Three Men in a Boat - post III

The book comes to an end and while it has been enjoyable it has not aged that well. It is more Last of the Summer Wine than Saturday Night Live and although the humour is gentle it is perhaps too of its time. That is not to say it is a failing but it doesn't quite live up to the billing on the dust jacket.

Bullet points between pages 150 - 185

* Throughout there is a potted history being given of the places that Kings fought, were buried and had an influence but it is told in a 1066 and All That type way with the emphasis very much on the personal and quirky side of history

* Having moaned earlier about steam launches when they get offered a lift by one Jerome moans a great deal about the slowness of the rowers on the river and even comments that they have to shout and blow the whistle to get any movement

* No love is lost for Reading, which is described as a dirty town that fouls the water, and they seem relieved when they past it and near the end of the Thames journey getting ready to head home but as they turn around from Oxford the weather worsens

* After one night in the rain, with the food ruined and morale getting worse they head through the drizzle to Pangbourne and after a brief discussion abandon the boat and head to the station to get a train back to London

* Back in civilisation they eat to their hearts content and raise their glasses to 'Three men no longer in a boat' a toast that even the dog joins in with

A review will follow shortly...

book of books - Selected Tales

As part of the Penguin blog the classics challenge the book sent was Selected Tales by Edgar Allan Poe and the deadline to read it and review it was six weeks. This is a slightly longer version of the review I have now submitted, which will hopefully go live soon. It was an enyoable experience and hopefully Penguin will do something similar again the future.

When Edgar Allan Poe sat down to write he must have been an incredible feeling of adventure. He was writing stories that went into that area that straddles the lines between good and evil, life and death and the natural and supernatural. Each time he put pen to paper the journey into a mystical world would start.

In this series of Selected Tales there are stories that shock for their gruesome content, surprise for their innovation and others that create a genre for other authors to follow. Like a mountaineer being the first to climb Everest this is a writer breaking new ground on almost every page.

The reason why he gets away with what could have been difficult for some writers trying to see where their imagination will take them is because of the confidence in the writing. He is able to sketch out not just characters, and some of them are far from normal, but locations that require some detailed description in just a couple of pages. He uses literary devices, like quoting newspaper reports in Murder on the Rue Morgue, which are imaginative but more importantly work. On top of that he shows that it is possible to mix styles to create something that appears to be a traditional narrative but then packs a supernatural punch.

At the heart of a good Poe story is the pace. The reader feels the rising tension, fears the next move and shivers at the conclusion.

Some of the best stories to show that working are the Fall of the House of Usher where the climax is enough to get the hairs on the back of your neck standing up as the house and the remaining Usher family both crumble into dust. Then there are a series of stories that start with a murderer lamenting over how he got caught - The Beating Heart and The Black Cat.

Then there are the detective stories with the enigmatic Dupin that remind you of Sherlock Holmes among others as the lonely odd individual uses deductive skills that solve crimes the police have not even got close to wrapping up. Murder in the Rue Morgue is the best of the three stories where Dupin appears because he visits the murder scene and solves the oddest of crimes, where the murderer was an Orangutan. All that is best about Poe is displayed in this single story with a mad ape yielding a cut throat razor turning an ordinary night time Paris into something much more disturbing. It also challenges the reader to push the boundaries of what they think might have happened and engage with a very active imagination.

Bearing in mind most writers are encouraged to write about what they know there is also a confidence here to tackle numerous locations ranging from Africa, Caribbean islands, Paris and America.

Most short story collections reinforce the impression that a writer is concerned with certain key themes, religion and love for example, but what this collection shows is just how wide Poe’s imagination stretched.

