Edition: Heron
Review number: 542
Generally considered Dickens' weakest novel, and certainly consistently his least known, Hard Times is a campaigning work about the conditions experienced by workers in northern English industrial towns. The reason that it is unsatisfactory is not, in fact, hard to see: Dickens did not become involved in his subject in the way that he did in his other novels attacking abuses (such as David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby and Little Dorrit). The remedy for the abuses of the rich mill owners was not obvious, and Dickens viewed one potential remedy (organisation of the workers) with deep distrust. So Dickens' campaign here had no definite aim, and so the best that he could suggest was an appeal to the individual philanthropy of the mill owners.
The distance of author from subject has its most obvious repercussions in the characters in the novel, normally one of Dickens' strong points. His plots are usually melodramatic, and characters tend not to develop, but even the small parts are vividly drawn. The most interesting person in the book is Mr Gradgrind, but he is the personification of a secondary target of the novel, the idea that education should just be about "hard facts", the bloodless classification of objects into categories which are meaningless and useless to the average child ("Horse. Graminivorous quadruped..."). Everyone else, particularly the working class, is colourless.
The best pasts of Hard Times are the descriptions of the fictional Coketown in which it is set. These remind the reader that Dickens started out as a journalist. In the end, though, I was quite grateful that Hard Times is one of Dickens' shortest completed novels.
Wednesday, 19 July 2000
Paul Doherty: The Devil's Domain (1998)
Edition: Headline, 1998
Review number: 541
The Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan now join Paul Doherty's other successful historical novels in being published under that name rather than the Paul Harding pseudonym. Eighth in the series, The Devil's Domain is typical, with the background of 1390s London fearful because of the growing unrest that would eventually lead to the Peasant's Revolt. Though this background is constantly part of the novel (and, indeed, the series), the more immediate cause of the mystery to be investigated by John Cranston, Coroner of the City of London, and his friend brother Athelstan, is the ongoing wars with France (later lumped together by historians as the Hundred Years' War).
A group of French prisoners has been housed in Hawkmere Manor, now Cripplegate, during a truce while their ransoms are negotiated and paid. However, one of them dies mysteriously, poisoned in a locked room even though the prisoners have agreed only to eat food they have shared, fearing an attack of this kind.
The plot is ingenious (though fairly specialist knowledge would be needed to work it out ahead of brother Athelstan). The background is, as always in Doherty's medieval novels, detailed and convincing (and not as sanitised as that presented by, say, Ellis Peters). Whatever author's name they appear under, the series continues to be worth reading.
Review number: 541
The Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan now join Paul Doherty's other successful historical novels in being published under that name rather than the Paul Harding pseudonym. Eighth in the series, The Devil's Domain is typical, with the background of 1390s London fearful because of the growing unrest that would eventually lead to the Peasant's Revolt. Though this background is constantly part of the novel (and, indeed, the series), the more immediate cause of the mystery to be investigated by John Cranston, Coroner of the City of London, and his friend brother Athelstan, is the ongoing wars with France (later lumped together by historians as the Hundred Years' War).
A group of French prisoners has been housed in Hawkmere Manor, now Cripplegate, during a truce while their ransoms are negotiated and paid. However, one of them dies mysteriously, poisoned in a locked room even though the prisoners have agreed only to eat food they have shared, fearing an attack of this kind.
The plot is ingenious (though fairly specialist knowledge would be needed to work it out ahead of brother Athelstan). The background is, as always in Doherty's medieval novels, detailed and convincing (and not as sanitised as that presented by, say, Ellis Peters). Whatever author's name they appear under, the series continues to be worth reading.
Tuesday, 18 July 2000
Giovanni Guareschi: Comrade Don Camillo (1964)
Translation: Frances Frenaye, 1964
Edition: Gollancz, 1964
Review number: 538
The magazine in which the later Don Camillo stories were published folded as the Italian political situation changed and people lost interest in the old battle between the Church and the Communists. Comrade Don Camillo was published in its last few issues, and is unique in the series in that it was conceived as a unified narrative.
The plot is basically that mayor Peppone, now a Senator, is offered the chance to take a group of faithful members of the Communist Party on a trip to the Soviet Union. Don Camillo persuades Peppone to take him in the guise of one of these Party members, because he is curious to see something of the truth behind the propaganda.
It is an interesting if implausible idea, thought the principal virtue of the Don Camillo series, its charm, is distinctly weakened when the tales are removed from their native Po valley.
Edition: Gollancz, 1964
Review number: 538
The magazine in which the later Don Camillo stories were published folded as the Italian political situation changed and people lost interest in the old battle between the Church and the Communists. Comrade Don Camillo was published in its last few issues, and is unique in the series in that it was conceived as a unified narrative.
The plot is basically that mayor Peppone, now a Senator, is offered the chance to take a group of faithful members of the Communist Party on a trip to the Soviet Union. Don Camillo persuades Peppone to take him in the guise of one of these Party members, because he is curious to see something of the truth behind the propaganda.
