John le Carré - A Legacy of Spies

I was looking forward enormously to A Legacy of Spies and re-read its prequel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in preparation. That book is a near perfect spy thriller, the dirty, backstabbing reality of Cold War spying in the drab, grey of 1950s England and East Germany. By contrast A Legacy of Spies is set in a world that seems like New Labour - full of steel and glass, opulence and smartly dressed professionals. But its a superficial modernity. The reality for the spies is still one of betrayal and backstabbing, loneliness and violence - but now they are even more scrutinised by a 21st century bureaucracy that pretends to incomprehensibility when faced with the methods of previous decades.

The legacy of the title is the fall out from a long forgotten spy operation undertaken in the first novel, supervised by Control, Smiley and the narrator of Legacy Peter Guillam. Guillam is uncooperative in MI6's investigation into those events which has been sparked by the return of the son of the British agent who died in the operation, who is suing for wrongful death. Guillam is trying to protect both his legacy and that of his friend and mentor George Smiley. Tied up with all of this is the larger betrayal that MI6 experienced in the aftermath of the first book.

The plot is convoluted, though the reality is that little happens. Guillam twists and turns and reveals little, but spends a lot of time thinking through the rights and wrongs of his own past and the Service. Rather than being a novel in itself it felt to me more like the author was tying up some lose ends for his fans by referencing all the events that they've come to cherish. It's not a bad novel, but its not the greatest and I found the ending very flat. It's not Le Carré at his best, but if you're reading it, that wil be because you've read all the others and you'll already know this by the time you open the book.

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Le Carré - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Le Carré - A Small Town in Germany
Le Carré - The Looking Glass War
Le Carré- A Murder of Quality

John le Carré - The Looking Glass War

By all accounts John le Carré wrote The Looking Glass War disappointed that readers of his best selling The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was taken far to seriously, and not understood as the satire it was intended as. Looking Glass focuses on The Department, a section of British Intelligence that has left its wartime glamour far behind. Now, instead of an essential section of Britain's military machine, it is a poor second cousin to Smiley's Circus. Lacking funding, infrastructure and staff the Department is a spy network without any spies.

Beginning with a botched intelligence job, over some dubious intelligence, the Department is dragged into a dangerous mission in East Germany which senior figures clearly see as a last ditched attempt to regain wartime levels of funding, glory and acceptance in the Intelligence Community. The botched job is followed up by amateurish attempts to retrieve a roll of tape that nearly blows the whole thing open. Despite this, the Department's head Leclerc, a boorish former pilot uses his knowledge of Whitehall's bureaucracy to secure under the table funding to send a spy into East Germany.

The mission is, inevitably, a cock up. But what makes the book is the meticulous way that le Carré depicts the build up. Here are bureaucrats scheming against each other for funding and ministerial approval. Leclerc himself oversees much of the hiring of the Departments new spy, but is keen to keep from him the reality of his organisations eclipse. The former spy, now gone to grass in a second hand car salesroom is repeatedly told that the Department has "got boxes of files" of other operatives. Reality is, of course, exactly the opposite, and readers cannot help but feel that someone is being hung out to dry.

Much of this is presumably based on le Carré's own experiences. Infighting, competition and lies are the staple of government departments and spies. The grim, competing world of the Department and the Circus is a complete contrast to the glamour of James Bond. By the time that The Looking Glass War was finished Ian Fleming had published all of his Bond books. There's no doubt that le Carré was writing to stab that particular image of the intelligence services in the back. When people try to understand how Tony Blair's government could come up with something as crude as the 45 minute dodgy Iraq dossier, it's not hard to imagine some of these self-serving bureaucrats behind the scenes.

As with all the other le Carré novels that I've read, this is tightly written. It's grim and the characters are unlikable. Unusually, the plot matters little. What's really interesting is the tension between individuals and the nasty backstabbing world of the intelligence services.

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le Carré - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
le Carré - A Small Town in Germanyle Carré - A Murder of Quality

John le Carré - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Re-reading The Spy Who Came in from the Cold ahead of getting hold of its sequel, I am struck once again how perfectly crafted le Carré's books are. In barely 200 pages the novel takes us from its famous opening scene in the dark night near the border between East and West Berlin, to a thrilling ending after an incredibly complex story. In fact, much of the story is simply people conversing, as former spy controller Alec Leamus changes sides and begins to work for the other side. Needless to say there is a deep and shocking twist, but what really makes the novel is the increasingly scary and intense atmosphere as Leamus is pulled deeper and deeper into enemy territory.

It is, of course, nearly impossible to review this book without giving away plot details. But the atmosphere for dull, grey 1960s London is worth mentioning. Beef tea, tinned chicken and cold single rooms warmed by a weak gas fire...it's not just the interrogations that are chilly. You get a real sense of Britain at the end of it's imperial greatness... it's neighborhoods are dirty, it's airports and bars grim and utilitarian. Even the drinks are bland. Everyone is tired and fed up. Even the activists of the Communist Party groups fake their paper sales figures so they can go home early.

