Book reviews

1 April 2011

THE SPANISH GAME by Charles Cumming

I'm not normally one for spy thrillers but this is the most enjoyable one I've ever read. I had read one of Cumming's early efforts and wasn't particularly impressed, which made this even more of a surprise. The plot is suitably complex and laberyntine but its never baffling and takes its time to properly come to the boil. Much of the book is in fact a detailed character study of the anti-hero, a former SIS agent on self-imposed exile in Madrid after a botched job whose attitudes to his former trade are somewhat contradictory; on one hand he detests it and on the other he's keen to get drawn back in again. Its this last characteristic that triggers the plot and leads to a satisfying web of intrigue and deceit.

It was only after I had finished this book that I realised its actually a sequel to Cumming's first novel called A Spy By Nature. Of couse I now essentially know the plot and outcome to that book nw, which is a bit of a bummer, but i might read it anyway.

30 August 2010

BIRDSONG, by Sebastian Faulks

Epic WW1 saga set largely in the trenches of Northern France, but with a long pre-war prologue and a 1970s semi-resolution.

It’s a good book, well researched, well characterised and always interesting, but somehow it didn’t quite connect with me emotionally. I wondered why as the author is clearly sympathetic to both his characters and the tragedy of their situation, but then I realised it’s his writing style, which has a certain formality and distance about it that keeps Faulks just a bit removed from things. Interestingly, one of the supporting characters is an amateur psychiatrist, keen on Freud and Jung, who were barely known during WW1, and you can’t help but see Faulks as writing from a similar analytical perspective; observing and understanding, but in a slightly detatched way, never quite getting emotionally involved.

Good though, and recommended to anyone who wants to know about the sheer hell of life in the trenches. WW1 is likely to rise significantly in public conciousness as its centenary approaches.

20 September 2010

FLICKER by Theodore Roszak

Loved this book; its one of those big, philosophical, why-are-we-here, state-of-the-planet, apocalypse-in-waiting, Chinese box epics that keeps you intrigued and makes you think all the way through - ultimately growing way beyond its default mystery novel landscape until its pretty close to the borders of science fiction or future-noir.

Its a book that provokes a variety of reactions. Its possible to see the entire exercise as a reactionary right-wing diatribe against half a century of liberalism - something that’s always likely to raise the hackles of an old liberal like me. And yet the author, disillusioned and cynical though he undoubtedly is, makes too many pertinent points about modern society and the direction in which screened entertainment has gone to dismiss its negativity glibly. You can understand why its been reprinted again almost 20 years after it was first published - its paranoid message seems even more pertinent in today’s multi-media, image-obsessed world than the pre-cable and internet world it could only imagine, but still managed to predict, when it was written.

However I can only really recommend it to movie buffs. Its a very long book that takes its own sweet time to unveil its more sinister elements. Most of the first 400 pages are a love affair to the history of the movies, often reading more like a high-end academic text on film theory and the literal mechanics of projection than a page-turning mystery thriller. Unless you have a deep love of cinema - and by that I mean the whole history of cinema rather than a simple liking for movies - this book is likely to leave you frustrated and impatient. Fortunately there’s a strong cross-over between movie geeks and literary geeks, so get ready to enjoy the playfulness with which Roszack constructs his alternative history of old Hollywood (Orson Welles admitting he was barely responsible for Citizen Kane anyone?) The author could have done with paying a bit more attention to his time-frames and cultural references, but this is a minor point.

I don’t re-read many books these days, but this one will certainly get lifted off the shelf again at some point in the future (unless 2014 is true that is!)

September 2010

THE LOST SYMBOL by Dan Brown

Well I finally finished The Lost Symbol..... serves me right, its not as if I didn't know what I was letting myself in for. I'm practically speechless at the absolute nothingness of the whole thing. 700 pages of appallingly written smoke and mirrors in which the poor reader gets led along until - to late - he or she realises they are being drawn into a black void up Dan Brown's metaphorical arsehole.

Is this Dan Brown's secret? Has he tapped into the zietgiest of modern culture - a load of flatulent gloss and spin signifying absolutely nothing? Raid some basic texts about the Masons and Washington architecture, throw in a few science papers, surf around for a good dose of fanciful religeous naval-gazing, paste it all together and then make sure it it takes up about 350 pages of your 700 page dirge spouted by your cardboard-cutout characters. Is that all it takes? Hey, I'm in! Downloading Wikipedia even as I speak! Classic thriller on the symbols, metaphors and spiritual connetations of the X-Factor coming up!

In about three days I think I may be able to take my thumb out of my mouth, extracticate myself from the feotal position and form basic vocal intonations again. Is Dan Brown's next novel going to be a desperate race against time while Robert 'the chuckler' Langdon attempts to decipher the ancient symbols that will prove that Dan Brown is the Antichrist? Let us hope and pray.

July 2010

JULIET NAKED, by Nick Hornby

The first half of this book is Hornby at his best – creating interesting, believable characters and exploring the dynamics of relationships with his usual ear for dialogue and understanding of people’s often highly personal obsessions and motivations.
 
Surprisingly however, once all the characters are properly examined and the scenario established, the author seems to loose his way. When the story should be gearing towards a climax with the central characters finally coming together its as if Hornby doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with them next. As such, the story rather peters out into a series of mild encounters and predictable, half-baked resolutions. You get the feeling Hornby is deliberately trying to avoid the overly-dramatic but in doing so he ends up delivering no kind of satisfying outcome at all.

Ultimately its hard to see what point the novel is actually trying to make, except the rather patronising one, driven home with sermon-like zeal by the author, that all adult lives are eventually of little value unless at some point they involve raising children (‘raise’ being the operative word here – Hornby clearly has little truck with absentee fathers either).

All in all a book that starts well but ends up lacking a proper story arc and fails to deliver.