THIS MONTH'S BOOK REVIEWS...THIS MONTH'S BOOK REVIEWS
James Gault reviews The Zucchini Conspiracy by Timothy Balding
This book is a masterpiece of hilarious and delightful nonsense. What kind of mischievous mind can conjure up, for a doppelganger of Donald Trump, a fat peasant woman who only speaks an obscure dialect from the South of France? What kind of ingenious intelligence can devise a plot where such a double can carry off a scheme to deceive a foreign power in critical nuclear disarmament negotiations? Answer: the kind that belongs to author Timothy Balding. What credible explanation could there be, for instance, that would place a pyjama clad British Prime Minister called Theresa in the bedroom of the US president with a knotted rope in her hand? None that I can think of. But never mind, suspend your disbelief and embark on a roller coaster of laughs and chuckles that will keep the pages turning until the end of the book. But, of course, as always with Timothy Balding, there is a serious underbelly to this political farce. The author takes an incisive scalpel to the municipal politics of rural France and the intrigues and ambitions of diplomats and politicians. Then he heaves a huge axe through the inflated ego of the current US president. The result is a book that everyone but the most fervent Trump followers will love. Outstanding fun. Don’t miss it. 
James Gault reviews What Hath God Wrought – The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe
As you might guess from the title, Mr Howe is not an author for whom brevity is a virtue. This is a heavy book: physically at over 900 pages, and stylistically with his long sentences, detailed academic arguments and plethora of facts. It’s a hard read, but it has some important things to say. I came to it with a knowledge of American history gleaned almost exclusively from Hollywood. I had a very benevolent view of the growth of the world’s most influential nation. This book has convinced me I had been too kind and forgiving. The story the author presents is one of naked greed for power and prosperity.; a saga of the determined pursuit of self-interest devoid of any consideration of the common good. We are presented with a succession of US presidents totally devoted to assuaging the desires of themselves, their friends and their political supporters, with the ultimate goal of enhancing their own reputations and legacies. Whether it was in the defence of slavery, the opening up of the Wild West, the systematic usurpation of the rights of Native Americans, or the imposition of protective trade tariffs, every decision was underpinned by what was in it for them or their mates. To combat this unashamed abuse of power, the author cites the mitigating influence of groups of ordinary people. Most, but not all, of these were Christian organisations, and predominantly Protestant ones. These people took the underlying moral messages of the Bible literally, and formed Benevolent Societies, abolitionist groups and other popular political movements to counteract the excesses of the ruling classes. What is presented is a game between Good and Evil where Evil held all the cards and used them mercilessly. Sadly, even in modern day USA, the outcome of this contest is far from resolved. I suspect that this book is not really meant for the general reader. Part of the Oxford University Press series ‘The Oxford History of the United States ‘, its intended audience is probably other academics and assiduous students of the subject matter. It suffers from the common flaws of academic books: long convoluted argument predicated on a prior knowledge of most of the facts; a veritable downpour of names and dates which the lay reader has no chance of remembering; an arrogant disregard for the comprehension problems that result from long convoluted sentences where ideas are joined together with doubtful and ambiguous grammatical constructs. It’s a pity. It’s recommended reading for the determined intellectual in search of enlightenment into a key period of US history. For the rest of us mortals, perhaps the author may consider producing an abridged best-seller version of this very important story. |
SOME RECOMMENDED
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James Gault reviews Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks
This is a difficult book to review. Some aspects of it are brilliant, but others fall far short of what you would expect from such a renowned novelist. Let’s start with the good things
.
Those of you who follow Mr Faulks work will find the meticulous and detailed research into period and place that you have come to expect. The author’s credentials as a populist historian are impeccable. In this novel he also tackles psychological themes: the effects of losing a loved one, the pains of adolescence, the battle against loneliness. These are explored with insight and empathy and we are left with the impression that he has helped us to understand them better. Mr Faulks also explores here the interaction of history with the present; historical and present-day the characters intermingle. Is this a suggestion of fantasy, or hallucinations induced by the emotional connections of the researchers to their subjects? The author leaves this for the reader to decide. Overall, I find no fault with the content of his novel; it is engrossing and challenging.
On the other hand, I found the style of the writing disconcerting. The story is told through narration: those of two present-day characters as well as the historical recordings made by those living in Paris during WW II, the period one of the main characters is researching. The problem is that all these narratives are presented in the same authorial voice. No attempt is made to differentiate the discourse of the two main characters, although one is a Moroccan teenager and the other a mature American lady. Each chapter is narrated by one of them, but readers are confused, finding difficulty in deciding who is speaking at any time. And although the historical recordings are well identified in the text, the people all sound the same as each other and no different from the two modern day main characters. So for me all the characters lacked authenticity; I couldn’t believe in them and always felt it was the author who was speaking to me. It seemed that he couldn’t be bothered to find a unique voice for each character.
A further annoying feature of the writing style was the pedantic nature of the writing. Mr Faulks is an expert in many topics; but he wants us to know it and he doesn’t let the need to progress the story get in the way of this. Among other things, I learned a lot about the twentieth century France, the origins of Parisian metro station names, the difficulties of French homonyms, exacerbated by the lazy habit of ignoring consonant endings in Parisian pronunciation, and much more besides. At times, I found myself wondering if maybe he should have just produced a textbook and abandoned the idea of a novel.
Of course, this is a good and interesting book, if you can overcome the distractions of the writing style. Sebastian Faulks has written many good books, but for me this isn’t one of his best.
This is a difficult book to review. Some aspects of it are brilliant, but others fall far short of what you would expect from such a renowned novelist. Let’s start with the good things
.
Those of you who follow Mr Faulks work will find the meticulous and detailed research into period and place that you have come to expect. The author’s credentials as a populist historian are impeccable. In this novel he also tackles psychological themes: the effects of losing a loved one, the pains of adolescence, the battle against loneliness. These are explored with insight and empathy and we are left with the impression that he has helped us to understand them better. Mr Faulks also explores here the interaction of history with the present; historical and present-day the characters intermingle. Is this a suggestion of fantasy, or hallucinations induced by the emotional connections of the researchers to their subjects? The author leaves this for the reader to decide. Overall, I find no fault with the content of his novel; it is engrossing and challenging.
On the other hand, I found the style of the writing disconcerting. The story is told through narration: those of two present-day characters as well as the historical recordings made by those living in Paris during WW II, the period one of the main characters is researching. The problem is that all these narratives are presented in the same authorial voice. No attempt is made to differentiate the discourse of the two main characters, although one is a Moroccan teenager and the other a mature American lady. Each chapter is narrated by one of them, but readers are confused, finding difficulty in deciding who is speaking at any time. And although the historical recordings are well identified in the text, the people all sound the same as each other and no different from the two modern day main characters. So for me all the characters lacked authenticity; I couldn’t believe in them and always felt it was the author who was speaking to me. It seemed that he couldn’t be bothered to find a unique voice for each character.
A further annoying feature of the writing style was the pedantic nature of the writing. Mr Faulks is an expert in many topics; but he wants us to know it and he doesn’t let the need to progress the story get in the way of this. Among other things, I learned a lot about the twentieth century France, the origins of Parisian metro station names, the difficulties of French homonyms, exacerbated by the lazy habit of ignoring consonant endings in Parisian pronunciation, and much more besides. At times, I found myself wondering if maybe he should have just produced a textbook and abandoned the idea of a novel.
Of course, this is a good and interesting book, if you can overcome the distractions of the writing style. Sebastian Faulks has written many good books, but for me this isn’t one of his best.
