Summer Time Reading

I Wonder If Anyone Else Will Go To Portugal With The Same Selection As Me

Last week I went to Portugal! I blogged about a previous trip I made to Albania and that was in January 2020, the last before travel became difficult; if I had only known… However Portugal was full of heat, sun, port and reading. Faro is a lovely place, although it’s small. The local towns are also well regarded and I’m sure to explore them would have been nice; but I had only booked a few days and to do it all it wasn’t enough.

The result was once I had discovered the main part of the town, I was able to just bask in the heat. I’m not by nature a sit on a beach type person, I always need to know what’s around that corner or over the horizon wherever I am. However due to a long story that results in me hurting my feet (I actually did write it but deleted it as I realised no one was going to be interested – oh the importance of being able to cut things from your work!) I ended up not being able to explore as much as I wanted to. Fine, I had books, and cafes and beaches and cheap beer!

I normally just take hand luggage, hey I’m an impoverished writer, and so with the even tighter sizes allowed I realised I had to take smaller books, which rather limited my choice (no I do not like to read e-books if I can help it). First up was a 1973 copy of Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

This is one of those stories within stories. Starting on a boat ready to leave the Thames the crew are waiting for the time to depart. The narrator tells us that one of his colleagues decides to entertain them with a story of his trip to Africa. The novel has a reputation of being a bit grim, I would say I’ve read worse and then I realise most things that happen in the fiction probably mirror the way things were in the real world back then. First published in 1899 as a serial (that’s a good idea) this deals with issues of colonialism and as such reading from the perspective of 2022 it raises probably more questions than the author intended. Although not directly stated Conrad uses the Belgian colony of Congo as his backdrop and it becomes clear that the title of the book isn’t so much to do with the dark heart or the interior of the continent, but that of the men that reigned misery upon it. It’s interesting that as a novel it rarely makes a judgement as explicitly as might be done these days, instead it records opinions and attitudes that at time of writing would have opened the eyes of the reader and these days which we already know about and find unacceptable; even the “good” guys use words within the text that are uncomfortable reading. It occurred to me that whilst my paperback came from the 1970s it’s strange to realise even not so long ago attitudes to such expressions of even concepts weren’t as they are now.

This isn’t in anyway a blame on just the other European nation’s attempts at Empire, it’s clear that although using a foreign power Conrad has the same ideas over what Britain was doing at the time. There is a very interesting correlation in the way that people of his days viewed Africa and how the Romans viewed Britain. To make the comparison between now and Conrad’s time, in many ways we are more enlightened and educated today, it’s just a shame that doesn’t go for everybody. I do wonder if holiday reading should be quite so… dark?

“Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, “Come and find out”.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Heart Of Darkness is actually a short book (although in my copy the text had been formatted in such as way to make the pages dense with print) and so I moved on to my second smaller sized novel.

I’ve talked about Target novelisations of Doctor Who stories before and I will probably blog about them specifically at some point, but being the perfect size I grabbed one I hadn’t read before and packed it.

The Ark by Paul Erickson was first published by Target in 1986 in hardback and 1987 in paperback and is based on a televised story from 1996 (I had the 1993 reprint). I have seen the TV serial many times and the novel expands on a lot of the story but I’m glad it retains the classic line ‘take these strangers to the Security Kitchen’. Basically set way way into the future with Earth about to be destroyed the entire population create an Ark and travel to a new planet, unfortunately when the TARDIS turns up one of the companions has a cold for which the humans this far into the future are unconditioned and it becomes a major pandemic – hmm.

As I sat in a cafe reading this it struck me I was probably the only person in the Iberian peninsula reading a Target novelisation at that moment in time, a thought that amused me. I’m sure as summer continues Faro will see many many books being read by locals and tourist alike. Holidays are great for reading.

Buy Heart Of Darkness – by Joseph Conrad

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Welcome To The CITY Of Milton Keynes

It’s Finally Happened!

I no longer live in Milton Keynes but woe betide anyone who mocks it in front of me. I grew up there, it’s one of two places I consider important to enough to call home, where I feel substantially I became me, the other is Dublin. (The only reason I can’t say I was born there is because at the time the hospital was elsewhere).

