ST AGNES’ STAND [By Thomas Eidson 1995]. This is a Western,
probably the best I have ever read. It is about a man who comes across a party
of nuns and orphans in New Mexico, hiding in a canyon from a band of Apaches.
The harsh heat and tension are almost tangible. It has an average of 4.5 stars
on Amazon. Eidson wrote a follow-up called The Last Ride, that I haven’t read
which was made into a film with Cate Blanchet and Tommy Lee Jones in 2003,
called The Missing .
Unforgettable novel which I cannot recommend highly enough.
DAUGHTER OF REGALS [By Stephen Donaldson 1983]. Stephen
Donaldson is an American writer of fantasy novels. Very popular once upon a
time although I am not sure whether he still finds an audience; his major work
is called Thomas Covenant Trilogy, the Illearth War which I think I read when I
was a teenager. It’s all dungeons and dragons and princes, dwarfs, giants and
so on. But this little collection of short stories is incredible. Daughter of
Regals itself is tremendous; I didn’t see the twist, maybe I would now that I
am older but back then I was completely blindsided. But it is Ser Visals Tale that is the outstanding
story and trust me, it is outstanding. I have literally never forgotten it and
never read anything like it since.
Average 4.5 stars on Amazon. Would have been five were it
not for one bonzo who has given it
three.
WILD CARD [Raymond Hawkey & Roger Bingham 1976]. Mary
Campbell gave me this when I was in the Hospital for Tropical Deseases for four
months; I read it about five times. I read it again a couple of years ago and
yes, it has dated a bit . . . a lot . . . but the central idea remains utterly
gripping. Which is: American scientists retreat to a secret facility to create
an Alien Invasion that cannot be
traced anywhere to anyone.
In 1976 the world was in as much turmoil as it had been
since the 2nd World War; rather like now and the zeitgeist of Wild
Card was that we would all come together in peace if we thought our
civilisation was in mortal peril. Maybe a tsunami; maybe an earthquake; maybe a
collision with an asteroid; maybe a definite 100% sighting of an alien flying
saucer, maybe little green men, maybe advanced and deadly weapons that we had
no defence against. Maybe not, maybe just the explicit fact that
extra-terrestrial- life existed, leaving no room for confusion or doubt would
be enough.
But the theatre would have to be bombproof. In every
possible way.
The writing is good enough, not great. The plot is the
thing and it is unputdownable.
RICHARD ROGERS A BIOGRAPHY [By Brian Appleyard 1986]. I
bought this new, this is a first-edition that I am looking at and it is
excellent. I avoid biographies at all costs as a rule. Someone I know quite
well is reading Robert A Caro’s biographies of LBJ which have only 5* reviews on Amazon but I don’t
care. Just not interested in the lives of great men and great events.
Appleyard is still alive, still writing still agitating. He
wrote this on his twitter account yesterday: Some day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at
last, and the White House will be adorned with a moron. From the
ever-quotable H L Mencken.
I am moderately interested in Rogers; never met him; never
did any work for him [not for lack of trying]. I thought some of his buildings
were remarkable, some not. I loved the Fleetguard Factory at Quimper; Lloyds?
Lloyds I could appreciate but couldn’t/didn’t love. He is definitely an artist
and what Appleyard’s account does is get to why he is so great; he generates
ideas. Constantly thinking of a better mousetrap.
It is easily one of the best books about art I have ever
read, may be the very best insofar as it explains the unexplainable: that
mercurial thing, sometimes capricious, sometimes impulsive that makes Van Gogh
put a dab of blue there, just there and in Roger’s case, spins out as
inspirational architecture. Fluid
freeform Appleyard describes it as.
SHIPWRECK [By Charles Logan 1976]. I am going to run out of
superlatives here; this has been in my all-time top ten books list for almost
40-years. Fantastic novel.
It’s about a rocket pilot in the future who is shipwrecked
on an uninhabited planet; all his crew are dead so he is completely on his own
with no chance of rescue. The surface of
the planet apart from the oceans, is covered entirely by a ribbon-like plant,
his food, energy and water supplies are dangerously low. The beautifully
written narrative is about his survival. I suppose it is a bit like The Martian, one man’s heroic efforts to
survive. I quite liked The Martian,
went on too long for me and I hated the ending [the bomb]which felt to me as
though the author couldn’t really think how to end it end and came up with the
bomb. Always wondered in fact if he intended to let the guy, the protagonist
die at the end but some New Yawk editor told him to give it a happy ending and
that was all he could come up with at short notice. Shipwreck is in a different
league and no, it isn’t dated at all. It has straight 5* reviews on Amazon.
Quick rant. There is nothing, zilch in the back [or front
for that matter] acknowledging his mum, his Agent, his editor, his proof
reader, Jimmy, Jonny or Jenny. No-one told him to make it longer, develop this
character, that character change this bit cut that bit there is no market for
bleak survival stories. He wrote it and Gollancz published it and it is genius.
THE VISITATION [By Jenny Erpenbeck 2010]. Sometimes,
sometimes you want something layered, deeper, that you have to pause and think
about where you are expected to do some work, not have it all laid out in front
of you. Jenny Erpenbeck is an East German writer. She sells well in her own
country. Unknown here.
She had two books published previously, The Old Child and the Book of Words both of which I have read.
I have read The Visitation twice although I suspect you could read it six times
and find something new, each time. If you don’t already know, it is about the
history of a country and its people filtered through the device of one house,
by a lake. Anyway, here she is on page 115:
Only for the past
week has his wife known she has a sister. One week ago the telephone rang. A
friend from school whom the woman had neither seen nor spoken to in thirty or
forty years. What a surprise, so you’re still, how did you, and who gave you,
they’re talking about a reunion, no really, and so and so and that girl who,
and what’s his name of the one who prematurely, oh so he’s already, how
terribly sad, and did he, and how many children, work, husband, sailing,
weekend property, does she actually have the address, and besides, what ever.
