The Fixer

by Bernard Malamud
1966

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this novel set during the end of Tsarist Russia concerns the titular handyman, Yakov Bok, an agnostic Jew who leaves his village where he’s had nothing but personal and financial failure and tries his luck in Kiev.  There in the big anti-Semitic city, Yakov poses as a goy Russian and becomes a brickyard foreman, not through deliberate machinations but a series of events and lies of omission which make this the easiest and safest course for him.  But after a young boy is brutally murdered in the region, the authorities seize on Yakov, a Jew living illegally under false pretenses, as their scapegoat and charge him with killing the boy for magical Jewish blood rituals.  He sits imprisoned with little hope, though one or two fair-minded officials sympathize with the injustice of his arrest. 

This is a powerful novel, and it is compelling reading because the eventual plight of Yakov is of such interest.  In Malamud’s setting, the system and its drivers are not clever or all-seeing, merely thuggish, ignorant, and hypocritical.  Though there are bits of circumstantial evidence that hurt Yakov’s credibility (he had previously chased the boy out of the brickyard for vandalism, he took in an old Jew who had been beaten and stanched his bloody head with his own shirt), basically the case against him is made up of whole cloth, invented baseless lies about him personally and the Jewish religion in general.  This is particularly ironic and brutal for Yakov because, as noted, he doesn’t consider himself a religious Jew: “From birth a black horse had followed him, a Jewish nightmare.  What was being a Jew but an everlasting curse?  He was sick of their history, destiny, blood guilt.”  One of the book’s most powerful and moving scenes is when Yakov is visited by his humble, God-fearing father-in-law, whom Yakov sends away, saying God is an invention and that he hates him in any case for killing Job’s children, “not to mention ten thousand pogroms.”  The book’s purpose, I believe is to expose injustice and to exhort all fair-minded people, especially Jews, to work against it: “there’s no such thing as an unpolitical man, especially a Jew,” Yakov thinks to himself near the end of the book.  “You can’t sit still and see yourself destroyed.”  And yet, because Malamud has shown that the system is not just weighted against the oppressed but completely unrestrained by any duty to truth or even credibility, that it can manufacture and disseminate inventions, I wonder whether this moral works.  What is there to fight, if facts don’t matter and lone voices are silenced?  The novel ends on an ambiguous note, but where this scintilla of hope may come from seems unfounded given the rest of Yakov’s experiences.

four stars

The Cavalier In the Yellow Doublet

by Arturo Perez-Reverte
2003
translated by Margaret Jull Costa

The fifth Captain Alatriste novel.  The Captain and his young (but now rather handy with a blade) ward Inigo are in Madrid, walking a tightrope between their strict standards of honor and their rather lowly status among the pomp, poetry, and provocation of that city’s many cavaliers and officials.  Alatriste begins an affair with a famous and beautiful actress, María Castro (whose husband serves as some sort of half-jocular, half-bitter pimp), but is warned to stay away, as her favors are being enjoyed by none other than the king himself.  The Captain, of course, cannot be told what to do, and alienates friends and enemies alike by continuing to see the actress.  This, unfortunately, makes him the perfect patsy for a plot against the royal wastrel – and when Alatriste’s old enemy, the Italian mercenary Malatesta, pops up, they both know one of them must die at the hands of the other.

This is a superb historical novel, perhaps the best in the series.  The vanity of swordsmen for a decaying empire, duels over one wrong glance, strict adherence to considerations of honor, pageantry, assignations, plays, poets whose stars rise and fall at the whims of the court: this is Perez-Reverte’s 17th century Madrid, in all its gritty cinematic glory.  The suspense is masterful, with Alatriste and Inigo both independently betrayed by their foolish pride or love, and racing, swords in hand, against a very short deadline separately but toward the same goal.  Alatriste is not at all what the modern reader would think a hero – he’s a tired cynical old killer with no fear of death and his every action is mandated by his sense of pride and honor, not fairness or magnanimity – but he has a shred of sympathy for those over their heads and a few sparks of love in him, and that makes him a complex, fascinating figure.  He’s the perfect centerpiece for these thrilling, swashbuckling adventures of a grittier, prouder time.

