Passacaglia and Fugue

Book Review: Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh
This had been on my to-read list for many years; in fact I forget how it came to be there. As such, it was a genuinely unexpected gift.

I found the structure unusual: several apparently unrelated plot lines are interspersed, yet they inexorably spiral together in misfortune. Deeti's husband works in an opium factory in rural Bengal; Neel Rattan Halder is a Raja in Calcutta; Zachary Reid is a carpenter bound for adventure from Baltimore; and Paulette Lambert is the orphaned daughter of a French botanist estranged from his homeland after its revolutions. In a strangely dispassionate way, Ghosh shows how India had been ubiquitously distorted and corrupted by the opium trade: not only the disastrous health effects brought on by addiction, but also the military-industrial complex of its time, the economic and agrarian ruin wrought by bending everything to be subservient to producing a monoculture, and the calling in of real debt when imaginary money suddenly becomes unavailable. Benjamin Burnham, of course, sees it all in terms of Free Trade - and that freedom must be forced upon China, if necessary. The Ibis is a former slave ship, and there's little doubt that Burnham would have run the ship for those purposes without compunction, in an earlier age.

There are some characters in the book who do seem to be bad people, but there's an ambivalence to more of them, and yet more are simply victims of their circumstance. Ghosh gives humanity to them all, which is effective and at times unsettling. This book is from 2008, but if anything some of the themes of exploitation, division and injustice seem even more relevant and urgent through the lens of today; I suppose a sign of the timeless quality of the writing. So much is connected: this clearly relates to Babel, which I was reading about a year ago, as well as to the more recent The Silk Roads.

Book Review: Betjeman's England, by John Betjeman (edited by Stephen Games)
In some ways this is a companion piece to Trains and Buttered Toast; following on from that collection of radio talks, these are transcripts (or writings relating to) some of his TV programmes from 1949 through to the 1970s.

What comes over particularly well, I think, is Betjeman's good cheer, even when he's not all that taken with something. I suppose he was angry about the Euston Arch and the threat to St Pancras (neither of which feature here), but here modernity is tolerated with mostly amused resignation; I suppose the medium of television lends itself to people-watching as much as expounding about architecture. It seems particularly ironic (and in equal measure foresighted) that he grumbles about Beeching closures and the implacable advance of the motor car, when a number of the programmes were sponsored by Shell and National Benzole.

The title of the book, whilst not exactly misleading, hides the fact that the map view shows that the chosen pieces fall largely south of a line from the Severn to the Wash, with only a handful of places around Manchester and Yorkshire in the North. Additionally, Betjeman visits Glamorgan, Jersey, and the Isle of Man, and there's a passage from Panorama of him being interviewed by Malcolm Muggeridge about plans for an underground car park near Edinburgh Castle, in which he also discusses the traffic problems of Oxford - it's not mentioned directly, and perhaps the piece is a little too early, but maybe he was thinking of the infamous scheme to put a road through Christ Church meadow.

The highlight in the book for me is Metro-Land, and it prompted me to dig out the DVD for a re-watch. It's interesting to compare the written and spoken versions: in the introduction Games makes a point on the difficulty of deciding when to use prose and when to use blank verse. Inevitably one hears Betjeman's voice while reading, so it's always lyrical, but the verse sections become more regimented on the page, in a way that is not so clear on the film.

Book Review: The Island of the Day Before, by Umberto Eco
I started reading this at the tail end of my holiday, and it took a couple of weeks to get through. I expected it to be heavy, with Eco playing with the reader, but even so, it was nearly 200 pages before it really got going. Or did it? It started to go, and might have made something of it, and then it stopped again, descending into raving. Roberto de Grive is a minor noble who, after losing his father in a rather inconsequential siege, finds his way to Paris and falls in with a louche crowd, whereupon he manages to fall foul of Church authorities, who determine that he can redeem himself by sailing incognito on a mission to the other side of the world, learning the secrets of that mission. However, we begin with his survival of a shipwreck; he clambers on board another apparently deserted but adequately provisioned ship. Within sight, but out of reach, is land where, he comes to believe, in a rather misunderstood way, it is the day before.

Eco clearly had a plan, with multiple layers: the author himself, narrating from the writing of Roberto, part diary, part romantic fiction on the subject of his love and his imaginary, nemesistic brother. But either I don't have the literary references, or it's just too oblique, for much of it to make sense. It just felt like Eco was repeatedly pushing away from completing a journey, of any sort, with more and more absurd diversions. Ultimately, the conclusion makes sense, but in a rather empty, resigned way. The only sense of achievement was in having seen the book through to the end, which is disappointing, because at times it felt that the story could actually have been about something.