Its a wonderful novel. It's so perfect that when they filmed it they barely seemed to change a scene. By turns punchy and shocking, and ultimately deeply tragic. This is spycraft stripped bare of any glamour - lies and counter lies, bureacracy gone mad, cowardly murders and every sentence uttered mined for information. Its not James Bond, its something far more real.

Related Reviews

le Carré - A Small Town in Germany
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Ian Mortimer - Outcasts of Time

Outcasts of Time is a beautiful book. It tells the story of two Devon men caught up in 1348 in the horror of the plaque. John Wrayment is a skilled stonemason who has carved many of the statues in Exeter cathedral, including the faces of his beloved wife Catherine and his brother William Beard. William is more boisterous, interested in wine, women and song. John's attempts to do a good dead for a baby whose mother has died of the plague. His brother chastises him, arguing that it will bring them no good and only delay their perilous journey home. The good dead turns into its opposite, and in horror and anger, John question's God's purpose.

A disembodied voice offers the two brothers a choice. Return home, and die from the plague, or live six more days each day spaced at intervals of 99 years. The brothers take the second option and their journey through Devon's history begins.

It's a wonderful pretext for a novel. It's made better by Ian Mortimer's historical knowledge and eye for detail. There's plenty here on how the villages change, on how the improving fabric of the buildings themselves allow John and William to see that the country is growing wealthier, though neither brother is naive enough to miss the poverty in the backstreets. There are poignant moments, particularly when the brothers return to their home village and see places they know well, but ruined by age and decay.

John in particular, to William's annoyance believes he has a quest to full-fill. His attempts to do good, improve things take various forms - including simply doing a hard days work. But nothing seems to come of it. But the over-arching change, one that John finds particularly difficult, is the way his religion is taken from him and destroyed by the rise of Protestantism. He visits Exeter cathedral after the Reformation and is shocked to have to pay to enter, but even more shocked to see the destruction of the beautiful statues he has made. Later he comes to blame Henry VIII but he keeps his own faith close, despite it putting him and his brother in danger.

Mortimer does this transformation brilliantly. The brothers can understand technology - there's a touching scene in the 19th century when a clergyman explains steam engines - but they are more upset and shocked by the way that their religious framework has been dismantled. John is particularly troubled by this - if he is on a religious journey or quest, then why is his religion destroyed?

A friend of mine who read this said that they'd enjoyed it, but found it too religious. But for most of the last 800 years most people in England would have only understood the world through their religion. Mortimer's description of the transformation of England works so well precisely because he understands that the changes aren't simply technological, or political, but they are about how the whole ideological fabric of the country was remade. And he let's us understand what that might have meant to an ordinary person experiencing part of the changes. It is, after all, why many people took up arms to defend their communities and their faith during the Reformation.

It's a lovely original story, well told and deeply moving. I highly recommend it.

Related Reviews

Mortimer - The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England

J.L.Carr - A Month in the Country

A few years after the end of World War One, Tom Birkin, a survivor of Passchendaele and a victim of shell shock finds himself in the tiny village of Oxgodby with the job of restoring a medieval painting in the church. Tom arrives in Oxgodby in the pouring rain, yet the weeks he spends there turn into a idyllic summer that he can only contrast with the rain and mud of Flanders. The rainy arrival symbolises his transition into a new era of his life, but the story of what takes place in that summer is told in retrospect - Tom himself only understands it long after he leaves.

As he uncovers the painting he gradually understands that its a masterpiece, a painting of the last judgement, with the damned being condemned to hell and the others rising up to join the heavenly host. The symbolism here isn't difficult to spot, but Carr doesn't force it down the reader's throat, instead he uncovers it slowly, like Tom's restoration.

There are surprisingly few main characters, though Tom's close friendship with Moon, and archaeologist on a similar quest to find a lost grave in the churchyard is touching. They are both veterans of the War, though in very different ways. Moon spots, long before Tom does, that his friendship with the vicar's beautiful wife is becoming more than that and if there is any dramatic heart to the story it is what happens to the two of them.

Tom uncovers a painting; Moon finds a grave and everyone else in the village spends the summer getting the harvest in and going to Church or Chapel. While little happens in terms of a narrative, much takes place. There is a hilarious comic set piece in a music shop where the rivalry between Church and Chapel becomes very real. There's also a moment of pure pain when, without giving away the details, Tom is confronted full on with the consequences of the War. His screams of rage into the empty fields are truly tragic.

This is a beautiful novel - every page celebrates humanity with all its strengths and weaknesses. Despite being written in the late 1970s it feels like an autobiographical sketch by a survivor of the War. That it isn't, is a tribute to the author's ability to make the past a living thing.

Ken Follett - The Pillars of the Earth

Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth is, to the surprise of the experts, one of the most popular novels in the UK. Its sweeping story has been made into a TV series, and even board and computer games and spawned two sequels. The plot covers a largely unknown period of English history, the turbulent 12th century when England was engulfed in Civil War following the death of Henry I's only male heir.