Delivery Robot

Last week Milton Keynes became a City. I mean officially; we, the people who knew better, always accepted it as a city, and not just because of the local vocabulary. If you are going to the area designated as Central Milton Keynes, locals have always said ‘I’m going up the city.’ In the past the council had tried several times to get city status whenever the bidding was open, but had be denied. This was confusing when we saw what places had won out, but still we carried on. Milton Keynes functions as a city, we wanted the title but even without it we knew.

There are many innovations that make this place special, to name just a few we have robots deliver our food to our doors, yes we really do, we have balancing lakes (look it up), all those roundabouts do serve a purpose (no it doesn’t all look the same) and I am very fond of the Concrete Cows; that’s on top of all the history (yes there is so don’t argue), as I said, woe betide…

Of course that doesn’t stop people who don’t “get” the city from making fun of it, but it doesn’t matter, if they spent any decent time there they would change their minds…

For as much as it is a city, it feels like the country easily, woodland, parks, waterways and just greenery everywhere, I still find it odd that this is in the minority compared to other places. It’s a wonderful place to live. If I hadn’t grown up there and moved on I’d be happy to be living there, but for me progression and geography are closely linked.

This is a literary blog. I’ve often considered writing a novel set in my home city. I’ve written one set in my other home, Dublin, and I’m very proud of Framed Of Rathgar, but I’ve not got round to the place where I grew up yet. I’m working on it, but I have many locations I want to set a novel so it’s just which idea bubbles up to the surface at the right time and then works! The thing is if you set a novel in Milton Keynes, because it is a unique place, it can’t just be any story that would work anywhere, there is so much you should be able to do with this landscape.

So if I’ve not done it, have others written a book set there? The answer is “yes”. I’ve only read two of them and there is a reason for that. One is dreadful and I don’t think the author had actually been to the place he was writing about, I guess as it was a “wacky” kind of book he did it as a joke. But the book was bad and this is about promoting books I like so we shall speak no more of it.

The other is a factual history book based on one of the city’s greatest assets, Bletchley Park. Here is where the famous Codebreakers and Colossus machines worked in secret during the Second World War, one more event coinciding with so much history (see my previous post, and I will stop writing about World War Two soon, just a coincidence).

Bletchley Park, and Alan Turning are prime candidates to be written about; there is so much to say, so there is a wealth of books about the subject. Here is a confession: I grew up very close to Bletchley Park, I went to school even closer and yet I have never set foot inside the grounds. I want to, but it wasn’t until I moved away that I really understood the significance and when you’re living in Dublin brief trips back fill up quickly. Then I moved back to England and although Milton Keynes is not too far from where I now live, because it’s close it’s one of those things I’ll get round to. My solution? Read a book about it.

The one I chose was called Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park by Michael Smith. I went with this book as it proudly states it is a “No 1 Sunday Times Bestseller” on the cover and I wanted something that had the history and the facts, but no fiction or opinion, this ticked the boxes. Clearly written in chronological order and including first hand accounts from the people who worked there, it’s is perfectly pitched so as not to overwhelm the reader or feel too basic. I read it years ago in Dublin, I’d take it to work and it started many an interesting conversation.

“Imagine my surprise when several weeks later, I received a letter marked ‘Confidential’ inviting me, as a consequence of taking part in ‘the Daily Telegraph Crossword Time Test’, to make an appointment to see Colonel Nicholas of the General Staff who ‘would very much like to see you on a matter of national importance.'” – Stanley Sedgewick.
― Michael Smith, Station X

Of course when you have something like Bletchley Park that is what writers are going focus on, so finding books not connected is hard. I’ve had a search, there are some fantasy novels, but these are not my thing. This is shame, as I said above there are many things I sure a writer could do with Milton Keynes, but then again I haven’t, and I’m from there.

I could be wrong, there may be a plethora of books that the local bookshops advertise, I just can’t find them on a Google search and because I moved away a long time ago I don’t go to the local bookshops where they would know.

