Book reviews: Agatha Christie and H.G. Wells

Continuing (slowly!) my Book Worm reviews for April and May 2010...

The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells
First published by William Heinemann Ltd, 1898
This edition published by Pan Books Ltd, 1975

I’ve always wanted to read this book ever since I saw the original movie as a child and found it terrifying! And I wasn’t the only one to be scared of this tale, accordingly to radio/newspaper/wiki legend, millions of Americans believed the story to be true when Orson Welles adapted the story to a radio broadcast in 1938.

H.G. Wells wields his scientific knowledge with a skilled hand throughout this book. He also can be rather wordy – the first two pages reveal such beauties as ‘infusoria’, ‘nebular hypothesis’, and ‘attenuated’, not to mention the wonderful ‘periodically inundate its temperate zones’. He also has some marvellous descriptions, such as the sea was ‘navy-crowded’. The book is also very much of its time with the descriptions of wagons, pot-men opening public houses, jobbing gardeners, class. England at the turn of the 20th century was such a different world yet already you can see it changing – the mention of cars, of trains, of commuters… it’s all here, slightly hidden, as the story is not about England’s ascent into the world we know now but the descent of aliens from Mars.

The story starts very quickly, and the reader is soon in the thick of the action. The description of how quickly the Martians set about destruction and the means they employ still has the power to shock, in a way. I think it is because that instead of going for the drama of London, or a big city first, H.G. Wells has chosen to make them begin in relatively obscure, smaller towns - Woking, Chobham, Chertsey. Somehow this makes the concept seem more believable. Also the ‘battle’ scenes are very vivid, in particular one in the second half of the book, about a navy ship rushing to certain death to protect the civilians trying to flee. The panic of the escape also makes for compelling reading. Well worth trying if you see this book around!


Cat Among the Pigeons, by Agatha Christie
First published 1959
This edition published by Fontana, 1975

There is such a pleasure to reading Agatha Christie books, no matter if the story is not new to me. I especially like this one, with its tale of beautiful jewels smuggled ingeniously from a foreign land, and how attention falls upon a posh girl’s school in England.

Agatha Christie builds up such an interesting array of characters – no matter how short their appearance is on the page, she gives them depth, a raison d'être – and it is this that makes them so utterly compelling. At the same time there is no real sadness when the murder comes, as it does with swift story-telling. It is definitely a skill to make me care and not care, so to speak. There are also interesting oddities – such as how ‘you can tell a woman’s age from her knees’!

Hercule Poirot is our detective here, and he shines with aplomb, as usual. But he only appears in the latter third, and as we are told in the book his role is of a ‘consultant detective’ he feels very much a consultant overall in this story. However the story does not lack from his late appearance; it is definitely within my top ten of enjoyable books from this author.

Book worm: March 2010 - part two

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
This edition published by Penguin Books, 1974. First published in 1926.

I dashed out of the March rain into a second-hand bookshop down Charing Cross Road (what chance, you say. A bookshop? How extraordinary for you to have been passing!) and decided to buy this book on account that I knew the title but had no idea of the story. So what was so great about The Great Gatsby?

The story is told from the point of view of Nick Carraway, a young man home from the First World War, and who settles in a millionaire neighbourhood with a vague idea of ‘going into Bonds’. His rich friends drift through life with a weary cynicism and only a tenuous grasp on the real world. They party every night at the home of the rich Mr Gatsby, an enigmatic figure, and drink his wine and eat his food with gay abandon. Rumours abound about his background, his wealth… this just adds to the drama. But in reality Gatsby is not great at all, and only interested in his already married lost love, Daisy, and when he tries to win her back everything goes wrong.

The American dream here seems rather sour. I didn’t like the character of Gatsby and had no sympathy for him, so when things unfolded badly I felt no sadness on his behalf. Although the character of Nick is our narrator, because Gatsby is the centre of the book and because I dislike him, then already the book is flawed for me. Even worse, the other characters don’t endear themselves to me either, in the way that memorable characters good and bad stick in the memory. They are almost non-entities but that is how they are drawn – they don’t care much for living, they are shell-shocked, made stupid with wealth, as weighty as a rainbow.