Lunchtime read: The Steppe and Other Stories

Most of the Chekhov so far has been thought provoking but not necessarily depressing but the stories from today are very much in the classic tragic Russian mould. Provoked one work colleague to make another request for me to read Jeffery Archer, “something not only light and enjoyable but also fantastically well written”. Enough in just bone sentence to fill up a million blogs in debate…

Highlights from Volodya
A young man who is staying with friends of the family because his mother is not doing so well financially following his father’s death falls in love with the woman of the house. He tells her that he loves her and then later that same night tries to get physically involved with her but both times is rebuffed with indifference and overhears the woman laughing about him to his mother. He goes home with his mother and abuses her verbally and then slinks off manages to get hold of a revolver and then still in a state of heart broken petulance puts the barrel in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

Highlights from Sleepy
A woman who appears to have been sold into service is exhausted looking after her master and mistress’s baby. She dreams of sleep recalling the moment when her father and mother sold her on the highway and then she is sent scurrying here and there to do jobs and chores. By the end of the night she can barely stand and she realises that what is preventing her from sleeping is the child. So she strangles the infant and then lays down next to the cot and falls into a deep sleep.

The first part of The Steppe comes tomorrow…

Three Men in a Boat - post II

What can go wrong starts to go wrong but the emerging character here is Montmorency the dog who manages to have a run in with a cat as well as the kettle and come off worse in both cases.

Bullet points between pages 76 – 150

* The three boaters are travelling up the Thames recalling the various experiences they have had and they seem to range from having a bad experience learning to row as well as running into problems with steam boats

* As part of the revenge process they deliberately block the steamboats that have come up for an event in Henley and manage to infuriate most of the river traffic by pretending not to notice they are getting in the way

* There are some moments that get you chuckling as Jerome gets George into hysterics as he drops his shirt into the river only to then be incoherent with laughter himself after realising it’s George’s shirt

* Then they pop out leaving Harris in charge of the boat and when he crosses the river to pick them up he is clearly worse for wear and mumbling about fending off a flock of swans before slipping back into his stupor

* All the way up the Thames Jerome shares not only some of the history of the places on the way but his opinions on some of the places on the route describing Reading as ugly and Marlow as one of the better places to stop en route

The entire book has a feeling, humour aside, of describing a Britain that has largely disappeared. Messing about on the river in a very innocent way with hampers and boaters is the stuff of a more innocent age. The humour has lasted but sadly much of the world Jerome describes has gone and you are reminded of it very much when one villager on the Thames advises them to drink the river water, as he has done for 15 years. They are about to when a dead dog drifts by. Now of course you would be mad to even consider sipping the stuff unfiltered and treated.

More tomorrow…

book of books - Mr Pye

Adding this book to the Gormenghast trilogy the themes of good and evil and the battle within to choose which to be are echoed across Mervyn Peake’s work. Just as Titus Groan has to find his own way and discover freedom that ultimately means that he has to leave his family Mr Pye has to adapt his plans to remain free of the influence of evil or good.

Mr Pye is an odd central character because he is not difficult to feel close to and his behaviour and antics, mostly secretive, are always a bit strange. But the reader gets caught up in the question of what is the right equilibrium between good and evil. Does one good deed have to be cancelled out with a bad one?

Plot summary
An odd man arrives on the island of Sark and through his good will towards everyone and his determination to make the island a beacon of love for God he manages to shake up the islanders quite rapidly. None more so than the landlady of his guest house Miss Dredger who discovers that she is no longer mistress in her own house and this odd little man has taken over. She becomes his first and most loyal disciple and goes along with everything he asks including inviting her bitter enemy Miss George to stay in her house. Meanwhile Mr Pye is working his odd magic around the island building up for what he hopes will be a night of glorious conversion. But as he preaches to the population in a cove a rotting whale is washed up on the beach and the impact of his speech is lost. Shortly afterwards he complains of having been bitten on his back and starts to grow wings.

The doctors in Harley Street cannot help and by the time he returns to the island he has started on a course of action sinning at every opportunity to get rid of the wings. After a while it seems to have worked, no doubt helped by the nightly meetings with the goat of Mendes for a bout of Satan worshipping. Pye starts to grow horns and after a yo-yo between the two decides the only way to get rid of the horns is to endure some public humiliation. So he shows his horns to the islanders which causes the police to be called and for a chase to ensue which ends when Pye sails over a cliff, unfurls his wings and flies off into the night.