Writing this blog has made me determined to do three things. 1) Visit Bletchley Park. 2) Write a book set in my home city. 3) Search harder for books by others who have. Feel free to leave suggestions of ones I’ve missed below.

But over all I’m just very pleased we did it and all those signs that for years have said “The Borough And New City Of Milton Keynes” have finally been accepted for their statement.

Buy Station X – by Michael Smith

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To Be Young In The 1930/40s

How Much Have Things Changed?

Over the grey of winter I decided to have ago at reading something uplifting, and then I spotted my copy of Angela’s Ashes in the To Be Read pile and felt it was now so long that I hadn’t got to this yet I’d better get cracking. Well it’s not called a misery memoir for no reason.

The author, Frank McCourt, tells us the story of his childhood. Born in 1930 in New York to Irish parents the family soon decided to return to their native land to make a life for themselves. As his mother, Angela (her of the title of the book; with reference to either her crumbling hopes for her family or the ends of her cigarettes or possibly something else) is from Limerick, this is the chosen location and the rest of the book takes place within the streets of poverty in 1930s/40s Limerick City.

When the family first arrive they spend some short time in Dublin, I lived there for many years and was surprised when the father and Frank McCourt take a trip to the area I lived in (although it would have been about seventy years earlier).

It’s a gripping read, their fortunes are not good by any means, but the writer manages to convey the closeness of the family with a sense of joy. There are quite a few laugh out loud moments, specifically the account of his Grandmother’s horror at him vomiting his Communion in the back garden, and the subsequent events.

This level of poverty and ways to survive seem to be accepted by the characters and yet they keep fighting to make it to another day, despite the roller-coaster they are on, albeit one where the highs are only highs when compared to the depths it is possible to sink to. In these days of the “tough cost of living” it’s an interesting comparison of how much western society has changed, although I’m in no doubt these conditions are still the norm (or even “good”) for many in the West and for a shockingly high percentage of the rest of the world.

“There’s no use saying anything in the schoolyard because there’s always someone with an answer and there’s nothing you can do but punch them in the nose and if you were to punch everyone who has an answer you’d be punching morning noon and night.”
― Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes

There is some debate as to the accuracy of the tales told. This is something that as a reader we can do nothing about, but if McCourt did not quite experience this then there are people who definitely did. Having said that for the tag of “Misery Memoir” it’s still a good read.

Then I had a revelation. As I went to find a place to put my now read paperback on the bookshelf (a “TBR” book lives in a box until I have read it) I saw my copy of Anne Frank’s The Diary Of A Young Girl. I stopped. When was she born? After a quick check I realised she was born just over one year before Frank McCourt and whilst his family were living in squalid conditions in Limerick during the exact same moments the Frank family were living in fear, hiding in their Secret Annexe in Amsterdam. The two real human stories were simultaneously happening.

For some reason this fascinated me. The Frank family were different in a lot of ways, for a start they were quite reasonably well off and the limits on their lives were due to the obvious external evils, rather then the problems within society. If you’ve not read this, I highly recommend you do. We’re so used to the dark Nazi era of Europe from the perceptive of historians, or of the bigger picture of horror. This is the real world through the eyes of a normal young woman. How scary is it that whilst we see this time period with fear, she had got used to living in the Secret Annex? And that the things that chiefly worried her were the usual issues between families? You could argue that she was too young to fully “get” all that was going on, but I don’t believe that; Anne Frank shows an intelligence and alertness to current events, it’s just sadly when terrible conditions present themselves eventually they have to become the norm – how as a society do we let this happen? That families such as these endure terrible conditions for so long that it stops being a shock? Or is just that what ever good there is will win out?
It’s interesting the title of the book is The Diary Of A Young Girl, all rather generic, but all we need is the name of the author, Anne Frank, and we know…

“Although I’m only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite independent of anyone.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank

Of course tragically Anne Frank would never get to meet her fellow writer; and whilst she wrote her account contemporaneous to events, McCourt’s story was retold after. I calculated the distance between Limerick and Amsterdam, it’s about 570 miles as the crow flies. That’s not too far really. Not too far when you consider that about 80 years ago a young boy and a young girl were living their lives overcoming obstacles and facing adversity together and yet they didn’t know.

