Scoop

by Evelyn Waugh
1937

Due to a case of mistaken identity, a mild-mannered columnist on country life, William Boot, is sent as a war correspondent to Ishmaelia, an independent African nation where dissent is brewing between long-time ruling family the Jacksons and anarcho-communist upstarts prompted by German and Russian interests.  Boot, though utterly stymied by the lackadaisical and corrupt Ishmaleian government (as well as his fellow journalists), and through no merit of his own, scoops everyone and returns to an unwelcome hero’s welcome.

The first time I read this was seventeen years ago.  I think I may have appreciated it a bit more this time around – it recalls Wodehouse in its muddled plot and tortuous misadventures of its characters, as well as the brilliant characterization through dialogue.  But Waugh is much more scathing: of the fatuous, ant-brained upper classes, of the bumptious but ultimately useless journalistic set, of the oafish and self-centered country dwellers.  More than a satire of what was then modern journalism, it’s a witty, often hilarious look at the caprices of human nature. 

[read twice: 9/1/93, 6/18/10]

four stars

Full Dark House

by Christopher Fowler

Arthur Bryant and John May, two young police detectives, meet during the Blitz of London when May joins the Peculiar Crimes Unit.  Bryant’s unusual methods (contacting mediums, thinking largely in symbolism) and his unsettling social skills rankle May, but soon their personalities and strategies mesh.  They investigate a string of gruesome, perhaps symbolic, murders at the Palace Theatre, during a scandalous production of Offenbach’s “Orpheus In the Underworld.”  Meanwhile, in present-day London, an explosion at the unit takes the now elderly Bryant’s life, and May traces his old partner’s footsteps, trying to find out who killed him, and how in connects to their first case.

It’s a beguiling setup, very richly atmospheric, especially the 1940 scenes, which are clearly researched to the tiniest detail (brands of cigarettes, how women wore their hair, and so on).  While I took the “big twist” at the end pretty much for granted throughout the book (what, the main character isn’t really dead?), other twists and turns were highly enjoyable.  All the little hints and witty touches come together: Fowler plays fair with the reader, but this is much more a moody thriller than a whodunit, though it succeeds at both.  

four stars

A Time To Kill

by John Grisham
1989

Two rednecks abduct, torture and rape a ten year old black girl in a small Mississippi town.  At their arraignment, the girl’s father blows them away with an M-16.  He is taken into custody, and Jake Brigance, a young white solo practitioner who has some experience with defending poor blacks, comes to his defense.  So begins a nightmare for Brigance and those around him, as the town is split in two, the Klan makes violent attempts on his life, the judicial system is stacked against him, and defeat looms as the trial’s end approaches.

It’s a very compelling first novel, better-written than his second, the unimpressive The Firm, and with all the thrills that The Summons lacked.  Grisham delves into every seedy detail of the judicial system of Ford County, Mississippi, how politics and biased judges and money and votes and favors play a part in every step of the process.  He introduces fully fleshed-out characters, with unsympathetic streaks in his hero and amusing backstories for the supporting cast.  The end was a bit abrupt and shallow (just imagine the girl was white? That’s all it takes to dispel entrenched prejudices and bad feelings?), and left me feeling that a lot of ends were left way too loose (so, I guess the death threats never came to anything after the black guy was acquitted, they all lived happily ever after, the end) – but in all it was an admirable page-turner, richly evocative of the American south.

three stars

Dead Souls

by Nikolai Gogol
1842
translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volohonsky

A likeable middle aged petty official, Chichikov, comes to the village of N. and starts buying up dead muzhiks from various landowners.  The idea is to transfer ownership of the titular dead souls (in the sense of persons, not actual souls) to Chichikov while they’re still listed as living for tax purposes, until the end of the year.  Then Chichikov will own these serfs, on paper, and presumably be able to use them as property to stake out a loan and become a large landowner himself.

