Moab is my Washpot. By Stephen Fry. my review

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Stephen Fry is funny and rude, clever and incredibly knowledgeable. I know who he is, of course I do.  He’s entertained me on the telly for three decades, but did I want to read his autobiography?  Not especially, I don’t really read biographies except of the artists I’m researching.

However when I saw this salmon pink paperback on a bookseller’s shelf, I bought it for the cover.  I might well have bought it even if I was quite unfamiliar with Stephen Fry and despite the obscure title. Who is Moab, why does he/she/they matter? And what in heaven or hell is a Washpot? Yes I guessed the reference was from the Old Testament, but I had no intention of re-reading that tome to find it.

My main reason for the purchase was because the cover was largely filled with the monstrous, wise, preposterously ugly but somehow charming visage of a bull elephant seal, with a proportionately tiny blackbird staring up his bulbous nose. An elephant seal, Lain name Mirounga angustirostris - there's s my one bit of erudition. As a child I had seen one, in Berlin Zoo, as far as I know from this book Mr Fry never visited Berlin in his childhood. So why an elephant seal? Just why?

The autobiography encompasses the first 20 years of Fry’s life and no elephant seals are involved. It’s an intense, highly personal, self-deprecating book.  He writes an eruditely meandering – or maybe I mean meanderingly erudite – and excruciatingly honest story.

He presents us with his family, who he basically loves but, especially as a teenager, refuses to get on with and who love him but find him often hard to comprehend.  We see him in middle-class boarding schools, and how he coped with school life, not always well or honestly, but mostly he coped, by managing to withdraw from the system and outwit authority. And we see his love life as his sexuality begins to emerge. 

I did enjoy Stephen's book, it’s poignant, funny and engrossing, although I skimmed here and there, mostly through the meanderingly erudite sections, I don’t have the advantage of his classical education, I wonder if it is an advantage? The Washpot he mentions  in the afterword, as a metaphorical container for his dirty linen, and I believe Moab was a sinner. But the vast elephant seal, I still have no idea because it looks nothing like him!

Will I read the book again? I might, but probably only after I’ve read what comes in the next volume.  

 

Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin - Rebus #13 - book review

 I really enjoyed this book. I very seldom give a book five stars but it was about time Ian Rankin had five. Resurrection Men fits the bill because I never thought I could describe a Rebus novel as funny, but this one is, at least in places. It's mainly down to awkward situations and excellent dialogue which is concise and full of humour, black and otherwise.

Convoluted plotting is necessary to get to the conclusion and along the way are plenty of dubious characters - most of them policemen - and a lot of agonising for Rebus and Siobhan Clarke. People get killed, most of them are deserving though not all. Not every plotline is filled with humour, after all this is a Rebus novel.

Basically, the High Hedyins are using John Rebus, an awkward and bloody annoying cop, in a sting operation to get some awkward and bloody bent cops. Inevitably it goes pear shaped. Are Big Ger Cafferty and his sidekick, the Weasel, involved? What do you think?

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, read a John Rebus book. I can recommend most of them,  although this may not be the best one for beginners. It's hard to come by well written detective fiction and I wasn't really a fan until I began reading Ian Rankin's work, which is usually extremely well written. This is an author who doesn't just know exactly what each word means, he also knows exactly how to use it for maximum effect.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3515717586?fbclid=IwAR3kgBFz5zQ6oQ6wH9_uc7AI7aM-u4atPu2zKZ1jVUzvzn21vLh7jtPXovI

Cats the Movie - film review

Old Possum’s Film of CGI Cats…

As a child I read and enjoyed TS Eliot’s poems in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. I even learned to perform one for some school show or other. I have no further memory of that show but I can still recite most of Skimbleshanks, the Railway Cat to anyone who cares to listen - mostly they don't, care I mean.

"There's a whisper down the line 

at eleven thirty-nine

when the night-mail is ready to depart,

saying Skimble where is Skimble

Has he gone to hunt the thimble?

we must find him or the train can't start..."

