Wot I ave bean reeding
Oct. 24th, 2006 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angelophileWhile I was away I managed to catch up with a fair bit of my reading, including:
Imperium by Robert Harris
The First Casualty by Ben Elton
Aberystwyth Mon Amour/ Last Tango in Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce
Custer by Will Henry
First up, Imperium by Robert Harris.
Harris has a distinguished name as a writer of historical fiction – as an historian and journalist he was able to add a scholar's approach to his previous novels Pompeii, Archangel, Enigma and Fatherland (the latter a superlative mystery novel set in an alternate present where the Third Reich triumphed). Like the excellent "Pompeii", Harris does not disappoint with this novel set in and around the political machinations of Ancient Rome. Based on historical fact (and on the whole correlelated by suriving documents from the time), it tells the story of Cicero, orator, statesman, politician, lawyer and philosopher, who was a reluctant ally of Pompey, opponent of Julius Caesar, enemy of Mark Antony, ally of Octavius and generally considered one of the greatest scholars in history. The story told in the first person by his secretary Tiro (inventor of the shorthand system) and concerns Cicero's rise from fairly humble beginnings, his alliance with Pompey, opposition of Caesar, to becoming Consul and one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Empire.
It's a fascinating read and because many of Cicero's speeches and writings still exist, Harris has been effective in putting flesh on the historical events and personalities of Pompey, Crassus, Caesar, Cato and others, as well as capturing the character of Cicero himself. Using Tiro as a narrator is an effective instrument – the slave who is always present in support but seldom a participant in events. The book only covers a fairly short period in Ciceros life, hinting at another follow on book with a bit of luck. There is certainly much more left of his life to tell and it made me immediately hop online to discover the fate of the book's characters. Cicero also makes for a compelling hero – a Roman from a poor background whose political and legal machinations are never less than compelling and often sympathetic. In a world of excesses, Cicero was a man with a more "modern" outlook and that makes it all the easier for the writer to get inside his head and the reader to sympathise with him.
The First Casualty by Ben Elton is also a historical novel based, but more of an obvious thriller mystery. This is very definitely a fictional novel, whereas Imperium rings closer to historical fact. There are a number of historical inaccuracies and the first half of the book reads rather like a collection of period clichés. The hero, a police detective, has a wife with golden curls and shapely ankles. When he becomes a conscientious objector she leaves a white feather in the matrimonial bed and the cook gives notice. Meanwhile an unsuspecting murder victim is a member of the Lavender Lamp Club, where poeticising gays trail around in silk dressing-gowns. All this makes for a rather predictable, plodding and immature read. Elton's always struggled as an author – managing popularity without talent as a writer of credible prose. Previously you could have argued that his novels knowingly pedalled caricatures and grotesque clichés – but this seems to be an attempt at a "serious" novel with something to say and any message isn't helped by the turgid, historical inaccurate prose, clichéd characters and the one historical featured character – Lloyd George – talking like something out of a music hall.
Disappointingly, the tone struggles to be any more period than Blackadder IV, Elton's other WWI based work. He drags in as many references as he can - suffragettes, Ireland, Ivor Novello – but they seem more like cartoon references when written in a modern style, rather than seen within the context of the period. It feels like the WWI equivalent of a King Arthur musical. However well written, I'd struggle to believe condom wielding suffragette nurses as believable characters. In Elton's prose I certainly can't.
However, the move from civilian life to the front line bears fruit and records the terrible experiences of warfare with a solidly factual approach, as the detective character is drafted in to solve the murder of he aforementioned poetry writing homosexual Viscount, amid a background where thousands are dying daily. The game is lifted and presumably Elton realised he had to make the scenes in the trenches a lot more compelling and respectful than the rest of the novel. It's a shame it takes half the book to get to this point and even more of a shame once the mystery is solved, the fusillade of clichés resumes.
In short, not a terrible read, with some scenes actually raising above the average, but Elton is best as a comedic writer where caricatures seem less ridiculous. Here he never achieves a feel of the period or a credible plot.
Then Aberystwyth Mon Amour/ Last Tango in Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce
Louie Knight, the only private eye in the Welsh seaside town of Aberystwyth, is approached by local notorious nightclub singer Myfanwy Montez to track down Evans the Boot. Investigations lead him to the shady Druid-run Mafia, Mrs Evans the witch, the only real ghost train in Wales, Sospan, the philosophizing ice cream salesman and a dwarf. And just who is Gwenno Guevara?
