is matched with hope for a wound that will send the trooper back home. Sometimes the wound is too much; one of the hardest scenes in the book is the injured trooper who repeatedly screams "how will I be able to work?" when his comrades try to reassure him that his wound means he can escape from the war.

This is a classic war novel, but its excellence lies in part in the maturity with which it deals with subjects like sex (in particular a fairly frank attitude to gay sex, that must have been unusual in the early 1960s) and the reality of war. It deserves to be read alongside such classics as The Naked and the Dead.

Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall

Those who follow my reviews regularly might find Wolf Hall an odd choice of novel. After all, what interest could a revolutionary socialist have in a sprawling story about the machinations of the Tudor ruling class?

Apart from Hilary Mantel's wonderful writing, the answer is best summed up by Karl Marx's description of the ruling classes as a "band of warring brothers". In her tale of the rise of Thomas Cromwell, against the backdrop of Henry VIII's infatuation with Anne Boleyn, what Mantel does brilliantly is show the way that those at the top of Tudor society are in a constant fight for power and wealth at the same time as they try to present a united front to the rest of society. The jockeying for position, the way courtiers fall in and out of favour, the fear that they might upset the king, or someone close to him is the meat and drink of this novel. Those who are able to play the game can achieve power and wealth far beyond the dreams of most. Ruling class women, whether Queens or Ladies in Waiting are prized for their ability to produce heirs. Wolf Hall is not some romantic novel, it feels brutally real. There is little marriage for love here, only for alliances and male children.

Mantel's Thomas Cromwell is done brilliantly. He's less the terrifying bully many of us know from the history books, more a thoughtful, intelligent schemer whose photographic memory and intellect is utilised to control and direct from afar. At times he appears to be more an observer on great events. But if his rise to power on the coat tails of Cardinal Worsley, followed by a quick jump of ship might reminds one of a less than average liberal democrat MP it is carefully timed, designed to maximise personal gain.

Mantel's Cromwell is haunted by his own demons - his violent father and his lowly upbringing, as well as the deaths of his beloved wife and children. These are some of the best passages, the ones that make the reader love Cromwell, and side with him even as he rises to the top of the Tudor dunghill.

The Tudor England in Wolf Hall is a grim and dirty place. Descriptions aren't detailed; this is a novel of dialogue and impressions. But Mantel doesn't neglect those at the bottom of society. The majority of the inhabitants of Medieval England aren't a backdrop to the story of the rich, they are a constant presence. A mob that the rulers fear and worry about, who might rebel, or side with the Queen against the King, or stone a bishop.

This 700 page novel never feels overwritten or difficult despite the massive cast of characters and complex plot. Mantel's use of language and humour is beautiful, though her characters seldom are. Her writing deserved the awards and I have no hesitation in recommending it, as well as looking forward to part two.

Related Reviews

Mantel - Bring Up the Bodies
Mantel - A Place of Greater Safety

Carol Birch - Jamrach's Menagerie

Warning Spoilers

Jamrach's Menagerie begins with a scene only slightly surreal in its content as our hero Jaffy Brown, aged 8, is nearly carried off by a tiger that is wandering around the streets of London's East End Docklands. I say slightly surreal because in her afterword Carol Birch tells us that the incident actually happened.

Jaffy meets the eccentric Jamrach who imports exotic animals from around the globe and sells them to rich Londoners. Jaffy has a talent for looking after the animals, calming and understanding them. He forms a friendship with a fellow worker, a slightly older boy named Tim. Jamrach gets Tim to join a Whale ship bound to the East Indies in search of Whale Oil. Jaffy too joins the ship to take part in the capture of a giant "dragon" which they know will make their fortunes.

Carol Birch has an easy going style. She brings to life the dirt and poverty of East London, and the terror of a Whaling boat. The story of the ship's disaster and the long voyage on the life boats is expertly painted. The problem is that about half way along I realised I'd read it all before. At one point on the voyage Jaffy and Tim are entertained by some old salt who tells them of the cursed waters where the Whaleship Essex sank.

Jamrach's Menagerie follows that story very closely. In fact most of the key points that happen once Tim and Jaffy's ship is wrecked and they take to the Whalers are taken from the story of the Essex. Birch notes that those wanting to know more about that story should read Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea. Frankly I found myself drifting along with our shipwrecked heroes and lost interest in the story.

This is a shame because Birch has excellent writing talents and does well to bring the story to life, but because In the Heart of the Sea did such a good job of telling the amazing story of the crew of the Essex, I couldn't enjoy this re-telling. I'd encourage those interested to read the historical book, rather than this dramatisation. Given that history involved cannibalism, heroism and amazing sailing skills, in this case history is better than art.

Related Reading

PhilBrick - In the Heart of the Sea

Barry Unsworth - Losing Nelson

I have to admit to being left feeling very uncomfortable by Losing Nelson. In part this is the subject matter - the novel tells the story of a man moving from obsessive behaviour to madness. But it is also to do with the way the story finishes, something that I won't reveal in this review.

In some ways, the central character of Losing Nelson, Charles Cleasby is no different to countless other obsessive hobbyists. While others collect train numbers and learn minute details about steam engines, meeting in the back rooms of pubs to talk with other enthusiasts. Unusually though, Charles is obsessed with Admiral Nelson. The obsession has its roots in Charles' difficult childhood, when finding himself gifted at chess Charles is a little to triumphant when defeating one of his Dad's friends. His father, disapprovingly introduces Charles to a picture of Nelson, a proper hero.

As he grows and finds himself more and more at odds with the world, Charles identifies further with the Admiral. Increasingly, especially after his Dad's death, he lives his life on a Nelson timetable. Marking the anniversaries of his great battles with naval re-enactments on a pool table in the basement. Not only does Charles observe every complex manoeuvres of the ships, but he's also built the accurate models with which he recreates the battles. Then he toasts the admiral's genius and brilliance at the end of the day.

