Road to Calvary (part III) - post IV

The two strands of the story with the two sisters start to get to a stage where you can see them coming back together again with a possible happy conclusion.

Telegin and Dasha are comrades in arms fighting the Cossacks and thanks to good fortune are holding off the enemy and seem to be happily allowing their love to push out from each other’s hearts and flourish.

Meanwhile, Roshchin is moving further away from his White position and the more he has to justify his position the more it becomes clear he is not only confused but sick of the political posturing. He wants to find his wife and nothing more. At this rate he is not yet close enough to grasp her but it can only be a matter of time before they meet or news of the existence of her husband gets back to Katia.

The potential fly in the ointment is the arrival on the scene of the allies in the form of the French and British. Presumably these opportunists are going to be slammed in the text because they will fit uncomfortably in the context of the revolutionary war. They can only be seen as defenders of privilege and a way of life that has already ended but most, apart from Roshchin are unable to see that.

More to come…

Lunchtime read: Helena

Helena seems to be settling for a quiet life but her son arrives with wife and his own child in tow and tells her that they have to move. The Roman Empire is once again turning in on itself and Helena is in danger because her husband from all those years ago is Caesar in the West.

But the politics soon die down and the main issue becomes the question of the rise of the Christians. Helena’s old tutor arrives in town preaching his own strand of religion and those around the Empress are all dealing with their own beliefs. The news arrives that her son has become a Christian and declared that it is not longer a crime. Soon Helena is baptised and those who know about the history of the Church and of Christ will soon be released and in a position to take Helena to the secret holy sites.

In the meantime she has a visit, her first, to Rome to make and the seventy-year old surprises everyone by accepting the invitation.

More to come…

Her birthday comes first

It is my wife's 40th birthday today. Before you wonder I am a bit of a toy boy so have not quite hit that milestone yet. Although who says it's bad. Certainly not a good idea to say anything like that to the wife on today of all days!

As a result it didn't seem quite right to dwell on the love and loss of the Russian civil war so a post on Road to Calvary will come tomorrow. The rest of tonight will be spent reminding my wonderful wife that years don't really matter...

Lunchtime read: Helena

Helena stands by her man and watches as he starts to live a different life from her indulging himself with a mistress and taking part in a religious cult. They don’t meet that often and their relationship seems to exist through their son.

Finally after years of waiting he is made a Caesar to step into the shoes of men who have been optimistic and then killed on a regular basis. He tells Helena his news and then in the next breath informs her is remarrying and that she is not to see more of her son, who will now begin his political education.

She is forced to live alone and has lost the red shine of her hair and has grown old being a faithful wife at the side of a man who seems to have been only motivated by power.

Still suffering from some language problems with phrases like “beastly” creeping in making it all seem to be like a scene from 1930s Britain on occasions.

More tomorrow…

Road to Calvary (part III) - post III

This epic Tolystian mimicking tale starts to get down to brass tacks with the real battle that is being fought in Russia coming to the fore – class war. Katia best illustrates the situation with her reluctance to marry a peasant even though he loves her and her husband is believed to be dead.

She challenges her would be husband with a speech that sums up the problem of ambition with those that were once downtrodden now dreaming of becoming the gentry. There has been no real change just a shift in personnel.

Meanwhile her husband is doing his best to get back to her and is inching closer but will he get to her in time and even if he does will a jealous peasant sabre him?

Meanwhile Telegin and Dasha move to the frontline and start to fight against White forces in what must be one of the final large scale battles to settle the future of the Don.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Helena

Helena is taken away from England by the would-be next Caesar who falls ion love with her despite himself. He takes her to Europe and promises her that in time she will be taken to Rome. She leaves behind her all that she has known and her father the King and is introduced into a world where she means almost nothing with her husband being the main attraction.

A couple of chapters in and the story starts to feel like it is going somewhere because the scenery changes and Helena is geographically closer to more interesting places and the centre of the world at that time- Rome.