As an adult I went, twice, to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats the theatre musical, first in its early days in the West End, then when it arrived in Manchester on tour. I took various junior family members and enjoyed it both times, so did they.

Today I went with some senior – one very senior – family members to see Cats the film, sorry movie. And having read several extremely negative reviews of this by film critics, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Having seen it, my questions to those critics, who are presumably steeped in movies (but seem to know little about musical theatre), is what the hell did you expect? Haven’t you the seen the stage show? Don’t you know it’s basically a song and dance piece with humans dressed up as cats?

Ok, the CGI was a bit weird to begin with but you soon got used to it. If an almost 92-year-old (my Mum) with dementia could cope with it happily, what's wrong with you critics? I liked the expressive cat ears and tails, was less keen on the whiskers which should have been expressive but weren’t. The music was as expected, the dancing was excellent, the acting pretty good and Ian McKellan as Gus, the Theatre Cat the acting highlight.  Australian ballet dancer Steven Macrae as Skimbleshanks and Francesca Hayward as Victoria the white cat were my favourites among the dancers.

The film’s main problem was the length, it dragged in places. That’s because they’ve strived to create a much more elaborate storyline than the stage musical had. It revolves around a new character, Victoria the white cat, who is dumped in a bag, by an unseen human, in central London and adopted by the Jellicle cats. This means additional dialogue (there is very little dialogue in the original theatre script) and extra songs. It worked, kind of, but a lot of it was probably unnecessary.

However Cats the Movie is entertaining enough, a bit of comedy, good music and excellent dancing so I suggest you ignore the critics. Go to your cinema of choice, relax and enjoy the film for what it is - a musical theatre adaptation with CGI. Then you can decide for yourselves.

Bad Luck and Trouble - a Jack Reacher Story by Lee Child

I knew I'd read a lot of thrillers in my teens and I knew I'd read at least one Lee Child novel in the past but couldn't for the life of me remember which. Bad Luck and Trouble fell into my hands from a shelf of books for commuters to share and/or replace at the small train station near my home. 

I approve of this trend to put shelves of books in public places. I nearly didn't choose the Lee Child book because it's a thick paperback, but the only other book I felt like reading at the time was a heavy hardback which I really didn't feel like carrying around all day. It seemed a bit random, does anybody else decide what to read based on the weight of the book? 

Anyway I picked up Bad Luck and Trouble and read it on the train to London. 

In London I went to see Macbeth at the Globe theatre - a play in the Globe's indoor auditorium which is without electric lighting. Macbeth, by candlelit, was completely gripping, grim and dramatic. 

On the way home I read some more of the book and finished it the next day. Bad Luck and Trouble is also completely gripping, grim and dramatic. And incredibly well written, the author's skill is mesmerising, drags you along even when you don't want to go. I easily finished the 500+ pages in 36 hours despite the Macbeth distraction. 

Would I read Bad Luck and Trouble again? Probably not, I'll return it to the station bookshelf. I will look for more Lee Child books because of his writing quality. Maybe I'll try the earlier ones so I can see where jack Reacher is coming from. Would I go to see Macbeth again? Yes. Not sure how that comparison stands up, but there it is...

Saturday by Ian McEwan - book review

This is why Ian McEwan is one of my favourite authors, when he is good he is very very good, the writing here is completely gripping. I don't mean in the thrills a minute takes you on a roller coaster kind of gripping. I mean the kind of gripping which takes you right into the nuances of character, situation and emotion so you can't shake them off. This is why it took me a month to finish the book. I reached the climactic scene and didn't want the journey to begin to unwind, I didn't want the cast to have to react to a terrifying situation, I was afraid they would act out of character, or worse that I had misinterpreted their characters.

I stopped reading the book, I would look at it by my bed and keep thinking, I'm not ready to go back there, not yet. The story takes place during one day, it took me a month to finish reading.

