The Last English King – Julian Rathbone

Here’s the thing – I bought this in a charidee book sale at work, and I didn’t really know what to expect but you can’t go far wrong when it’s a pound a go for the kiddies, or cancer, or whatever. And lo and behold, it’s another novel based on the life of a real person, just like The Pornographer of Vienna. One of the big differences here is that I have actually heard of Harold II, the eponym. And not only that, but I would probably have been interested in his story if I hadn’t heard of him, because it’s part of the history of my country – quite an important part. He’s not just some dude who liked to paint hookers in the nuddie.

And further than that, the last time I read anything about him I was probably 9, which is when we did the Normans in school. More or less. So some bits may have been missed out – i.e. the sex and violence, i.e. the interesting bits. All I knew was that he became King because he was supposed to, and he had to fight two invading armies in a week, and he only lost to the second lot because he got shot in the eye. Everyone knows this, everyone is wrong.

The novel actually takes up a long time filling in backstory – all about Edward the Confessor (now I know what he confessed to, I’m not surprised they didn’t mention it at Catholic primary school) and the various shady dealings to engineer the succession, which was a good deal more complicated back then, with about 90 people having a reasonable claim to the throne, and the winner being whoever was close enough to the King when he died to be able to pretend he’d said “I want this dude to be King”.

And William and his army weren’t exactly the noble race of Viking-descended heroes I was led to believe either – at least, according to Rathbone, but he seems to have done his research. Perhaps their nobility was played up in my school because they brought a brand of high-pope christianity with them, which eventually crushed the pagan brand of religion that had been keeping the people of England amused until that point. Or maybe it’s because they eventually founded the aristocracy, who invented schools and learning shit. History – it’s written by the winners. For at least 1,000 years. Anyway, they are depicted in this book as a right shower of gits, I knew there was a reason I didn’t like toffs.

So, there’s all this richness of information, explained in a way that’s easy to understand and quite entertaining, but… I found the style of the novel irritating. The main character, Walt, was Harold’s sworn bodyguard – a housecarl – and had failed to give up his life to save his master, and so was wandering around Europe, telling his story to some other dude, who just happened to be there and interested (seriously). They also meet someone who was in the Norman camp, and was also ashamed of his part in the whole thing, and he told his story. And there’s some interaction between the group (including some rich ginger woman, for some reason) but it all screams “device”. And a fairly creaky one, at that. It’s a pretty old trick – Chaucer did it, for one – but I think you need to have better characters to make it worthwhile. The guys the story is actually about – Harold, William, The Confessor, various relatives – are all clear and well drawn, but the little group of made-up dudes, not so much. Oh, and some of the jokes are weak. What’s the point of having a Bob Dylan impressionist in a book about the Norman Conquest? So we can all have a giggle? It’s not funny.

Anyway, in spite of that (and the fact that it takes quite a while to get going, what with Walt being in a fever and just plodding around northern Europe aimlessly) I found it entertaining and fun, which is much more than can be said for the Egon Schiele one.

See also:

The Pornographer of Vienna – about someone I don’t care about, and not particularly well written.

The Damned Utd – about Ole Big ‘Ead

Spook Country – William Gibson

This was apparently quite eagerly awaited. I remember reading Cory Doctorow getting quite excited about it back in its infancy/draft stages. Gibson’s one of those authors that people get excited about, or at least the types of people who write about reading on the internet. Hello! I have read but sparsely of his work, i.e. I have read Neuromancer but nothing else.

So I don’t really know how this compares to anything apart from Neuromancer. I think Gibson has written some books that films were later based on. But I haven’t seen them. Because they look rubbish.

Contrary, then, at least to Neuromancer and what I imagine to be Gibson’s “normal” style – by which I mean cyberpunk, near-ish future fantasy – this book is set now. Of course, some of the characters are operating on (or maybe just over) the edge of technology and art – geolocative installations, creating alternative worlds, or adding contextuality to the everyday world, all good clean fun in a slightly mind-stretching way. Possibly there are people out there doing this.

But the main plotline – and without wishing to spoil it too much, because it is a conspiracy/spy thriller, after all – revolves around members of shadowy gangs with connections to cold war era secret services trying to track something down, or trying to fool the others that they’re not trying to track it down, or don’t know where it is, or do know where it is. It’s complicated. Possibly, there are people out there doing this too.

It’s written very beautifully – great pacing, just enough more detail to keep you coming back for the next chapter, not enough to fully understand until the end. The characters – and they are a bunch as mixed as you’re likely to find anywhere (KGB trained Cuban-Chinese dudes, a hyper-paranoid grid-obsessed art-facilitating code-head, bizarre special forces types, etc.) are real and distinct and loveable. Well, some less so than others. But what shines through is Gibson’s shock and anger at the state of the world.