It is an interesting if implausible idea, thought the principal virtue of the Don Camillo series, its charm, is distinctly weakened when the tales are removed from their native Po valley.
Iain Banks: The Business (1999)
Review number: 537
The Business is a shadowy commercial operation which has been in existence for thousands of years, and which now aims to buy itself a country, so its senior executives can gain the privileges which go with a diplomatic passport. Kate Telman, the narrator, is not quite up to that level, but is one of the rising stars in the Business, and it is not particularly surprising when she is asked to become an ambassador of sorts to the Himalayan kingdom of Thulahn to arrange the purchase of the country from the reigning prince, particularly as he is known to have a strong fancy for her.
The Business is, of course, designed by Banks to be the kind of organisation which attracts conspiracy theories, even if Kate is quite vehement in denying them ("We're not a cover for the CIA. They're the Company, not the Business."). This aspect of the novel is entertaining and unusual: most conspiracy theory novels are written from the point of view of an external investigator, rather than someone closely involved in what could clearly appear sinister to an outsider even if considered relatively innocent by herself. Kate has strong reasons to be grateful to the Business, which lifted her out of the deprived background in which she was born, but she is not entirely naive about the organisation and some of its senior members. She is one of several female point of view characters used by Banks (Canal Dreams, Whit, and Against a Dark Background provide other examples), and is reasonably convincing if a little bland.
The star of The Business is Thulahn, which is an exaggerated version of Bhutan or Nepal, content to remain one of the remotest parts of the world. The people may be poor, but at least they're happy. The questionable benefits of Business sponsored development programmes begin to make Kate think twice about the whole deal, but in the end the country's portrayal is too idyllic for the issues to have real meaning.
If The Business has a message, it is one it shares with Whit. This is that it is possible - and maybe easier - to be happy without the distractions of modern Western culture, without the consumer luxuries with which we are surrounded. (Whit makes this point more effectively, as its narrator is one of those on the outside of consumer culture, while Kate lives a life of corporate luxury.) Banks is surely trying to say that we should look at our own lives to see what in the material world is really important, what really brings us happiness.
This is one of the reasons why The Business lacks the significance of Banks' earlier novels - or other novels about the third world. Compared to, say, The God of Small Things, it has nothing to say; it lacks the brilliance of The Bridge or the immense shock value of The Wasp Factory. Banks seems to have become a bit too comfortable, but is still a good writer and extremely entertaining.
Thursday, 13 July 2000
Leo Tolstoy: A Confession (1865)
Edition: Everyman
Review number: 536
In contrast to Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground, with which it is packaged in this Everyman edition, A Confession is a work of non-fictional autobiography. It followed Tolstoy's greatest work, rather than preceding it as Notes From Underground did that of the older writer. There are similarities, in that both authors use these short pieces of writing to set out something of their views on life, and as these philosophical ideas are vitally part of their great novels, the works bear similar roles in the authors' output as a whole.
The subject of A Confession - not a title Tolstoy liked, but imposed by publishers because of similarities to Rousseau's Confessions - is the move of the writer away from the religious certainties of his Orthodox childhood. This started with an excited discussion between Lev and his brothers after one of them had been told that there was no God. The line of thought taken by Tolstoy from that date parallels that of the writer of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, which is quoted at length. Basically, Ecclesiastes looks at the world from a purely materialistic point of view, and comes to the conclusion that it is meaningless; only God, the writer feels, can make sense of life. Tolstoy does not take the same final step, being put off by the vast differences between the professed values and the actions of those who called themselves believers in the nineteenth century Russia upper classes. He tried to copy the simple faith of the peasantry, by just glossing over the parts of Orthodox ritual he didn't 'understand' - the word he uses, though he really means 'identify with' in today's terms. When he realised that this amounted to most of the ritual, he left the church and effectively formulated his own personal religion, trying to follow the moral teachings of the New Testament while jettisoning every other part of Christianity.
Tolstoy's religious writings, of which this is the best known and (I think) the first, were fairly influential in the last years of the nineteenth century. He considered these works his most important and retired from novel writing to concentrate on them, before returning to fiction with Resurrection years later - and even then, the novel was written as a way to publicise his ideas.
Today, the religious work of Tolstoy is relatively obscure, and there are both historical and literary reasons for this. The Russian Revolution brought suspicion in the West on ideas from that country, even if they were not Communist in origin. Thus, Tolstoy ceased to be cited as an influence on atheistic humanism, even as this became one of the dominant philosophies of the twentieth century. From a literary point of view, Tolstoy tends to play to the gallery; in A Confession, the autobiography is smoothed out for public consumption, every action rationalised and justified (in a rhetorical way, the philosophical argument being of a poor standard). In the end, the reader is left wondering whether Tolstoy really believes what he says, and certainly is in doubt as to the way he actually reached these beliefs.
Review number: 536
In contrast to Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground, with which it is packaged in this Everyman edition, A Confession is a work of non-fictional autobiography. It followed Tolstoy's greatest work, rather than preceding it as Notes From Underground did that of the older writer. There are similarities, in that both authors use these short pieces of writing to set out something of their views on life, and as these philosophical ideas are vitally part of their great novels, the works bear similar roles in the authors' output as a whole.