Follett's book is primarily centred on the monastery and settlement at the fictional location of Kingsbridge. There's a  complex web of characters most of whom are hard not to emphasis with, and principally the story looks at those involved in building a cathedral at Kingsbridge and those trying to stop them. What makes the novel work is that the personal antagonisms of various characters, including the vile Earl William and the pious Prior Phillip is in the context of feudal relations and Civil War. William's violence and raids on settlements around his castle are a natural part of feudal society, as are the inter-generational feuds. If the novel overly relies on the ideas of good lords and bad lords, it doesn't neglect that all lords relied utterly on the peasantry to survive.

In fact I suspect that this is one of the reasons for the success of the books. Unusually Pillars of the Earth focuses on the lives and struggles of ordinary people - mostly labourers on the cathedrals, but also their partners and families. While the elite have their role in the book it's often peripheral to the main action, and there are far more detailed descriptions of the lives, labour and food of ordinary people. This is actually quite unusual in novels and works well here, particularly a book that has the hard work of the building of a cathedral at the centre of its epic tale.

There are problems of course. To me the book felt like a soap opera in places - each chapter seeming to end on a cliff hanger that was rapidly resolved by the cleverness of one or other of the "good" characters. There are also a few unlikely coincidences and plot points that don't really make sense (would a grieving husband, having just buried his wife, really jump into bed with a complete stranger a couple of hours later, especially given they were both starving in the midst of winter?) I also found the rape scenes unnecessarily detailed - I get that the author is trying to describe the brutality of a particular character, but it was simply too much. I also skipped a three page sex scene, not out of prudity, but mostly because it was utterly peripheral to the plot.

Nevertheless Follett's book is entertaining. He gives an interesting take on key events in the period and the structure of the book keeps the reader engaged. It's also rare that a novel manages to make the transition from Romanesque to Gothic religious architecture an interesting and integral part of its plot, and it shows well how ordinary people were a central part of that movement.

Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian

The history of the American West is one that is all to often cleansed of its violence. Even modern "Westerns" frequently sanitise the killing through ritual gunfights - highly choreographed shootings. The reality is, as one recent history book has shown, that the modern US is built on systematic violence, oppression and exploitation. So I was attracted to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian precisely because it was supposed to subvert the western genre completely.

It is certainly different. The novel follows the life of "the Kid" a young man from Tennessee who flees his home and joins up with a violent group of Indian hunters on the Texas-Mexican border. For weeks he, and his companions, travel through the deserts hunting down groups of Native Americans and brutally murdering them. These scalp hunters are portrayed as bloodthirsty, alienated, racist killers. Their motivation is initially financial though it becomes genocidal, and after the repeated bloodbaths they drown their sorrows in appalling orgies of drink and rape.

A quick google will show that some one has gone to the trouble of plotting this murderous route onto a map of the US. I'm not sure that the author intended the book to be read as such a literal journey (much like the route taken in McCarthy's other famous work The Road doesn't matter to the plot). McCarthy introduces a collection of vile and surreal characters into the story, and there is a desert showdown of sorts between the Kid and his nemesis, the Judge. But I found the novel's plot barely existed in reality - the tale existed to give the violence a backdrop, rather than the other way around.

Blood Meridian is widely considered one of the greatest novels of North American fiction so I approached reading it with some excitement. My initial enthusiasm was quickly tempered as I found the intensity of the first few chapters giving way to boredom - rather to quickly I found myself immune to the murder; simply taking it as another stage of the Kid's travels. It was only when I realised that this was surely the point, that I re-engaged with the book. Though the Kid and his band are desensitised to the violence, not simply because it is nearly continuous, but also because they have "othered" those they hunt. These are no longer Native Americans, they are animals to be killed for sport and profit.

Other reviewers have noted some deeper themes. The character of the Judge, his relationship to the others in the band, and in particular his violent attraction to young men, and his philosophical discussions are fascinating in themselves, though I liked more how McCarthy depicted the murderous band as being fascinated with the Judge's discussions of history, philosophy and science.

It's "based on true events" but its only real historical accuracy is to say that the West was won through brutal, systematic and racialised violence. Is it a good book? I am not sure. I was shocked, bored, and appalled by turns, and finally disappointed by the ending (though it benefits from a re-reading). I can't even say whether I'd recommend it, though McCarthy is certainly talented, but it is certainly an antidote to the anodyne nature of much of what passes for Westerns.

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McCarthy - The Road

Claire North - The End of the Day

Claire North's first two books focused on individuals with odd powers. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August was about people who returned to the beginning of their lives with their memories intact upon their death. Touch was about people who could possess other peoples bodies at will. This book however is very different, it's about Charlie, who is employed by Death as her harbinger. Charlie has no special abilities except perhaps, a faith in individuals (which is greatly tested by some of the people he visits) and being good at listening, which is particularly useful as people tend to pour out their thoughts to him.

The plot is fairly thin, but the book is extremely readable. It's as much a comment on the state of the world, as on the lives of the people Charlie meets. Chapters are interspersed by random snippets of conversation which betray both the happiness and sadness of people's lives and their rage at the world around them. War, Famine and Pestilence, as well as their respective harbingers, stalk the land and North depicts how their abilities have changed with the modern world, but how the opportunities for disaster have spread. I was struck by the contemporary relevance of this in a small aside at the end as War looks at a small island in the South China Seas and the captain of the ship comments how "they" have put their flag on it. Its never mentioned who they are, but War is suitably pleased at what this means.