Buy Angela’s Ashes – by Frank McCourt
Buy The Diary Of A Young Girl – by Anne Frank

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Now over 19,000 downloads of Beck’s Game.

11 May 2022

I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has downloaded and helped with promoting this. I never imagined I’d get to these kind of numbers.

There are still six more episodes to come before the story is complete, but I’m going to have to keep you waiting a bit longer. It’s all written and ready to go… but, well, anticipation can be good, (and I’ve load of other stuff I need to do first).

In the meantime if you are yet to wonder who is a Player? Who is a Guardian? What would you do if you found a token? And what really is happening on the London Underground? You can download each part yourself here.

It’s not the money, it’s the GAME.

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Written From Experience

Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt.

Wow in a blink of an eye it’s the end of April! Whilst the plan for this blog is to be about literature, as I am not qualified enough for anyone to be interested in my opinion on politics and the like, I think it’s not controversial to say that war is bad. In no way do I want to make light of the horrors that happen around us, in many locations around the globe, as every year many people end up damaged in countless terrible ways by conflict. But I do feel literature is an important part of helping us learn. Conflicts are something that writers are moved to tell us about. Some have had first hand experience in war and find the way to help them deal with it is to write, either that or they feel we, the readers, should know what it is really like as far to often in fiction fighting can be glamourised.

The phrase “catch 22” has become ingrained in our language, meaning an impossible and or ridiculous choice. Joseph Heller, the writer observed, “Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy. Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts – and the question is: What does a sane man do in an insane society?”

The novel itself is an interesting piece as it is not presented in chronological order and whilst sections of the first parts are grim in places it’s not until the end the full horror of the events, which are set in the Second World War, are realised and that lighter tone at the beginning becomes far more sinister. Not for no reason do we use the expression Catch 22 still over sixty years after first publication.

“’They’re trying to kill me,’ Yossarian told him calmly.
‘No one’s trying to kill you,’ Clevinger cried.
‘Then why are they shooting at me?’ Yossarian asked.
‘They’re shooting at everyone,’ Clevinger answered. ‘They’re trying to kill everyone.’
‘And what difference does that make?'”
― Joseph Heller, Catch 22

Slaughterhouse 5 is strange book. The writer, Kurt Vonnegut, uses the first chapter to tell us directly he is writing about events he experienced in Dresden, that many of the things that happened to his characters were real and were taken from his or people he came across’ time in the Second World War. Published in 1969 the full title of the book is Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death. Vonnegut is at pains to make out that the soldiers were just young lads, not the experienced men we often see in films.

Then it all goes surreal. Once again this is not presented in chronological order, but this time there is a reason for it. It’s a Sc-Fi book, yes you read that correctly. I don’t like spoilers so I’ll try and not give too much away but early on the main character, Billy Pilgrim, is kidnapped by aliens and taken to live on their home world. As I said I don’t like spoilers so knew very little about this book before I read it and when I got to that event I was somewhat surprised, I just wasn’t expecting it. However it’s written in such away that we only have the one man’s word for it, could it be that this is a result of the PTSD he is trying to suppress?

Having taken such a left field turn the book then allows for a philosophising that would be difficult to include in other stories. For example the aliens see the whole of time all at once; this means that to them no one is really dead, there are just parts that they are not in. When bad things happen, they sit next to good things so the bad can be put in perspective better, or as becomes a mantra within the text “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”. Of course that’s not true, but it’s an ideal. When trauma happens any good we have experienced or will experience does not make it any better. But is this a way of blanking out the bad? To refuse to accept it? I’m not a psychologist, but maybe whilst Billy Pilgrim is trying to do exactly that Kurt Vonnegut certainly isn’t. He wants us to know what happened.