Unsurprisingly, Charles is also writing a book about his hero. But he has reached an impasse. The impasse is a now forgotten, but central moment of Nelson's life, when in the aftermath of the defeat of the French at the Battle of the Nile, Nelson is involved in the bloody suppression of a rebellion in Naples. Charles finds this so out of character that he cannot explain what happened. Despite being able to quote Nelson's letters verbatim, or having an encyclopedic knowledge of Nelson's life, Charles simply cannot understand why his "angel" behaved like this. Even worse, as Charles becomes more and more obsessed with Nelson, he frequently thinks he is the Admiral and Barry Unsworth does a brilliant task of blurring this distinction, as Charles' internal monologue switches from "he" to "me", "I" to "us". There is one particularly uncomfortable moment when Charles fantasises about Nelson and Lady Hamilton, or rather Lady Hamilton and "I".

The one anchor in Charles' reality is the woman he has hired to type his manuscript. Miss Lilly knows little about Nelson, but she asks difficult questions, ones that challenge yet further Charles' heroic images. Miss Lilly pulls Charles back into the real world, he takes Lilly and her son to visit HMS Victory in Portsmouth and the reader sees the potential for Charles to break from his obsessions. Yet the forces pulling him the other way, the ones that are so tied up with his own personal relations and difficulties are very powerful and it is unclear until the very last few pages quite what will happen.

Barry Unsworth's novel is full of brilliant detail. Charles' obsessive knowledge of the period mean that the author can provide us with brilliantly powerful accounts of the bloody battles, as well as recreating the atmosphere that followed Nelson around. Crowds would cheer him, Royalty dined with him, and everyone commented on his doomed marriage and affair with Emma Hamilton. Within this, Unsworth uses Mrs Lilly to cast a disapproving modern liberal commentary on events, while Charles struggles to cope with an imperfect hero.

The book is, as I said, uncomfortable. His descriptions of Charles' mental anguish and his questionable sanity are carefully but sympathetically done. The ending then, is brutal, and for the reader unsatisfactory, though strangely, and with hindsight, it was probably inevitable.

Neal Stephenson - The Confusion

If the first volume of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle Quicksilver could be said to deal with the emergence of capitalism and modern money markets, then the second develops these themes even further. But it is aptly named, for the novel deals both with the chaos and confusion in Europe in the aftermath of the English Revolution and emerging capitalism, as the old feudal order jockeys for position with the new financial interests. As Marx wrote, "everything that is solid, melts into air" and old certainties such as the profits available from gold mines, the allegiances of nobles and aristocrats are no longer trustworthy.

Like the first book in the series The Confusion is a massive, sprawling work. While centering on a few characters it trawls the length and breadth of 17th century philosophy, science, technology and warfare. When we left our characters at the end of Quicksilver, one had been sold into slavery and another was on the brink of a fortune. Elsewhere the birth of the scientific revolution seems to have stumbled as some of the key figures are distracted by other paths. In the case of Isaac Newton this is his obsession with alchemy, though he is pointed forwards again, as the battles between the Whigs and Tories (representing the old aristocratic order in the first case, and the new financial kings in the other) force him to tackle the important question of finance and money supply. Newton heads, metaphorically for the Bank of England just as our heroes are heading towards financial fortunes themselves.

This is a novel that roams from South America's silver mines to North African cities, and onwards to Japan and the mid-Pacific. It's a novel that deals in pirates and enormous sea battles. Near magical encounters with nomads in the plains in Asia and the problems of building seagoing vessels while fearing a pirate queen.

At times it does feel slightly over-written, and in places the author takes us of into diversions that are fascinating, but add little to the plot (except to tell us about a world in turmoil) or illustrate the great philosophical questions of the time. An immense character list means that on occasion Stephenson has to drop figures from the plot, giving them early retirement or untimely death. That said, the story telling is impressive and their is a wonderfully satisfying set piece revenge near the beginning of the novel that left me near breathless with excitement and relief. To say more would ruin well over a thousand pages of story telling so you'll have to read more.

Unlike volume one, this book didn't make me want to dash off and read other books to illuminate the period.  That reflects the confusion at the heart of the plot, a sense of the characters trying to work out what they want and need in the midst of a world that is transforming itself or risk being left behind.

The sheer scale of these novels means they need to be read close together, or the reader will risk forgetting the details and the characters. Which means I intend to find volume three as soon as possible.

Related Reviews

Stephenson - Quicksilver

Robert Harris - Imperium

Novels set in Ancient Rome are always hampered by the perceptions that people have of life there 2000 years ago. For many years Roman history has suffered from being the history of great men. Of senators, generals and of course Emperors. That's not to say that novels based around such individuals cannot be entertaining and informative.

Nonetheless because the history (and the documents) we have of the period tend to be those of “great” individuals, novels tend to follow similar paths, if only because the material available to form the backdrop for such lives is more readily accessible.

Robert Harris has now written a number of novels set in the ancient past. I wasn't overly impressed with the first of these Pompeii. But Imperium is a much stronger novel. Even though it centres on some of the most important figures of the late Republic, Harris avoids the trap of forgetting about the majority of the population because his narrator is Tiro, the extremely talented slave of the famous lawyer and counsel, Marcus Cicero.

Harris has done his research well. Many of the events in this book (which is in effect two linked shorter stories) are based in reality. The novel itself is supposed to be a biography of Cicero, and such a book (at least according to Plutarch) did exist, though tragically it has been lost to us since. Cicero is portrayed not simply as a brilliant orator. He also holds a mind of tactical genius and a singular determination to reach the peaks of power that were offered during Republican Rome.

