What I’ve been reading lately
I’m in a pickle with reading at the moment. I can’t get to the library or go round the charity shops like I used to do, so I’m dependent on re-reading (no hardship), hoping NetGalley will have something to interest me and/or there will be a Kindle 99p deal I want. My series reading continues and this time, it’s every book in Malcolm Saville’s long Lone Pine series. As I read these in bed and only manage a chapter or two before falling asleep, it’s a slow process but much more interesting than I was expecting.
I read The Orwell Tour by Oliver Lewis thanks to NetGalley. It’s not out until April 2023 and I thought it a really bad book, so I’ll say nothing about it here. It had the advantage of sending me back to Orwell; first to Inside the Whale*, which happened to be in the house and then out to the book shed in search of Bernard Crick’s excellent 1980 biography.
At the time of writing, Crick was Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, so this is not a literary biography, although he’s a good critic. He was at a disadvantage compared with later biographers because Sonia (Brownell) Orwell, who gave him access to papers, was still alive, so he had to be careful what he said (she’s had a bad press). On the other hand, Orwell’s early death meant contemporaries were around for years to be interviewed or to mention him in their own autobiographies.
I’ve always been madly irritated by Gordon Comstock in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, muttering, ‘You don’t have to live like this. Get a job for goodness sake and I bet your poetry is rotten’. Orwell himself was rather like Comstock in making life harder for himself than it need have been. He had a special knack of choosing damp, uncomfortable places in which to live (bad for his terrible health). Crick quotes V S Pritchett amusingly describing this trait: He was an expert on living on the bare necessities and a keen hand at making them barer…I remember once being advised by him to go in for goat-keeping, partly I think because it was a sure road to trouble and semi-starvation;
Orwell was a complex character: a ‘saint’ to some, a sadist to others. As he became more successful with his writing, he picked up some unlikely friends (often Old Etonians like himself), such as Anthony Powell. He married, and practically forced his wife to adopt a son, on whom he doted. Sadly, his wife died young, leaving him to cope with the child alone. He married Sonia on his deathbed, which was bizarre. Reading this book again, I was made extremely uncomfortable by his behaviour towards women, which I found creepy enough to put me right off him.
What makes Crick so good is the academic rigour he brings to the subject. There is no speculation and for instance, he writes that (Nineteen Eighty-Four) does not summarise his life’s work, however, it is not his summa , and it is not even a political last testament or a last testament of any kind. It was, once again, the last great book he happened to write before he happened to die. Well put.
*This is a first edition, which I picked up at a jumble sale years ago, having no idea of its rarity.
The second-most enjoyable fiction book I’ve read recently is Darling by India Knight, which was recommended by Clothes in Books. This is the kind of book I would usually sniff at because it’s a modern reworking of The Pursuit of Love, one of my very favourite novels. I’ve often grumbled about novelists using other people’s characters rather than inventing their own but this is perfectly done. Alconleigh has relocated to Norfolk, Uncle Matthew is a famous retired rock star, Fanny is now Franny. Amongst other changes, darling Davey Warbeck has been promoted from Captain to Major and Merlin shorn of his title to become ‘Merlin Berners’ (cheeky), a rich and successful fashion designer. It’s an absolute delight to read.
I read a couple of light detective novels: Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon and First Class Murder. Every Agatha Raisin book is the same: short, packed with incident and amusing. First Class Murder is the third book in Robin Stevens’ Wells and Wong series and I’d unaccountably missed it. The subject is murder on the Orient Express, quite deliberate homage to Agatha Christie. It’s very good and is the one where the girls first meet Alexander of the ‘Junior Pinkertons’. Then I read 1066 And All That again just because something made me think of it. An hour of amusement.
I’ve enjoyed all Ben Macintyre’s books, so looked forward to The Napoleon of Crime. It’s the true story of Adam Worth (one of many aliases), who was the direct inspiration for Conan Doyle’s Moriarty and T S Eliot’s Macavity. It’s an extraordinary tale and odd in that you get to rather like this successful criminal. He carried out bank raids and robberies on both sides of the Atlantic and set himself up as a gentleman. His planning and organisation were brilliant and he never used violence in any of his crimes. If any of his men got caught, he would spend a fortune on bribery to get them out of jail. His biggest coup was the theft of Gainsborough’s portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire from Agnews, the Bond Street dealer. He didn’t try to get money for it but kept it hidden for twenty years, just to know he had it. Scotland Yard and the Pinkerton Agency in the States were both sure he was behind this theft and many others but they could never find any proof linking him to the crimes. Eventually, after a spell in a Belgian prison had ruined his health and his fortune, he told Pinkerton the truth and the two men struck up a strange friendship; Pinkerton negotiated the return of the picture without giving Worth away. Remarkable, but I didn’t find it as fascinating as Macintyre’s true-life spy stories.
So, the best fiction book I’ve read this month? No surprise that it’s Bad Actors by Mick Herron, the eighth book in the Slough House series. Typical Mick Herron; he ends Slough House on a frightening cliffhanger and then keeps you waiting through most of Bad Actors to find out what happened. There’s not much I can add to my previous reviews. If I say the books are both exciting and funny, I’m just repeating myself and oh look, I just have. In Bad Actors, the country is being run by a terrifying, unelected man because the Prime Minister is too lazy to do his job. Who can he mean? I really can’t recommend the books highly enough to anyone who likes spy stories, conspiracy theories (but they’re all true!), eccentrics and sad truths about modern life. I try to ration each book and always fail; I just can’t stop reading.
