Cornwell's artistry on full display in Sharpe's Escape

Bernard Cornwell is extraordinarily skillful at recounting a great battle.  He is especially adept at introducing a small detail (drums bouncing down a hillside) that suggests the broader scope and horror of war.

Those skills are on full display in Sharpe’s Escape as Cornwell guides the reader through the Bussaco Campaign.  In that campaign, which took place in Portugal in 1810, the Portuguese and their English allies administer a sound drubbing to the over-confident French. 

As stirring as this battle scene is (and it’s an excellent piece of work by the author), it is only a side show.  The main story concerns Cornwell’s hero of the book’s title, Richard Sharpe, an English soldier.

In the course of assiduously carrying out his duties, Sharp incurs the anger of a wealthy Portuguese thug. (An odd characterization, I know, but one which fits this unsavory brute.) Sharp wins one round. The thug wins another.  Their sparring escalates as each seeks revenge upon the other.  

From  the novel’s opening to its satisfying finish, Sharpe’s Escape is a delicious read. No one writing today can match Cornwell’s artistry in blending history with a rousing adventure story. 

I didn’t mean to read Colum McCann’s Thirteen Ways of Looking, or to buy it.  I’d already bought it. Already read it. A discovery I didn’t make until well into the novella, which gives the book its name. 

This seems familiar, I thought.  I’ve read this before. At first, I wondered if, perhaps, I’d read a section of the novella in The New Yorker or some other magazine.  But, no, there was the book on my shelf.   There was nothing to do now, but forge ahead.

Thirteen Ways of Looking is composed of a novella and three short stories.  Elements of loss, brutality and man’s fragility inhabit these stories, which are steeped in a stark and sober atmosphere.

McCann is a talented writer. The best introduction to that talent is found in his novel Let The Great World Spin.

Will Eisner is widely considered the father of the graphic novel.  Works, best described as graphic novels, pre-date Eisner, certainly, but both the volume of his work and his efforts to codify the graphic novel establish his credentials as the one individual who has does the most to shape the combination of art and text into an art form.

Comics & Sequential Art is a handbook for anyone who wants to create comic strips, comic books or graphic novels, or just to understand them better.  It is highly technical and detailed; encompassing imagery, timing, the frame, expressive anatomy and more.

The casual reader is best served by perusing one of Eisner’s graphic novels.  A Contract With God, Life On Another Planet, or Dropsie Avenue are all excellent introductions to this brilliant creator. 

One sidebar: No one much likes the term graphic novel. Eisner preferred the term sequential art, but it never caught on, perhaps because it sounds so technical.  As a description of the genre, graphic novel is clumsy and inaccurate, because graphic novels encompass fiction and non-fiction. Under this broad category you will find adaptations of novels, tales of superheroes, science fiction and horror, as well as biography, autobiography, and history. As a term of art, it falls woefully short, but it seems we’re stuck with it until something better comes along. 

Books read -- January

1.   Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens

2.   Voodoo River, Robert Crais

3.   Yossel, April 19, 1943, Joe Kubert

4.   Lie In The Dark, Dan Fesperman
5.   A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
6.   Flash, The Making of Weegee The Famous by Christopher Bonanos

7.   Neptune's Brood, Charles Stross

8.   Perish Twice, Robert B. Parker

9.   The League of Regrettable Sidekicks, Jon Morris

10. Casino Royale, Ian Fleming

11. Mrs. Palfrey At The Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor

Books read -- February

12. The Golden Tresses of the Dead, Alan Bradley

13. The Problem of Susan and Other Stories, Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell

14. The Rhesus Chart, Charles Stross

15. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

16. Shrink Rap, Robert B. Parker

17. Wish You Were Here, Graham Swift

18. The Big Fella, Babe Ruth and the World He Created, Jane Leavy

19. School Days, Robert B. Parker

20. The Boats of the Glen Carrig, William Hope Hodgson

21. The Professional, Robert B. Parker

22. Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson

23. Flannery O'Connor, The Cartoons, ed. Kelly Gerald

24. Comics & Sequential Art, Will Eisner

25. Sharpe's Escape, Bernard Cornwell

26. Thirteen Ways Of Looking, Colum McCann

Currently  Reading --

Late In The Day, Tessa Hadlley

Slowhand, The Life and Music of Eric Clapton, Philip Norman

Dreyer's English, An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, Benjamin Dreyer

Parker, Gibson and O'Connor among most recent reads

Not much to see here.