Thus while centring on a particularly dramatic legal case (of extreme corruption and abuse of power by a Roman governor) and a political intrigue several years later, the main thread of the story is Cicero's struggle to achieve recognised greatness, seen through the eyes of his most important slave.

The backdrop to this is the decline of Republican Rome and the beginnings of the rise of the era of the Emperors. But behind all of this are the interests and struggles of Rome's different classes. The ruling class are aloof from the majority of the population, though a middling layer (of whom Cicero is a New Man) form a link between the top of the system and the masses below. Cicero's clients include those from the lower levels of society who often have been failed by the system as well as those who are more wealthy but seek redress. The masses by and large are a stage army, who give their loyalty to those politicians who have managed to either offer them the most in the way of bread and circuses or improved their lot. In Harris' telling Cicero is a man of the people, struggling against the excesses of the aristocracy and hence beloved by many ordinary people.

While Harris captures the limitations of Rome's democracy and brilliantly portrays the excesses and corruption of the majority of the ruling class, his portrayal of the dynamics of the mass of the population seems rather more one dimensional. This is very much exposed in the references to Grachuss, the reforming politician who was murdered by the ruling class for attempting to redistribute land in the interest of the masses. It is in these short paragraphs where you get a feel for how mass, class interests could shape Roman politics in a way that is absent elsewhere in the story.

Ultimately though this is the tale of a few individuals, despite Rome being the backdrop. Harris gives the reader a plausible tale of what life was like, the sights, smells, over-crowding and problems in the ancient capital. The dreams of freedom of Tiro are poignant and seem real, and if on occasion there are plot devices that seem a little contrived to ensure that our narrator can be present at some of the most important events in Roman history, this can be excused in the interest of a great storyline.

Unfortunately the afterword tells us nothing of what is based on known history and what is speculation and Robert Harris despite acknowledging his reliance on more recent scholarship he fails to direct the reader to more works that might allow those whose interest has been pricked in the history, to learn more. This is a shame because Imperium is an excellent read and could well put many on the path to a deeper study of Roman history.

Related Reading

Harris - Lustrum

Graves - I, Claudius

Graves - Claudius the God

Donn Pearce - Cool Hand Luke

Warning spoilers

Many readers will be familiar with the classic film Cool Hand Luke produced in 1967 and starring Paul Newman. Few will know that it is based on a novel by Donn Pearce, first published in 1965.

The book and film follow the brutalised lives of a group of convicts working on a chain gang. The film centres mostly on Paul Newman's character, but the novel is more about the day to day life of the convicts, the back breaking work in the hot sun, clearing verges, building roads and the few pleasures that they have to look forward to - boring food, a few pornographic magazines, a weekly film and a relentlessly mundane, regimented life. Pearce himself had more than a few experiences of criminal life and imprisonment and the book's descriptions carry the ring of authenticity. Pearce is writing is powerful and lyrical. Here's his narrator describing some of his fellow prisoners:

"Ugly Red, the moonshiner; Four Eyed Joe who is doing Time for screwing his daughter; Little Greek, the sponge diver and check artist from Tarpon Springs; Big Steve the heist man; Rabbit, Coon, Possum, Gator and Eagle, all characters from the tales of Uncle Remus; Sleepy, the last of the Seven Dwarfs, whose six partners all got away when the cops arrived; Onion Head, Burr Head; Stupid Blondie, Stupider Blondie and Stupidest Blondie; Chief, the Blackfoot Indian, the con man and chronic liar whose true exploits are just fantastic enough to keep everyone guessing about the others...."

The prison system brutalises and dehumanises all these characters. The prisoners invent nicknames and make ridiculous bets to keep their spirits alive. The descriptions focus on the mundane, but also the reality of life with so many men crammed into such a small space - the smells, the defecation, the masturbation that inevitably takes place. The book fleshes out the background to Cool Hand Luke's life much more. In the film it was never really obvious why he committed the crime he did. In the book his temporary madness is a product of alcohol and mental breakdown. Pearce locates Luke's mental state very much in his experiences as a soldier in the US army, where he and his comrades murdered and raped their way across Germany. One can only speculate how much Pearce puts his own WWII experiences into this part of the tale, but certainly this picture of the US army is very much a product of the 1960s.

Ultimately this, as with the film, is a story of resistance. Luke's refusal to bow down and his repeated escapes offer hope to the other prisoners. This is not because they can copy him, but hope that the system can be beaten. Their disappointment when Luke is recaptured and his apparent resignation in the face of apathy is one of the most poignant moments in the novel.

"A gloom hung over the whole Camp, a despair, a lack of the lustiness and the gaiety of former times. We know what had happened. The Free Men's revenge for the night of July the Fourth was now complete. They had captured and chained and punished the culprits. They had broken them down in order to prove to the rest of us what would be the inevitable results of defiance. Then they had taken the greatest rebel of them all and rewarded him to show us the fruits of obedience."

But Luke surprises everyone. His temporary defeat giving way to more determined resistance, albeit a resistance that cannot be allowed to continue by the authorities. Failing to break him, they destroy him.

Ultimately Luke's story passes into convict history and prisoners talk of him in hushed tones. Luke's martyrdom has changed them all. The powers that be are not all powerful, they can be beaten. The convicts continue their awful work but they do so with "heads... ringing with the melody and the hymn called Cool Hand Luke".

The 1960s produced many novels that raged with indignation and anger. There are many that are more powerful, and more politically nuanced that Cool Hand Luke. But in my opinion few can match it in giving us the sense that resistance is never futile, that we can never bow down before the system or its paid servants.

Neal Stephenson - Quicksilver

The question that bugged me through the whole time I read Neal Stephenson's enormous Quicksilver, was how to review it. In part the problem is one of scope. How can a reviewer condense a 900 page novel? More importantly, when the author enjoys playing with the written form (some of the chapters here are written in the form of letters, others in the style of scripts and poetry is sprinkled throughout) it seems like the task is impossible. How to make this book sound worth reading, rather than making it look like a sprawling mammoth of a novel that is the result of a writer who didn't know when to stop?