All this makes the first book - Aberystwyth Mon Amour - a pulp fiction film noir spoof, set in the armpit of Wales, sound wonderfully surreal. For the first twenty pages, it is, as Louie encounters the various protagonists and introduces the reader to Wales by way of Raymond Chandler, where noir and mythology meet. But after that things deteriorate into a plot that's simply too weird and played a little too deadpan to be as entertaining as it should be. The prose is solid and entertaining enough, but the funny concepts get stretched and stretched wafer thin until they become humourless. Sadly, it's a bit of a one-note joke and the idea of this Chandler-esque world existing in the backstreets of a Welsh town has more potential then this book would suggest. Done with fewer flights of fancy and it could have worked.
I'd bought the second book in the series, Last Tango in Aberystwyth, in tandem with the first. It's sad that the impact the first book had on me was less than startling, so I wasn't too rushed to read this book. And in truth I found it a struggle. If I hadn't read he previous book this sequel would have been incomprehensible. As it is it was just NEARLY incomprehensible. Pryce took his character in the direction of the just plain ridiculous rather than the noir theme, which had more potential. Events in this novel get more and more fantastical, moving the novel from spoof to total fantasy. None of the villains seem particularly threatening and neither the plot nor the protagonists or villains compelling.
Extremely disappointing, in short. A great idea, but one that all too quickly runs off into a fantastical world, rather than trying to make the mean streets of Aberystwyth seem like a real and dangerous place.
I liked Louie's teenage sidekick, Calamity Jane, though.
Finally, Custer by Will Henry.
Actually two books, the first Yellow Hair, written under the name Clay Fisher, a partially fictionalised account of Custer's attack on Black Kettle's Cheyennes at the Washita River, nearly four years to the day after the Indian massacre at Sand Creek where Custer launched a winter campaign, killing 150 braves camped under a white flag on the banks of the Washita, along with up to 25 women and children, capturing 53 others. There's no doubts where the author's sensitivity lies and like Ben Elton's novel this is romantic fiction dressed up as historical events. Some of the events depicted took place but the majority didn't, making the foreword which promises to tell the "true story" pretty laughable.
The story of what happened on the banks of the Washita is fascinating – the plot which takes up most of the novel – fictional mountain man scout Joshua Kelso's battles with hostile Cheyennes and love for an Indian princess – is a lot less compelling and written in a flowery prose that smacks of the worst romantic fiction. I was expecting better. There's little doubt where the author's sympathies lie in his depiction of the historical events as Custer is portrayed as insanely arrogant, ugly and half-crazed with bloodlust, ignoring the advice of anyone. Such a biased account and black and white characterisation and depiction of the events makes it a lot less interesting than it should be. It'll all noble savage versus slavering madman. Since historical accounts are a lot more sympathetic to Custer, perhaps this is an understandable extreme switch, but a less rabid and romaticised account – stating facts instead of hyperbole. That the attack was a massacre, most modern historians seem to agree and a straight account could have been a lot more shocking than one where all the protagonists are turned into caricatures.
A lot more interesting is the second book, Custer's Last Stand. Based a lot closer to historical accounts, this is a series of short narratives of various parts of the Battle of Little Big Horn. Since only the Cheyenne's accounts survive for obvious reasons, it's hard to judge how accurate it is to actual events, but it seems to follow the eye-witness accounts pretty closely. Stripped of the romantic fictional heroes, Henry just gets down to facts and it's a lot more interesting to read about Custer this way and how he would have been so foolish to ride into a battle that he could not win.
So, while there are some aspects, such as the conversations between the soldiers, that are fictionalized, the bulk of the story is historically accurate. The personalities of the principals are a lot more accurately captured, the speech attributed to Custer, his officers, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are all consistent with other biographical material that I have read. Surprisingly, after the previous book, Henry avoids making judgements on the circumstances, although it is hard not to sympathise with the Cheyennes who destroy the 7th Cavalry on the slopes of Greasy Grass. But rather than being forced to take that view by the narrative, as in Yellow Hair, it's a far more natural conclusion. A complete turnaround on that went before, this is an excellent description of a battle that has been described as the last kick of a dying buffalo.