As a portrait of 1920s America, of a rich 1920s America, it is an interesting slice of life to a manner of living that is alien to me. I have not seen the film with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, but can see how this could transfer to the big screen – all those lovely costumes, the glamorous setting. But I might still be a bit bored. I don’t think I will read this again anytime soon – perhaps I missed the point. Anyone else out there read it? What do you think?


The Doll’s House, by Rumer Godden
This edition published by Mermaid Books (reset), 1955. First published by Michael Joseph Ltd, November 1947

I had been searching for this book for some time, and was delighted to find this edition, one of the first print runs for Mermaid books. It is a curious little hard-cover, with colour illustrations inside by Dana Saintsbury. I actually think I may have got a bargain – as I bought it for a fiver, and a little delve online turns up copies sold for five times that amount. Not that I am selling this beauty any time soon…

We are introduced to Tottie Plantaganet, a small wise Dutch doll that lives in an old-fashioned doll’s house. It has lace curtains, a sofa covered in red velvet, and a lamp with a white china shade that was lit using a birthday cake candle. It is also home to the varied collection of dolls that form her family – her ‘father’ Mr Plantaganet, still suffering from nerves after years forgotten in a dark toy cupboard; ‘mother’ Birdie, who is made of celluloid and is as light as her thoughts; ‘brother’ Apple, a small plush doll who likes causing mischief – chiefly tumbling down the stairs, and dog Darner, who has a backbone made of a darning needle. He also has an unfortunate habit of barking ‘prick’ when he senses danger – something that was probably seen as cute when the books were written, but now… well… doesn’t quite suit the story, shall we say.

So far, so pleasant. But then everything changes – a new doll called Marchpane is brought into the house. She slowly takes over and influences the girls’ that play with the dolls – the Plantaganet’s become Marchpane’s servants and Apple her son. But Birdie doesn’t understand why she has lost her son and Marchpane exploits this, as the candle is so hot, so deadly to small dolls…

I seem to remember being in floods of tears reading this book as a child, and returning to it as an adult there is still something awful and sinister about Marchpane. I swear her name is where my dislike of marzipan came from (when very young I thought the word was one and the same!) As a social commentary this book is very clever - the dynamics between the dolls and their hopes and fears reveal very human frailties. The characters are very compelling, but it is the small throwaway details that make this book really come alive, the little asides in the narrative. Brilliantly done, but be warned – your child will cry!

Book worm: March 2010

In each monthly 'Book worm', I review all the books I have read the previous month, no matter how varied! I am looking forward to discovering what takes my attention in a year. Bit late with this post, and it will be split over two days as the printed word really caught my attention in March!

Every so often I do a grand second-hand bookshop trawl, looking for authors and editions that please me. The following was the result.

The House on the Strand, by Daphne du Maurier.
My Uncle Silas, by H.E. Bates.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Doll’s House, by Rumer Godden.
Mandy annual, 1982.

REVIEWS

The House on the Strand, by Daphne du Maurier.
This edition published by Penguin Books, 1973.
First published by Victor Gollancz 1969.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit I had never come across Daphne du Maurier’s books before, but someone in blog-land (forgive me, I cannot remember who) mentioned them a while ago and since then it has been ticking in my brain that I had to read something from this author. So I pounced on this book, and scurried home to read with the same enthusiasm I had as a child with an Enid Blyton from the library.

The House on the Strand tells us about Richard Young, the publisher bored of his life with lively American wife Vita, and his two step-sons. He goes to Cornwall to stay in the house of his scientist friend, and experiments with a drug his friend is developing, a drug that takes him back as an unseen wanderer six-hundred years into the history of the house and the surrounding area. The dramas played out over the chilly fields of historic Cornwall embrace Richard, and draw him like a moth to a flame, for how can you fall in love with a time so long dead?