The truth is that Neal Stephenson's novel is a work of brilliance. Despite being 900 pages in length, the writing is tight and entertaining. Suffused with humour and the occasional bit of erotica, there are moments that made me laugh loudly on the train and others that made me cringe at the pain and suffering. Stephenson has painted a brilliant picture of a world going through an enormous transformation. It is one of the best accounts I have read of the changes that took place following the English Revolution and the Rise of Capitalism and in my opinion can only be understood as an attempt to draw out the different ideas and forces in society that were being shaped and reshaped during that later half of the 17th century.

Quicksilver is written in three parts. The first deals with the beginnings of the scientific revolution. It centres on Daniel Waterhouse, a university roommate of Isaac Newton, contemporary of Robert Hooke and eventual friend of many of the most important scientists and Royal Society members of the 17th and early 18th century. The tale skips back and forth in time, but we begin to see the biography of Daniel as he helps Newton with his early experiments, encourages the savant to remember to eat and helps encourage and shape his work. Much like another of Daniels contemporaries, Samuel Pepys, we see the wider changes to society taking place, alongside the Plague and the Great Fire of London. We also encounter the wider debates and constraints in society, in particular the religious debates and disagreements, now somewhat in decline following the end of the Civil War and Cromwell's death. Much of these arguments are still important and the positions that different families took in the Civil War continue to shape the lives of those individuals.

The first third of the book then is a retelling of the story of the birth of the Scientific Method. This is summed up by Newton himself a man that Daniel helps insert knitting needles into his eye socket to observe the effects on his vision, but then seems to turn his back on "science" and retreat into alchemy. Stephenson brilliantly captures the debates and arguments taking place at this time, in the dark rooms of bars and gentleman's smoke filled rooms as ideas of religion, nature and science are all in flux, fulled by the enormously shifting world outside.

The second volume at first seems to take off in a completely tangential direction. During the siege of Vienna, Jack, a mercenary rescues Eliza a Turkish slave. Escaping the battle field, they travel across Europe in a westerly direction having adventures and learning much about the world and themselves. Gradually though, we realise that what they are also witnessing is the flip side of the scientific revolution we've followed in part one. This is the economic revolution, a world being turned upside down as new ways of commerce, trade and manufacture are taking place. We see the new stock exchanges as Eliza teaches Jack how money can be made by betting pieces of paper on potential economic outcomes. The pair spend some time with Leibniz, Newton's anti-particle, and learn about new methods for extracted silver in larger quantities that apply the lessons of both the scientific and economic revolutions. Throughout all of this Stephenson's wonderful language and humour make this the most readable of history lessons.

Here's Jack exploring the area around the Parisian docks. The early days of capitalism and the beginnings of the labour theory of value have rarely been more eloquently summed up:

"Some boats carried blocks of stone that had been cut to shape by freemasons working out in the open, somewhere upstream; these boats pulled up along special quays equipped with cranes powered by pairs of large steeped wheels in which men climbed forever without ascending, turning a gear-train that reeled in a cable that passed over a pulley at the end of a tree-sized arm....Elsewhere the same amount of labor might've made a keg of butter or a week's worth of firewood; here it was spent on raising a block several inches so that it could be carted into the city and raised by other workers, higher and height, so that Parisians could have rooms higher than they were wide..."

Stephenson's style is fairly unique. I pointed out that he enjoys playing with different forms of the written word. He also enjoys his jokes, and occasionally he likes to insert a more contemporary reference. Here's Leibniz writing from Venice:

"As I write these words.... two gondoliers who nearly collided a minute ago are screaming murderous threats at each other. This sort of thing happens all the time here. The Venetians have even given it a name: 'Canal Rage.' Some say that it is a new phenomenon... a symptom of the excessively rapid pace of change in the modern world."

The universe of Quicksilver is not quite our own. Stephenson has inserted some fictional characters into his history, but also some fictional places. This is not really fantasy though, it is more a trick to allow him to play with people and tales in a way that a strict work of historical fiction wouldn't. That said, he doesn't shy from the realities of history.

Capitalism, Karl Marx once wrote was born, "dripping in blood" and there's plenty of that in Quicksilver. Much of the third volume deals with the machinations of various courts as they try to gain their own power in the wake of the English Restoration and the run up to the Glorious Revolution. Enormous armies march back and force, torture, violence as well as poverty and hunger stalk the land.

The myriad of characters and story lines come together in the final section of this book as England appears, at least superficially, to be gaining a level of calm following the chaos of the years of rule by Charles II and James Stuart. We know from the earliest chapters however, that Daniel returns from his exile in the New World where he has gone to escape the Old. The story is only beginning and I look forward to continuing to read it in the second and third volumes of the trilogy.

Related Reviews

Stephenson - The Confusion
Stephenson - The System of the World

Naguib Mahfouz - Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth

Novels set in the ancient world often suffer because the author feels obliged to describe the alien surroundings. We end up reading all about the buildings, the food, the sounds to the great detriment of the story.

Naguib Mahfouz's short novel of ancient Egypt is an exception. For Mahfouz, the story is the most important part and there are only the vaguest of descriptions. Ancient Egypt here comes across to us through the voices, ideas and religions of its inhabitants rather than an authors attempt to evoke the world.

But it is not just the style that makes this a unique book. The story is a series of interviews with prominent ancient Egyptians, all of whom are linked - through marriage, servitude, or blood to the Pharaoh Akhenaten. Historical Akhenaten, the father of King Tutankhamen, forcibly changed religious practises, pushing aside the old polytheistic beliefs and encouraging worship of a single god, Aten (or Ra). This caused enormous social and political problems and with Akhenaten's death Egypt only gradually returned to more normal religious practise. Much of the construction projects associated with Akhenaten were dismantled.