I hadn't misinterpreted anything, the denouement for the main character was entirely appropriate while not being flagged up. The ending worked perfectly, the final scene mirroring the opening pages, but with the added frisson of what has gone between. 

So remind me again why McEwan won the Booker prize for 'Amsterdam', with its unremittingly dislikeable characters and silly ending, and not for 'Saturday'? 

No spoilers, I won't describe the plot. Read it for yourself and enjoy.

Gerald Durrell; the Authorised Biography by Douglas Botting - book review

Gerald Durrell has been one of my favourite authors since I read The Bafut Beagles when I was nine and I've always admired his determination to conserve endangered species, the little, un-noticed creatures more than the spectacular, headline-grabbing ones. Douglas Botting's biography was approved by his family and presents a detailed and unflinching portrait of this charismatic, driven and creative man. GD wasn't a saint or any kind of paragon, he was a high functioning alcoholic and could have lived so much longer. His remarkable achievements have altered the way endangered species are appreciated and conserved. His Jersey Zoo is a model for conservationist worldwide and his books are many and varied. All this Douglas Botting catches with zest and a plainly enormous quantity of research. The details of GD's final illness are not for the faint hearted but are honest. My only qualms are with the way the treatment of Jacquie, GD's first wife, seem to be glossed over. Otherwise this is a fascinating read for any GD fan, and for anybody interested in how attitudes to conservation have progressed since the 1950's.

The Innocent by Ian McEwan - review

I was disappointed reading Amsterdam (reviewed in March), how the hell did that win the Booker Prize? I thought I'd better try a different Ian McEwan book, to see if he was still one of my favourite authors or if I should demote him. I went shopping, came home with The Innocent, written in 1990 but set in the mid 1950's.


The Innocent has been published with a number of different covers, trust me to buy the least interesting (the one on the right). Book covers are important but in this case had no influence on me, I was buying for the author.


It's sort of an espionage story, set in divided West Berlin during the 1950's. I was there as a teen-ager some time later so I decided I had to read this particular book. The setting is pretty real, a city still struggling to recover from the second world war, whilst suffering under the domination of the cold war. Although set before the Berlin wall was built, it felt familiar enough, I'd seen the check-points, the bomb sites. The main character is Leonard, a GPO technician seconded to work on a top secret project in the American sector of the city. I won't tell the story, impossible without spoilers.

The Innocent is very well written, as all McEwan's books are, he's a professional in every sense. The narrative is tense, a very good story. It does take a bit of digesting... hmm.  Maybe digesting is the wrong word. Is it a good read? Oh yes, definitely but maybe don't read the second half just after a large meal. 

Has it restored my faith in the author? Yes, it has. Although a very different story it takes me back to his first book, The Cement Garden which was also about innocence.

...if nobody speaks of remarkable things...

... is a 2002 novel by Jon Mcgregor.

I picked it up because I'd heard his name and heard of his 2017 prizewinner, 'Reservoir 17'.  I'll read that next, just ordered a copy,

but back to ...remarkable things... 

“This is ecstatic writing..” said the TLS reviewer of this book and they are exactly right.

This is a Breughel painting of a story, set in a street in a Northern English university town. The writing seems straight from the mind in free flow, freefall even, it reads as uncensored, unedited, unaltered and I hope this is so. When the ideas, the words just pour from the mind and onto the page and keep coming and keep coming it is a kind of ecstasy. Most writers will then take it apart, edit, adjust, re-arrange into something more conventional, more deliberately structured. More ordinary. This book is extraordinary. It’s not perfect, it is remarkable. I will read it again once I’ve got my breath back.

That's how I feel about the quality of the writing, as a writer myself. I'd like to think non-writers can enjoy the book just as much, it isn't a difficult book. I'm sure I would have loved it 30 years ago before I considered myself a writer. It's a rolling wave of a book, carrying you along for almost it's whole length with the anticipation, then breaking suddenly and shockingly, even though you were expecting a shock, before dumping you on the beach, feeling forlorn that the ride is over.