The Professional was my fourth book by Robert B. Parker. It features Spenser, his wise ass P.I.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Spenser is his surname. I also learned he’s from the West, not a Boston native. Hawk is also in this novel. Hawk is to Spenser what Joe Pike is to Elvis Cole, but talkative.

In the beginning The Professional emerges as a case of blackmail.  But, naturally, blackmail leads to murder, and then another murder and still another.  

It’s an enjoyable yarn, which seems true of most novels by Parker. I particularly enjoy the pacing. This is a writer who likes to move things along. In that way he reminds me of Elmore Leonard, a compliment of the highest order.

Distrust That Particular Flavor is a collection of non-fiction by William Gibson, including works from Rolling Stone, Wired and The New York Times.  

I’m curious as to how, and why, books like this are published. Gibson is a ground-breaking science fiction novelist, not a non-fiction writer.   There’s just nothing much here, certainly nothing that warrants recommending this book.

Although I will pass on this quote from a brief article that appeared in The New York Times in 2006:

“It is becoming unprecedentedly difficult for anyone, anyone at all, to keep a secret. In the age of the leak and the blog, of evidence extraction and link discovery, truths will either out or be outed,  later if not sooner. This is something I would bring to the attention of every diplomat, politician, and corporate leader: The future, eventually, will find you out. The future, wielding unimaginable tools of transparency, will have its way with you. In the end, you will be seen to have done that which you did.”

Amen.

Flannery O’Connor The Cartoons from Fantagraphics Book is intriguing, but of limited appeal. Before taking up her illustrious career as a writer, O’Connor, while in college, was a cartoonist of some talent and proficiency, greatly in the style of James Thurber.

Fantagraphics reprints many of her cartoons, along with an essay, “The Habit of Art”, by the books editor, Kelly Gerald.  

Books read -- January

1.   Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens

2.   Voodoo River, Robert Crais

3.   Yossel, April 19, 1943, Joe Kubert

4.   Lie In The Dark, Dan Fesperman
5.   A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
6.   Flash, The Making of Weegee The Famous by Christopher Bonanos

7.   Neptune's Brood, Charles Stross

8.   Perish Twice, Robert B. Parker

9.   The League of Regrettable Sidekicks, Jon Morris

10. Casino Royale, Ian Fleming

11. Mrs. Palfrey At The Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor

Books read -- February

12. The Golden Tresses of the Dead, Alan Bradley

13. The Problem of Susan and Other Stories, Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell

14. The Rhesus Chart, Charles Stross

15. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

16. Shrink Rap, Robert B. Parker

17. Wish You Were Here, Graham Swift

18. The Big Fella, Babe Ruth and the World He Created, Jane Leavy

19. School Days, Robert B. Parker

20. The Boats of the Glen Carrig, William Hope Hodgson

21. The Professional, Robert B. Parker

22. Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson

23. Flannery O'Connor, The Cartoons, ed. Kelly Gerald

Currently  Reading --

Comics & Sequential Art, Will Eisner

Sharpe's Escape, Bernard Cornwell

A fast-paced P.I. yarn, and classic of fantastic literature

A quick summary of two recent reads.

School Days is the third book my Robert B. Parker on the 2019 reading list. I enjoy Parker’s work. He likes dogs, smart ass PIs and snappy dialogue.

This was my introduction to Spencer. Does the man have a surname? Or is Spencer his surname? 

School Days takes a nice twist on the standard mystery.  Two kids shoot up their high school. We know who did the shooting; one kid surrendered at the scene and the second later confessed. The mystery here isn’t who committed murder, but why.

Spencer isn’t stopping until he answers that question, despite the fact that no one else — not the local cops or the parents of the shooters — seem to care.  Attentive readers won’t have any trouble uncovering the motive.

As with the two Sunny Randall books I reader earlier this year, School Days is a fun, fast-paced read.

The Boats of the Glen Carrig by William Hope Hodgson was issued as part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in February, 1971. I have a first printing of the paperback that I purchased and read in the spring of 1971, during my senior year of high school. I can pinpoint the time because I wrote my name on an inside page, along with my home address, which tells me that I was — for a few months more — living with my parents.

The Boats of the Glen Carrig delves more into horror, than fantasy. A group of castaways find themselves on a mysterious island with monstrous trees. They flee that horror only to stumble onto another island in a Sargasso Sea-like setting. The island is surrendered by enormous crabs and slug-like “weed men.”