As Charlie travels the world meeting people and giving gifts the reader is often left wondering what happens next. Charlie is at pains to explain that his visit doesn't mean death is imminent, and his gifts often help the recipient live longer. This is a bureaucratic process run by a expertly staffed office in Milton Keynes (having visited the place I'm not surprised that Death's office is there), and when Charlie finds himself in difficult situations, he is helped out by the bureaucracy. Though his activities attract the attention of the authorities who like many, want to bargain with Death itself.

Oddly the thing that worked least for me, is that Death, and his harbinger, are simply accepted by so many people. The news reports on him occasionally; people are often completely unsurprised by his presence, or existence and crucially, the authorities track him.

At the end of the book what I remembered most was the anger. North's characters are angry at racism and poverty (there's an interesting scene with a Black Lives Matter demo); war and climate change are constant backdrops. Imperialist destruction of South America and the Middle East are repeatedly mentioned and the way that the profits come before people is behind some of the key scenes of the book. The first time that Charlie is caught on camera, for instance, is when he visits a family being forced out of their London home by a company that wants to build luxury apartments.

The End of the Day is not as good a novel as North's earlier books - the central idea just didn't quite work for me this time. But in turns tragic and funny, it is a book that made me think, which is no bad thing at all. It also contains a highly appropriate quote from Karl Marx if you can find it.

Related Reviews

North - Touch
North - The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

R.F. Delderfield - To Serve Them All My Days

Miner's son David Powlett-Jones is shell-shocked after three years on the Western Front. Rather strangely his doctor suggests he'll recover by getting a job in a remote public school in the west country and, despite his utter lack of teaching experience, the young man is immediately offered a teaching post by a rather desperate headmaster. This is how To Serve Them All My Days Begins and if it seems unlikely that's the least surprising of some of the coincidences and bits of good luck that Powlett-Jones experiences through the next 600 odd pages.

Delderfield loved the sweeping historical yarn, and the rather unlikely start to this novel is really an opportunity to setup a interesting individual in an unusual situation to allow all sorts of events to take place which allow the author to comment on the arc of English history that begins in 1918 and ends half way through the Second World War. Powlett-Jones arrives in a minor public school, Bamfylde, which itself has seen better days. He immediately distinguishes himself by refusing to teach history traditionally, instead engaging the boys (they are all boys) in discussion about the war and its causes.

Simply by discussing these subjects, and arguing that not all Germans are beasts, and questioning the priorities, Powlett-Jones is immediately labelled a Bolshie. In fact, a running theme through the book, is the way he is seen as an outsider, a radical. Yet the irony is, Powlett-Jones isn't really Bolshie at all. In fact he is simply looking for a better world, and he finds it for himself in the dusty corridors of Bamfylde. Delderfield cleverly weaves the ups and downs of the 1920s and 1930s into Powlett-Jones' own life. But PJ as he is known by most of his colleagues and friends, actually manages to avoid any real engagement with the sweeping changes taking place. In fact, he prides himself that his own personal ups and downs seem to mirror the outside world, yet he rarely notes what's taking place. Even the book he writes is a rather mundane analysis of the Wars of the Roses through the eyes of a royal figure.

The politics is injected from outside. At one point PJ falls in love with a prospective Labour candidate whose radicalism and despair at Ramsey MacDonald contrasts with PJs. Yet, inevitably, she is dragged into Bamfylde's black hole, rather than breaking PJ from its stiffling, repetitive calendar.

That said, the book is readable, if dated in places. There's quite a lot of sex, talking about sex, and thinking about sex. In fact I'm not sure if the author in his repeated mentions of contraception and sex transposed the latter years of the 1960s back onto the 1920s. I'm not enough of an expert on the period, but it didn't quite ring true in places. But what carries the reader along is of the course the soap-opera story which pulls boys in and then spits them out, with a wry anecdote along the way. Delderfield likes to lay on the nostalgia and the sentimentalism, and at times this hangs heavy. But it must be said he does it well, and PJ's despair as war arrives again and he watches another generation of young men head off, is poignant. But readers may have to ignore the coincidences and amazing good luck that PJ has so that the author can keep the plot going.

What is missing for me is a real sense of class. When PJ returns to his home town he does so as an outsider. He's already been pulled away from the mining communities into a world of the middle classes and lower upper orders. It's an isolated world, which has adopted him, and shaped him in its own image. PJ came remain a liberal, but he's not really that different. It's most notable during his experiences in the 1926 General Strike when PJ's greatest concern is getting back to Bamfylde to make sure everyone is ok.

One final thing must be noted. Anyone who has read Goodbye Mister Chips will not help but notice the very close similarities to James Hilton's classic. Key plot points (including the General Strike) and many others are replicated in Delderfield's book. At times the reader might think one had copied the other, but actually I think it's more to do with the limitations of the subject matter. There can only be so many ideas for events taking place at minor public schools in the interwar period. Slightly dated, and at times overly sentimental, there are worse novels out there, but few that try and cover so much ground in such a readable way.