Book Reviews: The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency; Tears of the Giraffe; and Morality for Beautiful Girls, by Alexander McCall Smith
I think it was a couple of years ago that I was in a conversation with some colleagues about books and TV box sets. I asked whether they binge-read on books in a series, and the consensus seemed to be affirmative. It's not something I have generally done, tending to interleave my reading. But I thought perhaps it might work well for a re-read of this series, so I took the first three in turn.

Original reviews are here, here and here, and I think I'm broadly in agreement with what I wrote then. I knew more or less what to expect, although after twenty years(!) some of the detail was a bit hazy. There's a bit more "domestic" in book one than I had remembered; perhaps that's because it's filling in the back-story for Precious Ramotswe and so it didn't become intrusive the way I recall it in later books. And I think the second book also holds up well. The third is perhaps running a little low on steam, and I decided I would pause the series here, although I intend to return to it shortly.

One thing that did strike me on a re-read is the way Alexander McCall Smith uses opportunities to contrast Botswana society and values with European / western ones. Mma Ramotswe thinks, for example, that it is her duty as someone of reasonable financial standing to employ a maid, a role that is really a live-in housekeeper. I see the advantages, but beyond the cost there's also the loss of independence and privacy, and it's just an icky idea to me; had I grown up accustomed to that model no doubt I would think differently. The redistributive element ought to be accomplishable by taxation and the provision of good public services, although it doesn't seem to work out that way. The human problems that Mma Ramotswe's business deals in are, of course, universal at the fundamental level, but they - and often their solutions - manifest in a distinctly African way.

Book Review: The Gustav Sonata, by Rose Tremain
This was either a book swap shelf or a second-hand purchase. It is a long time since I read The Road Home, but I remember it fondly, so I was curious to read another book by the same author. Gustav and Anton grow up in a small town in Switzerland in the years after the war. Gustav is brought up by a single mother, and it's a loveless home; Anton is a musical prodigy in a wealthy Jewish home. Gustav's mother resents the Jews, but it's not clear why; it has something to do with his father's death.

Tremain then chooses to back-track to the late 1930s and early 1940s, filling in the relationship between Erich and Emilie Perle. Erich was deputy police chief in the town, and among other tasks, was at times responsible for handling the paperwork of Jewish refugees. Although not directly related to his death, it links to an inflection point and a decline in the relationship.

In the final part, Tremain fast-forwards to the 1990s. Gustav and Anton have been successful in their respective ways, though they are perhaps not always happy about it. Gustav runs a hotel, and Anton has become a music teacher. Some truths need to be discovered.

I found one or two episodes in the book disturbing and not necessary to the plot, but overall Tremain draws the story together successfully. There is a resolution of sorts, but nothing quite takes the form expected, like the real world.

Book Review: You're Him, Aren't You? - An Autobiography, by Paul Darrow
Perhaps more so than Tom Baker's autobiography, this reads like an audio book, or perhaps a conversation with the author, or the character with whom he is forever associated. It is, however, interspersed with more warmth and generosity to other people who passed through Darrow's life. It's not a particularly long book, but Darrow combines a conventional autobiography with his own perspective on the story of Blake's 7, including an inimitable episode-by-episode guide, and the various abortive attempts to relaunch it. This is definitely a book written for the fan audience, although it covers his entire career; but the main point, is that it's well written.

Book Review: The Subterranean Railway, by Christian Wolmar
I bought this as a Kindle special offer before Christmas, in case I needed filler, but it had been on my radar for quite some time. This is an updated edition, with references to covid but with the Elizabeth Line still a work in progress. As I have come to expect, Wolmar is an excellent writer, and he gathers and selects his comprehensive story well, beginning with a number of transport schemes of varying plausibility that were drafted from the early nineteenth century onwards. What is remarkable is the speed of construction, once a decision to go ahead was made. Of course there was no health and safety to be concerned about, but the technology for the "cut and cover" subsurface lines was innovative, and the deep tubes which followed a generation later even more so. Despite scepticism (and smoke), the trains were generally popular, but mostly struggled to recoup their costs and pay dividends to investors. Ironically, the solution was often to build more railway, and there's no doubt that whilst central London shaped the initial routes, the later extensions into outlying villages shaped the London of the twentieth century, most famously but not uniquely with Metro-land.

The City of London was resistant to railways, and so all the main line termini lie outside its boundaries; the original Metropolitan line ran from Paddington to Farringdon, on the edge of the city, via Euston, St Pancras and King's Cross. For many years, some through trains were also allowed; Wolmar does not elaborate much, but it turns out that GWR had adopted standard gauge (or at least mixed gauge) on some routes into Paddington by 1863, which would otherwise have been a mystery. Although London Underground and National Rail services were separated many years ago, today's Thameslink service running north-south is a reincarnated example of a route originally plied by many operators.