The subject of A Confession - not a title Tolstoy liked, but imposed by publishers because of similarities to Rousseau's Confessions - is the move of the writer away from the religious certainties of his Orthodox childhood. This started with an excited discussion between Lev and his brothers after one of them had been told that there was no God. The line of thought taken by Tolstoy from that date parallels that of the writer of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, which is quoted at length. Basically, Ecclesiastes looks at the world from a purely materialistic point of view, and comes to the conclusion that it is meaningless; only God, the writer feels, can make sense of life. Tolstoy does not take the same final step, being put off by the vast differences between the professed values and the actions of those who called themselves believers in the nineteenth century Russia upper classes. He tried to copy the simple faith of the peasantry, by just glossing over the parts of Orthodox ritual he didn't 'understand' - the word he uses, though he really means 'identify with' in today's terms. When he realised that this amounted to most of the ritual, he left the church and effectively formulated his own personal religion, trying to follow the moral teachings of the New Testament while jettisoning every other part of Christianity.
Tolstoy's religious writings, of which this is the best known and (I think) the first, were fairly influential in the last years of the nineteenth century. He considered these works his most important and retired from novel writing to concentrate on them, before returning to fiction with Resurrection years later - and even then, the novel was written as a way to publicise his ideas.
Today, the religious work of Tolstoy is relatively obscure, and there are both historical and literary reasons for this. The Russian Revolution brought suspicion in the West on ideas from that country, even if they were not Communist in origin. Thus, Tolstoy ceased to be cited as an influence on atheistic humanism, even as this became one of the dominant philosophies of the twentieth century. From a literary point of view, Tolstoy tends to play to the gallery; in A Confession, the autobiography is smoothed out for public consumption, every action rationalised and justified (in a rhetorical way, the philosophical argument being of a poor standard). In the end, the reader is left wondering whether Tolstoy really believes what he says, and certainly is in doubt as to the way he actually reached these beliefs.
Tuesday, 4 July 2000
Michael Pearce: Dmitri and the Milk Drinkers (1998)
Review number: 535
The first of Michael Pearce's novels I have read is also the beginning of a new series. The setting is late nineteenth century Tsarist Russia, familiar from the great novels and plays of the period. The central character is an ambitious young lawyer, Dmitri Kameron, who is an Examining Magistrate of the district court in the provincial town of Kursk, and has moderately radical leanings.
One day at the court, he is asked by a well off young woman to direct her to the courtyard. Later, it is discovered that Anna Semenovna has gone missing, and that Dmitri was the last person to see her. He is able to work out that she offered to take the place of one of the cartload of prisoners sentenced to transportation to Siberia, and there is no alternative but to set off after her.
There is much of this plot which is reminiscent of Tolstoy's Resurrection, which also involved the pursuit of an innocent woman wrongly sent to Siberia. Pearce's novel is (not surprisingly) far less serious, and is in fact sometimes very funny, though it too has something to say about the injustice and unpleasantness of the system of Siberian exile. Much of the pleasure of the novel comes from the way that it covers the same ground as serious Russian literature, but in a light-hearted way.
Monday, 3 July 2000
Michael Moorcock: The Bull and the Spear (1973)
Edition: Berkley, 1978
Review number: 534
The start of this novel is very melancholy. Several decades after the end of the Swords trilogy, the immortal Corum has sunk into lethargy after the death of his beloved human wife, Rhalina. He starts experiencing strange dreams, and finally allows himself to be taken far into the future by a mystical incantation. The people who have called him, half-believing, are driven by desperation. The world is under attack by mysterious non-sentient beings of great power, who desire to turn the land around them into a counterpart of the inter-dimensional limbo from which they came. The principal weapon which has almost defeated their human foes is a part of this transformation, as it brings extreme cold and permanent winter to the world.
In this novel, influences from Celtic mythology are more apparent than is usual in Moorcock, whose references to external mythological systems are rare. Moorcock is usually more interested in making links with popular culture, most extensively in the Jerry Cornelius novels. The story itself follows a form common in fantasy, a heroic quest for some talismanic object to counter a major threat.
Review number: 534
The start of this novel is very melancholy. Several decades after the end of the Swords trilogy, the immortal Corum has sunk into lethargy after the death of his beloved human wife, Rhalina. He starts experiencing strange dreams, and finally allows himself to be taken far into the future by a mystical incantation. The people who have called him, half-believing, are driven by desperation. The world is under attack by mysterious non-sentient beings of great power, who desire to turn the land around them into a counterpart of the inter-dimensional limbo from which they came. The principal weapon which has almost defeated their human foes is a part of this transformation, as it brings extreme cold and permanent winter to the world.
In this novel, influences from Celtic mythology are more apparent than is usual in Moorcock, whose references to external mythological systems are rare. Moorcock is usually more interested in making links with popular culture, most extensively in the Jerry Cornelius novels. The story itself follows a form common in fantasy, a heroic quest for some talismanic object to counter a major threat.
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