Related Reviews

Hilton - Goodbye Mr Chips

George MacDonald Fraser - Flashman and the Mountain of Light

Like a number of Flashman novels, Mountain of Light illuminates a small, but extremely important conflict that fundamentally shaped the British Empire. The First and Second Sikh Wars are almost forgotten today – in fact, while reading this novel I looked up available books on the period, and found almost none, a notable contrast with similar events such as the Indian Mutiny or the First Afghan War.

This is surprising because the subject matter is perfect for a Flashman novel and would make a fascinating historical book. In the novel, Flashman is sent to the Punjab in 1845-1846. In the aftermath of the British withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Sikh’s were hoping to exploit the perceived weaknesses of the British army and expand their own interests. The Sikh kingdom had been in turmoil since the death of Ranjit Singh, the former Maharajah. The British were engaged in trying to shore up their interests by building up military strength.

Facing them was a massive, modern and well trained Sikh army known as the Khalsa which is developing autonomous power, and is champing at the bit to attack the British. Their overwhelming numbers, equipment and training seriously threatened British power. Into this potential mess, Flashman is thrown as an undercover politico whose role is to gather intelligence and do his bit to curry favour with the ruling elite and undermine the Khalsa.

It’s the perfect setting for Flashman. He’s adept at languages, though his cover is soon blown. He has various dalliances with the drunken, promiscuous queen and manages to be present as an observer at the two major battles of the First Sikh War, Ferozeshah and Sobraon. The first of these was a near disaster for the British, only saved by the betrayals of the Sikh commander.

Unusually Flashman’s behaviour (luck rather than judgement) in helping this happen isn’t lauded by his superiors. Unlike many of the novels where Flashman seems to be able to do little wrong, Fraser uses the character of the Governer General Sir Henry Hardinge to expose Flashman for who he really is – a rather chancy character who happens to be in the right place at the right time. As Hardinge points out, had things gone differently Flashman might well have been tried as a traitor.

This isn’t the best Flashman novel, though it’s one of the most interesting historically. Flashman is very much a bystander at great events, rather than an active participant. From what I can tell, Fraser’s historical grounding is exemplary, and he puts his character in the appropriate places. It also seems that however surprising the eccentric behaviour of the supporting characters in the book, it’s not that far from the truth.

Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology

When I was about 10 my grandfather gave me a huge book of world mythology. Many of the accounts inside gave me real insights into the culture and religion of my classmates who came from a wide variety of backgrounds. But I was always most taken by the Norse myths. For a young boy these were fantastically dramatic - full of fighting, quests, drama, love and bravery.

So for me, Neil Gaiman's retelling of the myths is a return to much loved stories. And he does it extremely well. The tales aren't overly written - they're bare of details, but designed to allow the reader to fill in the gaps. Readers of Gaiman's other books might be disappointed by this, as was I initially, as I was used to his incredible descriptions of fantastic places. But once you realise that these myths are told as they would be round a camp fire, perhaps by a viking bard reading them to a group of listeners, then you can understand why they work so well.

Those new to the myths, will almost certainly find something they recognise, if only the names of the gods which have recently been reused by the Marvel comic and film franchise. But these characters are different to their movie portrayals. Here for instance Loki develops from an annoying trickster to a vicious psychopath.

North Mythology is an enjoyable retelling of some classic tales. Neil Gaiman's storytelling skills fit the material admirably and its well worth reliving these ancient quests and battles as he tells them.

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Gaiman - American Gods
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Gaiman - Ocean at the End of the Lane
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Anatole France - The Gods Will Have Blood

The title of Anatole France's 1912 novel of the French Revolution reflects a common theme for discussion of that historical event. Reading the book in the centenary year of the Russian Revolution its easy to spot some parallels with commentators on 1917. The idea that revolutions devour their children is a common one for those seeking to defend the status quo, and Anatole France was certainly not the first author to use it. But France was unusual in this - he was a supporter of the Russian Revolution and the formation of the French Communist Party.

The problem really is that in this novel France focuses not on the great events of the French Revolution, but on the role of an individual within it. A young, idealistic and extremely naive Evariste Gamelin is the books' central figure. An unquestioning supporter of Marat and Robespierre, Gamelin is swept up within the Revolution. He falls as passionately in love with Elodie Blaise a woman whom he knows through his artistic work, as he does with the ideals of 1792.

The very real threat to Revolutionary France transforms itself into seeing enemies everywhere. As various groups within the new state struggle for power, and to protect the gains of the Revolution, violence becomes a daily occurrence. Gamelin becomes a revolutionary magistrate, tasked with defending France from its enemies and offering justice to those in front of him. His decent into bloodlust is partly a result of the normality of violence, and from a need to appease his peers. Strangely it seems also to create an erotic lust in Elodie. Eventually, and inevitably, Gamelin becomes a victim of the state violence, just as his heroes Marat and Robespierre did before him.