Imperium by Robert Harris
The First Casualty by Ben Elton
Aberystwyth Mon Amour/ Last Tango in Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce
Custer by Will Henry
First up, Imperium by Robert Harris.
Harris has a distinguished name as a writer of historical fiction – as an historian and journalist he was able to add a scholar's approach to his previous novels Pompeii, Archangel, Enigma and Fatherland (the latter a superlative mystery novel set in an alternate present where the Third Reich triumphed). Like the excellent "Pompeii", Harris does not disappoint with this novel set in and around the political machinations of Ancient Rome. Based on historical fact (and on the whole correlelated by suriving documents from the time), it tells the story of Cicero, orator, statesman, politician, lawyer and philosopher, who was a reluctant ally of Pompey, opponent of Julius Caesar, enemy of Mark Antony, ally of Octavius and generally considered one of the greatest scholars in history. The story told in the first person by his secretary Tiro (inventor of the shorthand system) and concerns Cicero's rise from fairly humble beginnings, his alliance with Pompey, opposition of Caesar, to becoming Consul and one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Empire.
It's a fascinating read and because many of Cicero's speeches and writings still exist, Harris has been effective in putting flesh on the historical events and personalities of Pompey, Crassus, Caesar, Cato and others, as well as capturing the character of Cicero himself. Using Tiro as a narrator is an effective instrument – the slave who is always present in support but seldom a participant in events. The book only covers a fairly short period in Ciceros life, hinting at another follow on book with a bit of luck. There is certainly much more left of his life to tell and it made me immediately hop online to discover the fate of the book's characters. Cicero also makes for a compelling hero – a Roman from a poor background whose political and legal machinations are never less than compelling and often sympathetic. In a world of excesses, Cicero was a man with a more "modern" outlook and that makes it all the easier for the writer to get inside his head and the reader to sympathise with him.
The First Casualty by Ben Elton is also a historical novel based, but more of an obvious thriller mystery. This is very definitely a fictional novel, whereas Imperium rings closer to historical fact. There are a number of historical inaccuracies and the first half of the book reads rather like a collection of period clichés. The hero, a police detective, has a wife with golden curls and shapely ankles. When he becomes a conscientious objector she leaves a white feather in the matrimonial bed and the cook gives notice. Meanwhile an unsuspecting murder victim is a member of the Lavender Lamp Club, where poeticising gays trail around in silk dressing-gowns. All this makes for a rather predictable, plodding and immature read. Elton's always struggled as an author – managing popularity without talent as a writer of credible prose. Previously you could have argued that his novels knowingly pedalled caricatures and grotesque clichés – but this seems to be an attempt at a "serious" novel with something to say and any message isn't helped by the turgid, historical inaccurate prose, clichéd characters and the one historical featured character – Lloyd George – talking like something out of a music hall.
Disappointingly, the tone struggles to be any more period than Blackadder IV, Elton's other WWI based work. He drags in as many references as he can - suffragettes, Ireland, Ivor Novello – but they seem more like cartoon references when written in a modern style, rather than seen within the context of the period. It feels like the WWI equivalent of a King Arthur musical. However well written, I'd struggle to believe condom wielding suffragette nurses as believable characters. In Elton's prose I certainly can't.
However, the move from civilian life to the front line bears fruit and records the terrible experiences of warfare with a solidly factual approach, as the detective character is drafted in to solve the murder of he aforementioned poetry writing homosexual Viscount, amid a background where thousands are dying daily. The game is lifted and presumably Elton realised he had to make the scenes in the trenches a lot more compelling and respectful than the rest of the novel. It's a shame it takes half the book to get to this point and even more of a shame once the mystery is solved, the fusillade of clichés resumes.
In short, not a terrible read, with some scenes actually raising above the average, but Elton is best as a comedic writer where caricatures seem less ridiculous. Here he never achieves a feel of the period or a credible plot.
Then Aberystwyth Mon Amour/ Last Tango in Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce
Louie Knight, the only private eye in the Welsh seaside town of Aberystwyth, is approached by local notorious nightclub singer Myfanwy Montez to track down Evans the Boot. Investigations lead him to the shady Druid-run Mafia, Mrs Evans the witch, the only real ghost train in Wales, Sospan, the philosophizing ice cream salesman and a dwarf. And just who is Gwenno Guevara?
