the week ahead

The plan for the reading week ahead is to finish off three books currently on the go. On the lunchtime read front there are just 16 pages left to go on Gunter Grass's Cat & Mouse.


For Esme with Love and Squalor and Other Stories has a couple of stories left, one of which is too long for a lunchtime so that might take a couple of days.


The on the main book front there is still quite a way to go with Julian Jackson's The Fall of France, which is so far a depressing tale of inept leadership and military mistakes.


After that who knows? Might stick with the era and go for Tin Drum by Gunter Grass, The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvior or could go off in a completely different direction...

Lunchtime read part II: Cat & Mouse

With the story set in 1944 inevitably even those who had not volunteered for the army were called up, as the collapse became more of a certainty. Bearing in mind the Nazi’s were using children at the end to try to defend Berlin the idea of a 16-year-old going off to training and then into battle seems quite normal.

But what makes it harder is the success that Mahlke is having blazing a trail in the tank regiment blowing up Russian tanks with such regularity that he gets the Iron Cross and becomes a legend in his own lifetime.

Bullet points between pages 91 – 121

* Having told the narrator that he is joining up Mahlke disappears from the story and is only heard of through second hand accounts including a letter his aunt shows off in the street with drawings of tanks that Mahlke has hit

* Even at training camp above the toilets there is some religious, Virgin Mary, inspired text scratched in by Mahlke and there are stories about his big ears, cock and passion for wearing something round his neck

* That passion is finally sated when he gets a medal of his own for his performance in his tanks against the Russian enemies and like those before him heads back to the school to give a lecture of his own to the students but is told to go away because of his former expulsion

* Having failed to get the headmaster to back down Mahlke waits for him near his home and then gets his chance and pushes him up against the railings and slaps him in the face before heading off into the night

Final few pages over lunch tomorrow…

bookmark of the week

There is a Chinese shop in Soho near China Town that sells all sorts of things ranging from tea sets, inks and paper lanterns. In a box when I last visited about five years ago there was a large number of bookmarks using the sort of illustrations you expect to see on paper cuts from japan and China. Simple but very useful and attractive.

Lunchtime read part I: For Esme with Love and Squalor...

There really didn’t seem to be a great deal in the papers this weekend about literary matters so today once the kids had gone to bed the focus shifted to doing some reading and both the Salinger and the Grass have been nibbled away at and attacked.

First the Salinger with a rather odd story because you think you have guessed the ending only to discover you were wrong and as a result are left not really knowing what to make of it all.

Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes
The title refers to a line from a poem that a husband used to read to his wife before they drifted apart. The line is quoted by the husband to a friend who answers the phone in the company of a girl who you assume is the missing wife. The drunk and angry husband is talking about divorce and admits to his friend who is obviously a colleague that he has also lost a case with a high profile client.

The friend keeps advising the husband to calm down and go to bed to wait for his wife and all the time you expect the woman he is with will head off home. But after hanging up and a delay the friend phones back to apologise because his wife has come home. That leads to the friend being sharp with the woman he is with and displaying a mixture of temper and disappointment

Maybe he thought the wife would come to him but all the time the reader thought she was already there with him

Some Gunter Grass in a moment…

Lunchtime read: For Esme with Love and Squalor

It took a week but after turning the house upside down and begging with my two year old son to point me in the right direction I finally found the Salinger short story collection shoved down the back of a radiator. I have an awful feeling the toddler might be more innocent than first suspected so the matter of the missing book has been left without the finger of blame being pointed anymore than it already has been.

Of all the stories in this collection so far this title tale is one of the best because it has a completeness that is unusual for what has often felt like an on-going dialogue. Part of the reason is that although you recognise that the narrator is again no doubt linked to the Glass family there is a limited focus just on Esme and the story of a meeting that possibly saved a man from the brink of mental collapse.

For Esme with Love and Squalor
* An American solider getting ready for D-Day pops into a church to watch choir practice and notices a girl who then follows him with her brother and governess into the café where he is having tea

* He strikes up a conversation with her and it turns out that her father and mother are dead and she is mature for her years partly as a result of that but her brother Charles does seem damaged by it

* The narrator tells her he is an author so Esme asks him to write something for her that is not silly but about squalor and so he mentions he will but then the story switches location and the solider has had a nervous breakdown after D-Day

* As he sits down to write a letter he notices a package that has been sent and it is from Esme who has sent him her watch, something he admired in the café, and he suddenly feels like sleeping and remembers her asking him to come back with all his mental facilities

Her love, despite her own misfortune, saves him from becoming a victim of his own misery – clever and very moving

More of Salinger and Gunter Grass in the next few days until both books are completed…

book of books - Iron in the Soul

If you think about the overall title of the triology – The Roads to Freedom – you instantly start to think about the yoke of occupation and the yearning that the French must have had to be rid nog the Germans.