Oddly the novel's story is the least satisfying part. The strength is the individuals portrayed within it. The old, defeated aristocrats hoping for a revival of their fortunes, prepared to comprimise in any way to defend themselves. The corrupt magistrates, prepared to rape the relatives of their victims on the false promise of freedom. The idealistic individuals inspired by the Revolution and depressed by its reality.

What is lacking however, is a sense of the masses who stormed the Bastille and who joined the Revolutionary armies. Here they are a backdrop to the story of naive Gamelin who rose and fell with the revolution. The masses who made the revolution feel thin and shadowy. Perhaps this is why I was left unsatisfied by France's novel, for all the author's talent.

Ignacio Padilla - Shadow Without A Name

This compelling, if confusing novel spans the darkest years of the twentieth century, from the beginning of the First World War, to the aftermath of the second. Its characters live in central Europe and find themselves in the middle of war, fascism and the Holocaust.

The novel begins with an attempt through a bet on a chess game, to win an identity change which will leave one person in relative safety behind the lines, and the other facing the bullets and shells in the trenches. This sets the scene for repeated changes of identity, until it becomes unclear precisely who is telling the story, about whom.

These characters become embroiled in the nascent fascist movements at the end of the First World War, and eventually rise to be at the heart of Hitler's Nazi Party and, in one case, uniquely positioned to witness the beginnings of the Final Solution. To say more would spoil a complex plot that had this reader constantly looking back to earlier chapters to try and better understand events.

Well written, compelling, shocking and innovative, this is an excellent novel from an author who tragically died far too young.

Hilary Mantel - A Place of Greater Safety

Hilary Mantel's talent for talking historical figures and making them real is put to superb use in this novel of the French Revolution. Focusing on three key revolutionaries, Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins, she weaves their personal lives and loves into the tangled story of the revolution itself. All three figures played central roles and Mantel brings to life the fierce debates that the revolution throws up - the question of violence in particular, deployed in defence of the revolution's gains.

Unfortunately this sharp focus on three individuals means that the mass who made the revolution remains just that - a mass in the background. Occasionally the crowd bursts into the story, but only to highlight the role of one or other of Mantel's heroes. This doesn't denigrate the story, but it means that those trying to understand the dynamics of the revolution may find the twists and turns of history hard to follow.

Ultimately the revolutionary leadership was successful or unsuccessful dependent on what the masses thought of their actions. That they remain a hazy mass off stage in this novel undermines the historical story.

Mantel remains ambiguous on the Revolution itself. Was it good or bad? Much ink is spilt telling the story (the King isn't even executed until page 604) but the reader is left to judge history on very much a personal level. Having made such excellent use of the historical material, famously writing that the more unlikely something seems to be, the more accurate it is, Mantel left me wanting more on what took place and why. For that, the reader should turn elsewhere.

Related Reviews

Jaures - A Socialist History of the French Revolution

McGarr and Callinicos - Marxism and the Great French Revolution

Basma Abdel Aziz - The Queue

**Spoilers**

This is one of the most extraordinary novels that I have read in many years. It is being favourably compared to Orwell's 1984 or Kafka's The Trial. Certainly there are many similarities with these works that depict the difficulties faced by individuals confronted by brutal authoritarian rule and faceless bureaucracy. But to simply see this novel as being a Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy gone mad is, in my opinion, too miss its essential context. This is, of course, the Egyptian Revolution.

First published in 2013 and only recently translated here, the book fits the period after Mubarak had been overthrown and anticipates the fall of Morsi and the rise of el-Sisi. As such we get a novel depicting the country in a state of political and economic uncertainty, easily exploited by the new order.

Set in a nameless Middle Eastern country in the aftermath of the "Disgraceful Events" when protests and riots against the country's dictatorship were brutally suppressed. Immediately after these "events", a new, faceless authority "The Gate" appears and from it an endless stream of commands, decrees and laws are made. At first these seem relatively benign, but as the Gate imposes its will it becomes harder and harder to function without the right paperwork.

Then the Gate closes. And the story centres on those who end up queueing outside waiting for the Gate to open. In particular we follow those trying to help their friend, Yehya, who was injured during the Disgraceful Events, and who has a bullet lodged inside him. His friends struggle to get help from the doctors, who are themselves trapped by rules that prevent them assisting. The bureaucracy clamps down harder and harder, statements follow statements. "Bullets were used by the protesters, not the security forces" the Gate declares. "Bullets were not used at all", "Foreigners are to blame", "There was no Disgraceful Event".

Various characters in the Queue represent different forces in the Revolution. There's the religious activist, convinced that only a strict adherence to religion will prevent social decay. There's young women who are fighting sexism and harassment and trying to organise against the state, and there is a man who truly believes his cousin who died in the security forces was actually a hero. There's even a brilliant little discussion about the role of social media as an organising tool.

But behind all this is the imposing monolith of The Gate. As a metaphor for an authoritarian state it's perfect. But the brilliance of this novel isn't this idea alone, nor the depiction of the un-moving queue of increasingly desperate people waiting outside - though the descriptions of the interactions in the queue are wonderful. What is fantastic in the way the author shows how the authoritarian state serves only its interests, and how this destroys some people's illusions, makes some people give up hope and forces others to try and fight back.

Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven

Station Eleven is one of the best post-apocalyptic novels I have ever read. Perhaps second only to George R. Stewart's ecological classic Earth Abides, in my personal list of favourites. Unusually the novel doesn't just tell the story of what happens to those who survive the end of civilisation, instead Mandel opts to tell the story in part through flashback. Contrasting the lives of those who survive with events from before the tragedy.

Central to the story are actors, plays and the theatre. In the modern world, the story and the characters themselves revolve around Arthur Leander. His wives, friends, and the medics who try to save him form characters in the aftermath of a rapidly spreading flu that decimates the population.

As always in this novel what is fascinating is what happens after the fall of civilisation. One of the central characters in the post-apocalyptic world, Kirsten, a child actor on stage with Arthur Leander at the point when the flu arrives in Toronto, cannot remember the "first year". She's considered lucky. But like many other survivors she remains obsessed with the old world, collecting pictures and stories about Leander from old gossip magazines. With nothing left of the old world, all she can hold on to is the the famous old actor, and the enigmatic graphic novels he gave her - the Station Eleven of the title.

This obsession with the past is true of others too, there's a brief encounter with a scientist trying to find "the internet". Having rigged up a bicycle generator, he peddles furiously and the youngsters are amazed to see a laptop screen light up. Alas, Page Not Found. There are moments too when Mandel's writing gives us real insights into her characters, like the argument about the rudimentary lessons given to children in the new order. At what point should the adults simply stop teaching them about how things were? What's the use of telling them about aeroplanes and mobile phones when they cannot comprehend them?

Beautifully written, with detailed well rounded characters and a plot that never falls into cliche. This is a novel that should become a classic and I highly recommend it.

Colin Forbes - Tramp in Armour

Colin Forbes was the pseudonym of Raymond Sawkins, a prolific writer of thrillers and war novels Tramp in Armour was one of his first, and in its time was an extremely popular novel. Like many war novels of the 1970s it is an improbable tale of daring British soldiers pitted against a ruthless enemy. Forbes spares no blushes in telling his tale, characters are introduced and killed off in a relentless series of set-pieces.

Sargent Barnes, the commander of one of the British Expeditionary Forces few Matilda tanks is trapped behind enemy lines as German panzers' sweep across Belgium and France. Desperately trying to regain contact with the British, Barnes and his crew must make their way to Dunkirk. So far, so good, but Forbes keeps the story running by giving the reader a series of near unbelievable adventures. Barnes' tank must hide under a bridge as a German convoy drives overhead; Barnes has to hide a tank in a haystack as a German convoy drives past; Barnes has to avoid detection by over-flying German planes.

All of this might seem quite silly. Yet Forbes' story telling is surprisingly compelling, even if at times somewhat laughable (at one point Barnes swims in ice-cold water with "clenched teeth" as a result of his wounds). I was surprised to remember much of the plot from reading this as a boy, testament to Forbes' storytelling - or maybe the mindbogglingly unlikely events.

Oddly the book reminded me most of a computer game. In fact the climax is rather like the final boss in some first-person shooter, where the player has mown down hordes of identikit troops and suffered unbelievable injuries, but still continues. I'm surprised it was never made into a film in that era when war-films were simply "goodies" versus "badies". It's no work of art, but it has a certain something... you'll probably find it on the shelf of a tired hotel somewhere in Yorkshire... you could do worse than read it on a rainy Sunday.

Arthur Ransome - Missee Lee

Re-reading Missee Lee after a break of perhaps 30 years, I am struck by how very different it is from the other books in Ransomes' children's novels. This is not simply because it is not a "real" story, in the sense that it is the imaginations of the Swallows and Amazons, rather than an account of their adventures. But its more because the story is centered in an adult world, which intrudes closely upon the enclosed stories that the Swallows and Amazons normally have. For instance, in Missee Lee the "natives" have guns and shots are fired. Execution and imprisonment are real, and the children face real peril that is beyond anything experienced in other stories.

The other great shock is the appalling stereotypical behaviour and speech of the Chinese characters. Ransome was writing in a period when such stereotypes were considered acceptable, but read today the language jars horribly. I don't recollect any such feelings when I read it as a boy, but that's perhaps a reflection on England in the 1970s more than anything else.

The story itself is centered on the events that follow the destruction of the Wild Cat, Captain Flint's sailing ship. He and the children are on a round the world tour, and they abandon ship to land on a hidden group of islands ruled by the pirate Missee Lee. Lee herself is an interesting character, her power stems from being the daughter of the pirate who united the islands, and she plays a careful role, balancing the interests of the other rulers. Educated in Cambridge, she aches for the idolised past that she left behind, and imprisons the children with Latin lessons. Ransome cleverly inverts the roles of the Swallows and Amazons themselves, making childish Roger the expert in Latin who shows up the others.