It's not just about the trains, though. Wolmar discusses the distinctive architecture, the companies, the driving personalities, poster art, Harry Beck's map, and the development of London. The tube was used as a shelter in World War 1, as well as more famously in World War 2. In the post-war decades, investment ground to a halt, with the rise of the motor car but without foreseeing the problems of congestion, and the service deteriorated (Wolmar singles out the King's Cross fire as a particularly bad example of decline). But still there was innovation: the Victoria line introduced essentially driverless trains (they are manned for safety, rather than as a technical requirement). The Jubilee line was introduced to relieve congestion on the central section of the Bakerloo line; the subsequent extension was not that originally planned, being somewhat influenced by the Canary Wharf development (a factor also in the route of the later Elizabeth line). Financially, the system went through mergers, mutualisation, nationalisation, and PFI: some of these were more successful than others. A curious omission, I suppose falling mostly after publication of the original edition, is any discussion of modern ticketing: Oyster was innovative, and I've read elsewhere that TfL, if not the originator of the technology, arguably precipitated mass usage of contactless payments across the world. But it's still a fine book.

Book Review: A More Perfect Heaven - How Copernicus Revolutionised the Cosmos, by Dava Sobel
This was a makeweight on an Amazon order. It turned out to be rather odd in format, containing a two-act play in the centre, surrounded by a more conventional narrative. This was a worthwhile experiment, but it didn't really work for me; it wasn't The Life of Galileo. Copernicus, born in Torun, was a canon at Frauenberg in Prussia. His heliocentric ideas began around 1510, but it was only towards the end of his life, when he was visited in 1539 by a German mathematician, Georg Joachim Rheticus, that he was compelled to publish his work. Typical for the era, the religious schism between Catholicism and Lutheranism is prominent, and in addition, Copernicus fears the backlash his ideas will provoke. In the play he is, however, adamant about his ideas and doesn't want them phrased ambiguously for publication. Reception of the book is muted: for a few, it is remarkable, for others, it provides a convenient model for improved calculations, and for yet others, it is heresy. Interestingly, On the Revolutions never quite makes it to the banned books list of the Catholic church, because of its convenience in adjusting the calendar; instead, a list of neutering "corrections" is issued. The rest is history.

Book Review: Eggs or Anarchy, by William Sitwell
I had never heard of Fred Marquis, who ran the Lewis's department store chain before becoming Lord Woolton in 1939 and being appointed Minister of Food by Neville Chamberlain in April 1940. He continued in position when Churchill took over, although neither of them especially rated each other. Sitwell's biography gives a portrait of an interesting figure, focused on delivery and with no concern for bending rules or conventions when necessary, doing deals with third countries that would have raised eyebrows in normal circumstances. Much of the ministry itself was based in Colwyn Bay, to offer some protection from attack or invasion. The position was inevitably a regular target for the media, with wartime rationing and frequent supply problems, but Woolton understood the value of positive coverage and propaganda, and took every opportunity to get his messages across. Inevitably, there is a chapter on the Battle of the Atlantic; food shipping was a heavy casualty. Woolton also pursued a ruthless policy against the Black Market. His insistence that there was no such large scale market may be true, but there were many small scale instances, and sometimes officials employed a heavy-handed approach that got them into trouble. What interestingly emerges from this book (published in 2016) is, in fact, how much Churchill resembles Boris Johnson - wanting to be popular, shying away from difficult decisions, not sticking by his own rules, and so on. Woolton regularly berated Churchill for diverting shipping away from food use to military purposes, and had some success in negotiating more food capacity. Churchill moved Woolton in late 1943 to become Minister of Reconstruction, which is where the main thread of the book ends, although there is a discussion about the health of the nation during the period of rationing, and also some first-hand recollections with perspectives from shopkeepers of the period.

Book Review: Via delle Oche, by Carlo Lucarelli
This is the final part of the De Luca trilogy. It is 1948; there is no explanation of how we got here from The Damned Season, but we can infer from De Luca's position in the vice squad that his rehabilitation has been limited by those now in power. Inconveniently for those in authority, a death occurs in a brothel in Bologna and therefore De Luca has some legitimate interest. The official line is suicide, but De Luca highlights the farcical shortcomings (literally) of this theory. It is election season, and the police are on edge (and potentially in the pockets of one or other political grouping). Deaths pile up and De Luca stubbornly persists, despite attempts to reassign him elsewhere. The conclusion is ambivalent: De Luca has a solution to the case, but whether justice will be served in any form, or whether an alternative prescription will be found, more to others' liking, is uncertain.