four stars

Roma: The Novel of Ancient Rome

by Steven Saylor
2007

An epic biography of the city, spanning a thousand years from the first meeting of traders across the as-yet unnamed hills to the rise of Augustus Caesar.  Legendary figures such as Romulus and Remus are made historical, and Saylor even gives one possible source for the birth of the legends of Hercules and his vanquishing of the monster Cacus.  Obviously, with a tome this vast, the narrative skips staccato-like over decades and centuries, but Saylor makes stops at all the high and low points: the rise and fall of the hero-turned traitor Coriolanus; the sack of Rome by the Gauls; the invasion of Hannibal; the attempt of the Gracchi to reform the class system and their subsequent assassination; the rise and death of Julius Caesar.

I was mostly disappointed in this book.  In many ways it reminded me of Edward Rutherfurd’s Sarum, also the epic biography of a city that follows the rise and fall in fortunes of very old families in the city.  This book has some of Sarum’s flaws, as well, especially its didactic, lecturing tone.  I’m a fan of Saylor’s Sub Rosa series, and sadly, I didn’t get that feel of being totally immersed in a  time and culture that I do in the Gordianus books.  For the most part, these characters don’t visit the baths or watch gladiators or visit slave markets or play ancient dice games or walk dusty streets shoulder to shoulder with slaves, soldiers, and philosophers; they sit around and explain their surroundings.  It’s understandable that Saylor wants to keep the readers abreast of the years of history he must perforce glide over, but the result is a book that is often dry and extremely exposition-heavy, particularly between eras.  I found myself wondering how it would sound if in a novel set during, say, World War II, a character were to say to another, “You know, of course, how Germany’s dictator, Hitler, has invaded Poland, and that our current leader, Churchill, advocates nothing but total war, in stark contrast to his predecessor Chamberlain, who is popularly regarded as an appeaser.”  It would sound forced and wholly artificial, just as Saylor’s quite similar explanations do.  Even worse, his exposition is not limited to historical forces.  Saylor has characters saying such things as “My son, Gaius, and my two daughters…” to people who are their close friends.  Given the length of the book and the number of personages in it, this is understandable and perhaps the most efficient way to introduce new concepts and characters, but, again, it has an artificial ring.  For these reasons, I enjoyed the book best when Saylor was sticking to history that was educated guesses (the very early days shrouded in legend), or the later, Augustian, years when everything had been established.

three stars

The Lifeboat

by Charlotte Rogan
2012

On a transatlantic cruise to America in the summer of 1914, the Empress Alexandra sinks (under somewhat vague circumstances).  Grace Winter, an attractive young woman who has just escaped her fate as a governess by seducing an already-betrothed, very wealthy man, takes to a lifeboat that is already crowded, and even less capacious than it is meant to be, due to cost-cutting by the ship's owners.  With 38 others, mostly women, Grace drifts as storms rage and water supplies dwindle.  The passengers would have perished early on if it weren’t for the single seaman among them, Mr. Hardie, who takes control of the supplies and makes God-like decisions to keep them alive: he steers the boat away from a young boy clinging to wreckage and knocks swimmers trying to climb aboard back into the water.  There is evidence that Hardie is not exactly a saint, but Grace is grateful for his ability to keep them afloat and comes to admire him deeply.  Eventually, the passengers realize that some of them must die that others may live.  However, an older woman named Mrs. Grant resents Hardie’s callous manner and unpopular decisions, and leads a mutiny against him – which Grace also goes along with.  (She presents herself, alternately, as hypnotized by the charisma of Hardie and Grant, and then as someone quite determined to survive and willing to make hard decisions on her own.)  After their rescue, Grace and Mrs. Grant are charged with murder.