Oh I loved this book. The dualities of the two dramas enfold and overlap one another, and yet the historic tale is very much life as it was, and the modern world is very contemporary for its time. Both stories are equally compelling, and all the characters ring true. There is a love of language, a vividness of description, which makes me long to up sticks and move to Cornwall, to research bygone times, and, worrying, to stride around in a late 60s lounge-suit. I didn’t want it to end.

But sadly it did, abruptly, and I had to check I hadn’t missed a page. I won’t spoil it but it is a very enigmatic ending, and it’s left to the reader to summarise what had happened to the protagonist. I would have preferred a more definite clue as it feels very veiled, but this the beauty of it.

I am thrilled there are lots more books by Daphne du Maurier for me to discover!


My Uncle Silas, by H.E. Bates.
This edition published by Penguin Books, 1958.
First published by Jonathan Cape, 1939

The reason I picked up this book was two-fold. One - I recognised the cover illustration as being by the great illustrator Edward Ardizzone, and two – it tickled me in a way that good friend C would understand. I also had never read anything by H.E. Bates before, and decided that now was as good a time as any to begin.

Reading this book is like the equivalent of sitting with your back to a tree in a meadow, warm sun dappling through the branches, bird song in the air, and a cool glass of lemonade by your side. For some reason you are wearing a wide-brimmed hat but ignore that for now. It is a real comfort read, and even better is split into bite-size short stories, all about the rapscallion Uncle Silas.

Uncle Silas is a scoundrel, a bounder, a rascal in every way – and yet he is charming, with humorous tales that span nearly a century, from the ‘hungry forties’ in the nineteenth century to 1930. He is coaxed to tell his stories to his small great-nephew, and weaves fact and fantasy together in order to beguile and delight the youngster (and us). Although I found this book in a children’s section, I am not convinced it is a child’s book – some of Silas’ tales concern love and courtship, with hints of forbidden romps behind helpful haystacks. But they all delightfully describe the countryside of days past, and the many ways an elderly gentleman can still cause mischief in his twilight years.

o0o

Part two to come tomorrow, and a warm welcome to new followers! I am so excited to see you. Virtual hugs!

Book Worm: February 2010

In each monthly 'Book worm', I review all the books I have read the previous month, no matter how varied! I am looking forward to discovering what takes my attention in a year.

Sharpe’s Tiger, by Bernard Cornwell. Published July 1999
Rothschild Buildings: Life in an East-End Tenement Block, 1887-1920, by Jerry White. Published 2003
Gypsy Boy, by Mikey Walsh. Published 2009

Sharpe’s Tiger

I must admit the reason I bought this was I passed by the television and saw the actor Sean Bean with his kit off playing the character of Richard Sharpe. Hello, I thought, maybe it is time for me to read about the battles of the 18th century.

That aside, I really enjoyed this book. I wonder what came first for the author – the story or the research? As there is a real love of his subject here and I wonder if he was first a historian and wrote the story around his obsession, or had the idea for the story and fell in love with the research. Either way it definitely works – there is a real sense of a soldier’s life in the King’s Army, and it is very clever to write so much detail without resorting to showing off your knowledge.

The story itself is good – regardless of the association with the handsome leads of the long-running successful television series. Inter-woven against the hot back-drop of India, fact and fiction meld perfectly. The characters are all equally compelling from the wily hero Sharpe to his sadistic sergeant Hakewill, and there is enough action to ensure the adventure doesn’t stop until the very end. Well worth a read, good escapism.

Rothschild Buildings: Life in an East-End Tenement Block, 1887-1920

In a way this book is family history for me! My family have strong links to the Rothschild Buildings; and so this has a dual purpose – satisfying my love of social history, and also exploring my roots.

The east end of London has always absorbed, if not welcomed, immigrants from overseas. Back in the time this book documents, those immigrants were mainly poor but respectable Jewish people escaping from the troubles of Eastern Europe. The Rothschild Buildings were erected on slum-clearance ground as a solution to the over-crowding in the area, and were set up to be ‘model dwellings’ for a mainly artisan population.