When I was reading interviews about the book before it was published, I recall seeing him say that he couldn’t write about any near-future worlds because he was too upset by what he was reading about the way the US government was conducting itself right now. And this book is the result. It may get some people thinking, although probably not anyone in a position to do much about it. That’s kind of the problem with big shadowy conspiricies that are covertly backed by governments – if they exist – they’re pretty tricky to bring down.

See also:
This didn’t actually remind me of very much. I guess it’s kind of in Bond territory, almost. Go and see the new Bond film, maybe.

Pornographer of Vienna – Lewis Crofts

I have been keeping a note of which books I’ve read since I’ve been offline – or mostly offline – but only titles, so I’m not writing from much more than my fading memory. Which gives a different tint to things, I guess, because it’s coloured a little by what I’ve read since. This is the first of several novelisations of actual historical characters – not chosen as a theme at all, surprisingly.

The subject of the book is an achingly talented painter, son of a syphilitic railwayman in Austria at the start of the 20th century. His name is Egon Schiele. No, I’d never heard of him either. The cover promises a “reek of wet paint and sex” and “opium pipes and absinthe chasers”. Well, there are some, I suppose, although it’s extremely disingenuous to suggest that the book is crammed full of them. Worse, the writing doesn’t “reek” of anything, it’s quite flat and humdrum.

I can’t decide if Schiele actually had an interesting enough life to justify a book. He appears to have had (a) a lot of talent and (b) an obsessive desire to paint girls in the nude (girls often here being children, and he seems to have been unaware why anyone would have a problem with this). But he also had a complete lack of common sense (see above) or any commercial imperative, leading to him being apparently chased out of town by outraged parents and/or loan sharks. But he often gave up on a good thing and died of flu, quite young, but not so young he couldn’t have done something real.

Was he a misunderstood genius? A unique but flawed talent whose destiny was to fall short of the greatness he might have achieved? Maybe he was, but I can’t bring myself to get too excited about it.

I think the problem I really have is that I can’t get over how clearly made up the conversations are. I can’t see any way that the author could know what he would have said in any given situation. I will accept that he may have been in a place where he could have had any or all of the conversations in the book but they all feel fake. Having read similar books since, I still think there is something missing from this one. I get the impression that there may be something to be said either about Herr Schiele, or by Mr. Crofts, but this book ain’t it.

See also:

Last King of Albion – about Harold II and the Norman invasion.

The Damned Utd – about Brain Clough and his time at Dirty Leeds

micro admin blogging

Due to conditions beyond my control (big shout out to BT) I’ve been without internets for a couple of months. Should pick up again round here from now on.

Phrase of the day

As busy as a one-legged bee in an arse-kicking contest.

I’m claiming that as my own, by the way, can’t find any reference to it on The Google.

Spring Snow

Spring Snow is the first novel in Yukio Mishima’s Sea of Fertility cycle – which is the last thing he did before he committed seppuku, clearly considering his life’s work complete. Quite a bold statement, but then I never expect the Japanese to make a lot of sense.

It’s a classic tragic love story, although unlike quite a few of the ones I’ve read (not that many, admittedly) the fatal problem is not solely down to society, or forces beyond the control of either of the two young lovers, but a fairly serious character flaw in young Kiyoaki, who believes himself to be too elegant and beautiful for the world. Sometimes you just want to kick him in the arse (which would be difficult, since he’s a fictional character in a novel set 96 years ago on the other side of the world) but I recognise too much of his behaviour in myself to wish him that much harm.

Although he clearly is, Kiyo pretends to himself that he’s not in love with the most beautiful girl in Japan, right up to the point when she gets engaged to someone else. And that’s when he makes his move. Well, it’s not exactly like that, but it is kind of. And things progress in the way things do in tragic love stories, with misunderstandings and miscommunications between all sorts of people, and then comes the inevitable heartbreaking denouement, which I’m not going to spoil, but you can probably guess. And it is heartbreaking, because no matter how much of a fool Kiyo is (and he is one of the biggest fools in the world), he really cares about Satoko, and is well enough drawn to make us (well, me, anyway) care about him. And want to kick his arse.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the prose is exquisite – it’s very well crafted, certainly, but nothing really struck me as a breath-taking phrasing, which I was for some reason expecting. Some of the characters are a little bit odd – and not odd in a “aren’t the Japanese quirky?” way, but just a “what has that got to do with anything?” way. I’m thinking about Iinuma, Kiyoaki’s tutor, who falls in love with a maid, takes her roughly in the library, then elopes only to appear briefly later in some kind of attempt to blackmail Kiyo’s father. Or Honda (couldn’t help thinking a bit of E. Honda, from Street Fighter II), the taciturn and fiercely loyal best friend, who is very serious, but given to page long investigations of western philosophy that don’t make much sense.