But while these books touch on that the final part of the trilogy is as much about individual freedom as it is to do with the collective freedom of a nation. It focuses on two main characters, although most of those who have featured in the other two books do pop up.

Plot summary
The books is split into two halves with the first concentrating on Mathieu and the second on Brunet the communist activist who tried to get Mathieu to join the party in the first part of the trilogy The Age of Reason. The story starts with France defeated by the Nazi’s but because it has not yet signed the armistice the fighting continues. The soldiers in the reserve line, including Mathieu, are humiliated at not being given the chance to prove their worth against the Germans. Finally as the approaching enemy gets closer to the village where Mathieu is he decides to fight and is left on top of a church the lone gunman as the enemy wipes out the rest of the resistance.

Then the second part takes up the story of what happened to those that were taken prisoner with Brunet being picked up with thousands of others and marched into an abandoned barracks before finally being put on trains that took them to uncertainly – probably Germany. In a desperate attempt to feel that he is doing something – just like Mathieu felt – Brunet decides to try and stir up political action against not just the Germans but also the padres in the camp. He half manages to get himself noticed but fails to make any difference on his own and it is only at the end when the German’s shoot an escaping prisoner that the hate he hoped to stir rises to the surface.

Is it well written?
You feel the sense of hopelessness, shame and anger that those who have lost a conflict inevitably fell. But what it made worse is that unlike the 1914 generation they lost without having a chance to fight.

“They had counted on this war to make men of them, to give them their rights as heads of families, their share of glory as war veterans. It was to have been for them a solemn initiation, a means of freeing them from the crippling shackles of that Great war, that World war, which had stifled their youth with memories of splendour. This war of theirs was to have been greater and still more world-wide. By firing on the Jerries they were to have accomplished the ritual massacre of their fathers which marks the entry of each generation into life. But as things turned out they fired on nobody, indulged in no massacre. The whole thing had gone wrong.”

You identify with the restlessness that both Mathieu and Brunet fell and because the other characters – Daniel, Odette and Boris – are used to expand that feeling across France it is easy to sense a little bit what it means to be invaded and defeated. It is also the end of the journey for Mathieu who graduated from a seeker of freedom to the age of reason and then to a stage of realisation that it almost did not matter what he did because it was all an illusion. On the other hand Brunet continued to believe, even when the truth stared him in the face, that there was a chance he could make a difference.

Should it be read?
Of the three books this is much easier to read than the second, The Reprieve, but while it is easier to digest in terms of style – there are chapter breaks etc – the constant uncertainty, restlessness and depression does have an impact on you. That is a positive because it shows the book is working but it is not a read for people who like happy endings. It’s not really a read for people who like endings with you never finding out what became of Mathieu, if Marcelle ever had a child or what became of some of the other secondary characters. But it deserves to be read for the simple reason that it is rare to get a series of books that chart the mental search of an individual for something as elusive and idealistic as freedom.

Summary
With France defeated and the Germans closing in the search for freedom ends with guns blazing for Mathieu while for others it carries on with limited success

Version read – Penguin paperback

A review of the trilogy will follow tomorrow...

The Fall of France - post II

The reasons for the defeat are still being outlined in the first part of the book but they are mounting up with a combination of failed diplomacy, poor military and political judgement and a superior opposition.

There is an interesting piece in The Economist today in the Charlemagne column that refers to a comment made by Javier Solana, The European Union’s main foreign policy man who says that when the American’s say something is “history” they usually mean it is no longer relevant whereas Europeans mean the opposite. It is also because of that inability to bury hatchets of the past that the French stumbled into the Second World War with almost no firm allies.