The storyline holds so many characters, few with names, but their lives on a street during one summer day are so empathetically detailed that you feel you know them all: 

The little boy with a red scooter who travels joyfully and up and down the pavement of the short street. The graduate student slowly and methodically packing his somewhat bizarre collection of possessions before moving to another student house. The married woman whose resident in-laws have gone out for the day and who goes to bed with her husband for a short joyful interlude  while their children play cricket in the street. The mischievous twins who spy on a neighbour doing his exercises in the nude... There are students, young couples, families, old couples... all play a role in the narrative. 

If I mentioned all the characters I would write another book. One girl student's narrative weaves through the others in first person and leaves the short, one day timeline, although all the observations are not hers. This was the one part of the book which I found slightly less satisfactory, her story was perfectly good, I just found it distracted from the ride. However it tied in with the ending. 

I won't say more, no spoilers. I love this book! Do read it if you haven't.

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan - review

This story begins at a woman's funeral and I soon wished it had begun 20 or so years earlier when that entertaining sounding lady was very much alive and bounding around between all her lovers. She was probably engaging which is more than you can say for the lovers, and the husband, who congregate at the funeral.

Coincidentally another novel, also by an Ian, although with an extra i (Iain) also begins at a funeral. Here is the first sentence of both novels:-
"It was the day my grandmother exploded."
and
"Two former lovers of Molly Lane stood waiting outside the crematorium chapel ..."

The first is the opening of Iain Banks' delightful mystery "the Crow Road," Banks remains one of my favourite Authors. The second is, obviously, from Amsterdam by Ian McEwan and the entire book is not up to the author's best standards. The writing is probably clever, his writing usually is, but the characters are so unlikeable that one doesn't give a damn, I had to make myself go on reading.

The portrayal of composer Clive Linley shows a convincingly vain and self-centered man convincing himself of his own genius (even while acknowledging that

the term is over-used) and blithely disregarding his responsibilities to his friends and to a stranger who he witnesses being attacked. He is only obsessed with completing his masterpiece, his millennium symphony which will premiere in a few day's time. There are some good descriptive passages on his surroundings in his chaotic home and when he goes hiking up towards Scafell Pike. Meanwhile Vernon Halliday, insecure editor of upmarket newspaper 'The Judge', is less rounded as a character. His surroundings are hard to visualise, although an office is an office is an office - maybe that's the author's point - and his motivation is muddled. One thing he is clear about is his desire to bring down Julian Garonwy, the Foreign Secretary. Garonwy is equally unlikeable though even less detailed. The end is surprising unless you're paying attention early on, which I admit I wasn't really, but it's not a shocking finale unless you cared. I didn't. Oh yes, Amsterdam is the location of the story's denouement, otherwise it's totally unimportant. Ian McEwan's position as one of my favourite authors is in danger of slipping. This is actually my second attempt at getting through this story of arrogant men, being arrogant. There's meant to be some humour here, but it's hard to spot, there is room for so much more.  * That's my review published on GoodReads - for some reason I can't get this blog to link directly to the review, so I've copied.

Friend Reviews

the ter

'Dead Famous' by Ben Elton, Book Review

There's been a murder in the Big Brother house, only it's not called the Big Brother house, because the fictional TV show is called House Arrest. The plotting is clever, keeps the reader in suspense, but apart from the inevitable, cynical old cop, the characters are not sufficiently different to always know who is speaking.

But my main objection to the book is nothing to do with how well or badly it's written. It's just that, I thought of it first!  Big Brother was obviously asking for a murder, or even several!  I'd conceived a parody of an Agatha Christie style murder mystery, but hadn't committed anything to paper before Ben Elton came along with Dead Famous... dammit!

Is it worth reading? Maybe not. This isn't Ben Elton's best book and Big Brother became a true parody of itself long ago so, really, who cares?

On Green Dolphin Street, novel by Sebastien Faulkes.