“It is just an illusion here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone, it is gone forever.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Writing can be powerful, no wonder it is used to educate us of the horrors of war. We live in a world where it is happening, but wouldn’t it be nice one day to be able to say “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”?

Buy Catch 22 – by Joseph Heller
Buy Slaughterhouse-Five – by Kurt Vonnegut

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2021 In Reading Part Two

My reads, not the books that came out this year…

2021 has been a very strange year. I don’t feel like I’ve done much with it, and yet it’s been my most successful year as a writer, I’ve been on podcasts, I’ve had a script for a radio play made and broadcast, my most successful months on this blog and I’ve had over 10,000 downloads of my online novel Beck’s Game. I’m really pleased! Thank you everyone so much for you interest and your support. However in the real world this year has been harder than 2020, not for any specific reason just the weight of the world and feelings of ennui. In one way I’m glad it’s drawing to a close, in other ways who knows that to expect of 2022? Hopefully some good things.

The Power And The Glory – Graham Greene. Like Decline And Fall (mentioned in Part One) I read this due to a love of some of the author’s other works; Brighton Rock I think is an amazingly good novel and I will blog about that sometime I hope. As I read further works I grew comfortable with Greene’s style and began to know what to expect, until I hit The Power And The Glory. Bizarrely only published two years after Brighton Rock (with only one book between them) this is very different. The text is very dense and it takes a lot of concentration to keep focused. Telling a story set in extreme rural Mexico, the hot and humid landscape is conveyed so well that the continued reading of it can be exhausting. I had no idea what the story would be when I picked this up and it takes a while for it to get going, jumping through several sets of characters until you work out what is going on. I therefore don’t want to give too much away as I actually enjoyed working out what the plot would be when reading the early sections of the book. Reading this is a commitment, but it pays off. It’s a very strange story that deserves to be given time, but the journey is as much hard work for the reader as it is for the characters.

“Terror was always just behind her shoulder: she was wasted by the effort of not turning round. She dressed up her fear, so that she could look at it—in the form of fever, rats, unemployment. The real thing was taboo—death coming nearer every year in the strange place: everybody packing up and leaving, while she stayed in a cemetery no one visited, in a big aboveground tomb.”
― Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory

The Vanishing Futurist – Charlotte Hobson. Back on May Bank Holiday, when it was warm, I went to Marlow for the day, (lovely place) and whilst there I decided I needed to buy a book, it was one of those days. After spending too long browsing I decided to go with this. Set in Moscow in 1918. just as everything changes, this tells the story of Gerty a young English woman who, already having moved to Russia, finds herself taking on the Socialist ideals and watching as society grapples with the same struggle. There is a mystery here that is more the backbone of the novel, simply supporting the more interesting points. Gery’s life is far more absorbing than wondering what is going, and I think this is the way it was meant to be. The climax of the book is therefore more character driven, although the answers to the questions do come with the eventual outcome and work nicely. The setting and the immersion within it is the highlight of the book, just because it is so different (and a world I’m glad I’m not in), this is an achievement as it was written so long after the society it describes disappeared.

“Autumn painted Moscow every shade of red, as though for a vast performance. ‘The streets are our brushes, the squares our palate,’ announced the poet Mayakovsky, who planned to revolutionise nature permanently by giving the trees in the Aleksandrovsky Gardens a coat of scarlet paint.”
― Charlotte Hobson, The Vanishing Futurist

Doctor Who: The Myth Makers – Donald Cotton. Target books are a staple for any young Doctor Who fan, at least up until my generation. These were adaptions of episodes from the original series in a book form. (I may blog in depth about them later, but see my blog on Terrance Dicks, a hero to many people.) The Myth Makers is one of the missing stories, it was broadcast in 1965 and the tapes “junked” after so it is thought to no longer exist, however like nearly all the other stories the scripts were adapted and this short novel was released in 1985 (written by Donald Cotton, who had written the scripts). Whilst based around the legend of the Trojan War, this is told as if it it were historically true and The First Doctor and his companions arrive and get involved in the proceedings. This was first written as a “historical” in that no other alien elements are present in the story (which happened a fair bit in 1960s Doctor Who, other examples are The Aztecs and Marco Polo to name a couple), however Donald Cotton had also written this as more of a comedy, just like his earlier script for The Romans, and the novel is told in the first person by an eyewitness, who also has some historical significance. It can be a bit silly at times but knowingly so, and there are some clever puns: “Small Prophet, Quick Return” and “Doctor In The Horse”. I’d read most of the Targets as a child but there’s still a few I hadn’t got round to so I didn’t “know” what happened, it’s good to still be able to read a new old Doctor Who story, like I did in my childhood with so many of the Target books.