Bullet points between pages 42 – 100

* The French were unable to hold the Germans as they sped through Belgium and when they did have a chance to bomb them or counter attack they missed it because of bad intelligence or pigheaded leadership

* Once in France the Germans found little resistance and were able to move quickly towards the coast and almost cut off the British expeditionary force and the French troops fighting alongside them

* Dunkirk managed to snatch some sort of result from the jaws of defeat but the French felt betrayed by their British allies but Jackson then takes a step back and asks the question about why the French had so few allies

* Attempts to develop links with Poland, Czechoslovakia were not enough to off set the lack of a big partner and links with Russia failed to materialise in anything and all the time the British strung them along

* It was partly because of the British disapproval of the Italian invasion of Abyssinia that the French let that relationship go and they signed up for sanctions against the Italians and lost a potential ally

* On top of that there were various personalities at play with the British being wound up by the French leadership and vice versa leading to mistrust just when unity and clear thinking was needed

More to come…

Lunchtime read: Cat & Mouse

The cost of stealing the iron cross is an expulsion from school for Mahkle and a self imposed exile from the barge, the beach and those friends he has made. But the disappearance of someone just helps increase the mystery around them and in the end the narrator ends up running back to become an altar boy just to see his old friend.

Bullet points between pages 81 – 92 (will post a bit more later)

* Mahkle shows off the medal that he stole and is encouraged to give it back and then he fails to appear at school on the Monday and then the pupils are told that he has been expelled

* All summer there is no sign of Mahkle on the barge and nobody seems to see him even after school starts because he goes a completely different route so the narrator starts going back to church in the hope of seeing him there

* Finally they meet and the former monosyllabic Mahkle is talkative and talks about the problems he has had with his Adam’s apple and the experience of the cat being put on his neck and then reveals he has volunteered to join the submarines

More to come…

The Fall of France - post I

I have a work commitment this evening so as a result this is being posted early and does not include too much from the first chapter because the aim would have been to have finished that on the way home this evening.

One of the main themes of Iron in the Soul is the collapse of the French army against the Germans with both of the main characters Mathieu and Brunet both experiencing the bitter taste of humiliating defeat. But you have to wonder just how the French army allowed their enemy to capture Paris in under a week. This book by Julian Jackson should explain why that happened.

This book is split into two parts with the first explaining and narrating the defeat of France in May 1940 and then the second half looking at the consequences.

It starts by sketching out the condition of the French country militarily before they were attacked trying to start to provide an explanation for why the Nazi forces were able to defeat them in just six days.

Bullet points from pages 1 – 42

* In the start the British expressed feelings of slight concern about the French army but expected the army that had fought so valiantly at places like Verdun to be able to hold on for quite a while against German opposition

* But the French lacked artillery, planes and tanks with the German’s easily over taking them in production before the war started on those crucial items – but even so the government felt comfortable enough to declare war

* The plans of defence centered on the Maginot Line holding the border with Germany and as a result the focus moved to Belgium but that ran into trouble when the country declared neutrality

* As a result there were various plans put forward to defend the Belgium border but because it was neutral they relied on a call for help rather than an assumed ability to set up defences in readiness

* The consequences of that relationship became clear when the Germans attacked because it took two hours to wake the French prime minister with the Belgiums call for help after the Germans invaded on 10 May

* Despite all the warnings the Germans manage to swarm through Belgium and overcome the totally inadequate defences that when put to the test cannot stop tanks and even when the Allies could have stopped the main attack their intelligence was poor causing bombers to be sent to the wrong place and the wrong types of troops deployed

More sobering history tomorrow...

Lunchtime read: Cat & Mouse

The individualism of Mahlke continues to provide the narrator with plenty of material and because he is so self sufficient the nick name of 'The Great Mahlke' is dreamt up and manages to stick.

Bullet points between pages 53 - 80

* Mahlke finds a room above water on the barge and after allowing his friends to think him drowned pops up and tells them that it is going to be his secret room and then over the course of the summer moves in most of the things he has pilfered off the barge

* He starts playing music from the depths which fascinates his friends but despite it all they still find him an odd character and not the sort of person you would encourage your sister to go to the cinema with

* But everything changes with the arrival of a naval lieutenant commander at the school that talks about the navy and seems to have an impact because he steals his decoration, which leads to a large search of the changing rooms and the slapping of an innocent boy

* Those close to mhim suspect Mahkle of stealing the iron cross and sure enough the narrator swins out to the barge and lying their naked basking in the sun with nothing except the iron cross around his neck is Mahlke

More tomorrow...

A reason for defeat?

This is taken from Julian Jackson's book The Fall of France (the first post about that will come later) as one of the reasons why the French capitulated to the Nazi's so quickly.

The two peasants in the caption for the 1941 cartoon are being told: "How can you be surprised [about the defeat]? you gorged yourselves on the works of Proust, Gide and Cocteau."