Is it well written?
The reader realises quicker than the narrative describes that the horns are coming and rather than repeat the emotions Pye felt when the wings were discovered the story quickly marches onto a conclusion. That is the sign of a good story teller because he knows that to leave it longer would cause impatience. The question of good and evil is dealt with in such a way that you are left asking some questions of yourself. Questions left going through your head include the most fundamental one (bearing in mind the transformation in the book of Miss Dredger): is life better if you are infused with love and prepared to share it?

Should it be read?
It shows a different side to Peake after Gormenghast but also just how able he is to develop characters that are unusual. Pye, Dredger, the painter and his girlfriend could all have existed in the Gormenghast world but are depicted living in this one. There are also sketches at the start of each chapter by the author that are also of interest showing how the vision of the artists mind works both graphically and in words. A final reason for picking it up (apart from the picture of Derek Jacobi with wings from the television version from a few years ago) is the humour of a story about a modern and quite unusual missionary.

Summary
Angle or devil? The choice is like walking as tightrope.

Lunchtime read: The Steppe and Other Stories

These short stories remind you of a concise crossword with the clues all being there but it not being so simple to crack the puzzle. To do that you have to read and engage with the characters that on the face of it seem to be sketched but in reality have quite a bit of depth.

Highlights from The Mire
A solider on leave looking to raise the 5,000 roubles needed to pay for his wife goes round collecting debts on behalf of his cousin. One of the debts is with a rich daughter of a vodka brewery and she acts in such an odd way that she bewitches the young solider. He returns home telling his cousin all about her and her refusal to pay the debt. The cousin storms off and comes back a day later equally bewitched but without the money. Both think about her but the solider has to go back and the cousin lends him the money and bids him farewell. He then thinks about paying the woman a visit a few days later and as he walks through her house, full of men, he discovers his cousin there who mumbles something about planning to leave the next day after having said goodbye.

Highlights from Verotchka
A youngish statistical who has been helping out a collective get their books in order comes to say his goodbyes. The daughter of the household of the head of the collective walks with him to the woods to be him farewell. She tells him that he loves him and takes him by surprise opening up her heart. He searches inside his own but finds no feelings for her and then refuses her. He then wanders around her home thinking about the love he is turning down but nevertheless heads back to his hotel and packs his bags.

More tomorrow…

The week ahead...

While the idea of best laid plans is still in the mind this is the rough menu for the early part of next week.
On the review front there is so catching up to do so there should be some things to be said about Mr Pye, Selected Tales by Allan Poe and Roseanna the great thriller that was last week's read.
 

Lunchtimes will be filled with some Chekhov with his The Steppe and Other Stories and the evenings will cover the antics of Three Men in a Boat.

Beyond that it's not so clear and depends on various things including the stock in at the local library, the speed of the eBay deliveries and whether ot not Amazon really is the only option for the second book in the Martin Beck detective series...

Bookmark of the week

The idea was to write some reviews today but you know what they say about best laid plans. The bookmark of the week is the second of the three I picked up in Switzerland on my holiday a few weeks ago. This one is special not only because it is a genuine Edelweiss but because that is the flower my wife had in her hair the day we were married. She secretly grew enough edelweiss to make into a garland - something she tells me was very difficult - and it was one of the touches to the day that I will never forget and for that reason edelweiss is a very special flower.

book of books - Slaughterhouse 5

Whenever a famous author dies that you had never read one of the first impulses after reading and hearing the tributes is to go and discover what it was all about. That feeling swept over me when Kurt Vonnegut sadly died earlier this year and after failing to get Slaughterhouse 5 out of the library for reasons of popularity in the end I bought it and sat down to read arguably his most famous novel.

The blurb on the dust jacket actually gets in the way because comparing it to Catch 22 and talking about it almost being indefinable make it difficult to enjoy with an open mind. You really do need that open mind because this is a story that is all over the place as a result of the use of time and is also all over the place in its connection with reality.

