Edition: Corgi
Review number: 417
One of the reviews of the first novel from The Great Game sequence, quoted on the cover of this, the second, describes it as the most significant fantasy novel of the decade. While it is good, and attempts something rather unusual, I don't feel that it is that good. (mind you, I can't think of many fantasy novels from the nineties that I would describe as particularly significant.) Present Tense shares both the strengths and flaws of Past Imperative.
It is hardly surprising that the strengths are shared, since they are mainly in the underlying scenario shared by the whole series. In Present Tense, the two worlds of First World War England and Nexdoor in the grip of its rapacious deities are alternated, as the Nextdoor elements consist of a tale told by Edward Exeter to the few people he can get to believe in him. A new item which is good is a tribe on Nextdoor with a very unusual culture, completely unlike the European peasantry, nobility and barbarian hordes which usually inhabit fantasy novels. Instead, it is based on an African society with segregated groups of unmarried men.
A lot of what goes on in these books seems to really be about anti-colonialism. Exeter's own background - brought up in Africa yet (unusually) freely allowed to mingle with the people around rather than being kept in completely European society of sent to an English prep school - is explicitly said to help him interact with the people he meets on Nextdoor in contrast to the standard British colonial behaviour. But the whole background of Nextdoor, where the exploitative deities are normal Earth people who have gained vast powers as a result of crossing over, is a (fairly unsubtle) commentary on imperialist culture.
The major shared weakness is a poor start; with each novel, it is about fifty pages before the story grips enough for the initial "This rubbish isn't worth reading" reaction to wear off. I can't quite see what it is that Duncan fails to do, but this novel would be improved by omitting or rewriting the introductory section, which deals with the British army's reaction to Exeter's sudden appearance naked on the Western Front. Maybe changing the style so that it read more like the reader would expect from a 1917 army report - which is what it purports to be - would help. Alternatively, just beginning with the second section, in which Exeter has been incarcerated in a mental hospital in Kent, would be better than what we have (it would be easy to work out how he got there).
Tuesday, 11 January 2000
Monday, 10 January 2000
Andre Norton: Dread Companion (1970)
Edition: Gollancz, 1970
Review number: 416
In this novel, aimed at a slightly older audience than most of her writing, Norton uses several themes from folklore and child psychology to create a disturbing story. Accepting a post as governess to get away from a world which has little to offer a woman of intelligence, Kilda soon comes to realise that there is something strange about her charges. Like Miles and Flora in A Turn of the Screw, Bartare and Oomark have an invisible companion who is rather unpleasant, and they start to play mind games with Kilda under the direction of the mysterious "She".
When they arrive at their destination, the planet Dylan, things get worse; Kilda follows the children through some kind of gateway into a very different world, woven by Norton from the legends of the land of Faery. Easily one of the best writers of science fiction for teenagers, Norton has managed to find new and very effective ways to combine well worn, psychologically telling elements.
Review number: 416
In this novel, aimed at a slightly older audience than most of her writing, Norton uses several themes from folklore and child psychology to create a disturbing story. Accepting a post as governess to get away from a world which has little to offer a woman of intelligence, Kilda soon comes to realise that there is something strange about her charges. Like Miles and Flora in A Turn of the Screw, Bartare and Oomark have an invisible companion who is rather unpleasant, and they start to play mind games with Kilda under the direction of the mysterious "She".
When they arrive at their destination, the planet Dylan, things get worse; Kilda follows the children through some kind of gateway into a very different world, woven by Norton from the legends of the land of Faery. Easily one of the best writers of science fiction for teenagers, Norton has managed to find new and very effective ways to combine well worn, psychologically telling elements.
Thursday, 6 January 2000
F. Scott FitzGerald: Tender is the Night (1934)
Edition: Everyman
Review number: 413
Tender is the Night is famous for two things: its unusual temporal structure andits masterly depiction of mental instability (both Freudian psychosis caused by the trauma of incest, and alcoholism). The two central characters, Nicole and Dick Diver, initiall appear to be a happy couple, the soul of the parts among the rich Americans based on the French Riviera. Their stabillity seems only marginally affected by the young film star Rosemary who falls in love with Dick. However, at the end of the first part the reader sees that the reality behind the facade is rather more fragile, for reasons which become apparent in the flashback which makes up the second part. Dick is an immensely successful psychiatrist, and Nicole was one of his patients, unable to live a normal life after abuse by her father. She developed a crush on Dick, to which he eventually responded by marrying her - a bad mistake, according to Freudian ideas on transference, the process by which a patient's dependence on the psychiatrist is reflected by inappropriate feelings of desire towards him/her. The final part, increasingly blurred chronologically, catalogues Nicole's gradual recovery from trauma and her need of Dick while he pursues a parallel course downwards (as prophesied by his surname) into alcoholism.
While not appearing dated, after over half a century Tender is the Night does not seem as difficult to understand as many critics considered it when it first appeared. It's chronology was a particular source of confusion, but this is not longer something which appears particularly innovative (as the idea of a non-linear chronology is one which underlies much of the literature of the later twentieth century).