Up to this stage the characters are rather one-dimensional and the love affair between Helena and her husband was limited to a glance at a dinner and a request from her father for her hand in marriage.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Helena

There were a couple of moments when it was difficult to picture a general’s daughter in Roman Britain. Her expressions of “chum” and “what a blow-out” might have something to do with it.

But the key here is that you know thanks to Waugh’s preface that this is a story based on the life of Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great. She is meant to have made a pilgrimage to Palestine and picked up one of the pieces of the cross that Christ was crucified on.

The story starts in Colchester of all places but soon a emissary comes from Rome and is struck by love on seeing Helena and you sense that it is only a matter of time before the young princess, who lives her adventures through the pages of the ancient stories of Troy, gets a chance to escape.

More tomorrow…

bookmark of the week

My eldest son is using this bookmark in his home work about somebody famous – in this case Lionel Walter Rothschild who set up the natural History Museum via his own property in Tring. When the collection got too big for his private estate it started to get transferred to London and became the world famous museum. But it all had to start somewhere and it started in Tring.

This bookmark shows the great animal lover riding his carriage, pulled by zebras. I’m hoping that the bookmark, with the marked homework, will come back in one piece.

The Road to Calvary (part III) - post II

To a certain degree one half of the story starts to fuse with Dasha finally meeting Telegin in a makeshift army hospital. She keeps her identity secret from the wounded battery commander until she can keep it secret no longer and then their love, which both had believed to be dormant, over flows and they start to plan for the future.

Meanwhile a totally disillusioned Roshchin sets out to look for Katia and drops his allegiance to the White army. While on leave he sets out to find her and as he starts to lose hope he also starts to question he decision to fight for a cause that he no longer believes in.

Germany surrenders and starts to pull out of the Ukraine and all around the signs that the Whites and the Reds are near to an end start to disappear and the ebb of flow of attack and reprisals starts afresh.

Meanwhile, Katia has set up home with the anarchists and believing her husband is dead starts to contemplate the idea that she might have to marry the peasant who has protected her.

Will Roshchin find her in time? It is quite a testament to the style and the writing that even after a collective 500 pages of this three-part novel you can be gripped by the struggle to reunite lovers across the war zones.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

The book ends and it is only at the final few passages given in evidence by Dr Jones that the format of telling the story by documents starts to annoy you. There are some many unanswered questions that are left hanging there because of course for official reasons there would be no interest.

To a certain extent of course you can use your imagination and try to expand on the potential love story between Dr Jones and Harriet. In some senses that was a side issue to the political satire that culminates in the prime minister being swept away to his death. But after a while the politics starts to become a little bit clichéd.

The Alistair Campbell figure is distorted to an extreme and the prime Minister is also a two-dimensional caricature of Tony Blair’s worse bits – the cynicism and determination to win votes at almost any cost. But it is the questions of faith and love that are raised by the characters of the Sheik and Harriet that will be most memorable for me. This book leaves you wanting to know more about the power of one man’s vision to touch other people and wanting to forget about the politics.

A review will come soon…

book review - Then We Came to the End

The weird thing about the timing of reading this book, that has its comic moments but is more than just a straight comedy by Joshua Ferris, is how I came to read it.

This was one of the tope ten books of last year according to quite a few authorative sources, including the New York Times Book Review and my boss also recommended it to me. That was the strangest thing of all because this is largely a story of us and them and of course my boss is one of ‘’them’ so for a good deal of the time I tried to work out who he would identify with in the story. The second set of circumstances that made an odd backdrop was turning up to work finding out that there were some redundancies.

The way most people would attempt to summarise this book is to describe it as a comedy dealing with the difficult issue of redundancies with a collection of characters that have been used to draw out the different possible reactions. So you get someone in complete denial, the revenge taker who comes back to haunt those that did him wrong and numerous other cases of people vainly fighting the inevitable as they put their personal belongings into a box.