“Agamemmnon sighed deeply. The effect was unpleasant, even at a range of several yards. Candle flames trembled, and sank back into their sockets: as did his brother’s blood-shot eyes. ‘There may be some truth in that,’ he admitted, ‘I don’t say there is, but there may be. However, I must remind you these ambitions would have been served just as well if you had killed Paris in single combat, as was expected of you. That’s what betrayed husbands do, damn it! They kill their wife’s lovers. Everybody knows that. And Paris was quite prepared to let the whole issue be decided by such a contest – he told me so. So don’t blame me because you’ve dragged us into a full scale war- because I won’t have it.’”
― Donald Cotton, Doctor Who: The Myth Makers

The Crucible – Arthur Miller. The Crucible is a history, metaphor and play set in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. Miller had a point to make with this, it was about the “witch hunts” in the politics at the time – when you know this and understand the context it becomes a lot more powerful. Who are the witches in the town? Who is innocent but forced to admit guilt? How far will it go and is anyone safe? The play itself has a bit of a weird shape, starting by focusing on one group of individuals and then adjusting to a family outside that circle, this in itself raises the question that has been repeated throughout history, can anyone can be safe from accusation and if not, how do the guilty seem to get away with it?

“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible


Buy The Power And The Glory by Graham Greene
Buy The Vanishing Futurist by Charlotte Hobson
Buy Doctor Who: The Myth Makers by Donald Cotton
Buy The Crucible by Arthur Miller

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2021 In Reading Part One

My reads, not the books that came out this year…

Shockingly, alarmingly, it’s once again the time of year where I select some of the books I’ve read over the last twelve months and offer my favourites as suggestions. 2021 has been a bit of a mad year for me, I started the year feeling I hadn’t been reading enough but as time went on and I was looking back I realised just how many books I’d got through, including a couple I’d been meaning to read for years and some nice discoveries. I said it last year and I’ll repeat myself, it’s always exciting to wonder what books I’ll find and love in 2022 that I know nothing about at present.

Lenin On The Train – Catherine Merridale. I’ve be fascinated with the account of Vladimir Lenin’s (which you have to pronounce in the Russian way with the accent Vla-DEE-MEearr) journey from Switzerland to the Finland Station for a long time, so finding this book which gives a full account of the history as well as the effects it had was very satisfying. Spotlighting an event which I feel is a somewhat under appreciated shaper of the 20th Century, this book is detailed and insightful enough that I didn’t feel like it was for beginners but even for someone new to this part of history I don’t think it would go over their heads. Starting with the author’s own recreation of the journey it then takes us right back to March 1916 and talks us though one of the many world changing events that were happening in that era. It can be a job keeping up with all of the people involved and events are so shaded that it’s hard to fully piece it all together, but this was a very enjoyable read and added to my knowledge of important times (if only I could remember it all that is).

“The sound of tramping feet beat out a requiem for the old world – but no one could be sure where it might lead”
― Catherine Merridale, Lenin on the Train

