More of the backlog

Posted by Sari

John McCullough: 1776

1776 was a the first and perhaps greatest do or die year of American War of independence. Early success in Boston was followed by a defeat at battle of Brooklyn hights and the Dunkerque-like retreat to Manhattan. Eventual withdrawal through New Jersey kept Washington’s army intact but left British in command of New York and with a chance to split the colonies from the middle. John Mcculloug’s 1776 is a military history of that year, a chronological narration of the ups and downs of the colonial cause from Boston to the Battle of Princeton in January 1777.
    As evidenced by his John Adams biography, he is a talented writer but 1776 is not one of his better works. His sketches of the characters involved are revealing and entertaining, but as a book about the military on the field, it never really takes off – especially if the broad outlines of actions are already familiar. I especially missed maps, which for me are essential reference when trying to decipher battles.

Harumi Murakami: Kafka on the Shore

Kafka on the Shore is a good book, but it was not a book for me. It has lots of the familiar Murakami tropes, and the fantasy elements are deftly woven into the structure. The simple Mr Nakata who talks of himself in the third person, talks to cats and goes on a road trip with his side-kick the truck-driver is appealing, and not everything is explained which I always appreciate. However, I tend to approach novels through characters, and in this case the main narrative, the  freudian survival story of a runaway teenager who wants to kill (or avoid killing?) his father and marry his mother just did not engage me.

Patricia Finney: Firedrake’s Eye

This is a first in a series featuring Simon Ames, a sephardic jew turned into one of Walsingham’s spies in Elizabethan England and David Becket, an ex solider and unemployed swordmaster. Here their aim to prevent a popish plot to assasinate the queen. Firedrake’s eye is well researched, beautifully written and quite literate mystery. Finney’s narrator is Poor Tom o Bedlam, a madman with a split personality and unexplained omniscience of the unfolding events. I was expecting just a run-of-the-mill historical mystery, so I was pleasantly surprised by the language and feel of the book. It has been used in at least one university as a gateway to Elizabethan culture and vocabulary to make Shakespeare easier to understand, and I can defenitely see why.

Wendy Cope: Serious Concerns

My sister took our (well, hers, but…) copy of this when we moved out of our shared student flat around twelve years  ago and I it took this long for me to replace it. Cope does not want to be England’s next poet Laureate, which is sort of a pity. I think she would be brilliant composing the required ceremonial poems with a twinkle in her eye. I first bumped into her poetry in 1980s wen the tube had a campaign of poetry on the underground. I remember sitting on the Northern Line train reading her “Uncertainty of a Poet” poem on the wall almost ad nauseam. Cope, often mentioned with Larkin and Betjeman, writes clever, dry and adorable poems, about life and men and poetry. She has a mean eye for parody and keen sense rhythm and structure, and is the one poet I recommend to people who are not into poetry.

Hall: Raw Shark Text

This is one of those books where my inability to “see” books is a real disadvantage. Raw Shark Text is a story of an amnesiac, Eric, who slowly learns that his loss of memory is due to the fact that his personality has been devoured by a conceptual shark, a Ludovician, who preys his victims in the sea of thoughts and memes and all the words which make up our conceptual sea. The idea itself is a delightful flight of fancy, bringing a metaphor into flesh or at least paper, even to the point of using e.e. cummings-like word-pictures and animation.  Now, I like clever books, I like books other people might find pretentious, so I was completely willing to accept Hall’s post-postmodern play on words, ideas and reality. Where he lost me was at the end when Eric and and his “guide”, Scout, find the conceptual oceanologist Trey Fidorus in caves made out of text which transform into a sea. My visual imagination just didn’t go there.

Tim Bucher: Blood River

Tim Bucher was Telegraph correspondent in Africa when he dreamed up a hair-brained plan to follow in Stanley’s footsteps down the river Congo. After years of making contacts and planning a trip others called impossible he finally did it in 2004. He flew to Kalemi on the lakeTanganiyaka and followed Congo on motor-cycles, pirogues and barges all the way to Boma.
     Blood River is the story of his trip through a country Foreign Policy considered in 2007 as the seventh worst failed state in the world.  It is one of those books which are a great introduction if – as is my case – you know little or nothing of the subject matter.  I vaguely remember the 1997 coup and the 2001 assassination of Laurent Kabila, but that is about it. Butcher unravels the past and present of the country comparing his trip with Stanley’s and also with a cruise his mother took down the river in the 1950s. The story he tells is distressingly awful and hopeless. It certainly made me look at my cute cell phone in a different light.
    I suspect however that if the reader has some expertise or even just familiarity with Congo or Africa in general Bucher’s endless andecdotes about degenerated infrastructure, and folks fleeing to the bush might feel a bit facile. But like I said, it is a great introduction and does what a great introduction should: makes you want to know more.

Sinkkuelämää (Sex and the City)

Gah. I was on my way back from Berndö, Åland via public transport and had read all books I had with me, so I grabbed this from R-kioski for few euros. In this case the translation was so annoying that I was quite unable to get past it. The faux-sounding dialogue with deliberate anglicisms left in just grated unbelievably. I don’t think I would have much cared for the book even if it had been in English but the Finnish version was just too horrid for words.

Moon Called

I usually run away fast if book has vampires or werewolves in it. This has both. And a heroine who shapeshifts into a coyote. Yes, I know. But paranormal romance is popular nowdays, and this isn’t half bad representative of the genre. Our heroine is spunky, independent, unaware of her own attractiveness and has two werewolves fighting for her attentions. There is also kidnapping, betrayal, power struggles and whatnot. A bit like Stephanie Plum books, except with a more competent protagonists. And the whole werewolf thing.  Oh, and it is a first one of a series. I wonder if Tarjas has the next one…

Comments

[Tarja]

Oh, and it is a first one of a series. I wonder if Tarjas has the next one…

Actually, I have two more books in the series... I've also got a sequel to Firedrake's Eye.