The novel centres on the turmoil created by Akhenaten's beliefs, in particular his visions of a single god. As he encourages the worship of this "One God", he preaches love over violence and revenge. But Egypt's bureaucratic and religious structures are too closely linked with the old ways and economic crisis, military invasion and rebellion threaten the whole order.

Akhenaten; Dweller in Truth centres on the series of interviews conducted by the scribe Meriamun with members of Akhenaten's court to attempt to understand what took place. Twenty years after the events, many of those involved find their stories shaped by their own contemporary interests, or a wish to portray themselves in a more favourable light. Conflicting accounts, rumour and propaganda come together to muddy the true story and the reader is left to sort out in their own mind, what really happened. This is a clever novel, its brevity hides a complex and powerful tale. A good book to while away a cold-autumn evening.

Related Reviews

Graves - I, Claudius
Graves - Claudius the God

Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita

Begun in the late 1920s, finished in 1937 after the author burnt the first version and not published until 1966, The Master and Margarita is a classic of 20th century Russian writing. On one level, it is a fantastic fairy tail, full of witches on broomsticks, magic, talking animals and other unbelievable characters. On the other hand, it is a tale of redemption, a necessarily metaphorical tale that criticises 1930s Soviet life.

Bulgakov certainly had an interesting life, very much tied up with Russian history of the early 20th century. He was a young doctor in the First World War then worked in Ukraine during the Russian Revolution and Civil War. He doesn't seem to have been particularly political, as a biographical essay in this new edition of the novel points out, a contemporary poet "talked of his 'magnificent contempt of their [the Communists] ethos." His novels were of an earlier style. By the time Bulgakov gave up his medical career to concentrate on literature, in early 1920, the culture peaks of the very early revolutionary era had begun to give way to the leaden-headed time of the emerging Soviet bureaucracy. This was an era of shortages, starvation and civil war. Despite these shortages, as the 1920s progressed a new emerging class of bureaucrats and functionaries began to consolidate power. With the death of Lenin this class became even more entrenched around the figure of Stalin who turned his back on the "revolution from below" socialism of Lenin and the Bolsheviks and argued for "Socialism in one country".

By the time he begun The Master and the Margarita it would not have taken a genius to recognise that contemporary Soviet society was along way from the dreams of the early revolution. Much of the realities of this life are apparent in the novel. The stifling bureaucracy, the pompous functionaries who only serve to bolster their own roles and egos through endless regulations and paperwork. Much of the humour in the novel comes from the popping of these individual's self-importance.

The novel centres on the arrival in Moscow of Satan and his assistants. These fantastical characters proceed to create mayhem around the city. But rather than killing and hurting people, Satan's exploits the greed and selfishness of many of Moscow's inhabitants, in particular the literary types and low level functionaries. In the first of two wonderful scenes, Satan, in the guise of a stage conjurer causes a riot as greedy theatre goers are given enormous quantities of cash and beautiful, but fatally flawed, clothes.

Satan is here an ambiguous figure. His evil seems more directed at those whose greed and selfishness make them deserve some vengeance. He can also be helpful and rewarding as the principle characters, the eponymous Master and Margarita eventually find out.

These two form a parallel and intertwined story. The Master has written a novel, which in echoes of Bulgakov's own writing of the book, he has destroyed in frustration at the barriers erected by the literary establishment. The novel tells the true story of Jesus' trial and Crucifixion. Its own message carrying echoes of the more explicit attacks on those in positions of power. For much of the novel, the Master is in a lunatic asylum, joined as time passes, by many of those who encounter Satan's memorable band. In particular, the enormous black cat, that walks, talks and carries itself with enough bearing to fit in well with the newly enriched sections of the Moscow elite.

Margarita agrees to serve Satan and presides at a fantastic feast. The ball's guests are the most evil figures from history, and Margarita endures their company while absorbing their pain and suffering. An act of kindness on her part helps prove her purity and, passing an invisible test, Satan rewards her, and the Master.

The Master and Margarita is not an easy novel. It is full of historical and literal allusions and, presumably to escape the censors, much of the material is allegorical in nature. Bulgakov's brilliance is to make the extraordinary seem reasonable, as testified by Behemoth the giant cat. But while the book is clearly a powerful critique of Soviet society, it is also a fantasy that offers little alternative to the economic realities. The conclusion appears to be that things are as they are and cannot be changed, only escaped.

This new edition from Alma Classics is particularly useful for readers who are new to Russian literature and the period. In addition to the main text (which has had very useful footnotes added explaining many of the more obscure references and characters) there is a biographical essay, pictures of the author and his family and extracts from Bulgakov's personal correspondence. Rather oddly the publishers have also included the first few pages of the book in Russian. As a result the book has some very useful supporting material and will help the reader understand the writer, the period and the nature of the book. Whether it enables you to also get your head around the story is entirely a different question.

Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort Farm

Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm is one of those novels that has outgrown the object of its lampoon. Who today reads Mary Webb? Her purple prose is, I suspect, mostly known through the passages that Stella Gibbons highlights with a couple of asterisks to let the reader know that a moment of pure piss taking. Stella Gibbons is a wonderful writer, at her best when destroying another authors style:

"***The country for miles, under the blanket of the dark which brought no peace was in its annual tortured ferment of spring growth; worm jarred with worm and seed with seed... The trout-sperm in the muddle hollow under Nettle-Finch Weir were agitated..."

The novel centres on the visit of Flora Poste to Cold Comfort Farm. The Farm is an island of insanity in the wider countryside. It's inhabitants are all ill-adjusted individuals, whose lives are twisted and distorted by the bizarre matriarch Aunt Ada, who confines herself to her room except for an annual counting.