It’s a fascinating book that works as a thrilling adventure at sea, an examination of the staid Edwardian mores of the era and how they crumble under the unyielding reality of nature, and it also serves as a deeper rumination on the ethics of group survival.  This is Rogan’s first novel, but she writes with a very assured tone and rich imagery (on a storm: “the boat… climbed the foamy heights of the waves and then descended into hellish troughs so that we were surrounded on four sides by walls of black water;” on thirst: “my tongue sat in my mouth like a dead animal, no longer supple and quick, but parched and cracking, like a dried and hairless mouse”).  The rickety boat, the bailing, and tensions that run increasingly fraught all come to life.  I’m not sure that Rogan adequately conveys what would have been the deplorable over-crowded conditions on the boat (although demure, not altogether reliable Grace Winter, with her Edwardian proprieties, may be the one doing the skipping over in this area).  In any case, this is a terrific book, especially for a first novel, and its ambiguity allows the reader to make his own conclusions about Grace’s culpability, or what might have been the “moral” thing to do in such a situation.

four stars

Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury

by Sigrid Nunez
2007

The fictionalized biography of Mitz, a marmoset owned by Leonard Woolf, from about the end of the Bloomsbury era to the outbreak of WWII.  Mitz is a mischievous, chattering observer to the Woolfs’ devoted, if a bit Victorian, relationship; their sometimes haughty relationship with their servants and printing press staff; Virginia’s odd adoration of her sister and Vita Sackville-West (who was certainly her literary inferior); their 1935 tour of Europe, including a rather misguided drive through Nazi Germany; Virginia’s breakdown over writing The Years; conversations with T.S. Eliot and others on every topic under the sun; Virginia’s ruminations on war in the face of her nephew volunteering, and dying, in Spain.

It’s a well-crafted novella, certainly informative about certain aspects of the Woolfs’ lives and attitudes.  There are a few awkward narrative choices, as when Nunez flashes to the present day to no particular purpose (“In our own day the eminent critic Harold Blood would find a place for her…”), which are  misplaced and confusing.  And Nunez assumes a great deal of Woolfian knowledge in the reader, mentioning “Vita” and “Tom Eliot” without much in the way of explanation; I know she’s writing as if from within the circle, but it’s doesn’t fully capture the atmosphere if we aren’t clued in to who this “Tom” fellow might be (some sort of Catholic playwright, one might assume).  I also found the penultimate flashback chapter, in which nothing particularly surprising is added to Mitz’s fictional past, quite unnecessary.  But as noted, it is a well-crafted book on the whole, and a light, fun read.  Most importantly, in showing them as pet lovers, friends, spouses, talking and laughing and worrying about war and work, it helps bring human faces to the often crudely-sketched (lesbian, haughty, bipolar) Leonard and Virginia Woolf.

four stars

Sarum: The Novel Of England

by Edward Rutherfurd

The story of the small portion of humanity that settled in and developed Salisbury (“Sarum”: being an abbreviated rendering of the Roman name Sorbiodunum) from the stone age to the 1980s.  Following the struggles, fortunes, tribulations, and remade fortunes of five lineages, the novel details how waves of invaders (Cro-Magnons, Normans, Romans, Vikings) changed the landscape, economy, and culture, from Stonehenge to livestock breeding to Cathedral building, but then were in turn changed by it and became part of its fabric.