All of which leads me to believe that there’s a lot of allegory that I’m missing. It’s set in post-Meiji-era Japan, just after the end of the Russo-Japanese war (1912). About which I know nothing. I can’t help but think that Kiyo (who is the son of an industrialist with a lot of cash, but brought up in a relatively poor nobleman’s house to learn elegance) must represent an aspect of the new Japan that was emerging. But given that I wanted to kick him in the arse, what does that mean?

Perhaps when I read the other books in the cycle, I will understand. Maybe I have to read some more Japanese history. Probably both, to be honest.

Amazon

See also:
Romeo and Juliet. Obvious.

Ronin. For the car chases, mostly.

Marmaduke @ B&H

Where B&H stands for Bourne & Hollingsworth, a basement bar on Rathbone Place, not Benson & Hedges. Obviously. I’m told B&H used to be an S&M restaurant/bar – where S&M is sado-masochism, not Sales and Marketing. Obviously.

Cute little venue now, with teacups with tealights in, floral wallpaper and a pretty tasty sound system that was clean and sharp all night. Also, lots of books in the lav – nice touch, except they were all above the urinal, which isn’t reading territory. Anyway, I was there on the 17th for a night of live musics.

First act was a special performance – booked for the same eveing but a week earlier, or something, was Tom Dibb (.co.uk [flash only]) who was accompanied by a wicked bassist and irritated by a pair of idiots sitting right in front of the “stage” – microphones – shouting over the music. It was some pretty good acoustic guitarmanship, with decent songs, especially felt the last one about slogging around shitty venues, dedicated to Mrs. Loud. Recording an album this week, apparently, could be worth checking out.

After Tom was Naomi Hates Humans (myspace) who was apparently described by one reviewer, somewhat unkindly, as sounding like KT Tunstall with a broken hand. Whatever. I think Naomi actually sounds like a female, acoustic Radiohead, only with a belting set of lungs and growly voice to scare your parents with. She also has a lot of badges to sell, two albums, and a loud and a quiet set. This was the quiet set, because of the shouty people who just got louder when the music went up, but it was still quite loud from time to time. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Then Marmaduke (myspace) was on. Due to circumstances, his band, who used to be called the Mooche, but now apparently aren’t, was reduced to Pete (drummer) and (by coincidence) Naomi on violin, with the Duke playing his own guitar, as King John was busy attending to royal duties elsewhere. I haven’t seen Marm with Naomi since she joined, and I have to say I was pretty much blown away by the violin sound – top quality. The set was a mix of some older songs plus a few new ones, including one about being lazy which was pretty good, although I am rubbish at listening to lyrics. Must be getting on towards having a full albums-worth of tunes now…

Penultimate act of the night were Kitchen – possibly. I’d had a few extortionate Peronis by this stage, and I’m not sure they actually introduced themselves. Anyway, lead singer in a hat was Simon. On bass was Tim “Omar” Daze plus a drummer who probably had a name. Simon Kitchen has a lively stage presence – he was barely contained in the tny area set aside for the performers, jerking around like some kind of epileptic’s marionette, but also playing some pretty rocky acoustic guitar. I was plannig to leave about halfway through, but my toes were too busy tapping to get out of my chair and head up the stairs. I would definitely check them out again if I knew who they were.
edit: Kitchener. (myspace)

Foucault’s Pendulum

A confession: I first attempted to read this book about 11 years ago and got no further than the first 3 pages.

It was so dense and I didn’t really know what the hell was going on, I decided it was clearly far too advanced for little old me, and I went back to reading Terry Pratchett and Robert Rankin. Then I managed to read Umberto Eco’s most recent book – The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loanna and thought “this dude ain’t so fricking badass”. Also Ryan recommended it. And I knew my dad still had a copy lying around, so I borrowed it and when a slot in my reading list came up, I got on it.

Let me tell you: it didn’t get any less dense. And a lot of it doesn’t really make much sense. I guess it’s probably all really well researched – there’s certainly a lot of quotes from relevant primary sources at the top of the chapters – but it’s so dull. Stupid secret societies, feuding and bumping into each other. The Templars, Hospitalers, Rosicrucians, Rosy Crosses, neo-Templars, Baconists, on and on. So many lists, timelines, daft bloody theories, and it’s all a massive jumble. It’s impossible to hold the whole thing in your head at once, so I didn’t really bother. I’m pretty certain you could write a digested version of this book in 200 pages, instead of the 641 (I was counting down towards the end) that it takes up.

Which makes the quotes on the back more mystifying. “Eco… really loves popular culture… This is an extremely funny book.” No, it’s not. It’s far too long and confusing, the jokes are far too far apart and not very good anyway. It (unsurprisingly) reminded me a lot of Queen Loanna in that it mostly consisted of lists of stuff copied from other books, linked together with a semi-decent plot. As far as I can tell, Eco doesn’t have a writing style, he’s some kind of photocopying machine with a random plot generator attached.