You have to try to understand that the central character Billy Pilgrim - an odd man on an odd sort of Pilgrim's Progress through trial and tribulations until the bullet comes in 1974 - is as much a metaphor for the destruction of war as he is a literal character stuck in the middle of one.

Plot summary
The first couple of chapters are an introduction to the novel and Vonnegut's mission to write an epic using his experiences as a prisoner of war in Dresden during the time the allies turned it into a firestorm. He admits that not only has the idea been in his head for a long time but it is also one he has struggled to get going with because of his problems remembering the war. Then Billy Pilgrim is introduced. This time travelling optometrist is next to Vonnegut in the prison camp and in the aftermath of Dresden when the prisoners are made to work digging out the corpses. But Pilgrim believes in aliens and has been abducted and been put in a zoo on their planet and even had a second wife and child up in space and as a result is able to travel in time and so skips through his life going back and forth remembering things and people knowing what will happen next. His wife dies, his friends die and in the end he even knows when he himself will die. But he carries on with his life and time travelling and ends up remaining the figure of the clown that he had been given in the war. The name of the novel comes from the name of the place the prisoners are housed in Dresden and they are told that if they ever get lost they are to ask to be taken back to slaughterhouse 5, part of the city abattoir that lies dormant as the fresh meat never comes.

Is it well written?
It is an easy book to read in terms of style and length but it is a difficult novel to get to grips with. Is Billy Pilgrim mad about the time travel, which could result from the trauma of war? If he is right then is it trying to suggest we are a primitive world for doing acts like Dresden to each other? Or is it just a crazy mixed up way of using arresting characters to get you to think about the futility of war? I suspect it is a mixture of all three and probably some other things as well. The point that Vonnegut is trying to make is laid out in the introduction when he meets the wife of an old solider friend who accuses him of planning to write a book that will glorify war, He does the opposite and with his expression 'so it goes' after each death you start to get the impression that no one really cares about body counts and innocent victims in war. You also get the clear message that for those who end up fighting in them and surviving then it destroys them slowly. The madness of destruction on a scale that Bomber Harris and his friends visited on Dresden would alter your perception of reality. This book makes you wonder about war and its victims and you are left wondering just why anyone would want to fight people like Billy Pilgrim. As a call for peace it is subtle but powerful nonetheless.

Should it be read?
There are various reasons why this should be read including the style, which is confident and different from most traditional narratives. Also there is the subject, which is ultimately about a man trying to recover his memory about the past and piece together what happened and facing up to the horror. But it also deserves to be read because the person who wrote it was part of a generation that saw action, saw death on a scale we today cannot imagine and then tried to translate that into a novel that would not only be something generations that lived through peace could relate to but something that would plant a seed in the mind that when fully germinated - and it probably takes months if not years after reading this book - then you start to appreciate the disorientating and mind bending impact that war can have and why it is not something we should ever wish for.

Summary
Time travel, aliens and the horrors of war might all seem like illusions and madness but of all three the horrors of Dresden were only too real

Version read - Vintage paperback

Three Men in a Boat - post I

This should have been posted last night but apologies for that felt very tired after a hard week so left it just at the lunchtime read.

This is one of those books that has a reputation that precedes it, which is mainly one of comedy, so you start reading it with an expectation of being entertained. You are not let down but the humour is very gentle and although this might have been the first place some of these jokes and observations were aired they are done so in such a harmless way you are reminded of just how much things have changed in the past hundred years.

