Last of the holiday reading: "The Tudors" by Peter Ackroyd

Lots of people have remarked that I seem to have read quite a few books over the summer. Well, folks, that's over.

This is the last of the books started in balmy Pescara, but the first to be completed on a small aeroplane bumping down through the cloud into a ridiculously cold and bleak late August day in Birmingham (whence Nottingham), a trip marking the end of summer as we know it. Expect a reading slowdown, as the grim world of work resumes.

Elizabeth: badass compromiser

Meanwhile, how not to be a fan of Peter Ackroyd? This is a history book bought unashamedly on the strength of the reputation of the author as a writer, rather than as a historian. I imagine it must be frustrating for real historians (perhaps one of whom will let me know if Ackroyd can or cannot be considered a historian), but there's no arguing with this man's ability to tell a story, be it as a novel (Hawksmoor (astounding, by the way - had me prowling the East End of London in my precious lunch hours in distant 1988 just spotting Hawksmoor churches); The House of Doctor Dee), or as non-fiction (London: The Biography; London Under). Moreover, my appetite for the Tudors had been whetted (of course) by two marvellous Hilary Mantel novels (this and this), as well as Ian Mortimer's Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England.

All of which to say, like most of the middle-class anglosphere, it seems, I'm currently in a fascinated-by-the-Tudors period and in any case stand a fair chance of buying any book which has "Peter Ackroyd" on the cover.

Cutting edge history, however, I suspect this is not. I recall a reviewer's comment from somewhere saying that this book tells "familiar stories", and that is indeed the case. However, Ackroyd tells these stories exceptionally well, and has the gift of bringing the protagonists to life. That is a key strength of this book, the personalisation of this period of history, in which many great public events seem indeed to have been driven by personal characters and impulses (Marxist historians beware!). This is hugely valuable in itself.

Yesterday's dystopian reading: "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell

At least as an adult, I have never been a re-reader of books. There just seems to be so much new stuff out there... However, this is an exception. 

It all comes down to a remark made by a old friend, by the name of Sam Moreland (for the record), whom I saw again a month or so ago, who had himself just re-read 1984. "I wondered what it would be like to reread a book I first read as a teenager," he said, "Would it be the same?" His conclusion was that it was a really interesting thing to do. He recommended reading the appendix on Newspeak ("which nobody reads") and, on the book in general, concluded: "Actually, it's all about sex." 

Anyway, all of that, together with a reissue of the book by Penguin with a clever new cover (the title blacked out but legible in relief) induced me to undertake the novelty of a reread. I shared Sam's curiosity about how such a seminal work, which we have all read as teenagers, would seem to the adult me. I am very glad I did so. 

The first thing I have to do however is to dissent from Sam on a couple of points. First, I did read the appendix first time round. Maybe it was my linguistic tendencies showing through, maybe it was because, just as I was brought up to finish all the food on my plate, for me it was a kind of a moral obligation to read everything between the covers of a book. (Notes aside, I still do this, as well as finishing my food, even - bad idea - when in America.) Second, 1984 is not all about sex. There is a lot more sex in it than I recall, and it is a more important factor in Winston's rebellion than I remember, but, sorry Sam, the book is still what I thought it was about: a nightmare of totalitarianism. That said, I am sure that like most teachers at the time I first read the book in the late seventies, mine rather skated over the sex stuff.

Rather frivolous reading" "Broken Homes" by Ben Aaronovitch

No one will blame me, methinks, for something a little lighter after the last one, and indeed I have gone to the other end of the spectrum. 

Broken Homes is the fourth in Ben Aaronovitch's series about streetwise, magically gifted copper Peter Grant, fighting "weird stuff" on the streets of London. On this occasion, the skulduggery leads our hero, together with partner Lesley and boss Nightingale, to an only-slightly-fictitious brutalist housing estate at the Elephant and Castle, but one which turns out to be imbued with special properties unsuspected by its residents. 

As ever, the plot rattles along, in the always agreeable company of PC Grant, whose knowing take on police procedure and contemporary London street life are a genuine delight. The usual cast of improbable multicultural river deities, faeries, water sprites and wood nymphs is also out in force, and by now we are expected to know who they are and where they all come from. 

Utterly chastening reading: "Savage Continent" by Keith Lowe.

If there were ever a risk that I would become too frivolous in my holiday reading habits, this book most decidedly redressed the balance. A gruelling read, not because it was badly or turgidly written, but because of the stories it tells. Lowe's intention with this work is to fill a gap, especially for the general reader, in the usual accounts of European history which take us from the end of the Second World War into the postwar era.

