25/6/09 TOMALIN, CLAIRE: “SAMUEL PEPYS, THE UNEQUALLED SELF”

Introducing the book, the proposer – like Pepys an adminstrator of substance - said that he had first chosen it to read because he had undertaken a very interesting conducted tour in London. The excellent guide had made several references to the Tomalin book in the course of the tour, and he had therefore chosen to read it.

He had been pleased with his choice, as he thought the book was absolutely remarkable, and very difficult to put down. It painted a fascinating picture of Pepys, of the historical times and politics, and of London. It was an impressive piece of research to fill in the gaps and put the diaries in context. It was written in an appropriate language to convey the impression of Pepys the man. She conveyed remarkable insights into Pepys’ colourful life, his strengths and weaknesses, and his energy and ability.

It was difficult at first to believe that someone could rise from such humble beginnings to go to Cambridge and then into a position of great power. But the more you read, the more credible it became. (And, pointed out one, Pepys had made the most of family connections to advance himself). The book was laced with humour, particularly in the descriptions of his “personal” life. Given how compelling the book was, it was perhaps surprising that a number of people had been critical of elements of her interpretation of the diaries.

Trying initially to relate the text to the maps of London was not easy, but the book was written in a fashion that encouraged you to make these connections and read on. The latter part of the book, dealing with the post-diary part of Pepys’ life, was less convincing, but, taken as a whole, it was one of the best reads he had had.

So did you identify with Pepys as an administrator, or indeed in other ways, was the less than innocent query of another member? Well, not really – Pepys had more the qualities of a politician than an administrator – and, no, he did not identify with his penchant for peccadilloes! Pepys did have the administrator’s eye for detail, but he was also marked out by extraordinary energy (not all of which went into his work), by great oratory, and skill in wheeling and dealing, qualities more commonly associated with politicians. (And he was too polite to suggest that –at the current time of a Daily Telegraph witch-hunt over MPs' expenses - Pepys’ taste for lining his pockets with bribes might also be perceived as a political trait).

So what did others make of it? All had found the book a compelling read, with lots of juicy material culled from the diaries, an engrossing account of remarkable historical times, and an intriguing character study. “Enjoyed enormously” was a representative verdict. But all felt inhibited in assessing the book (a rare event), because no-one had read the original diaries in full.

One had found his edition of the diaries boring on a number of failed attempts to get through them, but now realised that his 1825 edition had omitted all the racy and interesting material (the diaries were only published in full in 1970). Another – noting that Claire Tomalin was a journalist by trade, and associating that profession with not letting the facts get in the way of a good story– had wanted to check some of her assertions against the original text of the diaries. But time had defeated him.

One who had enjoyed the book entered the reservation that Tomalin’s tone was rather censorious, and that she tended to judge people against the standards of the twenty first century, particularly in relation to how males treated females. Pepys was portrayed as a manipulative, bullying, groping pest, but was he simply a man of his times? This was only a question of tone – she tended to wag her finger at Pepys.

On the other hand, another felt that as a female author she was inevitably more sensitive to the feelings of his wife and the other female characters, and to get the female perspective was part of the value of the book. She normally wrote biographies about women rather than men, and could have made more of his treatment of his wife, but tried to be even-handed. Indeed she could be congratulated for resisting the temptation to be judgemental on many occasions.

However, another who had read two other biographies by Claire Tomalin (those of Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy) had detected the same judgemental tone in those other books, and it had become more marked in her later work. In this book, which was easily the best of the three he had read, she often “let the facts speak for themselves”, but selected them in such a way as to suggest the judgement. More broadly, there were common elements in all three books: very well written; easy to read, with a maximum length of 400 pages; no original research but self-confidently asserted interpretation of character and motive; no acknowledgment in the text (as opposed to the bibliography) of the existence of the work of other biographers, who might have different views; and an Olympian tone as she rubbed the acts of her characters through her moral sieve and scrutinised their shortcomings.

Reading this book with little knowledge of Pepys it had seemed totally convincing, but reading her book on Hardy with knowledge of the other biographies it had seemed relatively second rate. It was therefore no real surprise to hear that some Pepys experts were less than happy with some of her interpretations.

One with a detailed knowledge of the history of the period wondered whether people had found the fragmentary comments on the background history adequate. Would it not have been better to have had a more detailed and serious commentary? The book – and no doubt Pepys’ diaries themselves – also exaggerated the importance of Pepys’ role in a historical context.

Well, it all depended what sort of biography you wanted, a question which was a bit like how you liked your tea. If you wanted original research, a discussion of the views of others and the full historical background, you were looking at the 800+ pages type of biography (or more – the Berlioz biography discussed March 2007 had clocked in at over 700 pages for only the first volume of a 3 volume biography). And such texts normally read much less fluently. There was a role for popular, accessible biography such as this alongside more scholarly works.

Many felt that the historical context had really come alive in their imaginations because of the way Pepys had interacted with the main players - how he could describe, for example, a conversation with the king – in a way that previous history education had failed to come to life. And they would have found a more detailed exposition boring. But others, who liked their tea strong, would have preferred a more substantial and serious account of the history.

But what then of her conclusion that the diary carries Pepys as a writer “to the highest point, alongside Bunyan, Milton, Chaucer, Dickens and Proust”? Was that not, based on what she quoted of the diaries, absurd? Was she not confusing the uniqueness of his diaries with their literary quality? His attempts to write more serious work later in his life revealed his limitations as a writer. And if the purpose of the book was to promote the diaries, why did she not quote more extensively from them, instead of paraphrasing them all the time (except when they discussed sex)?

Well, yes, you did toca her jupes there, but was she not simply getting carried away as she sought a rousing finale to her book? What she did bring out particularly clearly was how Pepys stood back from himself and ruthlessly scrutinised his own actions and motivations in his diaries. She certainly succeeded in making one wish to read the diaries.

And how to compare fiction and biography? A main purpose of reading was to get outside our own view of the world. In fiction you were only getting the view of the novelist, but in biography – particularly one based on such detailed and compelling diaries – you were entering the world of a real person. So in that sense it was more authentic, and could be very powerful. In that context one member put in a strong recommendation for reading Nella Last’s Second World War Diaries.

There was general agreement that the last section of Tomalin’s book, written without the benefit of the diaries, was perhaps inevitably weaker. And she seemed to accept without debate Pepys’ explanation of failing eyesight for giving up the diaries, when in fact his eyesight did not fail in the end, and there might have been many other factors at work in his decision to quit the diaries.

Also relatively undiscussed was the fact that Pepys stayed a “nonjuror” loyal to King James after the arrival of William and Mary, at very considerable cost to himself and his career. How did this square with Tomalin’s picture earlier in the book of the venal, self-serving, turncoat Pepys?

It did not match up at all. Perhaps if any of us wrote a detailed diary of our youth that confessed to all our worst behaviour and worst thoughts, all dishonesty and all peccadilloes, it would be difficult to square it with any subsequent acts of goodness. And taking “commissions” was probably pretty standard behaviour at the time, not the sign of hopeless moral turpitude that we judged it by 21st century standards. Oh dear, the picture of Pepys was beginning to blur at the edges….

So what, in conclusion, was the purpose of the book? For one the importance of the book was how it portrayed Pepys as a very early example of a man treating himself as an object of scientific analysis, warts and all, at a time of rising interest in scientific discovery.

For another her achievement was to make the diaries accessible to a large public, and to make Pepys and his family very engrossing people. She had shown them to be timeless.

And for another she had brought the whole historical period to life.

Which is more or less where we came in.

Naturally the high moral tone of this discussion could not be sustained, and at this point (not being Pepys) your correspondent closed his book, studiously ignoring the conversation…. which rolled round such issues as the quality of wine in the seventeenth century… the import of golf clubs… the quality of Pepys’ philandering… whether they washed or not in the seventeenth century (yes they must have, because his wife refused to wash in revenge for his dalliance with Deb)…

Just as I nodded off I thought I heard someone say that he had stayed overnight in a room in Magdalene College in Cambridge, and been told to find his breakfast in the old hymn chest in the corner of the room. He duly fished out his cornflakes and milk in the morning, to find that the chest bore the name of Samuel Pepys. Perhaps this was the closest we were to get to Pepys….




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28/5/09 HARDY, THOMAS "FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD" and SIMMONDS, POSY "TAMARA DREWE".

The discussion was of Thomas Hardy’s “Far From the Madding Crowd” (1874) and “Tamara Drewe” (2007) by Posy Simmonds. The Simmonds graphic novel is set in the present but loosely draws on the plot of the Hardy novel.

An innovation introduced at the beginning of the meeting was a photo-call for the web-site, not, mercifully of the Monthly Book Group members, but of their varied editions of the Hardy novel. Some members were sporting the latest editions, complete with 74 page critical appendices and peppered with learned footnotes. Another had a copy stamped as the property of an Education Authority, from which he inferred he had taught the book, although he had no memory of doing so. And one produced an 1889 “New and Cheaper Edition”, replete with advertisements for “Rowlands’ Macassar Oil” and “Whelpton’s Pills” (was he really that old?).

Introducing the discussion the proposer noted that Hardy had published the first instalment of “Far from the Madding Crowd” in January 1874 when he was 33. The novel was remarkably complex, mature and poised for one of that age.

This was the golden age of novel - the age of the great Victorian novel. Dickens had died only four years earlier. George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” was also published in book form in 1874. Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” was published in instalments between 1873 and 1877.

It was Hardy’s 4th published novel, and his first major success. Hardy was returning to Dorset after some years in London as an architect, and searching for a style of novel that would bring him commercial success. The traditional pastoral form in the arts involved an idealised world of shepherds and nymphs. Hardy’s slight novel “Under the Greenwood Tree” (subtitled “A rural painting of the Dutch school”) had more or less conformed to that ideal. However, despite its title (from Gray’s Elegy) this pastoral novel presented us with a real shepherd and real sheep, and all that meant in economic terms, and only in minor aspects was it idealised. One could see his tragic vision beginning to emerge in this novel.

Nevertheless it was a sunny novel by Hardy’s standards (only two characters dying and one ending up in prison!) – and reflected a happy period in his life with his engagement to his first wife. It was a long way in tone from “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” and “Jude the Obscure”, those two great howls of rage about the human condition. Hardy created many fine female characters, and Bathsheba was a particularly brilliant creation.

The proposer continued that one of the reasons Hardy intrigued him was that he had been both a major Victorian novelist and a major twentieth century poet (publishing eight books of poetry between 1898 and 1928). Donald Davie, a formidable critic of poetry, wrote a book in 1973 contending that Hardy, rather than Yeats, still less Eliot or Pound, had for good or ill been the most far-reaching influence on British poetry in the previous fifty years. The proposer could not think of any other literary figure who had had a comparable impact in different literary forms in different eras. Hardy’s life was an intriguing one, and the best biography remained that by Michael Millgate.

Hardy, who had always wanted to be a poet, had suggested that he gave up the novel because of public reaction to Tess and Jude. But perhaps the reality was that he had exhausted his contribution to the novel with these two remarkable works. The fact that he was at heart a poet might explain some of the distinctive features of his novels. This was not so much in the prose style, as in the intensity of imagination that brought alive his characters, plots and scenes, and brought alive the natural world which was the backdrop of the novels.

He was a very visual novelist, which might be one of the reasons his works had so often been turned into films. (Sotto voce murmurings about the attractions of Julie Christie in the 1967 film of the novel, which were to rumble on all evening, became more audible at this stage).

In terms of the tradition of the novel, Hardy was heavily indebted in this novel to the early works of George Eliot, in particular “Adam Bede” (1859) and “The Mill on the Floss” (1860), although the two novelists were to develop in very different ways. In terms of Hardy’s own influence it was intriguing that an early (1914) work of D. H. Lawrence was a study of Thomas Hardy (even if much of it turned into an exposition of Lawrence’s own philosophy).

The proposer (turning to sip from a distinctly credit crunch wine) said that in his experience people either really liked Hardy’s novels or really disliked them. If they disliked them it was generally because of the gloominess, the use of coincidence and the way in which the characters failed to control their own lives. (Some of those who disliked the novels liked the poetry, however – such as F. R. Leavis, and even Hardy’s latest biographer, Claire Tomalin, who seemed less than enthusiastic about many of the novels).

Putting this theory to the test at a member’s suggestion, a straw poll found one or two of those present falling between the really liked/really disliked extremes, while the majority were on the really liked side (and thus bang went the proposer’s theory).

One fan, who had seen the film on his first date with his wife, had read the book in tandem with listening to an audio version – an in depth experience he particularly recommended. Another did not in the least find it the depressing experience he had feared with a Hardy novel. He found it very good, and relished the period flavour, in a society in which people were not good at expressing their emotions, and the period scenes such as the sheep-shearing. “Loved it” was the most common phrase used by these fans of the book.

And wasn’t love the major theme of the book? Taking Bathsheba as the central figure, the novel explored love as conquest (Troy for Bathsheba), love as infatuation and passion (Bathsheba for Troy), love as obsession (Boldwood for Bathsheba), and love as steadfast devotion (Oak for Bathsheba). And how cunningly the plotting pulled these elements together, with the reader being drawn irresistibly along by the narrative, hoping that Gabriel and Bathsheba would eventually marry.

But, challenged one, was Bathsheba really made happy by her marriage to Oak at the end? Even if Bathsheba had retained a degree of control by, in effect, proposing to Oak, she was settling for second or third best. She did not love Oak, and at the end of the novel she was said to smile seldom these days. Others, however, felt that she had realised that love as companionship was the best long-term basis for a relationship, and come to value Oak’s qualities.

Another way to look at it was that Hardy had portrayed Bathsheba as a complex and contrary character, who would be more than capable of holding several conflicting opinions on such a matter simultaneously.

As a Victorian novel, the mores of the time – in which, for example, a proposition of marriage had to precede a date – gave the framework for the novel. But, suggested one, the two finest characters – Bathsheba and Troy – transcended the bounds of conventional society. This point, noted another, chimed with the views of D. H. Lawrence – that so many Hardy characters “burst” (like the poppy or the phoenix) out of the confines of society, into individuality. For Lawrence, this self-realization led directly to their tragedy. Troy was a free radical, an outsider (as was Bathsheba to a lesser extent) and he was the catalyst for much of the plot to unfold.


Troy, according to Hardy, was someone who lived in the present, with no real concept of future or past (but, suggested one, perhaps most young men were like that?) Was he the stereotypical bounder? He reminded one of Wickham in “Pride and Prejudice”. And what was his motive for wanting to marry Bathsheba, and then show little commitment to the marriage? Was it again his inability to think ahead?

But Troy was not wholly bereft of finer feelings – didn’t he feel guilt at Fanny’s death? Indeed were we not to credit him with really loving Fanny? Some would, but others saw in his display of guilt at her death yet another short-lived emotion, adopted partly to hurt Bathsheba. And for them his irritation at her for going to the wrong church was of a piece with his weakness and selfish egotism.

These divisions of opinion suggested that Hardy had again created a character of life-like complexity.

The portrayal of Boldwood’s obsession for Bathsheba was equally compelling, but there were doubts about how convincing it was for such a man to have lived so long untroubled by interest in the opposite sex.

Not so Hardy himself, who was fascinated by relations between the sexes and spent most of his life falling in and out of love with a succession of women (a trait of his he satirised in “The Well-Beloved”). Indeed he appeared to have propositioned the illustrator of “Far from the Madding Crowd” – Helen Paterson – on first meeting her, despite both being engaged, and with the effect that she would never illustrate another of his novels.

Indeed, one had liked the eroticism of the novel, which had slipped under the moral radar of the Victorians. What eroticism, replied another, polishing his glasses? Well, the sword scene. And, added another, the voyeuristic scenes at the beginning. And wasn’t there some dominance/submissiveness interplay as she took on the role of Oak’s employer? Not to mention, leapt in another, Bathsheba riding her horse in the “masculine” way, tossing her head back as she did so.

Well, phew! Your correspondent had missed all this, and gratefully accepted the offer of a glass of the credit crunch wine from the proposer.

But they hadn’t finished yet…What about Hardy’s choice of names for his characters? “Gabriel Oak” was obviously a steadfast guardian angel, and “Troy” no doubt named because he laid siege to Bathsheba. So what could be the significance of “Bathsheba”? “Bathsheba”, replied our walking Wikipedia “was the biblical wife of Uriah who was seduced and made pregnant by David after he saw her in her bath…”. After that we did not even need to discuss the significance of “Fanny Robin” as a name …

Goodness gracious, bet they didn’t cover all that in the grumbling appendix!

Moving on, as I gulped the indifferent wine, Hardy’s language came in for praise as well – “an incredible gift of language, so fluent I thought he must be Irish” –as did the considerable humour in the novel.

The evocation of the natural world throughout the calendar year was outstanding – most memorably in the poetic storm scene, which you could read and re-read indefinitely – and seemed to be an integral part of Hardy’s vision of humanity. And the symbolic scene in which Troy entranced Bathsheba with his swordsmanship was one of the most powerful to be found in the English novel. One who had read the book aged seventeen still clearly remembered the storm and swordplay scenes long after he had forgotten many other novels read in the interim.

So unconditional love for the book? Well, no. The novel wore too readily on it sleeve its intention to preserve in aspic a dying way of rural life. Some signs of the book being written in episodic fashion for its original magazine format were still evident. And in this novel he seemed to be trying too hard to imitate the early George Eliot in a number of respects: the overly long scenes with the comic chorus of rustic characters; the arch, home-spun philosophising; and the detailed slabs of analysis of his characters as they were introduced. Hardy was to drop these elements in his later work.

And what about the role of coincidence in Hardy’s novels – though less prominent in this one – which annoyed many readers? Couldn’t it be seen as his dramatising of the role of the accidental – the black swans – in life? Whole lives changing because of one very minor event? One who used to be annoyed by Hardy’s use of coincidence when younger found it less irritating now. At one stage he had thought that chance played little role in the outcomes of life – if something did not happen in one particular way, it would probably soon happen in another way.

You mean – if one wife did not come along at that moment, another one much the same would soon after? Well –for example he had thought that if Hitler had not survived the First World War, someone else would have started the Second World War for similar reasons, given the underlying historic, economic and political drivers. But now he was less sure that was the case, and so Hardy’s vision was now for him less unrealistic.

Nevertheless, suggested one, despite Hardy’s use of quasi-spiritual figures in some of his poetry, there was no reason to look for a formal metaphysical philosophy in his novels. His vision was of human life as fragile in the face of an indifferent universe and inhuman social rules, and in which people could be brought down by random chance. Such as sending a Valentine. But, responded another, that act was the product of Bathsheba’s capricious personality….

At which point the proposer moved the discussion on to “Tamara Drewe”. Bathsheba had sent a “gorgeously illuminated” Valentine card to Boldwood, with a wax seal embossed “marry me”. But the equivalent Valentine in Tamara Drewe was a text message saying “I want to give you the biggest shagging of your life”. And it was sent to three different men!

Posy Simmonds was born in 1945 and studied at the Sorbonne and in London before joining The Guardian as an illustrator in 1972. She started a Guardian comic strip in 1979 that led to the publication of several books. She then turned her hand to children’s books, before returning to The Guardian with “Gemma Bovary”, published in book form in 1999. It was similar in concept to “Tamara Drewe”, but less subtle in its relationship to its nineteenth century predecessor. “Tamara Drewe” had also first appeared in the Guardian between 2002 and 2004.

Simmonds loosely followed the plot of “Far from the Madding Crowd” in this beautifully illustrated graphic novel, but her sensibility was very different. She was a social satirist rather than a tragedian, an Austen rather than a Hardy. Many of her funniest moments – and she was deliciously funny - were when she mischievously contrasted what happened in 1874 with what happened in 2006. The Valentine was a good example. And instead of Bathsheba swooning over a soldier, Tamara swoons over a boy band drummer. Social security claimants replace farm labourers. A fully working agricultural economy has been replaced by one in which a novelists’ retreat is one of the few things to flourish. Fanny’s death from hunger and childbirth is replaced by Jody’s death from glue-sniffing.

And while Tamara gets involved with three lovers similar to those of Bathsheba, she does not need to waste time waiting for propositions of marriage but leaps straight into bed as she wishes. Posy also has a bit of fun with her characters’ names (though not as much as Hardy) with a “Sergeant” standing in for Troy, a “Cobb” standing in for Oak, a “Drewe” for the illustrator’s heroine, and a “Hardiman” as her novelist.

For a graphic novel there was an unusual amount of text, including first person narratives, which allowed her to give a lot of depth to her story. She had an uncanny knack of being able to capture a character, a mood, or a thought with a drawing – and this was a different dimension to what a conventional novelist could offer.

Some of her themes were similar to those of Hardy. One was relationships between men and women (and in her case she could be explicit about sex). Another was rural society and how people related to the countryside (Nicholas’ death at the feet of the cattle is fitting for one with no real sympathy for the countryside). The same themes are present in “Gemma Bovary”.

But her overall story and characters were different from Hardy’s and weak compared to his: her strength lay in satire rather than in plotting and character development.

“Great fun”, “Very refreshing”, “Wonderful – they’ll be reading this in 100 years time” were some of the comments. It was remarkable how she could capture someone’s feelings or attitudes by sketching their face. She had caught precisely the popular/intelligent novelist preening himself in front of an audience of adoring women, with the diligent wife who had let herself go.

But there were a few reservations. It could be a bit painful reading Posy – she could be quite vicious, and it came too close to home for some Guardian-reading academics. While Hardy shows sympathy for all his characters, Simmonds has little sympathy for many of them.

And while the text was good, the drawing was better, and maybe less text and more drawing would have been a more effective balance. Some found the combination of text, boxes and drawings a little confusing to read. And one indeed complained that the book was too large for easy reading in bed, while others relished the lavishly produced book.

While Simmonds had based herself on a novel written by a man, there were some touches that were distinctively those of a female writer. One was at the beginning, when Beth is deliberately put off going to the party by a subtle put-down about her clothing. Another was her emphasis on how sexual allure is created by a woman – in this case Tamara’s nose job - rather than natural, a theme that recurs in “Gemma Bovary”. And while Hardy sees vanity as a female trait, this novel shows it as a male trait in Nick Hardiman the novelist.

A few owned up to reading other graphic novels (but it was never clarified whether they read them in bed or not) and there were recommendations for “Maus” (1980-91) - the anthropomorphic account of a Polish Jew’s struggle to survive the Holocaust; “Watchmen” (1986-87) – the critique of the American cult of the superhero; “The Sandman” (1989-96) about the Lord of Dreams; and of course for Hergé’s Tintin books.

Probably the graphic novel would be considered as a standard artistic genre in years to come – was it not normal for new genres, such as the novel and the film, to gain great popularity long before they gained academic respectability?

Your amanuensis cadged another wine (funny how it was tasting better after a few) to disguise my amusement at this enthusiasm for comics, and let the conversation drift over my head… Posy had a wonderful ear for teenage slang, garnered, she had told the Edinburgh Book Festival, by listening carefully on bus journeys... Didn’t the academic look like Bill Bryson and the novelist look like Ian McEwan?... and so they burbled gently on…

Meanwhile I was weighing much more serious questions of literary criticism, such as whether Tamara was more attractive than Bathsheba ….hmmm, too difficult…




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30/4/09 GILLIES, VALERIE: "THE SPRING TELLER".

Introducing the evening and our guest, the host said that it was a very special event for the Monthly Book Group. It was the first time a book of poetry had been discussed, and the first meeting where we had been honoured to have the author of the book present – in this case an internationally known and highly regarded poet.

Valerie Gillies was a longstanding friend of the host. She was born in Canada, grew up in Scotland, and studied at Edinburgh University. A Commonwealth Scholarship had allowed her to continue her studies at Mysore University in India. She had been writing poetry since she was fourteen and had been a freelance writer since 1971. She was well known as the River Poet who followed the Tweed and the Tay from source to sea. She was the winner of several prestigious awards and had held several writing fellowships across Scotland.

Valerie had written several books of poetry including Each Bright Eye, Bed of Stone, Tweed Journey, The Chanters Tune, The Ringing Rock and The Lightning Tree and a book of non-fiction Men and Beasts with photographer Rebecca Marr. Her subjects were wide and varied. She had written about cities, towns, castles, houses, people, rivers, animals, fish, birds, insects, guns, medical matters, her family, natural phenomena and, of course, springs and wells. Her poetry was to be found etched onto plaques and stones throughout Scotland.

She had been appointed the poet laureate for Edinburgh, the first female Edinburgh “Makar”, in 2005 and her official poems include The Balm Well, A Place Apart about the quiet room at Marie Curie Centre and To Edinburgh for the official opening of the new Council’s Headquarters. She taught creative writing in schools, colleges and hospitals. Valerie was also well known for her collaborative achievements in the visual arts and music, and was editor of the interactive Poetry Map of Scotland.

Valerie was married to Professor William Gillies, Professor of Celtic Studies at Edinburgh University, and two of their children were pursuing careers in the decorative arts. The “Spring Teller”, the subject of discussion with the Group, was written over a period of three years from 2005 and was Valerie’s most recent work. Her beautiful poems covered wells and springs throughout Scotland, plus one or two in Ireland and even in Wales, India and Crete. Her descriptions were of the locations of the wells and springs, and their topography, history, traditions, healing properties, and wildlife. Also discussed were visitors to the wells, local people and efforts to unblock ancient wells.

Valerie had been a neighbour for many years, and indeed had composed many of her poems in a summer-house adjoining his garden, which he hoped indicated they had proved good neighbours.

Indeed so, agreed the lady herself (who could perhaps say little else about the state of neighbourly relations, thought your eagle-eyed correspondent, whose suspicions were aroused when it later transpired she had penned a poem entitled “Berserk in Morningside”…)

Mrs Gillies said she traced her fascination with wells and springs back to her grandfather, who had taken her as a child on a mystery tour to an Angus glen. There he had filled a lemonade bottle from a spring and said “there, that’s the water I dreamt of every night in the trenches…”

It was particularly apt that the Book Group was meeting on the last day of April, because there was a tradition of visiting wells to celebrate them on the first day of May, or on the first Sunday of May. We speculated on why such traditions and our fascination with water might exist. The month of May associated with the Virgin? The fact that we were ourselves largely composed of water? The positive ions produced by flowing water – but wells did not flow (ah not so, we were told, a well is an enclosed spring in which the water moves – not a stagnant pool). Our uterine beginnings in water? Water as part of fertility rituals?

A clue, suggested Valerie, was given by archaeologists, who had not found remains earlier than Roman in Scottish wells. Such Roman remains had included whole breastplates of armour. So perhaps the tradition of honouring wells had started with the Roman tradition of equipping the deceased for their journey to the next world.

Whatever the origins, it had become customary to “silver the well”. This was of course done with silver coin, and – if that could not be afforded – a small white pebble was used (an example was shown to us by the poet). This tradition had been debased both literally and metaphorically these days by the throwing in of one or two pence coins.

But not everything was developing for the worse. There was a growth of interest in well-visiting in some parts of Scotland, for example in the Black Isle. This applied particularly to “clootie wells” (rag wells) where a piece of clothing from a sick person was hung up by the well, with the hope that as the cloot decayed so would the illness. (We were advised against placing the sort of non-decaying garments known to be favoured by Monthly Book Group members, such as shell-suits, polythene bags etc, as they might prolong the illness).

This growth in interest might reflect the general growth of interest in Scotland in archaic traditions, as well as in alternative medicine. And there was certainly evidence that the favouring of certain wells for particular illnesses was soundly based scientifically on their particular chemical properties, such as the chalybeate wells for anaemia, a well that was a cure for “dry–eye”… and so on. The Balm Well at Liberton was famous for producing a tarry oil that was good for the complexion and skin complaints, and had been much used by everyone in Scotland including royalty in past centuries.

And the poet took particular pride in the fact that some of her poems had helped to revivify interest in historic wells or springs that had been blocked off, perhaps for health and safety reasons. One example was St Anthony’s Well on Arthur’s Seat, where there was now a chance it would be restored.

How did she go about writing her poems? The Ordnance Survey “Explorer” maps, large enough to show wells and springs, were an important part of her kit. Also important – for finding wells and springs that had been covered up – was a set of dowsing rods. Dowsing rods definitely worked, and could easily be bought via the web (or indeed made from coathangers).

A sceptical scientist in the group picked up her set of dowsing rods, held them out, and was astounded when they twitched towards a large pool of brown liquid in front of him, contained in a pint glass. And he continued this experiment – with the same results - periodically throughout the evening.

Her normal method was to record her impressions in some notes and sketches, then later write a poem in pencil, and finally type it up. She wrote little prose, as prose offered an infinity of choice of word, whereas the rhythmic structure of poetry forced the writer towards the right word.

Poetic influences? Some favourites were Michael Longley, Sorley MacLean, and John Clare.

We then moved on to inviting Valerie to read – and discuss - our favourite poems from the book. These included:

“Munlochy”, a sinister poem about a spooky clootie well;

“Queen Mary’s Bath-house” and “Spring, Tinto Hill” – where the traditional rhyme and metrical structure found favour;

“The Wellhead”, a political poem addressed to the Scottish Parliament about the lack of history teaching in Scottish schools;

“Samuel Rutherford”, which recounted the tale of a famous divine who, when a boy, had fallen into a deep well. When those who had gone for help returned they found him safe by the side of the well. He told them he had been rescued by an Angel.

The poet herself put forward the poem “The Butter Well” in the Lowthers, about a well which had been used in butter-making.

We noted how interesting it was to hear the rhythms conveyed by the poet herself reading aloud, and discussed the impact of unconventional metrical structures.

We then ranged more widely, discussing the use of poetry in cancer care, and hearing from the proposer two particularly poignant poems from the collection “The Lightning Tree”. We heard of an indentation in a bank manager’s lawn which had turned out to cover the gaping chasm of a thirty foot well – was this a portent of the credit crunch?

We established that the poet was next undertaking a poetry-writing project in America, listening to their birds in their woods; and we then insisted she signed our copies of “The Spring Teller”.

Then at last she was free from the clutches of the Monthly Book Group, and could retreat. Perhaps to the safety of her summer-house, to pen “Berserk in Morningside Revisited”.

Meanwhile the members of the Group spilled out into the street, led by the no longer sceptical scientist, convinced that his dowsing rods would soon lead us to a public house…



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26/3/2009 THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE by STEPHEN CRANE


Unusually, the proposer was absent attending a celebration in Belgium. However, he did manage to send an introduction to the book, praising it as an exploration of courage, the nature of manhood, self-realisation and personal values. Of relevance to subsequent discussion, he noted that Steven Crane was born after the American Civil War in 1871, and had no personal experience of armed conflict. The Red Badge of Courage (RBC) was written in 1895 between "Maggie, a Girl of the Streets" (1893) and "The Open Boat" (1897), about a shipwreck. The Red Badge of Courage was his most famous work, by some margin, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential American novels. Unfortunately Crane suffered from ill health throughout his life, and died from TB in 1900, when only 28 years old.

The discussion was lively. No one present had direct experience of armed conflict,with many born in the post-WWII baby boom, and therefore in a similar situation to Crane, born six years after the American Civil War. Similarly, it was difficult to understand fully the impact of the book on 1890’s America from a perspective more than a century into the future. One member tried to draw an analogy between RBC and the recent success of ‘The Black Watch’ by Gregory Burke, but most thought this was stretched.

The first point of discussion was the description of conflict, bearing in mind the inexperience of both author and reviewers. All but one (‘not authentic’) thought that the description had an air of realism, and was particularly strong in representing the ‘fog of war’, the inability of the participant to comprehend or act on the whole conflict, fighting their own personal battle with no knowledge of strategic imperatives, if they exist. There was praise for the description of ‘blood and gore', of a face shattered by a musket ball, of mental breakdown, and of the protracted act of dying of the tall solider.

For example, consider the passage, “Another had the gray seal of death already upon his face. His lips were curled in hard lines and his teeth were clinched. His hands were bloody from where he had pressed them upon his wound. He seemed to be awaiting the moment when he should pitch headlong. He stalked like the specter of a soldier, his eyes burning with the power of a stare into the unknown.”

Attention was drawn to the Homeric references at the start of the book, and the descriptions of suffering after the first battle. One could see parallels being drawn between the imagined and real conflict, presaging the experience of the 1914-18 conflict in Europe. Yet, the book was still ambiguous at the end as one was not sure whether war was rather being depicted as a necessary evil to ensure the testing of the mettle of the protagonists.

Was the description of the battle too erudite for the assumed narrator, and ordinary foot soldier? Certainly some thought this detracted from the authenticity. On the other hand, much of the book was written from diaries and other sources so the author had access to first-person descriptions. It was mentioned that the Civil War occurred soon after the development of photography, and probably the author had access to the many photographs (Brady, Cook et al.). Apparently this was the fourth war to be photographed after the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), the Crimean War (1854–1856) and Indian Rebellion of 1857. More generally, we discussed whether personal experience was necessary to write great novels; the general consensus was against this view and there were certainly many counter examples. Yet there was a sense that Crane was living vicariously an experience which he had been denied through birth and ill health. Certainly his wide travel as a reporter revealed a taste for adventure.

Next, the discussion centred on the intended audience. Was this a male viewpoint, intended for a male audience? In general, the consensus was that this was probably so in 1895, although it might now attract a wider audience. Was it intended to shock? Again the general consensus was affirmative, although the motivation was in dispute. Some thought it was written partly as an anti-war tome, but most thought not, thinking the emphasis on the baptism of fire or coming of age as the recruit eventually passes the test outweighed any description of the pointlessness of the conflict. A substantial minority thought that the book had been written with some cynicism, by a writer more anxious to establish his reputation than to say something important about the nature of personal experience or the nature of war. As evidence, they cited the rapidly shifting subjects of interest, and the fact that ‘Maggie’ had received poor criticism. Further, they suggested that the use of the American Civil War, rather than some other conflict, helped to boost the author’s reputation and sales as the audience had a thirst for books about the conflict.

This brings up the next issue, whether the book was really about the American Civil War. (Chancellorsville was mentioned as a possible battle). The group were fairly sure that this was about war, or indeed the passage to manhood, and the topic was generic rather than specific. To support that view, there are many characters specified as ‘the youth’, the ‘tall soldier’, the ‘loud soldier’, the ‘tattered soldier’ etc, so this emphasises the Everyman nature of the book. (Of course some characters like the youth are also named by third parties.) Throughout the book there is no mention of context or purpose. In the passages in which the tattered man asks Henry where he has been hit, his lack of a wound is possibly a metaphor both for his trial by ordeal that is still to come, but also of Crane’s lack of personal experience. Developing this view one thought that war was only a metaphor, and that the book was about any rite of passage through strife. Reference was made to conflicts in the playground at primary school!

In conclusion, the majority view was of a book on the experience of conflict, which defines a man; about war, not for or against war but a realistic depiction; a book with no historical context or political agenda, intended for as wide an audience as possible, but primarily a male audience. All agreed the book was very well written, entertaining, and thought-provoking. They congratulated the absent proposer on a good choice.



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26/2/2009 ‘A BEND IN THE RIVER’ by V.S. NAIPAUL.

V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932, and came to London in 1950. ‘A Bend in the River’ was published in 1979. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.

Naipaul’s writing includes fiction and extended essays on cultural, geographical and political themes. He has a particular interest in the legacy of colonialism, and in the experiences of displaced individuals and populations.

The proposer described how he was led to his choice via another book: ‘Blood River’ by Tim Butcher, a factual account of a journey through central Africa. He also cited the book and film ‘The African Queen’. Later in the discussion, Joseph Conrad’s novella ‘Heart of Darkness’ also came up as part of the European backdrop of writing about the Congo. A more recent book, ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ by Barbara Kingsolver set in the Congo during the post colonial period, was also referred to later.

The proposer’s introductory remarks on his experience of reading ‘A Bend in the River’ indicated that he found it well-balanced, descriptive, analytical and thought-provoking. The book demonstrated a broad humanist philosophy, and a fascination with how people could achieve self-improvement.

There followed some speculation as to the precise locations Naipaul had in mind when writing. He does not mention the name of either the country or the town where the novel is set, but there was general agreement that the country was based on Zaire (previously the Belgian Congo), and that the town might well be a version of Kisangani on the River Congo. The political leader in the background of the story was perhaps drawn from Mabutu Sese Seko, who seized power in 1965.

Discussion moved onto the fact that no one in the group had visited central Africa, which made it harder to evaluate the accuracy of the portrayal. There was debate about whether racist attitudes were expressed towards Africans either implicitly by Naipaul or explicitly by his narrator Salim, (both members of the Indian diaspora). It was pointed out that one of the most heavily satirical passages of the book had as its target the Indian consulate in London.

One member of the group discussed the portrait of Raymond, a recognizable figure to him through his own academic contacts. White academics such as Raymond did indeed exercise some influence in Africa during the 1960s, as many African leaders came to Britain for their higher education. However, it was agreed that Raymond was in fact not a power behind the throne, but ultimately a powerless and undermined individual.

Continuing to look at characterization, we turned to Salim, the novel’s narrator. As is usual when a writer undertakes first person narration, there was speculation about the degree to which Salim was a self-portrait. Elements of his behaviour – misogyny in particular – were compared with aspects of Naipaul’s own personal biography. The view was expressed that Salim was in many respects an ‘empty’ character – an observer of events rather than an active protagonist. He seems predominantly passive, awaiting events or developments that will show him how to lead his life. In this context, the opening sentence of the novel was much admired: ‘The World is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.’ As a starting point for an open story that invites a variety of interpretation, this was seen as a very well crafted beginning.

Staying with characterization, Ferdinand was considered as representing the fluidity of the continent in general. In fact, all the characters had a role in expressing aspects of Africa. There was a lack of dynamics between them, it was felt. They were all essentially isolated, even Matty and Salim who had spent their lives together. They were also, it was agreed, not particularly sympathetic or appealing characters. Of course, we see them primarily through the eyes of Salim, and it was suggested that Salim himself was not a perceptive observer. In fact he is quite openly uncomprehending about some of the people he encounters, which places a substantial barrier between the reader and the characters.

In spite of this sense of being held at a distance from characters, there was widespread admiration for Naipaul’s prose style. One of the group pointed out for example the book’s fascination with the river itself, and the precision and variety of natural descriptions.

We turned to themes, and wondered if ultimately it was a rather depressing book. Ferdinand’s final words to Salim, when he has got him out of jail and recommends that he flees, suggest capitulation to a nightmarish breakdown of ethics, culture and order. There seems to be no choice left between right and wrong, because there is no right any more. Salim’s efforts to make a success of his life in this place have come to nothing, and all that is left is to run away. At this particular bend in the river and at this point in central Africa’s history, civilization has failed.



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29/1/2009: THE BLACK SWAN : NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB

The proposer introduced the book as about uncertainty. A “Black Swan” event equals uncertainty.

Nassim Taleb is Professor in the Sciences of Uncertainty at University of Massachussetts. He is of Lebanese origin. This was important in the development of his thinking. Lebanon seemed to be a stable paradise until civil war erupted in 1970’s. Taleb was a banker until recently and, as a result of his “Black Swan” book written in 2006 and the current financial crisis, has become a much sought after pundit. On the very day of the Book Group’s discussion, he had been interviewed by Evan Davies on the “Today” programme and had been a speaker at the Davos economic summit. Journalists are always asking NNT to predict Black Swans, proving they do not properly understand the idea.

According to Taleb, Black Swans have three attributes. They are outliers , ie lie outside regular expectations; they have an extreme impact; and we retrospectively concoct explanations for what has happened to make it explainable and predictable. The highly expected not happening is also a Black Swan. The problem is that everyone including the “experts” acts as if Black Swans do not exist. The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history. We need to adjust to the existence of Black Swans. What is surprising is not the magnitude of forecast errors but our absence of awareness of it. Experts are not experts.

Taleb argues that conventional wisdom is inapplicable in our modern, complex, “recursive” environment. By recursive Taleb means that the modern world has an increasing number of feedback loops, causing events to be the cause of more events thus generating snowballs and epidemics. The banking system is a good example, as Taleb said before the current crisis. Taleb has written an essay claiming that the world is dominated by the extreme, unknown and improbable event and we should be studying this more instead of concentrating on the known and repeated. Taleb claims the future will be increasingly less predictable.

Taleb points out that there is nothing new about the Black Swan problem. The central difficulty of generalising from available information, or learning from the past, is an old problem discussed by many philosophers. It is sometimes known as the "Hume" problem but is older than him.

Taleb argues that we generalise too much from the seen to the unseen. We get closer to the truth by negative instances not by verification. Asymmetrical scepticism is the right approach. Popper was the key promoter through his falsification theory. You know what is wrong with a lot more confidence than you know what is right. The natural tendency is to look for conformation rather than falsification.

We also like to summarise, simplify and explain. Not to explain goes against our nature. Information is costly to obtain, store and retrieve. The same condition that makes us simplify pushes us to think that the world is less random than it is. A novel, a story spares us from the complexity of the world. Stories impart order to the disorder of human perception. So Black Swans get left out. We more easily remember those facts that fit the narrative and neglect those that do not appear to play a causal role. History appears in hindsight far more explainable than it actually was - or is. The way to avoid the pitfalls of the narrative is to favour experiment over storytelling, experience over history and clinical knowledge over theories.

What we see is not all the evidence. History hides Black Swans. History is any succession of events seen with the effects of posterity. Silent evidence gives an illusion of stability. The bias lowers our perception of risks incurred in the past.

When people are asked to name three recently implemented technologies that most impact on the world today, they usually propose the computer, the Internet and the laser. All were unplanned, unpredicted and unappreciated initially. They were Black Swans.

We think we know more than we do. Our arrogance results in trouble. Too much information can impede knowledge. The military are more aware of Black Swans than other professions. Security and economic forecasters have a poor record.

Many great discoveries are accidental. Historians cannot predict the future.

The proposer indicated that he had first come to the book as a keen student of history, and the philosophy of history, but it had become even more relevant following the banking crisis. He had found the book fascinating, thought provoking and enjoyable, but acknowledged that Taleb could also be quirky, arrogant and maddening.

A wide ranging and thought provoking discussion ensued. There was general agreement that the book was interesting, important and thoroughly entertaining. The timing of its publication had resulted in the book itself becoming a Black Swan. There was disagreement, however, as to whether Taleb’s analysis was correct. Those with a history background thought the Black Swan idea was a valid one in that context but others argued that Taleb had misused statistics which undermined his whole analysis.

This led on to a discussion about whether certain events were Black Swans, focussing on the current financial crisis, 9/11 and World War I. No agreement was reached. There was also an interesting debate as to how the computer and internet had affected both individual and societal behaviour and whether Taleb’s view was correct that such changes had made the world a more uncertain and unpredictable place than before.

There was more general agreement that the book was irritating, badly argued, over long and needed a good editor. No doubt Taleb’s ego and arrogance made this impossible. There was less agreement as to the effects of this on the substantive argument of the book. Taleb had acknowledged that the book was a populist,polemical essay and it was doubtful whether a more academic book on such a difficult subject would have attracted anything like the same level of attention.

In conclusion, everyone had found the book enjoyable and stimulating despite its irritations.



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26/11/2008 “VERY GOOD, JEEVES” by P.G. WODEHOUSE and “WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE” by RAYMOND CARVER

Introducing the books, the proposer said that he had chosen two deliberately contrasting collections of short stories, which might lead on to a general discussion about the nature of the short story as a literary form.

P. G. Wodehouse was a writer he had read for most of his life. His father had a small number of favourite books, which it was his habit to re-read regularly to the exclusion of new material. A Jeeves book was one of the favoured few, and as a result the proposer had first read P.G.Wodehouse at ten or twelve. He had not read Carver until 1989, at a time when he was reading widely amongst American fiction.

Other than that the proposer – himself the author of a volume of short stories, as well as novels – did not wish to add any introduction, saving his comments for the general discussion.

Which started with the ticklish issue of how best to read a collection of short stories. Wasn’t it a contradiction in terms to have a collection of short stories? The whole point of a short story was that it was short, and could be read at one sitting. To read several at one sitting could induce symptoms of over-indulgence just as surely as having too many chocolates from a chocolate box.

One member confessed to leaving the Wodehouse in his pocket and indulging in one story per bus journey. As it later transpired that this member was one of those driven to laugh out loud by Jeeves, this might account for the bemused expression of Edinburgh bus passengers observed in recent times, which until now had been attributed to the blizzard of roadworks for the new trams.

On the other hand, both writers seemed to have thought carefully about the order in which the stories appeared, much as a singer might do for an album, and as far as we knew the stories had not been published separately. For example, opined one, Carver put his second strongest story (“Shall We Dance”) at the beginning, and his strongest (the title story) second last, leaving as a black joke for last the story which ended with the lines “He said ‘I just want to say one more thing’. But then he could not think what it could possibly be”.

“The strongest, you said? I thought it was the weakest!” retorted another, indicating that not all had seen the stories in the same light.

A difference of view that emerged most clearly over “Very Good, Jeeves”. No, Jeeves, not very good. “Stereotyped!” “Did such a world ever really exist?” “Desperately dated –even the humour!”. “Repetitive”. “Formulaic – couldn’t be bothered finishing it!” pronounced these members with all the heartless severity of a panel of Strictly Come Dancing judges.

Yet others had been rolling in the aisles. They loved the vitality and range of the language, the sparkling similes and metaphors – for example the bad –tempered householder “closing the door with the delicate caution of one sweeping flies off a sleeping Venus”. They loved the well-oiled machinery of the plots, which resolved everything on the last page.

“Simply hugely enjoyable”. The plot with the same song being repeated by four singers was hysterically funny. The stories were particularly intriguing when Jeeves disapproved of Bertie’s taste in clothing or art, and contrived to alter it. The food faddist and prototype feminist Pyke who threatened Bingo’s cholesterol-loaded food and connubial bliss was deliciously amusing. And so was the debate between Jeeves and Bertie as to whether Uncle George’s barmaid was proletarian or “of sturdy lower middle-class stock, sir”.

Reflecting further, the audience voting for Jeeves noted that this world had really been created by Wodehouse. It was an entirely safe, comic world, in which the biggest threats were aggressive Aunts. Bertie was a child-like figure, and Jeeves a nanny-like figure who could resolve all problems (perhaps reflecting Wodehouse being put in the charge of a nanny from age two). Bertie was an asexual figure, although golf lovers were promised that Wodehouse’s series of golf stories were less innocent. Perhaps escapist stories of this kind were particularly attractive to a generation decimated by the First World War (this particular collection was published in 1930).

And a lot of skill had gone into creating these apparently effortless stories. “The lightness and fluidity of Wodehouse I think obscures some very careful timing and craft. For all his far and wide use of the Englsih language, there is not a single wasted word, and the comedy is unfolded with rapier precision…”. Wodehouse had given an interview setting out some of his ideas on composition, for example: “Always get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel that the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a great slab of prose at the start…The thing to do is say to yourself ‘What are my big scenes?’ and then get every drop of juice out of them…”.

What ho! Spiffing! But what about this Carver – a bit of a rum cove?

Well, no - Raymond Carver’s dark world received a generally enthusiastic response. “Powerful!”. “Challenging!”. “Brilliant stuff – a whole desperate society emerged from a few sentences”. “Reminded me of a Country and Western song – a compliment – with a refrain of failed relationships and alcohol amongst blue collar people in the Mid-West.” “I liked the way meanings and new perceptions emerged as you reflected on the story”. “Liked Carver more than when I read him twenty five years ago, perhaps because of more life experience since!”.

“Initially I didn’t like the abrupt conclusions, but then I tuned into the stories and found them refreshing”. “Presents you with a raw slab of life as it is, with only one or two nerve endings going into the future, and a few more into the past”. “You have to read with great care, because if you miss one word the whole meaning changes”. “The stories have the concentration, complexity and chiselling of a poem”. “The opening lines really grab you and pull you in – e.g. ‘I’ll tell you what did my father in. The third thing was…’". ” “Like an Edward Hopper painting, where the characters tend to be gazing out of a window, in which there is a sinister sense of an untold story”.

So straight tens from all the judges? No, not quite. “Eventually the dark plots about alcohol and failed relationships begin to pall. What about all the joy and excitement also to be found in blue-collar life? He’s a one-trick pony…”. “Stylistically Carver comes from the school of minimalism. This begs the question, when we applaud the writing, are we applauding the fact that so much meaning can be expressed in so few words? Is this the aim of the writing style? I found the style overbearing, however, and it leaves little room for the reader to manoeuvre… I found I had really to slow down the reading and study the words which was in one sense quite rewarding, but also quite restrictive”.

“Some stories too dark for a female reader”. “‘Tell the Women We’re Going’ is similar to Kafka’s ‘A Knock at the Manor Gate’. But by comparison Carver’s story is crude and merely sickening, whereas Kafka’s was well-paced and held a genuine tension throughout”. “I’d rather spend an evening with Wodehouse than Carver!”.

A feature of Carver’s characters was that, although they talked, they did not really communicate by talking. They were too inarticulate to do so. They could only express the underworld of their emotions by taking action – for example by mutely throwing rocks. Indeed that was perhaps a common feature of American culture (and Presidents? ventured your correspondent, swiftly to be silenced). Indeed rocks were a recurrent motif – perhaps a symbol? - in several of the stories, once being explicitly used as a murder weapon.

But while most could agree on their liking for the stories, we could not all agree on what the stories meant. What, for example, did the ending of “Why Don’t You Dance?” mean. For one, it meant that the angst of the older man had been transferred to the younger generation. For another, the young woman had been disturbed both by her sexual attraction to the old man, and by a glimpse of the pain of the failed relationship of an older generation (and the foreboding example for the young of the failures of the older generation was a major feature of the stories). For another reader it was possible that the young couple had murdered the older man.

But did different interpretations matter? There was no “solution” to the story – just a sense of ambivalence and of unease which we shared.

In terms of influences, many (including Carver himself) had identified Chekhov. And it was certainly true that Chekhov had shown how to replace the traditional plot-structured short story and its conventional beginning, middle and end with a story that reflected the messiness of life in a random, godless, meaningless universe (“dirty realism”, in the phrase sometimes applied to Carver’s work).

However, their actual writing styles were very different, and a much closer influence was surely that of the early Hemingway (see our discussion of “Men Without Women” on 27 February 2008). A story such as “Hills without Elephants” seemed to be the template for the minimalist, ambivalent Carver story of human misery. The pared-down prose style, with its simple vocabulary, short sentences and short paragraphs was surely handed down by Hemingway to Carver as to so many other American writers. Hemingway too wrote of the Mid-West, and of fishing. Even setting one of the stories in northern Italy seemed to be a nod, conscious or otherwise, in the direction of Papa Hemingway.

So how to compare Wodehouse and Carver? On the surface they could not be more different. Happiness versus sadness, laughter versus rage. Writing to satisfy, as opposed to writing to disturb. Carver chose to point his lens into dark and sordid places, while Wodehouse studiously did exactly the opposite, and never took anything too seriously. Wodehouse depicts a world of high flying fancy, where emotional angst is present but which is trivialised amidst the comforts of an affluent existence. Wodehouse’s world attracts us because it is both escapist and fun, but we are shoe-horned uncomfortably into Carver’s world and come out gasping for air. Nor does Carver provide something positive that is asserted, as classic tragedy might.

In the terms suggested by E. M. Forster’s “Aspects of the Novel”, Wodehouse is offering “flat” characters, who do not develop, whereas Carver is offering “round” characters. Little as we glimpse of Carver’s characters, they develop in the course of his minimalist stories, and this subtlety is one of the main attractions of Carver’s work. As Forster pointed out, a complex plot – of the Wodehouse, or Dickens, variety – is much simpler with “flat “ characters. However, one should not make a value judgement and impose a hierarchy in identifying such differences between Wodehouse and Carver.

And there were also things in common between Wodehouse and Carver. Both used dialogue very well. The theme of lunacy appeared in both, although in a very amusing and reassuring way in Wodehouse. Both writers displayed considerable interest in alcohol. It is seen as a dangerous and destructive force in Carver (and it had played such a role in his own life) while for Wodehouse it is always comic. Thus the Wodehouse definitive taxonomy of hangovers:

• the Broken Compass,
• the Sewing Machine,
• the Comet,
• the Atomic,
• the Cement Mixer,
• the Gremlin Boogie.

A fine note on which to end, thought your scribe, as I could understand it, but off they went again, this time on to the short story as a literary form:

Surely all short story writers wanted really to become novelists, to display their imagination to the full? Well no, not necessarily. In America – and also in South America, with magic realism – there was a stronger tradition of writers focussing only on the short story. (Reflecting a shorter attention span? I ventured, only to be frostily silenced once more…). Whereas in the UK a book of short stories was nowadays only seen by publishers as a stepping stone to a novel, or as a follow up to a novel, which seemed a pity, as short stories were still very popular. Was the British public being short-changed?...

Interesting that there are many fewer famous collections of short stories than famous novels. And also that so many great films have been made from developing short stories, while many bad films have been made by trying to cram in all the plot of a novel…

The short story suits science fiction, because it is about ideas rather than characters…

But then so often short stories are based on something that has happened to an author, or something they have overheard, or read about, rather than the fully imagined world of a novel…

Somerset Maugham is a very interesting short story writer to revisit. He is also someone who is economical with words, and adept in describing both the physical and psychological worlds of the colonial society he depicts…

You should not place the short story and the novel in a hierarchy of a value, and you should not see a short story as a sort of failed novel. William Boyd – author of both novels and short stories - had recently written a couple of excellent articles on the short story, in which he argued it was a separate art form, and one which - through oral story telling – predated the novel...

Ah well, story telling has been well supported in Scotland recently. Yes indeed, only last week I was in my allotment having a conversation about failed relationships over the compost heap, when I heard a story-teller approaching and telling a story to allotment holders…

!!!Run that one by me again?

Well, I think that’s what he said… but I’m afraid that by now even your devoted correspondent was reaching the end of his attention span.

Pip, pip! Toodle-oo! I’m off to do the Gremlin Boogie….




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29/10/08 THREE CUPS OF TEA by GREG MORTENSON and DAVID OLIVER RELIN

Introducing the book, the proposer said he had been attracted to it because of a family involvement with a charity helping to house and educate Dalits in India. He had hoped there might be parallels – but in fact the book had described a very different approach to charitable activity.

He had not found it an easy read, possibly because his reading of it had been spread out over a month. Some sections were captivating and flew by, whereas others seemed a bit boring. And he suspected that Mortenson himself had not written any of the book, instead handing over to Relin a mass of papers and detritus from his visits, organising visits for Relin, and having discussions with him. It was intriguing that Mortenson had had to plead with the publisher to drop the portentous sub-title (One Man’s Mission to fight Terrorism and Build Nations… One School at a Time) for the paperback version.

The book sparked off interesting questions about the societies in which Mortenson worked and their cultures. That must be why it was a big-seller in the US, and indeed of interest to the US military – an eye-opener to what was going on in these countries. He had lifted the lid on a demonised culture, given reasons why the different groups (the Pakistanis, the Shia, the Taliban etc) were all different, and why they needed to be managed in careful and different ways. But some of this information, and the language and concepts it revealed, was difficult to absorb without stopping to reflect, and this interrupted the flow of the book.

What struck him most about the book was the remarkable character of Greg Mortenson. Shining through the story were Mortenson’s amazing interpersonal skills. He had shown an ability to build relationships, and inspire trust and respect, amongst people of very different cultures to his own. One of the factors that helped was his very evident sincerity.

His involvement in building schools in remote areas of Pakistan had not come about through premeditation or intellectual analysis (though it had maybe been pre-ordained by the example of his parents’ activities in Africa and the thought patterns they had given him). He simply bumbled in, but then showed remarkable opportunism in the way he had seized chances to improve the lot of the rural poor – particularly of uneducated girls – in Pakistan. The intuitive way he had identified helpers in Pakistan from the least likely backgrounds was uncanny.

And he displayed an absolute intensity and thoroughness. This tenacity – and bravery – came out first in his attempt on K2, and then in selling everything he had to raise the funds for the first school. He then pursued his objectives in the face of an unfamiliar culture, a harsh terrain, fatwas from mullahs, the outbreak of wars and even kidnapping.

Overall it was a very thought-provoking book, which gave important insights into the working of different cultures, and raised big issues about the direction of travel for the future.

He had gleaned from an interview posted on the CAI website that Mortenson was now withdrawing from his hands-on role in Pakistan and Afghanistan to a more managerial role in which he would spend more time in America. Perhaps this was inevitable given the volume of funds and support that must now be available following the immense success of the book. But the proposer feared for the future, given that the whole operation had seemed to depend so critically on Mortenson’s hands-on work in Pakistan. It must be doubtful that the operation would be successful without him operating on the ground, and doubtful – from what we had read of his personality – that a managerial role would play to his strengths.

Another reader, however, had found the book an easy and gripping read. He was struck by the similarity between Mortenson and Tim Moore – the author of last month’s book “French Revolutions” about the Tour de France. Both were obsessive – or at least goal-oriented – at the expense of other aspects of life including family. But Mortenson was by far the more attractive person, taking on an almost heroic character, even if the book hinted that in some respects he was an infuriating man.

One aspect of the writing that troubled him was that the writer – presumably Relin, who must be in practice the ghost-writer – put in concrete descriptions in novelist style of the detail surrounding events that could not possibly have been remembered. This was effective at one level, but at another manipulative and thus disconcerting.

Another member had found the book hugely enjoyable, and indeed inspiring. However, he was less enthused by the quality of the writing, which he had initially found quite disappointing. It could be mawkish, awkward and even amateurish – such as the clumsy opening sentence:

“In Pakistan’s Karakoram, bristling across an area barely one hundred miles wide, more than sixty of the world’s tallest mountains lord their severe alpine beauty over a witnessless high altitude wilderness.”

As he read the whole book, however, he was able to ignore such examples and came to appreciate the overall achievement, in particular where the integrity of the story and the message was sustained in a way that retained the interest of the reader. The writing, perhaps befitting Mortenson’s character, might be clumsy at times but was always gentle in tone, plodding along with the story, sewing sentences and characters together with rough stitches rather than fine handicraft. It was a job “done well enough”, much as how Dr Greg would no doubt approach the building of a CAI school.

The book attempted to portray Mortenson as the hero at the centre of a developing adventure or thriller. This “our brave hero” style was only partly convincing. But it had a charming quality, in keeping with the guileless character of Mortenson, which had won him over and swept him along with the adventure romp style.

Major, sometimes disturbing, events in Mortenson’s life were presented in a matter of fact way with little further emotive insight. One example was the description of Mortenson being bullied by other children after arrival in the USA, which was passed over in barely ten lines. The simplicity of narrative tone throughout allowed the reader space to draw his own conclusions and provided a grounded, if two dimensional, perspective.

There was much to admire about Mortenson, his character and achievements, which spoke for themselves. This was tainted a little by the unnecessary portraits of his ex-girlfriend Marina and their relationship. Why did Mortenson or Relin feel the need to fell the hatchet on a former love publicly? These awkward passages had the character of an adolescent’s poison pen revenge. At the end of the book there was also the sense of a developing ego, where Mortenson wants to build more and more schools, in ever more dangerous places. It was reminiscent of John Simpson the BBC reporter, with an uncanny knack of reaching the most inaccessible and dangerous places and telling everyone about it.

However, these were perhaps the observations of a cynic. The real truth lay in the thousands of child and adult lives who had been helped by Mortenson and touched by his organization. The book not only expressed a powerful message of peace, humanity and tolerance, but also convincingly demonstrated the benefits in action. He could not think of another book that was able to demonstrate so neatly the relationship between the small-scale and the geopolitical.

Another member had also been irritated by the style, but had then focussed on the content, which was very interesting and raised many issues. The book was important in drawing the attention of an American – and a British - audience to the complexities of the different tribes and cultures in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It also brought out the unpreparedness of the US for handling the post 9/11 world. The US Government had gone to war in Iraq lacking Arab experts. And American feminist groups had arrived in Afghanistan to muddy the waters after the fall of the Taliban with no understanding whatsoever of the Afghan culture.

The question of what was happening to Mortenson’s schools now – at a time when the US Government was conducting military strikes inside Pakistan – concerned another reader. It seemed to him that the heroic efforts of Mortenson would alas prove insignificant when set against the immense damage to the reputation of the West caused by his Government’s recklessness. While events and luck had moved in favour of Mortenson early on, events now seemed to be moving against him.

It was difficult to find information from the CAI website (how unfortunate that acronym was!) to update that in the book. An interview suggested that there were now over 70 schools in operation, but he had heard rumours from Pakistani contacts that the schools were being destroyed by a fundamentalist backlash against anything connected to the West. And the schools were competing against over 3,000 madrassas.

While the style of the book might not be perfect, much of it was absolutely riveting – such as the series of desperate adventures when Mortenson tries to travel north from Kabul.

Another member found the book inspiring, and had been humbled to learn things about Pakistan – for example the Saudi and Kuwaiti money flooding in to build extremist madrassas – that he felt he should already have known. He also wondered about analogies with Scottish reactions to the setting up of Islamic schools in Scotland. And he regretted the absence of a Book Group member who had spent five years trying to set up a school in a Muslim country.

The book raised big issues about the scope for the individual trying to put the wrongs of the world to rights. How much could the individual achieve? And was it right at all to intervene in the problems of another culture?

And on the question of style – where he shared the reservations already expressed – he drew attention in particular to the breathless Mills and Boon treatment of the evening when Mortenson met his wife e.g.“Together the two began the kind of conversation that flows seamlessly, unstoppably, each fork begetting another branch of common interest, a conversation that continues until this day…”

He also noted the intriguing links to the plot of “Charlie Wilson’s War” – and wondered – without taking a view - if it might have worked better to try to influence the Pakistan government from the top to set up schools rather than do it bottom up?

On the other hand a success of the book was that it portrayed Mortenson at the outset as very naïve– but gaining respect from everyone, while by the end he has become political and is operating at the top. The dilemma he faced was the difficulty of both mingling with the people at the top in an effort to influence them, and still having time for his efforts on the ground.

One member noted that Mortenson had spoken at the Edinburgh Book Festival that August, and had come over as charismatic, inspirational – and humble. This did not square with the sense of a growing ego that the book conveyed – perhaps this was primarily the fault of the ghost –writer.

He did not care either for the simplistic style, but did feel that the ghost-writer had succeeded in finding a format that would appeal to an American audience. It was perhaps fair to say that Americans had more taste for sentimentality, clear-cut divisions between good and evil characters, and feel-good optimism than a British audience. And the device of presenting the material in a series of parallel stories – the mountaineering story, the quest for money, the love story, the scheming of the wicked Changazi etc – sucked the reader in. A straightforward hagiography would have been much more boring. And the evidence that the book had worked for an American audience was only too clear, with it being top of the New York Times paperback non-fiction charts for nearly two years, and still at the top at present.

The story fell into two halves. The first was the optimistic, feel-good story of how the schools came to be set up. The second half was more difficult, as it showed the difficulties that arose in the post 9/11 period, and Mortenson’s growing disenchantment with the policies of the American and British governments as he saw the gap between the rhetoric and the reality on the ground.

This was an unusual phenomenon – a book as a political act, which was having a real impact on how citizens in the US and Britain understood what was happening. And it was also a book as a fund-raiser for charity, and again being enormously successful in that respect. No doubt for Mortenson these criteria – the political impact and the funds raised – were the only criteria against which he would wish to measure the success of the book.

Another reader had found the book hard-going, but still a great read, with its insights into different characters and the execution of a great project. The book was both encouraging – in showing how one heroic person could get schools built through charisma and courage - and discouraging, as it revealed how he could never compete with the Saudi-funded madrassas. This raised the question of whether it would ever be possible to introduce Western-style schools into Pakistan on any scale.

This innocent query ignited our Monthly Book Group mullahs.

Wait a minute – wasn’t the whole point that these were not Western-style schools?
Well, they wouldn’t have Islamic studies as their core subject. Students from that part of the world could arrive in Scottish universities having studied almost nothing other than Islamic studies. And the title of the book – particularly in its original form – was suspect

But the beauty of Mortenson’s approach was that he ensured that the ownership of the school – its location, shape and format – rested with the local villagers! The schools all had the support of the local villagers.

Yes, but he did impose some rules and concepts that might be alien to the local culture. And it wasn’t a good idea to name his first school after a Western climber, rather than a Pakistani. No doubt if you offered to set up an engineering apprentice training school in the Western Isles that worked on Sundays it might have the support of the apprentices and their parents, but their hammering would still cause offence in the wider community because of its attitude to the Sabbath…

That’s not an exact analogy! And Mortenson was scrupulous – and insightful as ever – in demonstrating his respect for Islam. Indeed it had helped him escape his kidnappers…

It would be easier for an American to introduce schools for girls in India, which was a multi-ethnic secular state, than in Pakistan, which was a nation defined by its Muslim religion. It was truly remarkable that Mortenson had achieved so much in such difficult circumstances…

Well you should have seen my father–in-law in the Western Isles having to cover his hammer in cloth before being able to use it on a Sunday…

Perhaps a better analogy would be with an American setting up schools in Scotland in the 1920’s to teach girls to aspire to doing men’s jobs. The more enlightened men might support it, but the majority would have seen it as undermining their culture. It was always dangerous for an outsider to interfere in someone else’s culture, even where by our standards you were completely right…

How can you possibly deny women the right to be educated!!!...

And so on. And on, muttered our mullahs. Indeed it required a second cup of tea before your scribe could refocus on the discussion, which by now had moved onto the future.

Which looked bleak. One with many connections in the sub-continent (for example he knew the Indian commander in the Kargil battle, and his father had served in Waziristan) found his contacts gloomy about the future for Pakistan as a viable nation. One of the problems was that politicians there represented the interests of their home power base, rather than a political ideology. Perhaps a separate Pashtun state, which might be a Taliban state, embracing the north-west frontier regions of Pakistan and eastern and southern Afghanistan would emerge.

(Perhaps it would all have been different if Britain had handled Partition differently – which some argued was the biggest mistake made by Britain in the Imperial era. And perhaps if Jinnah had been allowed to become Prime Minister of a united India, and Nehru had not attached more importance to becoming Prime Minister himself than to retaining a united India…).

Andropov had once said that the Afghans were “too primitive for socialism”. However that may be, they were arguably not ready for multi-party democracy.

Mortenson was described as a “social entrepreneur” by Bill Clinton in a quote on the CAI website, which was apt. But the history of most entrepreneurs was that they could not handle the transition from a small organisation in which their writ was law to a bigger organisation. Either they were forced out of the organisation, or they dragged it down by their inability to delegate. Was the fate that awaited Dr Greg, while his schools were swept aside by the rising tide of fundamentalist madrassas?

Bleak indeed….

However, there might still be a role for his schools, because they focussed on girls, while the madrassas only took boys. And there was lots of scope in his idea of educational scholarships for girls to participate in higher education.

And perhaps Mortenson’s greatest educational achievement might turn out not to be his schools, but through his book educating the citizens of America and Britain about the complexities and subtleties of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Muslim culture.

And it was not long ago that America was greatly admired in Pakistan. A new President (the 2008 election was five days away as we met) might mean more sensitive foreign polices from the US (and, by extension, the UK).

And not all entrepreneurs failed to manage the transition in their organisation to a greater scale.

And not all naïve optimists failed in their efforts to change the world. (Only cynics failed consistently, because they never tried). Some had great impact, and Mortenson was one.

A good point at which to lay down the pen, and turn one’s attention to a third cup of tea…



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24/9/08 FRENCH REVOLUTIONS by TIM MOORE


The proposer was a keen cyclist and had chosen the book as a light hearted, amusing account of Tim Moore’s attempt to cycle the Tour De France route.

There was general agreement that the book was a light, journalistic, good holiday read which did not need - or get - over analysis. The account of Moore’s escapades read well, eg his intake of calories including alcohol, though some thought he tried too hard to be funny. His treatment of his wife and children attracted some criticism, though Moore did show some awareness.

There was some discussion of what type of book it was. It was not a travel book. Moore did not give any insight into the France through which he was travelling; indeed his Little England caricature view of the French was somewhat overdone. Serendipitously, a more serious and in depth account of another British cyclist’s journeys through France has just been published in paperback. Graham Robb’s “The Discovery of France” has been well received. Also mentioned as a great cycling tour funny book was Jerome K Jerome’s “Three Men on the Bummell.”

As well as being a personal diary of experiences, Moore’s book’s wider remit was as a history of the Tour De France. Even in this respect the research was seen as somewhat inadequate and selective. There was also some discussion of the cycling experiences of members of the group, and whether the UK’s recent success in the Olympic cycling events would have a wider effect on the British attitude to cycling.




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27/8/2008 THE BLUE AFTERNOON by WILLIAM BOYD

Introducing “The Blue Afternoon” (1993) the proposer said he had first read it on holiday in Tuscany in 1995. He had previously read and liked other books by Boyd, including “A Good Man in Africa”, “An Ice Cream War” and “Brazzaville Beach”. (Indeed a tower of such tomes tottered at his elbow).

He had thoroughly enjoyed the book, thought it well-written, and could barely put the book down.

Boyd was born in Ghana in 1952, and his father was a Scottish doctor. He was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, which had a profound effect on him. He was educated at Gordonstoun, Nice University, Glasgow University and then Jesus College Oxford, where he did a thesis on Shelley. He had a brief period at the New Statesman as a TV critic, and was then a lecturer on the contemporary novel at Oxford for several years. He made his first film there (an interest in film was an important feature of his career) and also published his first novel “A Good Man in Africa”. This, like all his books, was dedicated to his wife, whom he met at Glasgow University.

He owns a chateau in Bergerac where he lives for most of the year, and where he produces award-winning wines, as well as his novels, short stories and screenplays. His lively sense of humour was demonstrated by his hoax biography of “Nat Tate”, American abstract artist, whom a number of critics then claimed to have met.

Boyd has received many accolades for his work, but he receives (or perhaps seeks) less public attention than contemporaries such as Julian Barnes, Martin Amis and Ian McEwan. Yet he is perhaps the better novelist.

There were several different stories within the novel, all of which the proposer had enjoyed:

• Kay and Carriscant’s relationship and search for Delphine;
• the story of Kay’s architectural business;
• Carriscant’s life in the Philippines;
• the passionate love story – Carriscant’s obsession with Delphine, his stalking of her and their subsequent covert, amoral and fervent love affair;
• Pantaleon’s story of his quest to fly.

As well as having several stories within the story, it was striking that Boyd brought no less than 50 named characters into the novel.

Other aspects that had appealed to him were Boyd’s attention to detail and well-researched information – such as the descriptions of architecture in L.A. in 1936, of life in Manila in 1902, and the war between the Philippines and the USA.

He also was personally interested by the medical content. This included the contrast between the old style surgeon with his outmoded theories and the more up-to-date Carriscant. He also liked the description of the operations - and of course by Carriscant’s Scottish connections.

There were also appealing aspects of intrigue – such as the plan for escape from Manila, the detective work involved in tracking down Delphine in London, and the speculation about who carried out the murders.

For him the only less appealing aspects were that Kate was a rather weak character; that the Aero-mobile story – while interesting and amusing – was not well integrated; and that the murder stories were somewhat confusing and could usefully have been expanded.

However, overall he found it a first-class read, and – a real test of quality - had enjoyed it equally well on two subsequent readings.

There followed a rare unanimity of praise for the book.

“Super, excellent, clever!” was the reaction of one. Such a fluent style – but not frenetic – then moments of high drama. The only problem was being unable to put the book down at bedtime – one got so involved in it. There was such a “comblé de biens”: and in addition to all the plot elements, the writing of the Delphine story was really quite erotic.

Another thought Boyd a superb writer, with a deceptively easy style, and flowing but muscular prose. He had an almost unparalleled skill for narrative, for sucking the reader in to any story he chose to tell. He had a striking lucidity of detail that animated his scenes. While he was perhaps not a “historical novelist” as such, he took a particular interest in bringing obscure episodes in history – such as the war between the Philippines and the USA – into vivid life. His experience of the Biafran War must have given him his sense for the arbitrariness and chaos of war. And in this book he was telling the history of several fields of human endeavour - medicine, aviation and even architecture. Such gifts as a writer found the perfect shape in his recent novel “Any Human Heart”, which told the story of the twentieth century through a character who lived throughout it and was on the edge of many historic events (an approach he had trialled in “The New Confessions”).

Yet in this book was he not striving a little too hard to suggest that there was more significance to his writing than simply narrative drive? In particular there were the stanzas quoted in the preface from a difficult modernist poet - Wallace Stevens – in his poem “Landscape with Boat”, which tied in with the “blue afternoon” theme:

“He brushes away…the colossal illusion of heaven…yet still the sky was blue…he wanted the eye to see and not be touched by blue…”

And then, in case you had missed it, picking up the detail of the second stanza – the Mediterranean, the yellow wine and the steamer’s track – in the last scene. There was also the issue of leaving the murders unresolved. All this came over as a little contrived, and a bit of a dig in the ribs for the reader to indicate that Boyd had some bigger themes in mind – along the lines of Stevens’ painter’s closing statement “The thing I hum appears to be/ The rhythm of this celestial pantomime”.

Another, who had found the book equally difficult to put down, had rather lost interest in the character of Kay. How necessary was she to the story? Wasn’t the architectural interest laid on too thick at the beginning? And how odd that she made no comment on the architecture when she reached Lisbon!

And another – who had certainly enjoyed the book – had found the first and second sections disjointed. Would the book lose anything if the first section were dropped? Or indeed if you dropped the last section?

Others had found the architecture story engrossing– the searchlight intensity of Boyd’s imagination was such that it seemed impossible for him to sketch out any story without it being engrossing - even if it were frustrating that the writer never returned to it. It reminded one of the way the film “Psycho” led the viewer in to follow one plot, as a sort of feint, while the real plot then twisted away in a completely different and unexpected direction. And perhaps that was how life did unfold – the “rhythm of the celestial pantomime”.

And what about the sub-plot of the plane? Was it fully integrated? The sudden attempt at blackmail by Pantaleon – was that not out of character for somebody who had been subservient until then? Or was that the point – that Carriscant had taken his subservience for granted, even pressuring him into being the pander for his affair, without ever taking the trouble to understand him and his viewpoint? Then he was shocked when the real view of someone of “inferior” race abruptly emerged, although it was then quickly disguised again?

And the building of the plane was of a piece with the subject of obsession – of the human capacity to dream and to strive – which appeared in the other subplots of medicine, architecture, lust and love. The book talks of Pantaleon’s “idealistic dedication, this single-minded pursuit of a dream”. Pantaleon says that “We are men of the new century and it is our signal duty to look forward [in flight and in medicine]”.

For some there were too many loose ends; for others, loose ends reflected real life, and the story would have had less resonance if all the loose ends – of which the loosest were the murders – had been pinned down Agatha Christie fashion in the last chapter.

Nevertheless, we could not of course resist starting off down the road of who really did the murders, and of tugging at a few more loose ends – e.g. why did Carriscant become a cook, when he had an inheritance? But we pulled back from this prospect of infinite debate (and an infinite blog, your correspondent was groaning inwardly) by reminding ourselves that these were not real people and real events, and that there was no real solution to the murders (any more that there was an answer to Bradley’s famous question about how many children Lady Macbeth had). The novelist had chosen to leave us with several possible solutions, and there did not appear to be a “right” answer.

Similarly he chose at the end to have Kay remind us that Carriscant might be an unreliable narrator, and thus create another layer of uncertainty (and perhaps to give us another nudge in the ribs that Boyd is not just any old story-teller). As Kay says:

“What good would my deductions do, my reasoned deductions? What do we know of other people, anyway, of the human heart’s imaginings?”

And what did we make of Carriscant? Even on his own self-presentation, he had many flaws, and was reckless of his own and others interests in the way he pursued Delphine. But Boyd does not judge him in moral terms – he presents him.

The themes Boyd is pursuing emerge fairly clearly in the final pages. There is the impressively stoic acceptance of mortality displayed by Delphine and Carriscant at the end, but mortality that has been offset by the value of their human emotion:

“Carriscant’s faith was sure and constant. His belief in Delphine Sieverance and what she had done that night was no more absurd than any of the other notions we use to prop up our shaky lives. And he was happy too, that was important. He had achieved what he had set out to - no mean accomplishment – and he had seen the woman he had loved for all these years once more….

“I sat here on this sunny terrace looking out at …the steamer’s track, the glass of yellow wine in my hand and I found that I envied Salvador Carriscant…

“So what makes the difference ...on this terrace in the blue afternoon? …I look over at Salvador Carriscant…and I know the answer.”

At the mention of the notions that prop up our shaky lives, I examined my empty glass with particular care, and our attentive host promptly filled it to the brim with a particularly fine New Zealand Pinot Noir (Peregrine 2006, from Central Otago, which apparently had just won an award at the Edinburgh Wine Club). What a splendid fellow! William Boyd would approve.

I felt obliged to put down my pen to do justice to the Pinot Noir. This was just as well, as the conversation took a decidedly risqué tack into erotic issues. The Blue Afternoon was turning into a blue evening. However, I focussed instead on signalling that my glass was again mysteriously empty …



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