Decline And Fall – Evelyn Waugh. Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Brideshead Revisited last year it was natural I’d pickup a copy of Decline And Fall – not to be confused with the text by Edward Gibbon. (How much changes in a year! I read Brideshead mostly in an Albanian cafe drinking Raki; I read this in my car on an industrial estate in my work lunch breaks.) It’s interesting to compare the two novels. Whilst Brideshead Revisited was written when he was an established author and so has the confidence and skill of someone with experience, Decline And Fall was Waugh’s first published novel. This isn’t a criticism, I enjoyed it very much, but you can clearly tell the lessons the author has learnt along the way. The two novels are sprawling tales that follow the life of the protagonist through a period of time, the later book is over many years however here it’s just one; regardless a lot happens. As a story this is quite silly, some of the humour really works, other parts of it fails to hit the mark, at least from a twenty first century perspective. Set just under one hundred years ago this is the story of Paul Pennyfeather who in the first few pages loses his place at University and has to find a way to survive and so becomes a teacher. Highly unpredictable and more a stream of ideas of “and then this happened” the sum of the novel is greater than its parts. Brideshead Revisted is a far better novel but that is not to say this isn’t worth reading.

“That’s your little mob in there,’ said Grimes; ‘you let them out at eleven.’ ‘But what am I to teach them?’ said Paul in sudden panic. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t try to teach them anything, not just yet, anyway. Just keep them quiet.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall

In Cold Blood – Truman Capote. I was always unsure of this book, not a novel but an account of a true multiple-murder in mid America in 1959. From the word go we know who did it and it’s just the historical events, I suppose like a true episode of Columbo in novel form. Very unlike Breakfast At Tiffany’s which I am indifferent to (it’s ok but I won’t be making friends with Deep Blue Something – that’s an out dated… I want to say “joke”?) As such I was never bothered about this book until I saw it for sale in a second hand book shop and I just thought “why not?”. My doubts quickly disappeared. Like an episode of Columbo the interest becomes in finding out how they get the murderers, but there is more. You are asked to follow the guilty party, get to know them and their back story,. After a while I forgot it was real and when the revelation hit me again and again “this actually happened” it’s a bit of a shock, I’m not sure how accurate it really is, how Capote can reveal intimate and intricate details I don’t really know, but he manages to paint the murderers as real people in a way it’s hard to square that they could do what they did. More psychoanalytical than thriller I did really enjoy this, yet it made me feel sad at times – also I learnt there is a lot of interesting things about middle America.

“The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there.’ . . .The land is flat, the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them.”
― Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

Born A Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood – Trevor Noah. Straight up I will confess I had never heard of Trevor Noah until I found this book. I was looking for a historic novel set in Africa as I haven’t read that many and did a general search, over and over this book kept on being recommended to me despite the fact it’s not fiction or that historical. After a while the suggestions wore me down and I ordered it. I’m glad I did. As I said I had no idea who the author was as I read this, it was just the story of a young lad growing up to see the end of apartheid South Africa and the changes and things that should have changed but didn’t. However this is no grand epic, it’s mainly a small story of Trevor Noah and his mother (who is both formidable and wonderful and written with such love and clarity) as well the wider family. I’d love to retell some of the incidents here but the best thing is to say “Go and read it yourself”. It’s a cliché to say “I laughed and cried” and although I didn’t actually cry amidst the humour there are statements of which the implications force you stop and think. This is probably one of my favourite books I’ve read this year and I’ll join all those other voices that persuaded me to buy this book in highly recommending it.

“People thought my mom was crazy. Ice rinks and drive-ins and suburbs, these things were izinto zabelungu — the things of white people. So many people had internalized the logic of apartheid and made it their own. Why teach a black child white things? Neighbors and relatives used to pester my mom: ‘Why do this? Why show him the world when he’s never going to leave the ghetto?’
‘Because,’ she would say, ‘even if he never leaves the ghetto, he will know that the ghetto is not the world. If that is all I accomplish, I’ve done enough.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood


Buy Lenin On The Train by Catherine Merridale
Buy Decline And Fall by Evelyn Waugh
Buy In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Buy Born A Crime: Stories From A South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

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Thank You, Joe

21 December 2021

Over the last few months I, and other writers, have been working on plays with the very nice people at Act Bedford and which are now being broadcast at 2 pm (UK time) each day on Bedford Radio. You can listen from anywhere via the internet. There are ten plays in total and you can find out more about them from this link. Mine is entitled Thank You, Joe and it will be broadcast at 2 pm on 25th December. I believe it will then be available some point after on a listen again feature – I’ll post a link. Thanks to Bedford Radio and especially Act Bedford for organising this. Further information can be found on the links below:

Bedford Radio
Act Bedford

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Reports Of Mark Twain

And The Things He Said And Wrote.