Flora rapidlly breaks down these individuals, finding each of them what they really want and undermining the Aunt Ada's power until Ada herself is sent to Paris on an aeroplane transformed by the hidden potential found in an old edition of Vogue.

Stella Gibbons has a unique comic style. In parts the humour is near slapstick (people fall down the well regularly, or enjoy talking to water-voles). Elsewhere the amusement is in the prose.

Here's Gibbons' description of Cold Comfort Farm's history:

"The farmhouse was a long, low building, two-storied in parts. Other parts of it were three-storied. Edward the Sixth had originally owned it in the form of a shed in which he housed his swineherd, but he had gown tired of it and had it rebuilt in Sussex clay. Then he pulled it down. Elizabeth had rebuilt it, with a good many chimneys in one way and another. The Charleses had let it alone.; but William and Mary had pulled it down again, and George the First had rebuilt it. George the Second however burned it down. George the Third added another wing. George the Fourth pulled it down again.... it was known locally as 'The Kings Whim'."

At times this is a very dark novel. Tell anyone that you're reading it, and if they know the book, they quote "something wicked in the woodshed". Yet there is a deeper darkness that lies in the unknown. Flora visits Cold Comfort from the bright lights of London. Rural England is full of strange practices and behaviour. Incest is hinted at, and Gibbon's use of strange languages and invented practises only adds to this strangeness, clettering and mollocking are never really explained, but certainly sound wrong, even if the former is just a way of cleaning dishes. Stella Gibbons' wonderful writing, her humour and her brilliant spoof of a particular type of novel, makes this a literary classic.

Theodore Plievier - Stalingrad

After reading Stalingrad it seems inadequate to describe the battle in the way so many military histories do. While it was "the turning point of the war" and "Germany's greatest defeat" this ignores the immense waste of human life, the incredible suffering, the brutality, the bravery and the pointlessness of the battle. Stalingrad is not an easy book to read. In part because Plievier spares the reader nothing in his descriptions of war and the consequences of war. But the novel, like its sequel, Berlin does not follow a normal narrative. Plievier's prose is powerful, florid and complicated at times. It is a shame that he's forgotton today as his books repay reading.

Plievier was no veteran of World War Two though his story is fascinating. As a young sailor He'd taken part in the Wilhelmshaven mutiny that had detonated the German Revolution and ended World War One. After the rise of Hitler he fled, eventually ending up in Russia. From there he wrote about World War II and the interviews he made with German soldiers and his experiences on the front line formed the documentary basis for his classic trilogy of World War II.

Stalingrad is the first of three novels. It depicts the battle from the Germany point of view, focusing on a few individuals who experience the war in very different ways. Ultimately the destruction and violence degrades and destroys them. One of the soldiers, Gnotke, is a member of a punishment troop given the most dangerous tasks. Him and his comrades lose their minds as they constantly bury the dead in the face of withering fire.

Little of the book is devoted to narrative. Most of the story is a series of experiences, vividly painted, as the end of the Sixth Army approaches. Large parts deal with the appalling casualties, the wounded and their suffering as they wait for treatment, for water, for painkillers. None of these are forthcoming and Plievier's account of the suffering of the few doctors who operate on wounded men without bandages, morphine or hope is truly awful.

One of the themes of the book is the failure of the German High Command who can only order the besieged troops to continue fighting till the last bullet. As the Germany Army faces its first significant defeat, the leadership is unable to follow the most logical military tactics. The Nazi command doesn't allow for rational decisions. For Hitler and his cronies defeat at Stalingrad can only be the fault of the army in the field rather than illogical and impossible aims and ambitions. The men who freeze to death in Russia and the senior Officers who are near mad with blind faith in their Fuhrer are the victims.

The book concludes with the appalling march of the tens of thousands of German POWs into Russia's interior. Few returned. Plievier draws parallels with the Nazi death marches of Jews and concentration camp inmates as one of the POWs was a guard on such a march. This soldier believes that what is happening to him and the German Army are retribution for the acts of the regime and his own personal crimes. In a sense this is correct, but it is only a foreshadow of what is to come.

Related Reviews

Plievier - Berlin

Ann Abrams - Mobius

Had I been asked a month ago whether a book dominated (ha) by sadomasochistic sex scenes, whose convoluted plot involves ritual murder, the lofty realms of academic philosophy and a smattering of anthropology, London in-jokes and Neanderthals could be a runaway success I would have laugh out loud.

Given the runaway success of Fifty Shades of Grey though, I would no longer be sure of my instant dismissal. In fact, I would argue that whoever could leap aboard that particular bandwagon would be in with a good chance of making their fortune.

It is just possible, just, that Ann Abrams might make it. Given that Fifty Shades was in itself a sexed up piece of Twilight fan-fiction, I am sure that there will be a plethora of authors and publishers eager to follow E. L. James success. No doubt they'll all have similar inoffensive covers, shades of blue and grey fooling no-one on the bus.

Mobius however deserves better than being seen as some publishers wet-dream of a quick trip to the fortunes of Harry Potter. Certainly Abrams herself is more than J K Rowling, not least with her in-jokes and ruminations on the ideas of Hegel, Marx and half a dozen philosophers. You get the impression that Abrams has actually read these, rather than flicking through a cartoon-guide to Rousseau. There's also humour. Dark humour, but bits that'll make you smile.

Abrams clearly lives in London. Or at least she knows it well enough to understand the frustrations of most Londoners towards the influx of middle-class attic dwelling hipsters that is spreading outwards from Shoreditch and trying to setup abode in Dalston. Abrams' turns our annoyance at their superficiality into satisfaction with the occasional (well frequent) act of violence. The satisfaction is swiftly followed by horror of course, but knowing that those we dislike meet a grisly end is possibly were some of the success of this novel may lie.

