James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man (1916)

Edition: Granada, 1977
Review number: 785

The autobiographical elements in this novel perhaps tend to distract the reader from its purpose. As its title implies, it is intended to show something of what it is which makes someone an artist (in this particular case, a poet). The scenes from the life of Stephen Daedalus - the novel is not a continuous narrative but a series of chronologically organised episodes - show a boy who is never part of the world around him, always observing it as a stranger.

The relationship between Stephen and his Catholic faith is a vitally important part of the novel. Like most Irish children of the time, his education was provided by the church, and at one point he seriously considers entering the priesthood. (It is his need to be an outsider which convinces him that he doesn't have a vocation.) A mjor part of the central chapter is taken up by a long talk given by a priest to schoolboys on the subject of hell and its torments, and Stephen's reactions are very revealing of both his character and his background.

The relationship is quite complicated, with Stephen both yearning to be freed from the restrictions of his upbringing and desperate to live the pure life of faith he feels is demanded from him. Neither side is going to have an easy victory and of course internal division is central to Joyce's view of the life of the artist. (He of course spent his life as an Irish author writing about the essence of Irishness while in exile.) Given the Catholic virtual monopoly on education, many boys must have had similar experiences, and I suppose that it is the nature of the artist to be particularly sensitive to it, as Stephen is.

Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon (1999)

Edition: Arrow, 2000
Review number: 784

This novel is usually found in the science fiction section of bookshops, but it is entirely set in the present (more or less) or the past. Its subject matter is the reason for it to be placed in the genre; it is about computing. There is an assumption that books about computing, especially those that, like Cryptonomicon, show a reasonable technical knowledge, are at least going to appeal to the readers of science fiction. This is a bit of a stereotyped assumption, but it probably does make good marketing sense (or else it would soon stop being made).

The story is effectively in two parts. Randall Waterhouse is a computer engineer, engaged on a new project (and in a new company) with an old friend. The initial aim of Epiphyte Corp. is to lay a new data cable into the Philippines, but there is a more unusual and interesting hidden agenda.

The other story, which takes up most of the space in the novel, is about the work of Randy's grandfather Lawrence during the Second World War. Like Alan Turing (a friend), he was one of the cryptanalysts whose work paved the way for the development of the modern computer, as well as heading a unit which had the task of making it look to the Germans as though the Allies were very lucky indeed instead of their codes being broken.

These two strands are brought together skilfully at the end, but in this extremely long novel it is the detail which holds the interest, and the clarity with which quite complex mathematics is described. The characterisation is good, and the background is vivid, though the Second World War chapters sometimes feel as though they are descriptions at a remove from actual events, as if Stephen is describing a gritty war film rather than the war itself.

The review quoted on the cover of Cryptonomicon compare it to William Gilbson and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. There is in fact little in common with Gibson, beyond an interest in computers and a similarity in writing style (and that is mainly the common currency of late twentieth century American fiction). The comparison with Gravity's Rainbow is more apt, though Cryptonomicon is less philosophical, far more prosaic. They share similar touches of humour and of course the Second World War engineering background.

While not attempting to touch on the larger questions of Gravity's Rainbow, Cryptonomicon is an excellent novel, one of the first I have read which seriously looks at contemporary cyberculture.

Jill Paton Walsh: A School for Lovers (1989)

Edition: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 783

Cosi Fan Tutti is an opera which has generated an immense amount of discussion over the years, particularly once it made its way back into the repertoire (after years of neglect because it was considered disreputable). Walsh has structured her novel to reflect on several aspects of the opera, with twin story lines about a couple of students studying it and an attempt to recreate its plot for a bet.

The plot of Cosi Fan Tutti is simple. Two young men boast of the fidelity of their betrothed. An older man laughs at them, and eventually they agree to test their boasts. Pretending to have been called up for military service, the two men disguise themselves as Albanian pirates and woo each other's girlfriends. This becomes awkward when, after a while, the two women show signs of succumbing (though they may have just seen through the disguises and be looking to get their own back).

There are a variety of interesting issues about the opera, which are discussed in one plot strand and (sometimes) illustrated by the other. These include the accusations of immorality and (more recently) of misogyny. There is the implausibility - how do the women fail to recognise their lovers in their disguises? There is tension between the libretto and the music, Mozart being more positive about the emotions of the characters than da Ponte requires him to be. There is also the deeper question of whether love can ever be permanent - perhaps more relevant now in an age where so many marriages end in divorce.

The novel is not wholly successful, though interesting. This is because the device to tell the reader the themes of the opera through the studies of Thomas and Anna (including quite long extracts from their essays) is overly didactic, not suited to fiction.

Mary Stewart: Touch Not the Cat (1976)

Edition: Coronet, 1977 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number:782

This was the last thriller written by Mary Stewart for quite a considerable length of time, as she concentrated on her series of Arthurian novels. It belongs with the novels she wrote later, rather than with the earlier ones, being lighter in tone (more a romance than a thriller), set in England, and with the paranormal playing an important role.