The danger to the children lies in that they represent England's colonial power. Hearing that John's father is a Captain in the navy panics the pirates who fear that a gunboat will be sent to destroy their island base. Missee Lee wants to keep them forever, and the tensions break open the truce by which the islands remain united.

As a children's novel this is perhaps the least satisfying of the series. The magic of the others was that the children remain mostly closeted from the adult world. Even Peter Duck the other "non-real" fantasy story mostly separates the children's adventure with Captain Flint from the usually distant threat of their pursuers. Instead here the story is all too real, and while there's actually more to it than the other books, I suspect it was a disappointment to the intended audience. As a boy Missee Lee was my least favourite of the series, read only once, while others were repeatedly devoured. Today it feels disjointed and racist, and I suspect will be read far less than many other Ransome tales.

Related Reviews

Chambers - The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome
Hardyment - Arthur Ransom and Captain Flint's Trunk
Ransome - Peter Duck
Ransome - We Didn't Mean to go to Sea

Julian Rathbone - A Very English Agent

Throughout much of the 19th century the British government was fearful of revolution. In every dark corner, every working men's pub and every rural village they imagined agitators plotting the violent over-throw of their order. There was, of course, some substance to these fears. There were plenty of people who had reason to despise those at the top of society. Poverty, unemployment and underemployment, hunger and fear of the future were the reality for most working people. Which is why mass movements arose, and why localised rebellions did occur. People burnt hayricks and threshing machines to defend their jobs; attended protest meetings to demand the right to vote and have some say in politics and some, went further and plotted revolution.

The British government had a extensive network of agents. These fed back news to London, and often helped inflame the fears of the ruling classes. But these spies might also have had darker, nastier roles than simply gathering information. We only have to look at recent undercover activity by British police to know that this was likely true back in the 1800s.

Julian Rathbone's romp though the underbelly of British 19th century social history focuses on the life of one of these agents. Charlie Boylan arrested attempting to break into Parliament with a loaded gun claims that he is owed a pension and some money for services rendered to the Crown.  A hired thug, assassin and agent provocateur he helped undermine and finish off rebellious movements and uprising; and in this version of history, he did for some of history's greatest revolutionary minds. The problem is that Boylan's role was never really recorded, so know one is quite sure whether to believe him. And Boylan's role in undermining social movements and being a hired gun also meant he had some insights into the darker side of the lives of the rich and famous.

Its an enjoyable book, though Rathbone works too hard to entertain the reader with knowing puns and historical jokes. Saying that though, Rathbone knew his stuff and there is a surprising amount of forgotten history here, with the occasional cynical comment on the fate of revolution and rebellion. Lefty readers who know their history might raise the odd wry smile and have to ignore the fact that they are reading a book whose central character spent his life helping deny freedom and democracy to ordinary people. But the book might also encourage the reader to explore further the forgotten radical history of Britain, that is just as exciting as any novel can make it. That said, A Very English Agent is well written and quite amusing in places.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

There's little to cheer the reader of Solzhenitsyn's account of a single day in a Soviet gulag. It's a stark, brutal tale of a daily struggle for existence that lives the reader with little hope and a grim sense of hopelessness. Solzhenitsyn's writing is tight and evocative. The detail he uses clearly draws heavily on personal experience, the rolling of a cigarette,

Eino got out a pouch embroidered with pink thread. He took from it a pinch of factory-cut tobacco, put it on Shukhov's pal, sized it up, and added a few wisps. Just enough for one roll-up, not a scrap more. Shukhov had newspaper of his own. He tore a bit off, rolled his cigarette, picked up a hot ember that had landed between the foreman's feet, took a long drag, another long drag and felt a sort of dizziness all over hi body, as though drink had gone to his head and his legs.

The casual treatment of the lack of basics, newspaper instead of rolling papers, and the concern over wisps of tobacco tells us everything we need to know about inmates lives. Shortages of tobacco products are mirrored by the constant quest for food, and more food. The central character declares the day a good one, at the end of the novel, mostly because he'd got himself a couple of extra bites of food.

All you'' get is an extra two hundred grammes of bread of an evening. Bit your life can depend on those two hundred grammes. Two-hundred-gramme portions built the Belomor Canal.

But shortages are nothing compared to the hard work in appalling conditions, and the casual violence for rule-breaking. The isolation, the physical punishment and the bullying of the guards, means making it to the end of the sentence is hard enough. But the real punch in the stomach is the realisation that this is simply one day, in thousands for Ivan Denisovich and his fellow inmates.

The power of One Day is its expose of the reality of the prison camp. Solzhenitsyn's saying little here about why those camps exist, though we get insights into the changes that have taken place in Soviet society. From revolutionary optimism, to the brutal dictatorship of the Stalin era that still uses the language of socialism to justify its rule. One Day caused a shock when first published, alerting the world to the reality of what many knew was taking place.

My edition has a terrible introduction by one John Bayley which seeks to use the novel as a denunciation of all things socialist. While Solzhenitsyn may have had that in his mind as well, this is far from a crude propaganda tract. It's an honest account of what happens when revolutions are destroyed, not an argument against changing the world.