It could have very much gone into an us and them situation with the boss and her stooge being painted out to be the villains of the piece. But Ferris is clever here because he gives both Lynn the boss and Joe Pope depth that reveals how lonely and scared the former is of dying of cancer and how the second is scared of being in a group because of something that happened in his youth.

At the end the years have gone by and the main characters meet up at a book reading by someone reading out something closely resembling Ferris’s own text. They go to a bar and remember the old times – what everyone always does with old colleagues – before going their separate ways ending the ‘we’ that has been maintained throughout the book.

There has to be a comment about the style. The story works because it is fuelled by humour but it is also real and keeps you wanting to find out much in the same way a soap opera unfolds.

But the style is something that is thought through and maintained creating a feeling that most of the time you as the reader feel part of the group. You identify with those that are scheming and plotting to protect themselves from the corporate axe. You feel that you would be with the workers rather than the bosses and at the end there is a hint that the reader has been there for the whole journey sitting alongside the narrator.

This is enjoyable, sadly now something that is of its time again as redundancies sweep through the corporate world. But it shows that there is life both inside and outside the office and the importance of friendships, love and even anger. Without those emotions this story would lack its ability to make you laugh and then cry within the space of just a few paragraphs. This is a story about something with all know, about people we can all lay over the characters and for those that work in a job they spend most of their time hating or trying to avoid this is a book about us.

Version read – Penguin paperback

book review - Strait is the Gate

There is a style of writing that sets up a character to embody an argument as a way of life and Andre Gide delivers a great example of that here.

Where there should be happiness and love there is despair and death. Ironically the reason for it is because of a zealous devotion to God. This is a book about the sort of religious devotion that causes people to become martyrs and lose out on happiness because it is somehow sinful to enjoy life.

In a nutshell this is a love story about a boy - Jerome - and a girl – Alissa - who grow up to become a man and a woman. They are clear about their plans to marry from their teenage years but not far after reaching the point where an engagement would be announced in the lead-up to a marriage things start to go wrong.

The first sign that Alissa is prepared to sacrifice her own happiness comes when her sister falls in love with Jerome. Alissa steps back and is prepared to step aside for the sake of her sister’s joy. Once that fails she still seems determined to sacrifice her love with Jerome. He has to go away and further his studies and carry out his military service but she keeps him at bay. The weeks stretch into months and still Alissa keeps him at arms length.

Even after her sister has married and that reason for sacrificing Jerome has disappeared she continues to try and sabotage her love. Finally the extremes are reached with her dressing in a way that will make her appear to be a frump and she also makes the decision to dump the literature he has sent her to read quant religious texts instead.

Inevitably the end comes with her rejecting Jerome for once and for all and then dying of a broken heart after he fails to return as she secretly hoped. Her victory over her heart has been complete but it costs Alissa her life.

Diaries passed onto Jerome after her death reveal how Alissa had hoped that he would come back for her even after all she had done to dissuade him. He remains devoted to a memory and in a telling exchange with Alissa’s sister he tells how he will love her forever and she reveals, to the reader at least, that she has always loved Jerome.

The fact she still loves Jerome must have been known by her sister. The determination of Alissa to reject Jerome and all that he had to offer was a supreme effort that could only be supported and driven by a belief in God that sustained her effort.

For Jerome the irony is that he has been consistent all along with his love for Alissa but unbeknown to him it is the complexities of the heart that are happening all around him that seal his fate. He has made his choice but the fact he is also chosen is something beyond his control.

Sometimes Gide can be accused of going on a bit – Fruits of the Earth springs to mind – but he gets the balance just about right here. It is helped by the story and characterisation of Alissa and Jerome, which keeps it from becoming a tract on religious fervour.

Version read – Penguin paperback

book review - Fire Down Below

This is the last book in the trilogy by William Golding that charts the passage across the oceans from England to Australia of Edmund Talbot. The young man is propped up by a relationship with a wealthy and politically influential godfather. By this last book he has managed to set himself apart from almost everyone because of his often naive but firmly held views.