Bullet points between pages 1 - 76

* Three friends who all complain of being both bored and ill - hypochondriacs rather than real symptoms - decide to go travelling to get some rest and some air and after debating the options including a cruise they opt for taking a boat up the Thames and camping and staying in hotels on the route

* The narrator brings along a rather independent minded dog that is clearly going to cause trouble, George is cast as a lazy over weight banker (it is both a sign of the times and a reason to be alarmed that 12 stone is described as large here some of us can only dream of that) and Harris appears to be a drinker

* They argue about the packing, the time of departure and almost everything in the run up to the trip leaving you wondering why they are agreeing to the plan and throughout the build up to the launch the narrator weaves in humorous anecdotes relaying other disasters involving boats, water, female passengers and the dog

* Finally the narrator, dog and Harris set off intending to meet George, who has had to work in the bank, further downstream and within a few turns of the oars the arguments starts, the packing comes undone and all the omens for a humorous but disastrous time are all there

More on Monday...

Lunchtime read: The Steppe and Other Stories

In a rush leaving the house this morning it was hard to quickly make decisions about what to read today and for the next few days. The lunchtime read was dictated by what ever looked like a short story collection and the main read was ideally going to be developing on a Swedish nautical theme. All I could manage in a rush was a nautical theme but it is hardly in keeping with following Roseanna, which is about murder. Still bear with me while I get my bearings and work out what the next direction will be. Hopefully a trip to the library tomorrow will help.

In the meantime here is the choice for the lunchtime read some more Chekhov and tonight there is Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. But for now on with the Chekhov:

Highlights from The Swedish Match
It appears as if a man has been murdered and a sleuth in the Sherlock Holmes mode decides he can solve the crime based on some of the same principles of observation. He manages to identify who he thinks is the murderer based on her use of Swedish matches, which are rarely used by the general population. But when he turns up, along with a reluctant magistrate to quiz the woman he has worked out is the killer it turns out she is hiding the man in her bathhouse and it is nothing more innocent than an affair leaving the sleuth with plenty of egg on his face.

Highlights from Easter Eve
A man visiting a monastery is taken over on a ferry by Jerome a layman who has just experienced the loss of his best friend who was one of the few monks who could read and write but he is kept away from the Easter celebrations because no one relives him on the boat and on the return journey he stares at a woman’s face reminding him of the friend he has lost

More to come soon…

Roseanna - post III

The book sadly comes to an end and you end up reading the last sixty or so pages in a rush waiting and hoping it reaches the sort of climax that would be fitting for a book that is so tightly written. The fact it does is because the central character of Martin Beck, who is flanked by other police officers who start to become core to the story, is so well developed. He allows the case to dominate his every thought, to the extent he almost misses out on getting his Christmas presents. He drifts from his wife and family and becomes obsessed with catching the killer. At the end a brilliant description of his inability to write a simple note betrays the emotion that he bottles up inside.

Bullet points between pages 187 – 245

* To try and catch the man Folke Bengtsson they are convinced is the killer they search through the police offices to find a woman who resembles Roseanna who can act as a honey trap to entice the killer to try and strike again

* Beck has to wait weeks for the flirtation to work – under the ruse that she is using the transportation office where Bengtsson works to move furniture – but it takes weeks for her to get him to change his routine

* All of a sudden she phones Beck, who is waiting with colleagues for a nightly vigil hoping Bengtsson will call, and tells him that the suspect is watching her window from the street

* They tail him and for a few nights he walks around for hours and stares at her windows but never goes up and makes contact so Beck ups the stakes getting the police woman to pretend to bump into Bengtsson and suggest he calls her

* It seems to set the man off walking round the city for hours until he turns up looking up at the windows of the police woman causing her to phone Beck and ask for his officers to get into place to protect her and catch the man

* But the key being turned in the door is not one of the detectives but Bengtsson who takes her by surprise but meanwhile the detectives are stuck in traffic and desperate to get to the flat

* When they do Bengtsson is not far from killing the policewoman, who is naked and struggling for her life, and it takes Kollberg almost breaking his arm to subdue him and get him to the station

* There Beck interviews him and gets him in an angry state to admit that he killed Roseanna and tried to kill the police woman because they were dirty and disgusting and repulsed him

* Beck tries to write a telegram to inform the American detective who helped him with the case so much that they have got the man and he confessed but cannot spell immediately and finally walks through the snow and heads home

A review will follow in the next couple of days…

Roseanna - post II

“’Do you think he did it?’ asked Kollberg.
Martin Beck stood in the middle of the floor and looked at his right hand.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sure he did.’”