As aficionados of this blog will be aware, there have been quite a few history books covering the final stages of the War, the great power politics of the immediate aftermath and the early stages of the Cold War. But for me at least there was indeed a gap, about which I had often wondered: what was happening "on the ground" in the year or two after the formal end of hostilities? As Lowe points out, the Brits and Americans in particular are prone to place a full stop at VE Day (one definitely relativises the term "victory" after reading this book), after which Europe gets into the business of rebuilding and recovering. Well, as Lowe demonstrates, it ain't quite that simple.

We knew that, of course, but I guess many people, like me, had no concept of the sheer scale of the horrors which filled the years between 1945 and 1949 (for many well beyond that). At the outset, Lowe sets the scene by giving some indication of the sheer scale of death and destruction unleashed by the War itself and the utter devastation visited on vast tracts of the continent, which, particularly in the East, we're beyond the imaginings of British and American observers. The physical infrastructure was in ruins, vital supplies were lacking (hundreds of thousands starved to death across Europe in 1944-5) and millions of people were homeless and displaced. In this situation, civilisation breaks down. As Lowe puts it in his introduction:

Imagine a world without institutions. It is a world where borders between countries seem to have dissolved, leaving a single, endless landscape over which people travel in search of communities that no longer exist. There are no governments any more, on either a national scale or even a local one. There are no schools or universities, no libraries or archives, no access to any information whatsoever. (...) There are no banks, but that is no great hardship because money no longer has any worth. There are no shops, because no one has anything to sell. Nothing is made here: the great factories and businesses that used to exist have all been destroyed or dismantled, as have most of the other buildings. There are no tools, save what can be dug out of the rubble. There is no food. Law and order are virtually non-existent because there is no police force and no judiciary. In some areas there no longer seems to be any sense of what is right and wrong. (...) Goods belong only to those who are strong enough to hold on to them, and those willing to guard them with their lives. Men with weapons roam the streets taking what they want and threatening anyone who gets in their way. Women of all classes and ages prostitute themselves for food and protection. There is no shame. There is no morality. There is only survival.

It sounds like a Hollywood script for some post-apocalyptic movie, but this was reality for millions of people across swathes of Europe.

Post-Soviet thrills reading: "Tatiana" by Martin Cruz Smith

I wonder if I get two books mixed up in my recollection: Archangel by Robert Harris and Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith. In fact, I don't wonder, I know I do. I read them around the same time a few years ago and they kind of blurred together a bit.

All this to say that this perhaps accounts for my perhaps excessive expectations of Tatiana, the latest Russian tale from Cruz Smith based on the character of Senior Investigator Arkady Renko. Put another way, I was maybe - and unreasonably - expecting something more Harris-like.

I'm not saying this is not an enjoyable book, just to say not to expect much more than a run-of-the-mill thriller, complete with crusty-but-heroic cop, courageous (and beautiful) investigative journalist, awkward-but-talented family member, cynical-but-loyal side-kick, and, of course, a whole cast of hit men, glossy and not-so-glossy mafia bosses, bent policemen and corrupt officials.

The plot has its thrills and spills, twists and turns, as you would expect, and they keep the pages turning. In the end, as ever in this kind of hard-bitten thriller, the good guys triumph in a pyrrhic and rather inconclusive kind of way and that's that.

Well, not quite. There was a dimension of the book which did endear it too me a little more than the plot line alone would justify, the setting. Not so much the juxtaposition of gangster-bling and grubby dereliction which have become emblematic of Putin's Russia, but the specific location of much of the action, Kaliningrad. This weird Russian exclave, a Cold War relic left adrift several hundred kilometres from the country of which it is part, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, holds a certain fascination for me.

Orbiting reading: "Sputnik Sweetheart" by Haruki Murakami

The first time the word "Sputnik" appears in this Murakami novel is as a mix-up for the word "beatnik", but it is, as you might expect, a meaningful confusion. As we are quickly reminded, Sputnik means "travelling companion", and it is in this sense that it is intended throughout this strange novel, albeit applying principally to a character who is an aspirant beatnik. 

Sputnik Sweetheart is characteristic of its author in many ways, with at its core a tale of unrequited love, impossible desire and shifting personalities. There are three characters to speak of: "K", the male narrator, a solitary, kind, bookish schoolteacher; Sumire, an aspiring writer of the beatnik sort, given to frantic, talent-filled, but ultimately inconclusive, bouts of writing, 3.00 am phone calls to her friend K to discuss matters of intimate import and a preference for charity shop coats and workman's boots; and finally, Miu, a sophisticated rather older woman, a smart, wealthy, cultivated importer of European wines to Japan.