The United States in the 1800s was a very different world from the one I am used to (late 20th early 21st Century western Europe); National Geographic tells me that slavery was abolished on December 18th 1865, but of course civil rights then became a deservedly big issue. The reason I state this is because these events happened during the life of Mark Twain, an author most famous, at least in the UK, for the stories of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. As a child I remember there was a TV series of these stories broadcast over the school holidays in the mornings. I recall it was two lads, one who was always blamed for being a bad influence on the other, having adventures in the US from some point in the 1800s.

I vaguely watched them, and then I grew up and it all went to the back of my mind. References to Mark Twain mainly came when yet another person discovered the quote “The report of my death was an exaggeration” – when it was incorrectly stated he had died, and that was it.

One day I was flicking through the selection of cheap classics in a book shop and for a couple of Euro I picked up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and memories of the kids programme came back. When I got round to reading it I realised it was the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and so had to buy and read that one first (not that it’s vital for the plot, it’s just the way I think).

“The choir always tittered and whispered all through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago, and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was in some foreign country.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Both books really do take you to this other world of 19th Century Missouri, on the Mississippi River. In the first book each chapter is mostly a complete incident in itself, and the novel focuses on the young lad Tom Sawyer and the world from his view point as he makes friends with Huckleberry Finn. The sequel is somewhat different and has a lot to say about attitudes in that part of the US. Published in 1884 the story follows Huckelberry Finn as he tries to help a slave from the town where he lives escape. For various reasons, from the time it was written it has raised eyebrows. Today it can feel somewhat uncomfortable, as words I would never use come up regularly in the text as they were common place back then when even people who were not deliberately racist used them. It’s an awkward one as Twain seems to be going out of his way to say that slavery was wrong, but written when it was, with language and characterisation, it can not live up to the standards we have in the 21st Century.

“I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die;”
― Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

It’s always sad to find some writer or other person from history that I like the work of was actually unpleasant; however by all accounts I can come across Mark Twain seemed to be a very nice and well meaning man; not only that he was quick witted and clever.

Indeed he, like only a few other people, have the honour of being incredibly quotable, you may have come across quotes of his and not realised it, although some are debated like my favourite “golf is a good walk spoiled”. Other than the obvious “Reports of my death-”, the below is a list of some more (in fact I got so distracted looking up quotes from him I almost didn’t finish the blog!):

“The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

“There is no sadder thing than a young pessimist‚ except an old optimist.”

“Travel is fatal to prejudice.”

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot”

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

“Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”

Born in Missouri in 1835 his real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens and he had a sad and tragic early life, only a couple of his siblings survived. Knowing of this hard background and the world in which he grew up in it’s even more impressive he became the man he did. In his novel The Innocents Abroad, where I get the feel of one of my other favourite authors Jerome K Jerome, he recounts a tour of Europe and “the holy land”. He and his friends are written with charm, innocence and mischief. For example when shown a mummy in a museum they ask “Is he dead?” and complain when they are informed he is. This is just one example of many bizarre insights and incidents the novel portrays; although some of the humour may these days be seen to be a little… blunt…

“The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of fellowship and call him brother. I shall always delight to meet an ass after my own heart when I have finished my travels.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

Overall there is so much more to Mark Twain than one quote and an old TV programme, he is well worth investigating.

Buy The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer – by Mark Twain
Buy The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn – by Mark Twain
Buy The Innocents Abroad – by Mark Twain

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Podcast Interview

05 December 2021

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Marian Andrew as part of her series of podcasts in which she talks to indie writers; the series as a whole is very informative (you can find out more from her website; she is a writer herself https://www.marianandrew.com/).

The full interview, where I talk about Beck’s Game and writing in general, is here:

https://marianandrewbooks.podbean.com/e/arthur-hofn-beck-s-game/

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