The book is a splendid example of the fantasy-horror fiction of its time. The modern reader, with a taste for Stephen King, for example, might finding it slow-going, especially some of the more detailed passages concerning the castaways making a boat ship-shape before fleeing the second island.

If you are an aficionado of the genre, The Boats of the Glen Carrig, along with other novels by Hodgson, should find their way onto your reading pile.  

BTW, I’ve included a link to a recent New York Times obituary for Betty Ballantine. Betty and her husband were instrumental in shaping an audience for paperback books and were the drivers behind the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.

Books read -- January

1.   Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens

2.   Voodoo River, Robert Crais

3.   Yossel, April 19, 1943, Joe Kubert

4.   Lie In The Dark, Dan Fesperman
5.   A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
6.   Flash, The Making of Weegee The Famous by Christopher Bonanos

7.   Neptune's Brood, Charles Stross

8.   Perish Twice, Robert B. Parker

9.   The League of Regrettable Sidekicks, Jon Morris

10. Casino Royale, Ian Fleming

11. Mrs. Palfrey At The Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor

Books read -- February

12. The Golden Tresses of the Dead, Alan Bradley

13. The Problem of Susan and Other Stories, Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell

14. The Rhesus Chart, Charles Stross

15. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

16. Shrink Rap, Robert B. Parker

17. Wish You Were Here, Graham Swift

18. The Big Fella, Babe Ruth and the World He Created, Jane Leavy

19. School Days, Robert B. Parker

20. The Boats of the Glen Carrig, William Hope Hodgson

Currently  Reading --

Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson

Comics & Sequential Art, Will Eisner

The Professional, Robert B. Parker

The Big Fella is a big disappointment

A solid, rousing “meh” is a fitting description for the two books just added to my 2019 reading list.

In 2002, Jane Leavy wrote Sandy Koufax, A Lefty’s Legacy. It ranks among the finest baseball books I’ve read.  In 2010, she wrote The Last Boy Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood. It was as bad as Koufax was good.  

Leavy’s newest book is The Big Fella, Babe Ruth and the World He Created. It’s falls squarely between Koufax and Mantle; neither good nor bad, but wholly disappointing.

The disappointment is explained in the sub-title, Babe Ruth and the World He Created. The Big Fella is less a biography or a book about baseball than a failed attempt at social history.  The book is also burdened by Leavy’s quirky emphasis on certain events in Babe’s life. 

During a barnstorming tour, Babe posed for photographs with a chicken who laid 173 eggs in 173 days. She was proclaimed the Babe Ruth of Layers. That’s a cute little footnote, but Leavy spends pages on it. Pages! By the time she’d dispensed with the chicken I was ready to wring both their necks. (Leavy and the chicken, not Babe.)

Babe was a phenomenon, who generated excitement and crowds whenever he made a public appearance.  Yet did he shape the world in which he lived or was he shaped by it? A more straight forward biography, that lingered on the man’s feats on the baseball diamond, would have come closer to answering that question than Leavy’s awkward effort.

Wish You Were Here, a 2011 novel by Graham Swift, lacks the emotional resonance of his Booker Prize winning novel, Last Orders. 

A line that re-occurs in the novel goes to the essence of this book. “People can help in all kinds of ways . . . by dying — death is a great solution.”

There’s a lot of death and dying in Wish You Were Here. Herds of cattle are put to death. Early on, out of fear of mad cow disease and, later, because of an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease. Over the course of time, the protagonist, Jack Luxton loses his mom and dad. His wife, Ellie, loses her father to cancer, while her mother abandons the family when Ellie is only sixteen. Such abandonment is a kind of death.

But it’s the death of Jack’s brother, Tom, that triggers events in Wish You Were Here. On his eighteenth birthday, Tom flees the family farm in middle of the night.  He joins the army, never to return until he is shipped home in a coffin.  

Where Swift falters is that all the events in this novel are turned inward.  Everything is filtered through interior monologues, the thoughts of Jack or Ellie.  Consequently, the reader lacks the emotional distance needed to properly judge events as they unfold.   

Wish You Were Here isn’t a bad book, but we’ve come to expect more from Graham Swift. 