All this makes the first book - Aberystwyth Mon Amour - a pulp fiction film noir spoof, set in the armpit of Wales, sound wonderfully surreal. For the first twenty pages, it is, as Louie encounters the various protagonists and introduces the reader to Wales by way of Raymond Chandler, where noir and mythology meet. But after that things deteriorate into a plot that's simply too weird and played a little too deadpan to be as entertaining as it should be. The prose is solid and entertaining enough, but the funny concepts get stretched and stretched wafer thin until they become humourless. Sadly, it's a bit of a one-note joke and the idea of this Chandler-esque world existing in the backstreets of a Welsh town has more potential then this book would suggest. Done with fewer flights of fancy and it could have worked.
I'd bought the second book in the series, Last Tango in Aberystwyth, in tandem with the first. It's sad that the impact the first book had on me was less than startling, so I wasn't too rushed to read this book. And in truth I found it a struggle. If I hadn't read he previous book this sequel would have been incomprehensible. As it is it was just NEARLY incomprehensible. Pryce took his character in the direction of the just plain ridiculous rather than the noir theme, which had more potential. Events in this novel get more and more fantastical, moving the novel from spoof to total fantasy. None of the villains seem particularly threatening and neither the plot nor the protagonists or villains compelling.
Extremely disappointing, in short. A great idea, but one that all too quickly runs off into a fantastical world, rather than trying to make the mean streets of Aberystwyth seem like a real and dangerous place.
I liked Louie's teenage sidekick, Calamity Jane, though.
Finally, Custer by Will Henry.
Actually two books, the first Yellow Hair, written under the name Clay Fisher, a partially fictionalised account of Custer's attack on Black Kettle's Cheyennes at the Washita River, nearly four years to the day after the Indian massacre at Sand Creek where Custer launched a winter campaign, killing 150 braves camped under a white flag on the banks of the Washita, along with up to 25 women and children, capturing 53 others. There's no doubts where the author's sensitivity lies and like Ben Elton's novel this is romantic fiction dressed up as historical events. Some of the events depicted took place but the majority didn't, making the foreword which promises to tell the "true story" pretty laughable.
The story of what happened on the banks of the Washita is fascinating – the plot which takes up most of the novel – fictional mountain man scout Joshua Kelso's battles with hostile Cheyennes and love for an Indian princess – is a lot less compelling and written in a flowery prose that smacks of the worst romantic fiction. I was expecting better. There's little doubt where the author's sympathies lie in his depiction of the historical events as Custer is portrayed as insanely arrogant, ugly and half-crazed with bloodlust, ignoring the advice of anyone. Such a biased account and black and white characterisation and depiction of the events makes it a lot less interesting than it should be. It'll all noble savage versus slavering madman. Since historical accounts are a lot more sympathetic to Custer, perhaps this is an understandable extreme switch, but a less rabid and romaticised account – stating facts instead of hyperbole. That the attack was a massacre, most modern historians seem to agree and a straight account could have been a lot more shocking than one where all the protagonists are turned into caricatures.
A lot more interesting is the second book, Custer's Last Stand. Based a lot closer to historical accounts, this is a series of short narratives of various parts of the Battle of Little Big Horn. Since only the Cheyenne's accounts survive for obvious reasons, it's hard to judge how accurate it is to actual events, but it seems to follow the eye-witness accounts pretty closely. Stripped of the romantic fictional heroes, Henry just gets down to facts and it's a lot more interesting to read about Custer this way and how he would have been so foolish to ride into a battle that he could not win.
So, while there are some aspects, such as the conversations between the soldiers, that are fictionalized, the bulk of the story is historically accurate. The personalities of the principals are a lot more accurately captured, the speech attributed to Custer, his officers, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are all consistent with other biographical material that I have read. Surprisingly, after the previous book, Henry avoids making judgements on the circumstances, although it is hard not to sympathise with the Cheyennes who destroy the 7th Cavalry on the slopes of Greasy Grass. But rather than being forced to take that view by the narrative, as in Yellow Hair, it's a far more natural conclusion. A complete turnaround on that went before, this is an excellent description of a battle that has been described as the last kick of a dying buffalo.