I picked this book up because the title was intriguing, I felt I'd heard of it. This is the first Sebastien Faulkes novel I've read, and to be honest it maybe the last.

Basically a love-triangle, the story is set in UK/USA diplomatic circles in 1959. It was ok-ish, but it took me three false starts before I finally got engaged in the story. I found I couldn't empathise with the characters in the way that some other reviewers have said they did. The back stories got in the way, interrupted the immediacy of the narrative and I never felt the author was getting right the characterisation of Mary, the female protagonist.

The Washington/New York setting was ok, but I felt like an outsider looking in and the parts set in England didn't ring true for me. The best section was when Mary had to fly to the USSR to rescue her alcoholic husband, Charlie. Here her fear and Charlie's paranoia were well backed up by the setting. But back to the intriguing title, Miles Davis musical version of Green Dolphin Street is superior to this novel. Maybe I should try Elizabeth Gouge's 'Green Dolphin Street' next.

My review posted on goodreads too - "https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/2177722

Paris Snow - a brand new musical at Kino Theatr - review

I went to see Paris Snow with no great expectations. Live musicals aren't always my favourite thing, although I've seen a few. My main reason for going this time was a friend's suggestion, she wanted to go and I was already curious to see the inside of the Kino Teatr, which is a former cinema built in St. Leonards-on-Sea a hundred years ago. It was 'modernised' in the 1930's and again in the 1950's, became a bingo hall, spent time as a builder's merchant and has finally been returned to the performing arts with live music events, new shows like Paris Snow, drama, stand-up gigs, movies (current and classic) and live-streamed shows from London venues. As well as the auditorium, the building also houses the Baker-Mamonova art gallery specialising in Russian Art - a bit niche even for bohemian St. Leonards, but some very good paintings - and a restaurant/coffee shop which I've yet to sample (might review on Trip Advisor when I do...).

Paris Snow was surprisingly (to me) very good! Billed as a musical comedy-drama, it was co-written by Marc Mir (music) and Patrick Kealey who also directed. The production took full advantage of the limited space in this former cinema, the musicians including a pianist with baby grand occupied one side of the performance area, centre and upstage moveable staging was adjusted swiftly in the interval to set new scenes. Other scene changes were performed effortlessly by cast members while the show went on - smoothly done without the need for backdrops, furniture, flats, etc., why can't more productions be like this? The cinema screen was made good use of with video sequences, stills and graphics of sometimes not totally obvious relevance. There's no backstage to speak of in the building and not even a proper dressing room, let alone a green room so the hard working cast had to dress behind a curtain in the foyer.

The story starts with an American choir arriving for a concert in 1950's Paris, and receiving a mysterious invitation to a notorious night club. The city itself is represented by three spirits of Paris, who provide a humorous and knowing commentary which is a cross between a Greek Chorus and Shakespeare's rude mechanicals, with smatterings of fairy godmother. Witty writing and clever casting makes their contributions one of the highlights of the show. The plot has love triangles, murder, jealousy and even potential incest, with a fair amount of humour. The music includes beautifully rendered bluesy gospel numbers, some more standard love songs and at least one exceptional, upbeat number, "Nuff is Enough!" which was sung with huge verve and passion by the whole cast and accompanied by a distractingly funny video.

Overall I enjoyed the play very much and it was well received. I believe most of the 5 day run with two matinees was sold out and even the Sunday matinee we went to looked more than three quarters full. It was intended as a showcase/preview and comments were invited afterwards; the director is aiming for London. A lot of work has gone into the whole production and it deserves to do very well, with the right backing.

South by Java Head - a novel by Alistair MacLean

Book Review

I don’t really understand why the novels by Ian Fleming are still popular while those of Alistair MacLean, a contemporary of his and also a writer of adventure/espionage fiction, seems to be quite forgotten. I read both authors in my teens and then l found MacLean’s writing much more engaging, I re-read his books many times. Alistair MacLean’s heroes were flawed, gritty and didn’t give a damn if their collar was ironed or not, while Fleming’s obsession with smart dressing and martinis, shaken not stirred, seemed effete and unrealistic to this teenager, I wasn’t tempted to read any of his novels more than once.