Literature gets blamed for everything...

Iron in the Soul - post VI

The book ends with the prinsoners discovering the same feeling as Mathieu that despite the speed of the French collapse this is war and underneath the different uniforms and language there is the potential for real hatred.

“They had counted on this war to make men of them, to give them their rights as heads of families, their share of glory as war veterans. It was to have been for them a solemn initiation, a means of freeing them from the crippling shackles of that Great war, that World war, which had stifled their youth with memories of splendour. This war of theirs was to have been greater and still more world-wide. By firing on the Jerries they were to have accomplished the ritual massacre of their fathers which marks the entry of each generation into life. But as things turned out they fired on nobody, indulged in no massacre. The whole thing had gone wrong.”

Bullet points between pages 318 - 349

* Brunet struggles to get through to people and the Germans are in total control of their fate even commanding time making everyone move an hour forward to Berlin time so the German empire can all be in synch

* Visitors are allowed to enter the barracks and one of the men is a veteran of the first world war and the tension in the air that he will condemn them evaporates after he tells them it was not their fault and refers to them as “poor lads”

* One officer escapes and in his rage at the other prisoners, who threaten to turn him in if they discover where he is hiding, Brunet boasts that he is also going to try to escape and dares them to also grass on him

* He obviously doesn’t because the scene shifts with them all in rail carriages being moved to Nancy and all the time Brunet either tempts others with the idea of jumping off or considers it himself then they hear from a bystander they are going to Germany

* The prisoners start to relax after the points change gives them the impression that they are going deeper into France and not towards Germany but they ask some Germans on the embankment where they are heading and are told that they are indeed going to Germany

* That leads to the rest of the men starting to panic and the printer that Brunet fears will try to escape jumps out of the train and is shot at by the Germans as he tries to get back into the train

* For the first time they realise the hatred that is directed towards them and the sense of war is made clear to them with Brunet benefiting from the anger but also a sense of reality and the futility of their position becoming clear

A full review will follow shortly…

Lunchtime read: Cat & Mouse

A pitifully small number of pages today but it is not always possible to do reading while at work. The concept of having an hour’s lunch break sadly often is just that – a concept – and in practice after you have popped out for a sandwich, returned to your desk and fielded comments from colleagues and alls from contacts it is time to get back to work.

Bullet points between pages 43 – 53

* Even without the audience of the narrator and the girls from Berlin Mahkle carries on cutting through the ice and manages to make a hole over the forward hatch of the sunken barge

* Mahkle is spell bound by a talk from a former pupil about the war but realises that to get a medal he had to shoot down 40 planes and he mentions that at the start of the war it was 20 planes so things must be getting bad

Hopefully more pages will be read tomorrow…

Iron in the Soul - post V

As the pages start to run out you start to realise that maybe the first part of the book was about the futility of fighting the Germans and has seen the end of Mathieu and the second part is going to be about Brunet and his similar battle to accept the obvious that France is not ready for a communist uprising, partly because the Soviets clearly don't care about them.

Bullet points between pages 272 - 318

* Brunet almost falls by the wayside because of starvation but he manages to last long enough for the food to arrive and save him from dying and ten he starts to try and recruit a group to undermine not just the Germans but also the priests

* But the Germans are clearly in control and Brunet can talk all he likes about the need for agitation and controlling those around him but it makes no difference to the conditions in the barracks and as Brunet starts to get paranoid with cleanliness all he manages to di is alienate those around him

* He ends up having a confrontation with Schneider, who has been one of his constant friends, and despite being given numerous home truths Brunet still believes that t is not his fault but those of the French people

More tomorrow...

Lunchtime read: Cat & Mouse

Not much reading down this lunchtime but the character painting of Mahlke continues with a few extra details, some that are not necessarily essential but add to the background.

Bullet points between pages 28 – 43

* Because of his ability to dive down and retrieve various objects from the sunken boat Mahlke continues to be a constant member of the boys at the boat although he is never quite one of them

* He manages to stand you again not just because of the size of his Adam’s apple but because of the size of his penis, which is the largest in the group by some inches, but even then he doesn’t seem to care too much

* One of his preoccupations is to hide his overly large Adam’s apple and so he starts wearing things round his neck and then attacks a visiting boy to the school who does a cartoon of him exaggerating his weakness

Hard to see where this story of a loner with a large Adam’s apple and penis is going but more tomorrow…