That's not to say that Mobius is without problems. The writing is good, but it needs to be tighter (you can't twist something into a mobius strip for instance). The plot twists and turns and their are almost too many characters. At one point the writer muses, jokingly that in real life people you meet can have frustratingly similar names. In a post-modern "breaking of the fourth wall" the author gives some of her characters similar names. But the reason authors don't emulate real life is it makes book   hard to follow and I felt drowned occasionally in personalities.

 

Our heroine, Katherine, has fallen in with a bad lot. Well bad in the sense that they are the sort of people who make vast amounts of money in the city of London, or selling real-estate in Dalston to the types who make money in the city of London. Her lover strains to prove himself to her through a ritual display of nice wines, good meals, expensive cars and sound systems. All lovingly if contemptuously described by the author. Katherine rejects these trinkets. She's made of sterner stuff, though her affection for her partner means that his disappearance encourages her to go on a search that takes her from London, to Italy and back.

The disappearance appears to be caused by the same shady group who organised a rather exotic sex-party. Katherine meets Nick at the orgy, and together they witness an unusual, and unpleasant scene that makes them question what's happening, in part because they both suffer from memory loss.

I'm not going to dwell on the plot. Frankly if you've found your interest pricked so far, you'll probably get this for your kindle anyway. What I want to finish on is the sex. Or is it porn? There is a lot of sex in this book. Quite a lot of it graphically described. Rarely have I read a novel that mentions the perineum more than once. There are quite a lot of orgasms and bodily fluids, ejaculation and scratching. That some of this crosses over into violence will not surprise those who've read some of the less well written books out there, particularly in an era when everyone seems to think vampires are essential to literature. Many readers will find this distasteful, and I wonder if others will be tempted to dismiss it as irony. Certainly it brought to mind a couple of stories I'd read by Poppy Z Brite. On the other hand, Abrams has some of the style of Iain Banks and with a good editor will no-doubt improve.

I'm not a prude, nor am I particularly squeamish. But the sexualised violence here, countered with an occasional critique of the society that produces it, felt too disjointed from the main thrust of the novel. In some ways, this is a classic coming of age novel. In others it is a horror story. On the one hand you could dismiss this as a bit of dodgy porn, but on the other hand Ann Abrams has written a first novel that is genuinely unusual.

Given the right marketing, and a good editor, Ann Abrams may break out of the grey. Certainly if she’s pushed forward as the thinking person’s alternative to Fifty Shades of Grey she may make it. What the readers will actually think when they read it is an entirely different question.

Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

The idea that there is an alternative, hidden, secret London just out of sight of the tourist filled streets is not a new one. In fact, the throngs of people lining the streets, bedraggled in Jubilee bunting this weekend are partaking in the most superficial level of London's strata of reality.

Ben Aaronovitch is not the first to use this metaphor in fantasy fiction. Neil Gaiman's book Neverwhere is a superb example of the genre. Aaronovitch though uses the medium of the Metropolitan Police to explore this alternate world of magic and fantastical powers.

Aaronovitch has some interesting ideas. The personification of the rivers is nice, the ladies who represent the lost London rivers forming a alternate powerbase to Old Man Thames and his sons upstream, for instance. But much of this feels superficial and, indeed the story structure feels borrowed. Our hero, Peter Grant, a lowly police constable destined for a life trapped in the lower echelons of the force's bureacracy, sees a ghost and thus begins his encounter with a secret wing of the Met. It's wizard. Like many other muggles beginning their encounter with the world of magic, he stumbles through various encounters, each more fantastical than the last, until the reader themselves discovers this new world. Neil Gaiman did it far better, J K Rowling did it with far greater numbers of words.

Aaronovitch writes for a London audience. He's keen to name drop the various cafes and bars that he and his friends clearly frequent, and anyone who has lived in the capital for long will find themselves following the streets in their minds eye. He's also keen to make it clear that he is writing about the progressive "post Macpherson" force. Our "mixed race" hero, experiences no racism, except for allusions to how it was, and women are scattered liberally through all ranks of the force.

The Met itself is a metaphor for stability and consistency through hundreds of years of riot and apparent chaos. Aaronovitch makes much of the long tradition of the force, with only a half joking reference to the them keeping down the working classes. Ironically, the centre-piece riot of middle-class theatre goers only serves to underline the unreal nature of the story. A great story-teller should be able to make the fantastical seem believable. Aaronovitch hasn't got the writing ability to do this well, and using the Metropolitan Police as a vehicle of stability and sanity in a world of chaos will raise an eyebrow from anyone whose experience of London is several layers below the pomp and circumstance of the flag waving Jubilee idiots.

Related Reviews

Gaiman - Neverwhere
Collins - London Belongs to Me

Joseph Kanon - The Good German

Partly because of its setting, this is an unusual detective story. Set in the midst of the ruins of Berlin in the immediate aftermath of the European theatre of the Second World War, the hero is no detective, but a journalist, sent to the capital to cover the Potsdamn Conference. At the conference, our hero, the oddly named Jake Geismar, finds a body in a lake, and begins a quest to explain what's happened and get his last, great wartime story.

Like many detective novels, there are coincidences aplenty. The author however gets away with alot because his descriptions of the destroyed city and the people who continue to survive there are amazing. Perhaps the author gleaned his knowledge of the streets from Google Maps, but I suspect that he has sat down at a cafe in the Oliverplatz.

More interestingly, Joseph Kanon is an expert at portraying the weird duality of life in postwar Germany. The struggle for food and survival, and for identity. He captures those who haven't quite comprehended what's happened. In a clever bit of dialogue a young German woman is hoping to escape to London with her lover, a British Soldier. She imagines it all destroyed, like the Berlin around her, and cannot believe Jake's assurances that London is not flattened. But they told us it was, she says, refering stubbonly to the wartime propaganda.