K loves, and desires, Sumire. He has done since they were students together, but has assumed the role of friend and intimate confidant because, though she trusts him totally and loves him as a friend, she cannot return his romantic feelings for her. It is thus he to whom Sumire turns to tell him of the sudden and extraordinary passion she feels for Miu. This loves comes out of nowhere - Sumire had no prior notion of being a lesbian, indeed of being anything very much other than a writer, before meeting Miu, if that is in fact what she is - but becomes the dominant force in her life, transforming her. She takes a job working for Miu, she begins to dress elegantly and fashionably, she starts wearing makeup. The two become close, but, as becomes clear in a scene written with extraordinary power, Miu cannot reciprocate, not because Sumire's attentions trouble her - she wishes she could respond - but because she is unable to feel any desire or physical connection with another.

Dystopian reading: "The Circle" by Dave Eggers

Two or three weeks ago, I attended a rather flashy conference in Brussels. It was the annual "communication summit" organised by the European Association of Communications Directors, and it was heavily themed around technology and how it is affecting the work of communications professionals. At the end of the first - fascinating - keynote session, by Jimmy Maymann, CEO of the Huffington Post, a questioner from the audience piped up: "Have you read The Circle by Dave Eggers, and what implications do you think it has for us?" The question was at least a little different from the others and the audience - most of whom, like me, had probably at least heard of the book - waited for the answer. But sadly Jimmy Maymann had not read the book and declined to comment. Oh well, nice try.

However, the questioner was not so easily put off. She asked the same question of the next speaker too, who similarly had not read the book and was not to be drawn. Over the rest of the two day conference I heard the questioner ask the identical question to various panels and speakers, and I am sure I wasn't there on every occasion she did. As she repeated herself, and nobody, but nobody, she asked had read the book, the reaction of the audience evolved. There was much discreet eyeball rolling, some less discreet sighing... Our questioner was gradually becoming a bit of a freak, some sort of obsessive in the desert, for pointlessly insisting with her question about internet technology getting of of hand. Perhaps if the conference had lasted longer, she would have been openly heckled, discouraged, marginalised, even excluded? 

Apart from the fact that it is surprising to me that not one of the speakers had read the book - perhaps they are simply all too busy tweeting to read books any more - there now seems to me to be a surprising message in the treatment of the obsessive questioner. She implicitly challenged the groupthink of a tech-enthusiast consensus and rather than being engaged with on the substance, she became boring, irrelevant, just a bit weird. Something similar happens to a character in The Circle, a man who rebels against the encroachment of the internet on every aspect of life, ranting about its erosion of privacy and its negation of the possibility of solitude. He too becomes a figure of fun, ridiculed for not "getting it", and his attempts to opt out simply considered weird. In the end, his fate is rather more dramatic than that of the conference delegate, who probably just left rather frustrated, but bears comparison.

Perhaps though I should backtrack a bit. What is The Circle about? 

Dreamtime reading: "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman

There are some writers who just leave you agog at the sheer fertility of their imaginations and inventiveness. Neil Gaiman is such an author. This was another book-in-a-day, devoured over a slow morning in waiting for the weather to improve and then, once it had, lounging at the beach, not wanting to interrupt the story even to get into the inviting water. 

Gaiman's stories are magical, and for that reason come burdened with the label of the "fantasy" genre. I'm guessing that this puts some people off, and, yes, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is in very many ways a fairy tale, full of fairy tale tropes: the mysterious farmhouse at the end of the lane, three wise women, blindly uncomprehending adults, evil disguised as beauty, a magical world bursting through into the real one, a kind of elemental savagery combined with a form of natural justice... Gaiman gladly embraces the fairy tale world, and in his hands it becomes true, truer than the humdrum adult world which frames this story. He also embraces its techniques. Most of the novel is a memory of childhood, evoked by an adult visit to a duckpond (the "ocean" of the title), in a example of what I once learned to call Rahmentechnik (framing technique, aka a story-within-a-story), beloved of eighteenth century German novella writers, writing stories frequently featuring magical events in mysterious forests.

The knowledge of childhood

But this is very far from fairy-tale-by-numbers. Gaiman not only writes a page turning story, but also a beautifully evocative one. I notice how many times I have already used the term "adult" as a contrast to the heart of this book, which is, perhaps more than anything, an evocation of what it is like to be a child, like the seven year-old protagonist, living in a world far more open to interpretation and discovery than it is to an adult, full of fears and comforts lost to adults, and to which the child feels a much more intimate physical connection than the adult. 

A sense of place, and of home, is very strong in this book. It is revealing that Gaiman explicitly built the physical environment of the novel on his own memories of his childhood home. Whether or not we as readers feel in any way similar to the boy protagonist (who never, I think, acquires a name), I am sure that everyone will recognise the way he both knows and feels the world in which he lives: the details of his room, the house, the garden and the immediate surroundings. At one point we find a little explanation of this: 

Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never accurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences.