Lés Miserablés (And I don't mean the bloody musical)

I am a great believer in the fact that the most important things you should learn at school is to read. Forget maths and science, well don't, they are pretty important, but without being able to read it's pretty difficult to learn anything else. Absolutely everything you do in life from telling the time to finding out what's on tv to not getting stitched up when you buy something expensive. It's totally fundamental.

Sometimes though being able to read, and read properly, not just Janet and John stuff, is just a simple pleasure because it allows you to read books where it is a simple pleasure to wallow in the language and soak up beautifully crafted words so poetic and delicious that sometimes you could cry. There are few books that I've had that pure unadulterated pleasure from. The God of Small Things and The Amber Spy Glass are two of them but recently I have discovered Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, one of the greats of French literature has given me that same feeling.

It's not the most cheerful of books I'll grant you as it traces the trials and tribulations of it's often tragic and down trodden characters, but the prose and lyrical manner with it relates the story is simply wonderful. I'll leave you with just one short quote before leaving you to discover it for yourselves.

"The heart, that secret celestial flower, mysteriously blossoms, and one would not exchange ones darkness for all light. The angel spirit is there, always there; if she moves away it is to return, she fades like a dream, to reappear like reality."

Now isn't that just magical?

A lot to write about

I have a lot to say, unfortunately it's late and I need to be out of bed early tomorrow as I have a shed load on at work, so the meat of what I need to say will have to wait. However the bear bones of what I will write about tomorrow are.

1. The book thief is beautiful and brilliant book, just don't expect a happy ending.
2. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is one of the most brilliant films I have ever seen and should be seen by anyone who does not understand the horror of the holocaust (and indeed those that do)
3. The Daily Mail are it again spreading more anti Islamic bull shit with headlines that distort the truth. Have a read here to read it's latest bunch of lies and distortions if you can do so without putting your fist through the screen.

Expect plenty from me over the next few days.

Good night.

Past Mortem

It's an old favourite folks, it's book review time!

This time it's Past Mortem by Ben Elton.

Now you may remember my comments a couple of days ago to the effect that Ben Elton isn't really funny any more. Now perhaps I was being overly critical because while I still think that he is well past his sell by date as a stand up comic he is still capable of producing a rattling good read. While his early works such as Stark were all about his brand of slightly OTT comedy his more recent stuff has been a bit more subtle. That's not to say it is subtle per se, Elton hasn't changed his spots that much, but they do take a different tac, generally looking some form of pop culture, poking gentle fun at it and making a serious point all at the same time. It's still not exactly Charles Dickens but he does have more substance to him than some may credit him for.

So anyway, Past Mortem. It takes a look at all those websites like Friends Reunited and asks some unsettling questions. It is also a rattling good who dunnit, as we follow Det Insp Newson in his search for a serial killer who appears to be tracking down former school bullies through Friends Reunited and bumping them off in pretty gruesome ways. It also follows Newson's hopeless attempts to seduce his (police) partner Natasha, a sub plot that while being slightly cheesy, is gently amusing.

Like I said, this book is slightly unsettling. A whole series of unhappy characters are seen using Friends Reunited to contact old flames and rekindle things and also to dig up old arguments and enemies. And it's all so tragic. Now I have to confess something, I am a member of friends reunited and I have got back in touch with one old friend through it who I had genuinely lost touch with through circumstances. However i have mainly used it to just be bloody nosey, I'll admit it I'm an old fish wife! I do wonder though if I am the exception. I know of others who have tried to rekindle that old flame and I think that if anyone who has done that reads Past Mortem they are going to be made to feel very uncomfortable indeed because this book asks some very awkward questions about their motives and what is going on in their heads.

What was more personal to me though is the part about school bullying. This book makes no great break through into examining the causes of bullying, it is well known that much of it is about power and the bully themselves being inadequate. Instead this looks at the fall out from bullying and what happens to its victims later on. And from experience Elton is spot on. And I know because I was bullied at school. There were moments when his incite was so spot on that I do wonder if he was bullied himself.

First of all the fact that it is so hard for the victim, at least at the time, to admit what is happening. Trust me, I know. I wont go into what happened to me, I left it behind me (something we'll return to, ironically) shortly. All you need to know though is how hard it is to admit to it, it is utterly humiliating.

Second is the power the bully has. There is a moment in the book in a school reunion where one man encounters his former bully, many years later and becomes a gibbering wreck. That was me. About 3 years ago I was having a drink with friends in a pub when in walked one of my bullies. He actually sat at the table next to me. We didn't speak, and we didn't even acknowledge each others presence, but I was reduced a from a self confident talkative 20 something back to a cowering, gibbering 13 year old I had once been. It was a horrible moment and one that I hope I never have to endure again.