I had some mixed feelings while reading this book.  At 897 pages, it’s a hugely ambitious project – indeed sometimes Rutherfurd casts his net far wider than Sarum itself, following some of Salisbury’s sons in the American Revolution or at D-Day.  But high ambition alone does not ensure quality.  Certainly it is an achievement in itself simply to tell such an epic tale.  But the proof is in the telling itself.  And here the prose is, at times, purple at best and clunky and awkward at worst.  Some sentences are as in danger of toppling as Salisbury Cathedral’s spire, so packed are they with meandering clauses.  Further, the book is astonishingly riddled with comma misuse – I found one egregious comma error literally at least every four pages, which raises the question of whether the book was proofread at all.  Finally, there is Rutherfurd’s authorial style, which is preachy and intrusive, especially in the early chapters, where he feels the need to step into his fictional world and explain in sometimes lengthy paragraphs the science or geography behind what a character was doing, as if to assure the readers that he’d done his research before popping back behind the curtain again.  Or he might begin a section under the rubric with, for example, 1244, only to state a few paragraphs in that in order to really pick up at that point, “we must first go back a little.”  Then why did he begin in 1244?  Why not just tell the thread of the story from that earlier point, or have the characters refer to the slow changes that came before? These anachronistic authorial intrusions would have worked better, if he really had to have them, as endnotes to each chapter, rather than breaking the narrative so jarringly.  On the positive side, the way he charts the evolution of Sarum’s economy, for example, is astounding and commendable.  But what really makes the book work is the human adventure: each time he dips into a past era, there is a poignant or dramatic or thrilling vignette, a short story involving one of his five families, that underscores the vicissitudes of fate and the indomitable spark that keeps humanity going through the fortunes and failures that time brings.  With a heavy-handed, level-headed editor, this could have been a brilliant book.  As it is, it’s an impressive curiosity.  It was a chore to read at times, but I’m not sorry I read it all.

three stars

The Mauritius Command

by Patrick O'Brian
1977

The fourth book in the Aubrey-Maturin series.  Languishing at home on half pay, Jack is unexpectedly given a commission to go as acting Commodore to the Cape of Good Hope, where he will direct a small squadron to take the French-held islands of Mauritius and Reunion.  The captains under Jack’s command are slightly jealous, but they are motivated primarily by their differing natures, whether harsh taskmasters or eager to please and ineffective.  After some easy victories, helped along by Stephen’s psych-op machinations, a particularly bloody battle ensues.  Defeat looms, but Jack’s pure bulldogged determination turns the tide, until the victory and glory is taken from his grasp by one of his own allies.

While I believe that this series really takes off in the next two books, this is a vibrant and thrilling historical novel.  Focusing heavily on the nautical warfare – and its specific, archaic jargon, such that several passages may as well have been in Greek to me – and the rigid manners of the era – a window to the psychology of the culture, as recorded by the ever-perspicacious Stephen, it makes for a rich historical excursion.  It also is a delight in rewarding the careful reader; plot points are made via inferences through a single line of dialogue, rather than tedious filler.  Another very enjoyable and erudite entry. 

four stars

Sharpe's Gold

by Bernard Cornwell
2004

Sharpe, immediately after winning accolades for capturing a French Eagle, is ordered by Wellington to steal a fortune in Spanish gold.  This is in the care of El Catolico, a devious and selfish Spanish partisan, who wants it for himself.  Naturally, Sharpe means to take it – and El Catolico’s fierce, beautiful lover, of course.

Cornwell surprised me in this book: Major Kearsey, the strict, rather uptight official whom Sharpe has difficulties with, did not, to my great amazement, turn out to be traitor, merely somewhat of a boob.  I got the sense that Cornwell did intend Kearsey to be a traitor, but a shrewd editor told him that Sharpe had faced a few too many traitors in a row, so he rewrote the character a bit – though El Catolico is, in some ways, a traitor, since he’s nominally a British ally – so Cornwell got a turncoat in after all.  Whew!  In any case, whether it’s the less formulaic characters, the rather questionable morality of Sharpe’s mission, or just the exciting climax during the siege of Almeida, this is the first Sharpe book in a while to hold my interest from beginning to end.


four stars

Flashman and the Mountain of Light

by George MacDonald Fraser

With this volume, we find Flashy in the Punjab in 1845, witnessing and spying in the first Sikh War (or Rebellion, if you look at it from the British view).  Reading so much Cornwell for the past year made me forget just how good Fraser is.  Cornwell is good, certainly — but this is highly detailed, thoroughly researched historical fiction, managing to be both more of a dramatic page-turner and more erudite than any Sharpe book.  I’ve commented before on Flashy’s growing heroism, and nowhere is it more apparent than in this book, where Flash does actual service to the crown, and is even allowed at the end a bit of real one-upsmanship.  Of course, as he notes, it’s ironic that he gets rewarded for his cowardice, and disdained for something close to skill and bravery in the line of duty.