Books read -- January

1.   Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens

2.   Voodoo River, Robert Crais

3.   Yossel, April 19, 1943, Joe Kubert

4.   Lie In The Dark, Dan Fesperman
5.   A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
6.   Flash, The Making of Weegee The Famous by Christopher Bonanos

7.   Neptune's Brood, Charles Stross

8.   Perish Twice, Robert B. Parker

9.   The League of Regrettable Sidekicks, Jon Morris

10. Casino Royale, Ian Fleming

11. Mrs. Palfrey At The Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor

Books read -- February

12. The Golden Tresses of the Dead, Alan Bradley

13. The Problem of Susan and Other Stories, Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell

14. The Rhesus Chart, Charles Stross

15. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

16. Shrink Rap, Robert B. Parker

17. Wish You Were Here, Graham Swift

18. The Big Fella, Babe Ruth and the World He Created, Jane Leavy

Currently  Reading --

Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson

School Days, Robert B. Parker

Comics & Sequential Art, Will Eisner

Random thoughts on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

• 201 years old, and it is amazing how accessible the novel is to the modern reader. I expected a struggle; it never materialized.
• The Guardian regards Frankenstein as the 8th best novel ever. It’s never been out of print.
• Forget everything you think you know about Frankenstein. Your understanding of it has undoubtedly been shaped by the movie and hundreds, if not thousands, of modern interpretations.  There’s no plundering of graveyards at the stroke of midnight. No hunch-backed assistance named Igor. No proclamations that “it’s alive . . . it’s alive.”
• We never actually see how Victor Frankenstein — he’s never referred to as Dr. Frankenstein — imbues his creation with the spark of life. Only that he does.
• Is Frankenstein the first science fiction novel? The first work of horror? Yes, on both counts. Although the book is much more.  It’s a gothic romance, too.  A ghost story. And, patently, a warning of the evil that can materialize from man’s hubris and a definitive reminder of the law of unintended consequences.Victor Frankenstein’s creation is, initially, unformed; the potential for both good and evil exist within him. He craves companionship.  Companionship he hopes to garner from a French family living in exile. The creature has observed them silently for months, and contemplates his approach: 

• “The more I saw of them, the greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness; my heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures . . . I dared not think that they would turn . . . from me with disdain and horror . . . I required kindness and sympathy; but I did not believe myself utterly unworthy of it.”

• Victor Frankenstein is not a sympathetic character.  He brings doom upon himself and his family through his own folly, arrogance and all-to-sudden rejection of the thing he has created. The creature observes that, after creating man, God furnishes man a paradise, whereas Frankenstein recoils in horror, casting his creation into the darkness.
• Frankenstein is sub-titled The Modern Prometheus.  In Greek mythology, Prometheus, a Titan, is said to have created man from clay.  In similar vein, Victor Frankenstein fashions his creature from crude materials.  

I also read a second Sunny Randall novel, Shrink Rap, by Robert B. Parker.  An easy read; almost 300 pages in one day.  Enjoyable enough, as Sunny observes at the novel’s close — “nothing wrong with fun.”

Books read -- January

1.   Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens

2.   Voodoo River, Robert Crais

3.   Yossel, April 19, 1943, Joe Kubert

4.   Lie In The Dark, Dan Fesperman
5.   A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
6.   Flash, The Making of Weegee The Famous by Christopher Bonanos

7.   Neptune's Brood, Charles Stross

8.   Perish Twice, Robert B. Parker

9.   The League of Regrettable Sidekicks, Jon Morris

10. Casino Royale, Ian Fleming

11. Mrs. Palfrey At The Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor

Books read -- February

12. The Golden Tresses of the Dead, Alan Bradley

13. The Problem of Susan and Other Stories, Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell

14. The Rhesus Chart, Charles Stross

15. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

16. Shrink Rap, Robert B. Parker

Currently  Reading --
The Big Fella, Babe Ruth and the World He Created, Jane Leavy

Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson

Wish You Were Here, Graham Swift

February reading -- Bradley, Gaiman and Stross

I’ve been a tad dilatory lately, as I’d rather read than write. But . . .

Here’s a quick summary on the three books I’ve read recently.

The Golden Tresses of the Dead is the most recent novel by Alan Bradley, featuring 12-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce.   Flavia has the unique gift of inserting herself into the midst of every murder and mystery that arises in the English village of Bishop’s Lacey — think of a pre-teen Miss Marple with an extraordinary knowledge of poisons.

There’s nothing here to take seriously, but each of Bradley’s books offers a delightful interlude. The Golden Tresses of the Dead is no exception.

The Problem of Susan and Other Stories is the recent offering from Dark Horse Books, featuring Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell.  Its main feature is a couple of creepy tales. Gaiman excels at this sort of story, and Russell’s artwork is the perfect complement.