Totally gripping and fascinating, the book draws on the testimonies of people that lived through those times, and paints a complete picture of their lives, tensions, and the community spirit that springs from close habitation.

This is my east end, my family history. I must find out more sometime.

Gypsy Boy

A bit of an odd one for me to pick up, as I usually steer clear of anything that smacks of a tragic life tale. But there’s a couple of things going on here that make this book head and shoulders above mis-lit autobiographies.

Firstly the author has a very good subtle sense of humour. In fact, this is what persuaded me to buy the book – in the first paragraph he describes his small granny as a ‘pygmy in a cardigan’ – and I was hooked. He has a deft light touch with his words, always a pleasure to read.

Secondly he gives us a glimpse into the gypsy way of life that demonstrates pride in his roots and yet is objective enough to see from an outsider’s point of view. Since non-travelling folk don’t get much of an opportunity to learn about gypsies apart from what is highlighted in the Daily Mail, this is a fascinating reveal.

It is the light-touch with his writing that makes the abuse he suffers all the more horrific and unexpected to read, although the author, understandably, doesn’t dwell on such periods in his life. Instead he goes on to tell of his escape and reincarnation, by which point you are rooting for him so bad that you want to give him a hug and shake his hand.

My only quibble with this book was that it felt as though the end was somewhat rushed, as a reader I would have liked to share more of his joy at discovering freedom, especially after all that hardship.

Read more from January's Book Worm

Book worm: January 2010

In 'Book worm', a new monthly series, I will review all the books I have read the previous month, no matter how varied! I am looking forward to discovering what takes my attention in a year.

Dewey, by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter. Published 2008
Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain. Published 1933

Dewey

A small fluffy ginger kitten is left to freeze to death in a library drop-box during winter in small-town America. The librarians find it in time, and the kitten begins a new lease of life, as Dewey the library cat.

There is something about animal biographies, especially cats, which makes me so emotional, even at the start. But leaving that aside, I would cautiously say I enjoyed this book, although I did have some misgivings.

The main focus of the book – the kitten that was found and lived in the library – is a very sweet story, but I am not sure it is a ‘novel-sized’ story. It feels like it would work a lot better as a children’s picture book. While I enjoyed reading about Dewey’s antics and growing fame, the story became less about Dewey and more about why the author thinks we should love her special cat. Indeed, the structure of each chapter ends by telling me the exact same thing, and as a reader I don’t need to be told constantly that Dewey is a special cat, I got that from the first chapter. What I wanted was to be shown why is he special.

So, because the story of Dewey himself is quite short, around that is another story, the back-history of the small town, and Iowa itself. This was fantastic. I know little about middle-America and her successes and tragedies, so found this very interesting. Vicki Myron sketches its inhabitants quite clearly and her descriptions of the community are very compelling.

Testament of Youth

This epic book documents the mood of a nation and the build up to the First World War. It takes us through the idealistic young men who thought war was ‘heroism in the aspect’, the earnest stoic young women who nursed the soldiers, the mud and the cold of the French fields, the bittersweet victory, the realisation of the awful cost to both sides, and the pursuit of peace.

The author paints a good picture of what it was like to be a wealthy teenager leading up to war, and especially, to be a female during those turbulent times. There were little opportunities for distraction from the gigantic propaganda war machine and so these young people stirred themselves into a tizzy over dramatic poetry, sweeping music, and entreaties from the King down to school masters that to be a man meant fighting for their country, and if they died then it would be a ‘glorious death’. Older people capitalised and preyed on these emotive teenagers, and by the time these young officers realised that there was no glory in harsh dying then it was all too late.

Vera Brittain is very alive in these pages; she despairs and hopes and dreams throughout this long chapter of her life, and struggles later to find meaning in what she has seen. She laments for a lost generation, those who died and those who lived, and I lament with her from my lofty viewpoint ninety years hence. The latter part of her book concerns itself with peace, and with her determination to be an author. Still so relevant, as human emotions do not change as rapidly as the world in which they live; the voice and advice through the pages gives me comfort for my own modest ambitions.