Besides whatever became of your sister. What sister. And is your stepfather
still alive. What stepfather. Oh, wait you still don’t know, this friend says
now, all of this on the telephone, I mean your father wasn’t even, what the
woman says, gazing out at the water, as she holds the receiver to her ear, the
sailboat is bobbing near the dock between two buoys , oh, I’m sorry I, the
voice of her friend is now saying inside the telephone receiver, but her
husband cannot hear this.
This is a fractured Europe that we in the UK are barely
aware of on a day to day basis. A Europe filled with countries that have been
invaded, raped, ‘healed’, torn apart again; mothers, sisters, families and
possessions lost decades ago, but somehow people carry on, form new alliances
and relationships.
It’s terrific stuff, salutary and sad and well, completely
different to what we are used to. Whatever it is one hopes to get out of a
book, this should meet the criterion.
HOW THE OTHER HALF DIES [By Susan George 1976]. Another
layered, deep book that I have read many, many times. It is subtitled The Real Reasons for World Hunger, but
it is so much more. I see someone on Goodreads has said in their review, ‘It’s
a bit old to be relevant’. Right. Anyone see Robert Mugabe’s birthday
celebrations on TV the other day? A bit old to be relevant? Yet another
third-world country where 95% is in the hands of 2%.
This treatise explains everything and it is completely and
utterly relevant in 2016. Western-armed elites; Western-educated elites;
Western-paid, Western corrupted, we want you to grow biofuels now. Yessir! For
export. Yessir! What do we feed our own people, says the opposition from a
manacled prison cell? Off with his head. Yessir!
Read it and weep.
THE PORTAGE TO SAN CRISTOBAL of AH [By George Steiner
1979]. I have read a few books about the Holocaust: The White Hotel; The Search
Warrant come immediately to mind. Watched Shoah
[Lanzmann] twice, once when it first
came out and again a couple of years ago when it was re-shown on BBC2 and then
only a couple of weeks ago watching the re-runs of Band of Brothers on Sky when it reached the episode where they
discover the concentration camp in the woods and that astonishingly realistic
representation of the prisoners. Very recently, I found myself caught in an e
mail conversation with a much respected Amazon 500 reviewer and found myself
admitting I never read ‘books about Jews’ now. And I don’t; I’ve read enough of
mans inhumanity to man to last me the rest of my life. I am not fascinated by
what the Ukrainians did to Jewish women, if indeed I ever was.
But we need to know. We need to know so that we can try and
reach some kind of understanding.
The Portage to San Cristobal of AH is an attempt by Jewish
Historian, George Steiner to work out the answer to the question, why? He uses
the device of I think it is three Israeli commandos who discover that Adolf is
still alive and well and living in the deep rainforests of Central Argentina.
They resolve to get him out to face a trial
somewhere [bit like Eichmann] but of course he is old now, too old to make the
journey on foot so they have to carry him: The
Portage and they take him to the nearest large town: San Cristobal, from where they can fly him to Tel Aviv without
being discovered. On the way, they ask him what he thinks he was up to and did
he really mean to murder all the Jews. It is breath-taking stuff and you need a
very strong stomach but if you really want to know, beyond Lanzmann and the
flickering approximations of Band of Brothers and Schindlers List, read it.
THE GOOD DOCTOR [By Damon Galgut 2003]. Slightly cheating
calling this a novel, ‘no-one has heard of’ because it was shortlisted for the
Booker Prize in 2003.But I don’t know anyone . . . avid and fairweather readers
alike . . . who has actually read it.
It is tremendous. I adore this book, if I could write like
this I would die a happy bunny. I cannot do any better than quote from the
blurb on the back cover:
‘A tremendous brave
book. The author never flinches, and makes his hero’s dark logic compelling and
hair-raising. The dialogue is faultless and the pace perfect. Galgut writes
like a man on a long fast night drive through bad places. You’re in the front
passenger seat but you would rather be in the back. You could get out but you don’t.
And you see things you would rather forget. It’s brilliant’. – [the late] Dermot Healy.
Says it all. Says it all.
What’s it about? A remote hospital in a South African Bantustan and the people who work there
some of them trying to provide care and treatment for the patients, some of
them with other motives. Show not tell is errr . . . the operative verb here.
FROM THE ALLEGHENIES TO THE HEBRIDES [By Margaret Fay Shaw
2008]. ‘A miniature masterpiece’ – Times Literary Supplement.
And it is; a real gem that no-one has ever heard of.
I’ve been to the Hebrides quite a few times, to Harris and
Lewis three times. They change each time. A lot. When I first went to Lewis in
the late-sixties it was so empty. Space and light all around. Now, every spare
field has a house being constructed upon it. You needed a map to find Callanish . . . no-one had heard of it then
. . . and once there you could wander
around the ancient stones on your own for as long as you wanted. Now there is a
visitor centre; you can hardly get into the carpark for the coach tour buses
and you can’t get any sense whatsoever of the alignments there are so many
people and kids. Allowing their dogs to urinate against the sacred stones.
And of course everyone speaks English in fact I wonder if
everyone is English. All you hear are
stockbroker Surrey accents; the Gaelic is
almost never heard.
This is a lovely little biography, sorry autobiography about
cultural displacement and renewal. She was a collector of songs and traditional
music and travelled widely through communities with roots, collecting,
hoarding, discovering and photographing.
It is sharply observed.
Best to be honest if you have been to the Outer Hebrides.
If you haven’t, it will galvanise you into going at the first opportunity.
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