His love for a girl he met for an afternoon and evening in the second book manages to irate his closest friends and annoy his enemies, with Mr Benet in particular badgered by Talbot for details on the girl he had shared a ship with.

Most of the focus of the narrative is on the debate between the first lieutenant Summers and the Captain and his favourite Benet about how to best fix the sail. Benet argues that it can be strengthened and repaired by driving red-hot bolts through the base. Summers believes that this ‘fire down below’ will lead to destruction.

But there is also the question of the ‘fire down below’ in Talbot’s heart when he is challenged by utopian Mr Prettiman to turn his back on responsibility and class and follow his heart. Talbot cannot do it but he develops a friendship with the anti-establishmentarian that confuses Summers and some of the other passengers.

All the way through this trilogy it has been hard to see how it could end. It seems to be a tale of growing up with the privileged Talbot coming into contact with members of the lower orders and their brutality – the destruction of Colley in Book one Rites of Passage – and the political views of extremists.

Talbot is also exposed to extremes of love and fear and witnesses the suicide of his steward and the demise of his friend Summers along with the destruction of the ship.

As a cross section of society the ship manages to illustrate the dangers of standing out against the majority. It costs Colley his life and at points seems to cost Talbot company as he is shunned by various sections of the ship.

Once he lands at Australia at the conclusion of his voyage he receives news that his godfather has died. He is then treated to the fickle nature of success with everyone around him treating him with indifference. Even when Marion turns up she is advises by her mentor Lady Somerset not to pursue a relationship with a man that will not be able to provide for her.

But news arrives that reveals that the godfather has left his money and his seat in the houses of parliament to Talbot and those fickle friends return. The tragedy is that he cannot tell his friend Captain Summers, who hew helped get promotion, because the fire down below finally consumes the Captain and his ship.

For Talbot the fire down below turns out to be his love but for other characters those words meant different things, both literal and metaphorical. Golding manages to spin a complete tale across this trilogy of a voyage through extreme heat, horrendous storms and into ice fields and although it is pleasant enough reading it you certainly would not have wanted to step into Talbot’s shoes and boarded that ship with him.

Version read – Faber & Faber paperback

The Road to Calvary (part II) - post I

The story picks up with the civil war entering its last stage. There is a bit of description that makes you feel slightly disappointed reading when Tolstoy introduces Stalin as the great military tactician who alone has the foresight to order the manoeuvres that smash the White’s. That’s what the prize must have been given for along with the complete absence of Trotsky, who from my schoolboy recollections was pretty important in keeping the Red Army going.

Dasha is picked up by the Reds and she gets closer to being reunited with Telegin, who is running an artillery battery and fighting alongside the campaign being handled by Stalin.

There is no sign of Katia and Roshchin but you know that no doubt just as Telegin or Dasha are about to meet they will be introduced to break up and slow down the move to the conclusion.

This is almost 19th century in its style but with both eyes on a different master and as a result it is hard to believe all of the historical context giving pieces of text. Still enjoyable but this might get classed as a bit of a ‘plodder’ if you were trying to describe it to a friend.

The one thing however that it has to be applauded for it’s the fantastic descriptions of the confusion of civil war and the penalties of not only making the wrong political decision but also the costs of becoming popular in an age of jealous hatred.

More soon…

Lunchtime read: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

The moment when the salmon arrive in the desert gets closer and as it does there is a revived interest from the prime minister. Meanwhile this seems to be a story not so much about love but the influence of the power of faith. If you believe in something then the power of the prospect of it becoming real can start to change your life.

In the case of Dr Jones it is not just putting his work life into context but also his marriage as for the first time probably since he married his wife he is too busy and focused on his own world to notice her.

The shift in styles continues with diary entries being interspersed with Hansard quotes and letters written forlornly by Harriet to her dead fiancé. It forces you to concentrate and makes it far from clear what will happen next. Because of the previous interrogations in some sort of select committee or judicial investigation you just know that things are going to go wrong sometime very soon.

More soon…