Finally how people react later on. I'm not the only victim of bullying, there are many out there, I'm friends with some of them. And all of us have a choice. You can move on or you can't. And many of Elton's characters have not. And this is what is so unsettling. I know people that have not moved on and I know what they are like, but we wont go into that. I, thankfully, took the other option. I chose to move on. It's not forgotten, the incident in the pub proves that, and indeed I don't want to forget. To do so would frankly be an insult both to myself and to other victims. And I know how easy it would be to remain angry and bitter about things, I could let myself do it quite easily and slip into being someone quite different, but I choose not to. And the final climax to the book demonstrates this choice as Natasha finally moves on from her bully.

Overall this book is not that subtle, but it is insightful. If you know nothing of bullying or what happens to its victims then go read it.

The Unknown Terrorist
Richard Flannigan

Yes folks, it's book review time.....

This is one of those books that in some ways, and I'm sad to say this, was somewhat of a dissapointment. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, if you enjoy a good ripping yarn and aren't too fussed about the need for a happy ending then do give it a crack, because I thought it was a great read. The trouble is that it promised so much more that it never quite delivered.

The story is a modern reworking of The Lost Honour of Katharine Blaum and centers on Gina Davies, (AKA The Doll or The Black Widow or Krystal), a Lap Dancer in Sydney who has a one night stand with a man who later turns out to be a suspected terrorist. Over the next few days her life is ripped apart and distorted by a hysterical media that just wants a good story leading to a climax in which she confronts the main journalist repsonsible (I wont ruin the ending for you).

Regular readers will know about my contempt for much of the media and indeed my astonishment at the hysteria there is over "the war on terror" so maybe it is for this reason, ie my passion about these subjects, that I found this book to not quite hit the mark. The drug smuggling sub plot veired it too close to a thriller and the crudely dealt with side issue of the adequacy of love with it's unecessary prologues and epilogues was, to be blunt, just self indulgent. In addition the hail storm in the build up to the climax was cliched beyond belief.

What it is missing is the cold and clinical breakdown of Davies life by the media that featured in the original. She goes too quickly from dismissing it all to running in fear of her life, it's all too rushed. And given the complexity of the character this is something that there was so much scope for.

I wouldn't want you to think that I hated this book, because I didn't. Flannagan is clearly an angry man and I share his anger. The scene in which Wilder (Davies best friend) describes to Davies how she has been interrogated by the police is truly chilling and a brilliant peice of writing. I just feel that this novel had the potential for so so much more.

This isn't something that I've tried before, but here goes, here is the first bit of literary criticism I've tried to write since I was at school. I thought it was time because I love books, I love reading and would encourage everyone to spend more time doing so. I just hope that what I write here doesn't come across as too, well, for want of a better word, arty! Enjoy.

A Kestrel for a Knave and Catch 22, endings in common

A Kestrel for a Knave (Kes) and Catch 22 (22) are two very distinct books with some common threads. While one is most definitely a tragedy and one is a black comedy and a deep satire they have a very similar style in how they end.

The majority of both texts tells the narrative tale of the two main protagonists (Billy Casper and Yosarian), leading in both cases to ultimate tragedy. In the first case to the death of Kes, Casper’s trained Hawk and in the latter to the death of the young airman in Yosarian’s crew. In both cases these are deaths that the protagonist feels responsible for even though both they and the reader can see that they are the ultimately caused by the situation in which the Casper and Yosarian find themselves. That being the desperate poverty of a mining town and the utter madness of world war respectively.

During the narrative we discover that neither of these characters is a saint or in anyway blameless. Both individuals are prepared to lie and defy authority, indeed both despise the authority around them. And these imperfections in character prevent either story descending in to sentimentality.

In both cases it would be easy to let the stories end with the deaths around which they centre. Both writers use a common theme to reinforce their message. Both Casper and Yosarian go for a long walk afterwards and we, the reader, are shown through prose the state of the world in which these two characters exist. In Yossarian’s case we see much of the pointless violence and suffering that surrounds him. This is given added impetuous by the intense comedy of what has come before in the book. In the case of Casper we see in far more detail the dereliction of the town in which he lives, something which the reader was spared prior to the death of Kes. Again this is given added impetuous by the imagined scene in which Casper goes to the cinema with his now departed father.

In some ways this style asks questions of the reader. These scenes hold a spotlight to the background of the characters, and a change in attitude by the reader, or otherwise, helps us questions ourselves as we realise whether we have fully understood the situations of the protagonists through the more general narrative.