Bryony Ashley comes from a family with a long history, a beautiful ancient house, and no money. They also have a secret: inherited telepathic powers which have in the past led to accusations of witchcraft. Bryony can communicate with one of her cousins, but even though they have fallen in love he has never revealed which one of them he is. The thriller part of the plot is basically the suspicion that at least one of her cousins is involved in the death of her father in a hit and run car accident and the discovery that several small, valuable items have been removed from the house and sold, contrary to the terms of the family trust.

The focus of the novel is the romance between Bryony and her cousin, and this means that the telepathy works better than is usually the case with the paranormal in thrillers. It is essential to the plot in an interesting way, and the tension between Bryony's feelings and her suspicions of her cousins is very well written. Altogether, Touch Not the Cat is an interesting and unusual novel.

Jonathan Carroll: The Land of Laughs (1980)

Edition: Gollancz, 2000
Review number: 781

The narrator of The Land of Laughs is a young English teacher, unhappy at his job, who has been obsessed with children's author Marshall France since he was a boy. Thomas Abbey requests leave of absence from his school to write a biography of France, with the help of a young woman he meets in a bookshop when both want to buy a rare France volume. They have to travel to Galen, Missouri, where France lived for most of his life, and persuade his daughter to authorise the biography. Galen appears to be a typical mid-Western small town, but soon after Abbey's arrival, strange things start to happen.

As the novel proceeds, the fantasy elements gradually become stranger, until psychological horror takes over. To discuss the main point of the book requires important data to be given away. What Abbey discovers is that Marshall France had an incredible power - the characters he wrote about became real. He first realised this when the person on whom he had based a character died when he killed off the character. After his own demise, Galen had become entirely populated by his creations, their lives ruled by the outlines France had written.

The subject of the novel, then, is the nature of fiction, and the relationship between written characters and their author, given an ironic twist by being discussed through a work of fiction. In what sense is fiction real, and if we imagine that sense to be changed, what might happen? These issues could quickly lead into some deep philosophical waters, and Carrol avoids this, preferring to be thought provoking.

Ben Jonson: The Alchemist (1610)

Edition: Nick Hern Books, 1996
Review number: 778

Like several others of Jonson's plays, The Alchemist is very long; in this case the length is used to build up from a slowish start, gradually increasing in pace until the farcical denoument.

A group of three tricksters, Face, Subtle and Dol Common, are using a borrowed house to get money through the pretended practise of alchemy, persuading people to pay to see wonders or to finance the supposed creation of gold from other metals. The major problem that they have is that this works too well, with new customers arriving before they have finished with earlier ones.

Apart from Volpone, The Alchemist is probably the easiest of Jonson's plays to enjoy today. A modern audience will probably be lost with much of the mystical discussion of Face and Subtle, used to convince their victims. It is however apparently genuine, and even so it doesn't need to be followed in great detail. The subject matter, then, has dated; but the structure and characterisation in the play is very well done.

H. Rider Haggard: She (1887)

Edition: Hodder & Stoughton, 1953 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 780

Haggard's second most famous novel has many similarities to King Solomon's Mines; they are both about incredible secret nations hidden away from European eyes in the interior of Africa, still at the time almost completely unknown to Westerners.

The basic story is that M.L. Vincey, knowing his death to be imminent, entrusts the care of his young son Leo to his close friend Ludwig Horace Holly, along with a box to be opened on Leo's twenty fifth birthday. This box turns out to contain a collection of documents explaining the ancient origins of the family, as refugees from the anger and jealousy of the queen of a now unknown African civilization. The young man and his guardian set out to visit this country, and there they meet this same woman, who has not aged in thousands of years. Ayesha is given the title "She Who Must Be Obeyed" by the local people, and this is shortened to "She". It is her belief that Leo Vincey is the re-incarnation of her beloved Kallicrates, the man who fled, returned to be united with her forever, and she carries out ruthless and terrible retribution on those who stand in her way.

As an adventure story, She has some unusual features which militate against its continued popularity. Like King Solomon's Mines, it has a vein of racism running through it, and it is not a well constructed narrative. It also attributes unexplained powers to Ayesha - prolonged youth, the ability to kill with her mind. In the earlier novel, the powers of the evil witch Gagool are purely the result of superstition: if she curses someone, they die because they believe it. Here, in the interest of increasing the wonder felt by the reader, no rational explanation is given; the gases from the volcanic vent where she takes Holly and Leo is not an explanation.

A more localised problem occurs early in the novel, with the account of the opening of the box. The documents within it are quoted in full, and not just in English. This is repetitive and dull, even if it adds some badly needed verisimilitude. In the sort of book the novel appears to be, an account of an exploration, it is possible that such documents would be quoted, but even then most authors would relegate most of the material to an appendix. Haggard commits the cardinal sin for an adventure story of making it dull, and this feeling spreads to the novel as a whole.