Holcomb – Arthur Hofn

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 20^th 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