Review number: 413
Tender is the Night is famous for two things: its unusual temporal structure andits masterly depiction of mental instability (both Freudian psychosis caused by the trauma of incest, and alcoholism). The two central characters, Nicole and Dick Diver, initiall appear to be a happy couple, the soul of the parts among the rich Americans based on the French Riviera. Their stabillity seems only marginally affected by the young film star Rosemary who falls in love with Dick. However, at the end of the first part the reader sees that the reality behind the facade is rather more fragile, for reasons which become apparent in the flashback which makes up the second part. Dick is an immensely successful psychiatrist, and Nicole was one of his patients, unable to live a normal life after abuse by her father. She developed a crush on Dick, to which he eventually responded by marrying her - a bad mistake, according to Freudian ideas on transference, the process by which a patient's dependence on the psychiatrist is reflected by inappropriate feelings of desire towards him/her. The final part, increasingly blurred chronologically, catalogues Nicole's gradual recovery from trauma and her need of Dick while he pursues a parallel course downwards (as prophesied by his surname) into alcoholism.
While not appearing dated, after over half a century Tender is the Night does not seem as difficult to understand as many critics considered it when it first appeared. It's chronology was a particular source of confusion, but this is not longer something which appears particularly innovative (as the idea of a non-linear chronology is one which underlies much of the literature of the later twentieth century).
Edmund Crispin: Holy Disorders (1946)
Review number: 415
Summoned by a telegram sent by his old friend Gervase Fen asking him to take over temporarily from the incapacitated organist at Tolnbridge Cathedral, Geoffrey Vintner finds himself involved in a strange plot: several attempts are made to prevent him successfully making the journey down to Devon.
Once he arrives at Tolnbridge, it becomes clear only that the organist was put out of action by an attack from a group of people, yet it is not at all obvious who they are or what they wanted. It may be connected with radio broadcasts made to the German forces from the area, detailing fleet movements from an important naval base nearby (the novel is contemporary to when it was written). One of Tolnbridge's claims to fame as a diocese is for the persistence of witches covens in the area, and some trials in the seventeenth century. Rumours have started of black magical ceremonies being practised in the area once again, and the attack may be connected with these groups.
Crispin binds all these elements together to create a mystifying puzzle for Fen to unravel. Fen is one of the more unsympathetic detectives in the genre - vain, eccentric, childish and prone to keep information back ready for later dramatic revelation. He is always ahead of the reader - Crispin has quite difficult puzzles, and I suspect that he cheats (In Holy Disorders, Fen says "I know who it is" but won't elaborate, and this comes some pages before I think there is enough evidence to be definite about the murderer.)
Charles Dickens: Bleak House (1853)
Edition: Heron
Review number: 414
This famous attack on the excesses of the Court of Chancery is one of my favourite Dickens novels. By the nineteenth century, Chancery was a medieval anachronism which still made decisions on property disputes arising out of wills. Based on obscure law and strange principles of equity, its judgements were expensive and time consuming, incomprehensible even to most lawyers. Cases dragged on for many years - generations, even - frequently incurring costs beyond the sums disputed, occasionally eating up the entire estate in question in costs before a decision was reached.
Such a case forms the background to Bleak House. Jarndyce v. Jarndyce has gone on for years, casting uncertainty over the lives of those embroiled in it, including the young orphans Richard Carstone and Ada Clare, who are wards of the court because of their inherited interests in the case. They are adopted by their genial and charitable cousin John Jarndyce, who takes them to live in his home, Bleak House, in attempted reparation for the shadow of the suit. As in Much Ado About Nothing, the conventional main plot of Bleak House (the romance between Richard and Ada) takes second place to events involving more interesting characters. Their cousin brings them together with the focus of another of his charitable projects, the gentle Esther Summerson. Much of the novel is told from her point of view - it is written in an unusual combination of first and third person narrative, depending on whether Esther witnesses events or not. Other than an over sentimental side, she is quite charming and easily becomes the most important personality in the book. The mystery of her parentage is one of the important strands of the plot.
But it is the minor characters who are the main treasures of Bleak House, both likeable and unlikeable. In the latter category there are several characters satirising the Victorian obsession with charity. Mrs Jellyby is the most prominent of these, obsessed with projects for the natives of Borriboola-Gha to the exclusion of bringing up - or even noticing - her large family. On the likeable side, there are several who are connected in some way with the Chancery, and these include one of my favourite of all Dickensian characters, Miss Flite, at one time a party to a Chancery suit driven mad by the proceedings of the court.
Bleak House is a remarkably genial novel for a satire with the intention to provoke reform. This is partly due to the nature of the target (best exemplified through the metaphorical fog which appears throughout the novel), but it also produces a sense of helplessness in the face of legal obfuscation which in the end makes its point even more strongly.