This book uses time in a way that few others would dare to because it is slow and awkward waiting with Martin beck for the breaks in the case. When they come it just means more work and more waiting. But as you read the tension is slowly building and it is one of those books that would be a great holiday read because it is almost unputdownable. The last few pages beckon tomorrow and it will be a real shame ending it if as I expect the ending is written as well as the rest of the book.

Bullet points between pages 74 – 186

* Having identified the name of the victim Beck now does all he can to try and find out as much as he can about her character and gets back from the US a picture of an independent woman who took the lead in sexual relationships

* Her former boyfriend reveals she had a hungry sexual appetite and was very much in charge of the relationship initiating the meetings and having sex just barely hours after the first date had started

* Meanwhile the detectives are getting all of the background on the passengers and start requesting photographs and a breakthrough seems to come from the US where along with some photos there is some video footage including Roseanna with a mystery man

* After lots of investigating the man turns out to be a passenger who boarded just for some of the journey and as a result was not included on any passenger list but the police spread around a still of the film image to all police stations

* Meanwhile Beck drifts through sleepless nights and ill feeling days smoking too much and avoiding almost any contact with his wife and children becoming physically linked to the progress of the investigation

* Beck tracks down two girls who worked as waitresses on the boat Roseanna was murdered on and one seems to have had a relationship with the prime suspect and no sooner had Beck interviewed her than she runs away – flees for her life

* Medical records show that she had been the victim of an attack with her fingers broken and then having something blunt shoved up inside her to the extent that the hospital thought she might have tried to perform a solo abortion

* A policeman on a delivery notices a man who he believes is from the film and he is tailed for a fortnight and Beck brings him in and questions him and then lets him go with no progress apparently made but Beck is now convinced he has just shaken hands goodbye with Roseanna’s killer

More tomorrow…

Mapping out from Edgar Allan Poe

Tapping in Edgar Allan Poe according to the literature map site the other authors that I might fancy reading include Karl Marx, Lewis Carroll and Howard Phillips Lovecraft. You can get a map of what else readers of Poe read and it is a possible prompter of other suggestions for authors. It's a bit of fun but once you start its hard to stop playing around with it tapping in other writers you can think of.

Lunchtime read: Selected Tales

Well the Poe finally comes to an end and despite the dark, supernatural and often gruesome content it has been an enjoyable ride.

What makes it something you stick with (apart from the commitment to read it and review it for the Penguin Classics blog) is that the writing is so good. You feel that this is a man on the cusp of something new almost every time he picks up his pen and along with helping develop certain genres he is also showing on every page an enquiring mind.

In the same way that ghost and horror stories grew out of crossing that line between the natural and supernatural there is a sense here that Poe is keen to investigate the thought process and the reaction to stories about murder, ghosts and spirits and near death experiences. What comes out of it is a sense sometimes of unease but equally unlike fiction based in bolted down reality there is an excitement because you never know quite what will happen next.

As a result it is quite easy to read stories that you suspect will have a nasty ending which in fact don’t and others that leave you wondering why Poe chose to focus on certain details when he appeared to have a narrative that could have gone in various different directions.

Highlights from The Domain of Arnheim
A man who comes into a very substantial fortune decides to spend all of his money on landscaping an area to master nature. He spends years trying to find the right spot and then Poe gives a description of the experience that the public would go through winding through streams and through different flora and fauna environments. The man dies but leaves a legacy of a transformed environment in the area of Arnheim, proving that he has been able to manipulate nature/

Highlights from Von Kempelen and His Discovery
An odd starting story that only really becomes clear at the very end with Von Kempelen being able to change lead into gold. As a result the suspicion is that the scientist will not be able to keep his secret for long so the price of lead shoots through the roof.

A review will follow by the end of the week…