The Rhesus Chart is a Laundry Files novel by Charles Stross.  (Yes, I’ve been reading Charlie a lot lately.) It’s a precursor to The Labyrinth Index and a couple of other Laundry Files novels I have yet to read.

A group of high-flying, hard-charging investment bankers are turned into vampires. When staff at the Laundry — the British agency charged with investigating the occult — refuse to acknowledge that vampires even exist, agent Bob Howard begins to suspect the Laundry has been infiltrated.

Turns out the Laundry is squarely in the middle of a centuries old battle between two ancient vamps.  The Rhesus Chart is a hoot. 

Just remember, vampires really don’t exist. Or do they?  

Book read -- January

1.   Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens

2.   Voodoo River, Robert Crais

3.   Yossel, April 19, 1943, Joe Kubert

4.   Lie In The Dark, Dan Fesperman
5.   A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
6.   Flash, The Making of Weegee The Famous by Christopher Bonanos

7.   Neptune's Brood, Charles Stross

8.   Perish Twice, Robert B. Parker

9.   The League of Regrettable Sidekicks, Jon Morris

10. Casino Royale, Ian Fleming

11. Mrs. Palfrey At The Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor

Book read -- February

12. The Golden Tresses of the Dead, Alan Bradley

13. The Problem of Susan and Other Stories, Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell

14. The Rhesus Chart, Charles Stross
Currently  Reading --
The Big Fella, Babe Ruth and the World He Created, Jane Leavy

Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Mrs. Palfrey At The Claremont -- January's best book

After posting my 2018 reading list, and pointing out those books I enjoyed the most, a friend ask if I could do something similar on a monthly basis. Each month, she said, indicate the single book you would recommend others read. She explained that she likes to read, but that — like most people — she would never read dozens of books each year. But a dozen, one each month, was within reach.

That request makes perfect sense to me.  And it’s especially easy to fulfill this month because I concluded my reading in January with one of my very favorite books — Mrs. Palfrey At The Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor. Like Willa Cather’s My Antonia, it’s a book I return to time and again.

The Guardians ranks Mrs. Palfrey, published in 1971, 87th among the 100 best novels.  Pride of place for a book, and an author, I suspect most people are unfamiliar with.  

It is a rainy January in London when Mrs. Palfrey comes to live at the Claremont Hotel. Her husband has died. Her relationship with her daughter is strained. An invitation to live with the daughter, a distant figure in the novel, has never been extended.

And so Mrs. Palfrey must rely upon her limited resources, living in reduced circumstances, at the Claremont. In such circumstances, she adopts a strict code of behavior: “Be independent; never give way to melancholy; never touch capital.”

Travelers come and go at the Claremont, but there are some half-dozen elderly residents; regulars like Mrs. Palfrey. These regulars are all women with the exception of one cranky old man, who constantly wonders where all the old men have gone.

Taylor charts the intricate social network in place among the Claremont’s regulars.   This is one of the great strengths of the book. Her close observation, especially the disappointments of old age — family falling away, the betrayal of the body and mind.  As one resident reflects: 

“It was only lately that she had become so absent-minded and she struggled to cover up her forgetfulness. It was hard work being old. It was like being a baby, in reverse. Every day for an infant means some new little thing learned; every day for the old means some little thing lost. Names slip away, dates mean nothing, sequences become muddled, and faces blurred. Both infancy and age are tiring times.”

Mrs. Palfrey is a small book that conjures great emotion. The time captured in the novel has passed, but the vicissitudes of age have not.  Taylor’s tender observations echo through the years with a power and veracity perhaps only the elderly can truly understand.

This is a book well worth reading, time and again. 

Book read -- January

1.   Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens

2.   Voodoo River, Robert Crais

3.   Yossel, April 19, 1943, Joe Kubert

4.   Lie In The Dark, Dan Fesperman
5.   A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
6.   Flash, The Making of Weegee The Famous by Christopher Bonanos

7.   Neptune's Brood, Charles Stross

8.   Perish Twice, Robert B. Parker

9.   The League of Regrettable Sidekicks, Jon Morris

10. Casino Royale, Ian Fleming

11. Mrs. Palfrey At The Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor

Currently  Reading --
The Big Fella, Babe Ruth and the World He Created, Jane Leavy

Distrust That Particular Flavor, William Gibson

The Golden Tresses of the Dead, Alan Bradley