The Inheritors

by William Golding
1955

The story of the gentle, mostly vegetarian Neanderthal tribe that is all but obliterated in a meeting with wandering Homo sapiens.  Told almost entirely from the viewpoint of Lok, a slightly dim Neanderthal "with many words and no pictures," it’s an interesting story and a sad one.

But the power of the tale is softened considerably by Golding’s laborious, descriptive prose.  At times I found it very hard to understand what was going on, as the Homo sapiens’ activities – drinking wine, portaging boats, arguing – were described in Lok’s terms at length, with little clarity.  Discounting those passages, the novel was a good one, capped off quite amazingly with two more narrative voices.  First we see Lok as a hairy “creature,” an “it,” and then finally we hear the story from the view of one of the humans, who, it turns out, are as scared and confused as the Neanderthals, whom they consider fierce devils.  A skillful comment on how far humans have come from a natural state of innocence, acceptance and wonder.

four stars

Master And Commander

by Patrick O'Brian

A ripping yarn, this long book introduces the unlikely pair Stephen Maturin, learned ship’s surgeon and Captain Aubrey, bluff Epicurean fellow.  There’s a series of naval engagements, not much of a plot aside from some business with some Irish rebels which causes dismay with the Irish lieutenant.  Anyway, though there’s far too much naval jargon — lengthy paragraphs describing the ship’s movements which may as well be in Greek — the epic creates magic.  With its meticulously researched descriptions of all aspects of 19th century life and witty dialogue, the book makes fascinating, vivid reading.  I tore through it.

four stars

The Man In the Iron Mask

by Alexandre Dumas
1850
edited and annotated by David Coward, from an older translation

Well, the mammoth saga of the once-invincibles comes to a rather sad end. Porthos dies because his strength gives out. Aramis flees France in disgrace because his schemes come to ruin. And Athos dies because the one thing dearer to him to God, his son, leaves his company to go die in the Africa campaigns under the Duke of Beaufort. And d’Artagnan – well, d’Artagnan’s star does not decline under the sun king, but that’s only because this once so haughty Gascon spirit humbles itself rather abjectly before the iron will of Louis (chapter 81, simply and appropriately titled “King Louis XIV”). I have one complaint with this action-packed adventure, during which in the course of 570 pages the suspense hardly slackens. Why did Aramis, General of the Jesuits, master planner always with an out at his disposal, admit defeat instantly when Fouquet announced he would denounce him? Up to that point, Fouquet had been a pawn of Aramis. Suddenly, Aramis had to flee for his life on the word alone of Fouquet. Well, maybe it was the onset of age that weakens Aramis’ resolve.

Saint Francis

by Nikos Kazantzakis
1962

A fictionalized account of the saint's life, as told by his assistant Brother Leo. A powerful, thought-provoking work. Kazantzakis ponders: How can there be two ways to Paradise, one of effort but also one of ease? How can there be Paradise as long as anyone is not saved (is in Hell)? Mostly, like Last Temptation, it was about struggle, but the struggle to shun the earthly in everything – although it's noted that the urge for heaven can be a temptation as well (pride). I wondered how much is fact – did Francis really meet the Sultan? Go on Crusades? The book also points out that loving God might be easier without struggle (if we eat, for example, we pray with a clearer head). One basic flaw that hurts the book as narrative: a lack of continuity throughout – a sense of unconnected events instead.

four stars