I think I had the right idea when I was 19.

See also (see instead?)
54, Wu Ming – more Italian literature, similarly obsessed with fascists and partisans, but funnier, pacier and starring Carey Grant.

The Brentford Trilogy, Robert Rankin – a lot of the same secret knowledge, magic is real and operating behind the everyday world, but infinitely funnier and a hell of a lot shorter. Well, each book is shorter, but there were 5 of them last time I counted, so as a whole, probably longer.

The Da Vinci Code, Brown – don’t read it (I haven’t), but it’s all about Templars and Grails too. Possibly ripped off from Foucault’s Pendulum… who would ever know?

The Dreaming Void

It’s a Peter F. Hamilton, which means it’s the size of a freaking shoebox and full of spaceships and aliens and enhanced human beings and whatnot.

It’s also the first book in a new series (The Void Trilogy, apparently, don’t know how much of the other books are written yet) which is set in a continuation of The Commonwealth universe, only 1,000 more years in the future. Which poses two problems, for me at least. Firstly, I didn’t really like the Commonwealth books as much as the Night’s Dawn ones (thought Judas Unchained was disappointing, more than anything else). Secondly, I read the Night’s Dawn ones more recently, so I have forgotten a lot of the characters and what the technologies all are, which is a bit of a problem because, since humans are now immortal, a lot of the characters from Commonwealth are still kicking around, despite being 1,500 years old. Those are minor quibbles, though, since most of it all is explained – it’s not like Hamilton doesn’t have room for a bit of backstory interspersed through the 800 pages.

But, being a science fiction book, obviously there’s got to be a bit that doesn’t make any sense until you’ve read 90% of the book – which in this case is Inigo’s Dreams, set inside the Void in the centre of the galaxy (which is slowly expanding and consuming stars). And this is where the book really pisses me off, because it’s almost pure fantasy – telekinesis, telepathy, medieval guild structured societies… bleh, I don’t care. (The plot is that a shipful of humans went into the Void, despite the fact that no-one else can manage it, and discovered a different world, where all kinds of psychic shit is possible, and they’ve developed into this society, but it’s totally corrupt. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’ll do.) Anyway, somehow, someone outside can dream the interior and so there’s this religion that think everyone should go inside because it’s such a great place to live. NO. It would suck. I know religions are generally quite stupid, but giving up immortality and peace (the human race is pretty much at complete peace with itself, and could totally kick the ass of most of the alien races they know) for a world in which someone can kill you by crushing your heart with their “third hand” from across the road… just makes no sense AT ALL.

At least, it doesn’t yet… There is another 1600 pages of this story to go. And I will probably read it, because I kind of want to know what happens, plus if I buy enough of these damn books I’ll be able to build a wall of science fiction and that would totally rock.

See also:
Diaspora, Greg Egan – a much more entertaining and thought provoking treatment of post-physical humanity.

The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett – why fantasy sucks monkey ass.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches

(Matsuo Basho)

Picked this up on the off-chance, I was buying some Mishima (which I still haven’t read) and was on a Japanese theme. It’s 17th century poetry from one of the all time masters of the art.

And you know what? It’s not that bad. There’s an extensive introduction which goes into some of the history of haibun – which is the particular mixture of prose and haiku that Basho used in his travel sketches, as well as touching on the 3 centuries or so of history of linked verse before Basho’s time, and how he came to develop a blend between the over-wrought court style and the slightly crude (by the standards of 17th century Japan – there’s no obvious knob jokes) poetry that had sprung up alongside (or below) it. Playful, is how it’s described. I wasn’t convinced by the examples in the introduction, but after reading through the book, I can see it.

As explained in the introduction, the several chapters are separate sketches of journeys that Basho made, with breaks of a few years in between each – it is evident how much his style of poetry changes from the earlier works to the more zen-influenced, ultra-objective poetry of The Narrow Road.

In a way
It was fun
Not to see Mount Fuji
In foggy rain
- Records of a Weather Exposed Skeleton

Blessed indeed
Is this South Valley
Where the gentle wind breathes
The faint aroma of snow
- The Narrow Road to the Deep North

If I did have one problem with the book, it’s with the translation of the haiku which I’ve always read in the 5-7-5 format, even in translation. It must take infin/ite patience of a mani/ac to compose those. I learned to accept it though, and the four line stanzas adopted by Nobuyuki Yuasa work very well. I even started / To hear my inner voice / In broken phrases / My mind ached a little.

I haven’t come across anything like this before, as far as I can tell. It’s much more accessible than any English poetry I’ve read from a similar era, it describes a different time, and a different place, but it describes a world full of wonder at nature and the pleasures of human company – no matter how fleeting – that still speaks clearly to me now.

See also:
I don’t know… maybe I’ll find it one day