The films are another matter, using the Hollywood effect, glamourised Bond films have had huge amounts of money thrown at them and are often very watchable, while the filmed versions of MacLean’s books which I have seen – Guns of Navarone, Force 10 From Navarone, Where Eagles Dare and Ice Station Zebra – are more standard movie ‘thrillers’ and don’t live up to the thrill I have felt reading his novels.

South by Java Head has not, as far as I know, ever been filmed. Written in 1958, this was the second or third MacLean novel I read, I’ve just re-read it. This is a war story with touches of espionage, the author’s first two novels, HMS Ulysses and The Guns of Navarone were also war stories. South by Java Head tells the story of an unlikely group of people escaping from Singapore during the final stages of the city’s capture by Japanese forces in 1942. The opening scenes are highly descriptive and also dramatic and realistic, they’re immediately engrossing and introduce most of the important characters. There are quite a lot of these and the author names 23. He rapidly informs us that they will not all survive and, throughout the story, depletes their numbers with shocking suddenness and violence that wouldn’t always be out of place in Game of Thrones.

This was a book which, even though re-reading long after I had forgotten my first impression, I still found it immensely readable and well enough written to not interfere with the strong narrative flow.

Why do we have to live with Men - novel by Bernadette Strachan - review

The cover is just a generic 'chick lit'
design, it doesn't do the book justice.

I've read this book three times now, so I must quite like it. The title is appealing for a start. The trouble is, I read it, put it down somewhere and pick it up again a couple of years later and really can't remember much of the content. It's an entertaining read, with engaging characters, largely set in a feminist commune. 

It begins with Cat O'Connor who wants to dump her pointless relationship with a senior work colleague. She drops out of the rat race, with her three best friends Mary, Jozette and Germaine. They're joined by a few others including Beulah the mysterious cook and Sarge who is.., well Sarge. They all drop into a six month experiment in rural living - with chickens, a pig and NO men. Although the pig is called Dave...


As novels set in communes go, it's remarkably un-dysfunctional and maybe a little too romantic for my taste, a bit more grit might help and the ending isn't overly feminist. Ultimately a bit disappointing, but the journey is fun and carries you along. I probably will read it again when I need a bit of relaxing amusement. 

Georgia O’Keeffe at Tate Modern - review

A major retrospective of the life and work of Georgia O'Keeffe is in progress at London’s Tate Modern, the largest ever exhibition of this artist outside the USA. This also marks the centenary of her first ever exhibition, when some of her charcoal drawings were exhibited by Alfred Stieglitz at his 291 gallery in New York.

Georgia O’Keefe poses outdoors in Mexico in 1960 with a canvas
 from her Pelvis Series Red with Yellow. Photograph: Tony Vaccaro/Getty Images

She is regarded as one of the USA’s greatest 20^th century artists, but her work is hardly ever seen in the UK and no work by her is in any public collection here. This large exhibition includes her 1932 painting ‘Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1’, which became the most expensive painting by a woman artist ever sold at auction when Sotheby’s sold it for $44,405,000 on November 20, 2014. This painting is used on posters and banners for the exhibition.

Georgia O'Keeffe rejected the classification ‘woman artist’. Always aware of the disadvantages that she suffered as an artist, she nonetheless said,

O'Keeffe, 'Line and Curve' 1926

“Men put me down as the best woman painter…      
…I think I’m one of the best painters.”

She was right as this exhibition shows. There are vertical, dark and glowing skyscrapers of New York; beautifully simple, hard edged almost white abstractions of the mid 1920's; gloriously vivid red oriental poppies from the late 20's; mysterious abstracted trees painted at Lake George; there are red hills, flowers in more tones of blue and pink than you can imagine; there are white skulls and adobe farms and above all there are her interpretations of her beloved New Mexico landscape. 