Review number: 414
This famous attack on the excesses of the Court of Chancery is one of my favourite Dickens novels. By the nineteenth century, Chancery was a medieval anachronism which still made decisions on property disputes arising out of wills. Based on obscure law and strange principles of equity, its judgements were expensive and time consuming, incomprehensible even to most lawyers. Cases dragged on for many years - generations, even - frequently incurring costs beyond the sums disputed, occasionally eating up the entire estate in question in costs before a decision was reached.
Such a case forms the background to Bleak House. Jarndyce v. Jarndyce has gone on for years, casting uncertainty over the lives of those embroiled in it, including the young orphans Richard Carstone and Ada Clare, who are wards of the court because of their inherited interests in the case. They are adopted by their genial and charitable cousin John Jarndyce, who takes them to live in his home, Bleak House, in attempted reparation for the shadow of the suit. As in Much Ado About Nothing, the conventional main plot of Bleak House (the romance between Richard and Ada) takes second place to events involving more interesting characters. Their cousin brings them together with the focus of another of his charitable projects, the gentle Esther Summerson. Much of the novel is told from her point of view - it is written in an unusual combination of first and third person narrative, depending on whether Esther witnesses events or not. Other than an over sentimental side, she is quite charming and easily becomes the most important personality in the book. The mystery of her parentage is one of the important strands of the plot.
But it is the minor characters who are the main treasures of Bleak House, both likeable and unlikeable. In the latter category there are several characters satirising the Victorian obsession with charity. Mrs Jellyby is the most prominent of these, obsessed with projects for the natives of Borriboola-Gha to the exclusion of bringing up - or even noticing - her large family. On the likeable side, there are several who are connected in some way with the Chancery, and these include one of my favourite of all Dickensian characters, Miss Flite, at one time a party to a Chancery suit driven mad by the proceedings of the court.
Bleak House is a remarkably genial novel for a satire with the intention to provoke reform. This is partly due to the nature of the target (best exemplified through the metaphorical fog which appears throughout the novel), but it also produces a sense of helplessness in the face of legal obfuscation which in the end makes its point even more strongly.
Wednesday, 5 January 2000
George MacDonald Fraser: Flashman at the Charge (1973)
Review number: 412
The fourth Flashman novel tells of his involvement in the Crimean War, with the Charge of the Light Brigade as its centrepiece. Great play is made on the contrast between Tennyson's heroic poem and Flashman on the back cover ("Was there a man dismay'd? Yes, one - Flashman"). It is one of the most fun of the series, though it does have a darker side in the stupidity of the commanders at Balaclava and the Russian brutality towards their serfs.
Tuesday, 4 January 2000
Michael Moorcock: The War Lord of the Air (1971)
Edition: Granada, 1984
Review number: 411
The War Lord of the Air is one of my favourite Moorcock novels. It inspired by turn of the century adventure stories with a fantastic element, with influences such as Buchan, Haggard and Wells as well as the tradition exemplified by (say) Lanier's Brigadier Ffellowes stories. It is a precursor of the genre known as "steampunk", with its additional element of alternate history centred around alternate technology.
Whilst on a mission to a remote kingdom in the Himalayas in 1902, Captain Oswald Bastable of the British Army is caught in an earthquake. He recovers consciousness in a ruined city - but the ruins seem old. Eventually he discovers that he has travelled through time to 1973 - but not 1973 as we have experienced it. The First World War never happened, and the world remains divided up between the colonial powers. The dominant technology is that of the airship, powered by compact steam engines. Feigning amnesia (and, of course, having no knowledge of any event since 1902), Bastable attempts to make his way in an entirely new world, though actually one not as different from 1902 as the real 1973 would have been.
As in other alternate histories, part of the fun lies in seeing well known people in very different situations. There are several revolutionaries, including Che Guevara and an aged Vladimir Ulianov (Lenin), but the oddest is the clean cut young army lieutenant Michael Jagger.
Review number: 411
The War Lord of the Air is one of my favourite Moorcock novels. It inspired by turn of the century adventure stories with a fantastic element, with influences such as Buchan, Haggard and Wells as well as the tradition exemplified by (say) Lanier's Brigadier Ffellowes stories. It is a precursor of the genre known as "steampunk", with its additional element of alternate history centred around alternate technology.
Whilst on a mission to a remote kingdom in the Himalayas in 1902, Captain Oswald Bastable of the British Army is caught in an earthquake. He recovers consciousness in a ruined city - but the ruins seem old. Eventually he discovers that he has travelled through time to 1973 - but not 1973 as we have experienced it. The First World War never happened, and the world remains divided up between the colonial powers. The dominant technology is that of the airship, powered by compact steam engines. Feigning amnesia (and, of course, having no knowledge of any event since 1902), Bastable attempts to make his way in an entirely new world, though actually one not as different from 1902 as the real 1973 would have been.
As in other alternate histories, part of the fun lies in seeing well known people in very different situations. There are several revolutionaries, including Che Guevara and an aged Vladimir Ulianov (Lenin), but the oddest is the clean cut young army lieutenant Michael Jagger.
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