Oddly the rather strange and convoluted plot seem to matter little because, to use a cliche, the real hero of the novel is the city itself. Nonetheless, the complicated strands are drawn together well, and tightly, and the ending is unsatisfactory, because it is dealing with the contradictions of Berlin in 1945. The Potsdam Conference that opens the story is the beginning of the end of the wartime Allies. By the end of the story, the world's two superpowers are jokeying for position and often the pawns in their game are some of the Germans who made the war possible. Dealing with the consequences of that, meant ignoring some of the more unpalatable truths about wartime behaviour. The solution to Jake Geismar's puzzle is rooted in that, and it creates an excellent bit of tension.

George MacDonald Fraser - Flashman and the Tiger

I suspect, that had the blogosphere existed with George MacDonald Fraser's penultimate Flashman novel appeared, it would have erupted into loud moans. For decades Flashman's fans had been waiting for the novel that explained his adventures in the American Civil War. Instead Fraser produced a novelette and two short stories. I suspect that there is an element of vanity publishing here. Fraser was a successful novelist who had enough time and space (and presumably cash) to write about exactly what he wanted, and shucks to what the fans demanded.

Of course, there is much here to satisfy the Flashman fan. In my opinion, these stories round out the character of Flashman, particularly because they show how, in his later years, he was much more of the jovial old grandfather type. Keen to enjoy his well earned rest and not too prepared to show of his laurels.

The longest part of this book is the novelette The Road to Charing Cross a classic story of diplomatic underhandedness and attempted murder. It has some similarities to one of the earliest novels, Royal Flash and shares some characters with that novel. It has a couple of delightful twists too, and Flashman is left a little high and dry. Interestingly, it clearly was intended to serve as a bridge to one of the other eagerly awaited Flashman tales - the story of his involvement in the Zulu wars. Several references elsewhere have indicated that Flashman was at Rorkes drift, and while details are scarce, the final story here begins in that chaotic battle. It finishes with one of Flashman's few examples of bravery - albeit fuelled by a decent whiskey. A few literary stabs at another Victorian novelist finish things off nicely.

Finally, the middle story The Subtleties of Baccarat is by far the best. Dealing less with adventure and war, and more a drawing room scandal, the tale centres on the Royal Baccarat Scandal. This was a minor piece of ruling class snobbery, which had the characters involved been less interested in their personal images and the delight of scandal and expressed more of a collective attitude to solving problems, would have had a better outcome for all concerned.

Fraser puts his own spin on the story, but he illustrates brilliantly the life of the ruling classes in late Victorian times. Their scandals, gossip, adultery and lack of individual solidarity. The future Edward VII was dragged in front of the courts as a witness and the whole lot were made to look foolish in front of the mass of the population. The scandal was on a par with anything the Daily Mail might put on its front page today and no doubt helped to undermine respect for the ruling class at the time. Fraser illuminates history neatly with this story in a way that he would have done for the US Civil War had he lived long enough. Flashman fans should not dismiss these well written and fascinating episodes in the life of our favourite rake.

Jules Romains - Verdun

The Battle of Verdun, that took place in early 1916 was one of the most horrific clashes of World War One - well over 700,000 men were killed, wounded or went missing in the battle. It was marked by enormous barrages, the first systematic use of flame throwers and like the Battle of the Somme does, it continues to cast its shadow over subsequent generations of Frenchmen and Germans alike.

Jules Romains' novel Verdun is, at least according to the blurb here, a "lost treasure", first published in 1938 it is an unusual novel. There is almost no narrative structure, save that of the Battles' history itself. Instead chapters are devoted to a few individuals, some soldiers, the occasional person fighting on the "home front", officers and generals and on one sole occasion, the Kaiser himself - the only appearance of the German enemy in the book. I picked it up, expecting that this would be a French version of All Quiet on the Western Front. As a novel it is very different to that powerful story. Yet in an unusual way, despite the occasional lapse in translation or the somewhat overblown dialogue in places, this remains an interesting work, though its lack of narrative makes it hard to follow at times.

The first chapters deal, as many novels of World War One do, with the way that the patriotic glee of the opening days are to be contrasted with the dull horrors of trench warfare.

"Were were those battles for freedom which begin with the soudning of the "charge" and end with cheering and the song of victory? The people of France almost blushed to think that they had ever believed in such things."

Nonetheless, if there was one ambition that remained;

"it was the destruction of war itself; its suppression for ever, its deletion from the pages of history. That, and that alone, must be the object of this war. There should never be another."

Passages like this, and the late reference to France as the great friend of Poland are perhaps a reaction to the coming Second World War. Yet the book itself is less an anti-war novel as a book about the reality of war. So we have the ordinary soldier scrabbling in mud and snow and praying for his life, together with the plump industrial profiteer, getting rich on the shoddy equipment he's selling to the army. Finally, Romains holds real contempt for the generals and politicians , those men who play games with others lives. As one of the soldiers remarks as he's about to return to Verdun;

"War, claims many victims, but very few of them are innocent. For some time now, as I think I've told you already, the spectacle of my fellow-men has filled me with loathing. The trouble is that those who are most to blame are not, as a rule, those who suffer the worst punishment."

Romains however makes this a soldiers war. The home front knows little of the reality of the trenches. The Generals care less, but talk of sacrifice. Only the soldiers understand and they have their "freemasonry of front-line fighters" to keep them going.

As the novel finishes with truck-loads of French soldiers heading for the front and a renewed offensive, we are left with little but despair and hopelessness. This perhaps was the feeling of many of those French people who survived Verdun, and lost friends and family to its horror, as they contemplated renewed European war.

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Tuchman - The Guns of August