Not all is in vivid colour. Her early, monochrome charcoal drawings are a revelation. In 1915 she had set herself a target of working only in charcoal until the medium could no longer match her aspirations. These drawings took her a long way. Georgia O’Keefe is best known for her dramatic paintings of flowers, skulls and landscapes, but the chronology here shows how very early in her career she was already deeply into abstraction, the earliest drawings from 1915 are pure, simplified abstraction. Hers are not the intellectualized abstractions of artists such as Mondrian or I. Rice Pereira, O'Keefe's abstrctions come from feelings and internalized explorations of where a line or form can be driven, how far a landscape can be reduced to its vital sensations.

These early drawings were the ones shown by Alfred Stieglitz in April 1916. Photographer and gallerist Stieglitz, who became her husband, recognised her unique vision immediately. He was a singular influence on her life though he did not tell her what, or how, to paint. She lived more in New Mexico during their unusual marriage, while he remained in New York, exhibiting her work until his death in 1946.

The Tate exhibition shows some work by Stieglitz and other artists in relation to O’Keefe’s story, though in most of the rooms O’Keefe’s work is predominant. Including these other artists helps show the context in which O’Keefe was working. The exhibition also helps to dispel some of the mythology about the sexual nature of her work.

This is an important and splendid exhibition of an important and interesting artist. It’s on at Tate Modern, London until October 2016, then tours to Vienna and Toronto.  Don't miss it.

**

links:-

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/georgia-okeeffe

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jul/04/georgia-o-keeffe-review-tate-modern-retrospective

http://www.thecityreview.com/okeeffe.html

BBC's Hollow Crown; Wars of the Roses; Richard III

Just watched BBC's Richard III with Benedict Cumberbatch. Not impressed with the overall production, it lacked any subtlety. I know it's not Old Will's most subtle play, but the character of Richard is capable of huge interpretation which Cumberbatch didn't bother with. He played the character as just a crazed grotesque. I've seen several far better portrayals on stage, including by Anton Lesser and Robert Lindsay in 1998; also Ian McKellan's film of Richard III set as if in World War One. I don't include Laurence Olivier's 1955 film which I also dislike. 

The play was part of the 'Wars of the Roses,' the culmination of 'The Hollow Crown' series with 4 plays, effectively crammed into 3 so something was bound to be lost in transition. I saw the first and last, it began with Richard II, one of Shakespeare's least known plays so that was interesting, even if I got a bit lost in the convolutions and samey characters - the latter problem is one which the later Richard III play also suffers from. 

At least with this latest BBC production the importance of three of the four women's roles in the play were spectacularly upheld with powerful performances from Sophie Okonedo as the long-lived and much wronged Queen Margaret and dignified fury from Judi Dench as the Duchess of York and Richard's despairing mother. Keeley Hawes as Elizabeth Woodville (the mother of the little princes in the tower) held the threads of the plot together. Phoebe Fox played Anne, Richard's traumatised wife and wasn't really given enough to do, but then Shakespeare often failed to give his female characters much to work with. 

Of course the plays have little to do with the real events and characters in history, which is always written by the victors. Richard III, with only a 3 year reign, was less successful a monarch than his predecessor Richard II who was monarch for 33 years, and both were destroyed by their enemies. There has been no King Richard in Britain since. Shame, Richard is a better name than many. King Benedict? Probably not!

The Guest Cat - novella by Takashi Hiraide *****

 

The word exquisite comes to mind when I read this novella, to describe the use of language, but then I reject exquisite as implying superficial, if perfect, in appearance. It’s true there’s a lot of detail in the story, but most of it is purposeful in defining, not merely describing character.

There are several characters who are not human, or even animate, in this story of the neighbours’ cat who visits a childless couple. The in-animates are two houses, a garden, a tree, even an alley.