DVD or Ditch? St Elmo’s Fire

I am trying to stream-line my video collection by donating it all to a charity shop, ignoring their groaning shelves already full of unwanted VHS tapes. But before I give the films away, I will re-watch what once caught my attention and see if it is worthy of an upgrade to DVD. So today’s review will be about the 1985 film, St Elmo’s Fire.

St Elmo’s Fire sounds like it should be good. It has all the right actors of the day, and it is a ‘coming-of-age’ film, at a time when it seemed that the genre could do no wrong. Yet why do I get vague memories that this will be a wasted two hours as I slide in the clunky tape?

I remember the problem fifteen minutes in. There are seven characters here, and it is hard to find a single one that I care about. Even worse, the music and direction of the film seems to suggest that I, the viewer, should be sympathetic to these characters, but this feels very inappropriate given the way the characters behave. Shoehorning manufactured compassion into a film does not excuse for poor script / direction, nor will it dupe viewers into suddenly thinking that the moronic character is a nice guy.

Let’s take Kirby (Emilio Estevez). He bumps into an older girl he loved at school and wants to date her, so far so normal. However, he does this by turning into the sort of stalker that would have any sane person reaching for 911. He displays disturbing behaviour; even following this woman to a snowbound cabin with her boyfriend, and what does the director want us to believe? Yes, that this is an endearing character trait – Kirby assaults the woman with a kiss, she falls slightly in love with him, and he roars off into the sunset redeemed and giggling to triumphant music. Sorry, but no, Mr Director. The character might be played by the best giggler in the 80s, but obsessive behaviour to the point of scary is not a turn on.

Or, let’s look at Billy (Rob Lowe). He sleeps around with all the girls, despite the fact he has a wife and very small baby. What a guy, huh? What a dude! He obviously loved college as he was a playboy with no responsibilities, and is still trying to lead that lifestyle, ignoring the fact that everything has changed. I can believe that - what I cannot believe is again, the director trying to manipulate me into being sympathetic at two very wrong times. One is when Billy misreads (deliberately) the signals given by his drunken friend Jules, and attempts to molest her outside the house he shares with his wife and baby. She fights him off, which is witnessed by his wife, and he is left on his own outside. Cue, unbelievingly, sympathetic music. The other time is that he continually questions a friend’s virginity, and gets her to sleep with him as a 'parting present' just before he leaves town forever. The director tries to portray this as a romantic scene, which doesn’t work at all. Again, like with Emilio playing Kirby, I think the director is carried away by having Rob Lowe play this character – yes, the actor’s good looking, but that doesn’t redeem the character from being a complete git.

The other characters are just as unlovable – you have Alec (Judd Nelson) who wants to get married but cheats on his girlfriend constantly, Jules (Demi Moore) who is so two-dimensional she disappears if she turns sideways, and Wendy (Mare Winningham) – a non-entity whose name I only found out just now looking at wikipedia. The only two characters I feel the slightest compassion for is Kevin (Andrew McCarthey) and Leslie (Ally Sheedy). Leslie is Alec’s long-suffering girlfriend who finds out about his affairs and instead takes up with his best mate, Kevin, who has been in unrequited love with her for years. At least these characters feel slightly believable, and are given, especially Kevin, a bit more depth so the actor can play around. The most annoying thing is that the majority of these actors are good – surely there must have been better scripts out there to showcase their ability? The only thing this film showcases is disastrous fashion – Ally Sheedy in particular gets to wear some shockers. As for Mare Winningham - most of the time she looks like she is dressed for pantomime; about to tell Cinderella she cannot go to the ball.

This film for me finally falls into the lowest common denominator for film-viewing, which is solely whether the totty is worth the two hours. Forget script, plot, everything – how good looking are the guys and can I watch it again with the sound down? (One of Brad Pitt’s films, The Mexican, is perfect sound down material). Judd Nelson is lovely, and Rob Lowe is undeniably pretty, but this is an ensemble cast and they share equal screen time with five others, so it’s not even good value sound down. No DVD upgrade for this film.