It’s a remarkably funny book; the landowners are sharp parodies, marked by greed or ignorance or self-inflation.  Because of the townsfolk’s tendency to gossip and worship the veneer of respectability and wealth, Chichikov is treated like a prince amongst the petty officials, and a celebration is thrown in his honor. Very suddenly however, rumors flare up that the serfs he bought are all dead, and that he was planning on eloping with the Governor's daughter. In the confusion that ensues, the backwardness of the irrational, gossip-hungry townspeople is most delicately conveyed. Absurd suggestions come to light, such as the possibility that Chichikov is Napoleon in disguise or the notorious and retired 'Captain Kopeikin,' who had lost an arm and a leg during a war. The now disgraced traveler is immediately ostracized from the company he had been enjoying and has no choice but to flee the town in disgrace.  There is a second book, but much truncated, unfinished, and not nearly as funny as the first.  This edition is fine for Gogol scholars, but for those who just wish to enjoy this “poem novel” should stop at the first book.

four stars

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't

by Jim Collins

I decided to read the main book after I admired the ideas in Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great.  I don’t need to go into the points I adumbrated with that addendum to this book, but I found a few new concepts that hit home.

One, in discussing Level 5 leadership, Collins emphasizes a humble figure: one that needs the brutal truth, doesn’t rely on charisma, looks toward the future of the company and not his own, attributes success to good luck, and so on.  This is a concept that a lot of money-conscious type-A executives might not enjoy hearing.  Two, high compensation doesn’t correlate with good performance.  High compensation can attract and keep the right people, but it can’t motivate the wrong people.  Three, the great companies don’t jump feet first into changes of direction.  Poor companies are always jumping from one quick fix to another; the best companies take it slowly and crawl before they run.  And they never jump on any bandwagon that doesn’t fit their Key Concept.  Four, great leaders don’t waste time trying to ‘rally the troops” or even manage performance.  That’s because they get the right people, the motivated people, first, and stand back to let them work.  The book is filled with such hard sensible dicta, backed by real evidence, that put a harsh spotlight on places that I’ve worked that most definitely were not great.  It’s a very useful, well-written, convincing and important book. 

four stars

Lucky Jim

by Kingsley Amis

A history lecturer at a not-too-prestigious British university, Jim Dixon, is compelled to please his superior, the amiable but tedious Professor Welch. He is invited to medieval musical revivals, meets Welch’s fatuous, bearded painter son Bertrand, and falls in love with the latter’s delightful girlfriend despite being bound by ties of guilt to a needy female Professor who recently attempted suicide.

It's a brilliantly comic novel, bursting with anger at the unfairness of Britain's Old School Tie system and peppered with some of the most viciously funny attacks on dreary academe ever written. Dixon’s ruminations on his thesis alone — "its funereal parade of yawn-enforcing facts, the pseudo-light it threw on non-problems" — encapsulates perfectly all my own feelings and experiences at attempting a life in the ivory towers. Dixon seethes with contempt for Welch's self-absorbed senility; Bertrand's beard, clothing and tone of voice; his own weakness at knuckling to those he needs; and Margaret, who keeps him in a sexless limbo of dependency. Brilliantly paced, graced with characters that range from the absurd to the pathetic, erudite without being pretentious, masterfully funny, and blessed with the happy ending that Ending Up (the only other Amis novel I've read) lacked. One of the greats. 

 five stars

Sounder

by William H. Armstrong
1969

Winner of the 1970 Newbery.  Set probably some time in the ‘30s, this book centers on an unnamed black boy who must grow up fast after his poor, sharecropper father is arrested for stealing a ham for his hungry family.  The titular dog, a hound/bulldog mix who loves to hunt with the father, is hit with a shotgun during the arrest, and never hunts again.  It’s a bleak tale; the boy’s silent rage, in which he visualizes brutal violence befalling the unjust, cruel white men who oppress him and his father, is mitigated only by a persistent desire to educate himself, which blooms when he meets a kindly widowed teacher.

This gift of literacy, which literally opens up new worlds to the boy (there is a distinct albeit unsaid implication that he will eventually move beyond the narrow world of shacks in which he grew up), in some small way helps the boy from being crushed by the destruction of the spirits and bodies of both father and dog.  In the end, after the miserable dog finally dies under the house, the boy is glad: “Only the unwise think that what has changed is dead,” he consoles himself.  Is this really a book for children?  I suppose so, despite the bleakness and injustice that saturates the story.  I read this book as a child, and though much of his poetic prose and historical import must have gone over my head, I remember being very moved by the cruelties the boy and dog endured.  However, this is definitely also a story that adults not only can by edified by, they ought to.

[read twice]

four stars