Exquisite also somehow implies small. There’s too much thought in this story for it to be small. The cat visits. The cat does what cats do, then goes away. The seasons turn, punctuated by the cat’s visits and the couple come to depend on the cat’s presence. The very architecture is portrayed with gentle consideration. The buildings are not just facades, they are personalities with light, reflection and shadow, quiet and noise, emptiness and solidity.

 Someone who has cat, or cats in their life may understand the scenario. To the uninitiated it may not work, therefore this isn’t a perfect story. But then what is.

The structure has a few minor imperfections, for my liking anyway. There’s a passage delving into Machiavellian philosophy which seems unnecessary; like talking down to an audience. Maybe this part has lost something in translation.

Read the Guest Cat anyway, the imperfections are very minor, it’s not long and has a charm and beauty which should draw you in.

Five Quarters of the Orange - a novel by Joanne Harris - review

This is an extraordinary, intense story which begins in France during the German occupation.
The inexorable chain of events begins with a woman’s allergy to oranges and the love for a German soldier. The language tells of food, obsession and wicked innocence. Told through the eyes of her youngest daughter and illustrated by the matriarch’s world-beating recipes, the tragedy unfolds slowly and beautifully. 

Five quarters of the Orange is deeper and yet more incisive than Joanne Harris’ most famous book,‘Chocolat’. I think this is the best novel I’ve read for several years!

Goodreads *****

href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/21777224-sue">View all my reviews</a>

Never Again! - Starting my new Goodreads shelf

From Potter's Field (Kay Scarpetta, #6) By Patricia Cornwell  

My rating: one out of five stars

This is the first of the Kay Scarpetta novels that I've read myself, I've heard another serialised (and heavily abridged) on the radio. Apparently this was the third about a sadistic killer named Temple Brooks Gault, but it didn't really matter that I hadn't read the others.

I feel disappointed and almost guilty about hating a really gritty novel by a woman author, but from Potter's Field is unremittingly tense and bleak, full of not very rounded and mostly depressed characters. There are no peaks and troughs, the tension is constant so the 'shocks', when they come, are almost anti-climactic. I made myself finish the book and was relieved once it was over.

I shall go back to reading Ian Rankin's Rebus novels, which are just as gruesome in places but as well as plenty of splashes of blood they are relieved by splashes of dark humour, which this novel totally lacks.

Rankin also rounds his characters out better. Here the only character whose speech was even distinguishable from the others was the rather caricatured detective Marino. This novel left me feeling stressed, tense and slightly miserable, I shan't read any more.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6980565-from-potter-s-field">From Potter's Field</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1025097.Patricia_Cornwell">Patricia Cornwell</a><br/>

Leonora - a Novel by Elena Poniatowska (review)

This novel, expertly translated by Amanda Hopkinson, seems to me to capture the essence of this fascinating and sometimes troubled artist in a way that no straight biography ever could. Leonora Carrington was a true surrealist, though she rejected their political and sexist ideology; Surrealism was fundamentally about plumbing the depths of the human psyche and her depths were greater than most. So were her heights; she was the anarchic, ambidextrous child, the White Mare, the rebellious hyena and the Giantess.

Leonora’s imagery is extraordinary in its density, its obscurity and Elena Poniatowska, who knew the artist well in the last decades of her life, comes close to explaining Leonora’s meanings by divining the origins of her thinking. The author’s writing is densely descriptive, like the artist’s painting. It takes the reader on a journey beginning just below the surface of family life in Crookhey Hall, Leonora’s childhood home, where the infant Leonora is convinced she is a horse and ends with Leonora communing with dolphins in Mexico. That necessity for a journey is the novelist’s prerogative, there are no pictorial illustrations but why should there be when the writing is so vivid?

I have studied Leonora Carrington over a number of years and seen as many of her paintings as is possible in Europe; my knowledge of the subject has not been challenged by this novelization of her life. I picked up a single minor inaccuracy in the title of a painting, which faced with the sweep of the story is insignificant. I won’t read a straight biography of Leonora Carrington again, the basic facts are already known and for the rest, this remarkable, imaginative account by Elena Poniatowska will do for me.