"With Haig on the Somme", D. H. Parry

May was a month when things related to the Great War bubbled up.

Across the media we had the mild kerfuffle of sundry cultural commentators protesting the UK government's plans to 'celebrate' the outbreak of war in 1914, and on a personal level, while driving to Spa in Belgium, we listened to Anthony Price's marvellous "Other Paths to Glory", which  probably warrants a piece dedicated to it specifically. Spa of course is where General Ludendorff commanded the German Army from in 1918, overseeing the ebb, flow, and ultimate collapse from the Grand Hotel Brittanique (a strikingly small building, now hosting a rather disappointing bar, pictured below) in that small but charming Belgian town. All of this puts one in mind of the 1914-18 war, and as such Parry's period piece, first published in 1917, and now available free in the public domain, provides an interesting view into how the war was represented at the time.

While the style throughout is more redolent of what Capt W E Johns would adopt with his Biggles series there are some serious points to be found here, most notably the running theme throughout the book of how successive elements of the Somme offensive were betrayed by German espionage and 'Hunnish dirty tricks'; intriguingly presaging the post-1918 German theories of betrayal in refusing to accept more mundane factual explanations of how events turned out.

Hard work too is put into vilifying the German character. Sometimes this reaches absurd degrees, not content with stealing plans for the British offensive from the Dashwood family home, the German spy steals three boxes of his host's cigars. This leads to the rather strongly worded assertion that

A German isn't a human being when you come to look at it - he's just a mean beast, a bully when he's top dog, and a grovelling worm when he's cornered.

which as abuse is perhaps trumped only by the description of a German woman's laughter

The unrestrained laugh of a German woman is the index to the German character. It is one of the most horribly unmusical sounds on earth.

This jingoistic tone of morality and an attempt to cast a clear notion of right and wrong does lead to some elements of strangeness, and a hark back to a more chivalrous age which one suspects was long gone by 1916. When a German prisoner in no-man's land gives his word that if his side does not make a breakthrough he will report to the British trenches it conjures up a vision of World War 1 as a version of the Combat of the Thirty writ large; a nice idea, but one I imagine with no grounding in reality. This continues, with recapitulations of the 'men against fire' theory, that moral fibre could allow infantry to cross killing fields of fire, and that cavalry, given the chance, could carry the day.

Oddly some of the more fantastic elements of Parry's novel are grounded in lesser known parts of the war's history. The highly unlikely seeming element of Dashwood accompanying a French pilot on a raid on a Zeppelin shed in the Black Forest in actuality owes a lot to Noel Pemberton Billing's raid on Friedrichshafen in November 1914 (engagingly told in Ian Gardner's "The Flatpack Bombers"). 

There is also value in extracting some small elements of detail from the text. Price, in "Other Paths to Glory", talks about the chain mail armour worn by tank crews on the Somme, which is a little known piece of colour, borne out by a little digging (see this exhibit from the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, not visited by me since 1978, but I remember it being rather good), and Parry refers to "medieval looking" trench helmets; maybe the Combat of the Thirty was not completely alien to the Somme.

On a lot of levels this is a terrible book, the direct descendent of the worst excesses of pre war invasion scare literature, but in this light it is still of value. Where tracts such as "The Battle of Dorking" brought into vision a Great Britain that had already lost, "With Haig on the Somme" conjures up a Britain that was striving to win. Don't read this as historiography, and if you want a rip roaring tale of World War 1 adventure, read Biggles or John Buchan, but for an insight into how consent for the Great War was manufactured in 1917, read this with your eyes open. 

Statue of General Haig outside his wartime headquarters in Montreuil sur Mer.

Outside Ludendorff's headquarters in Spa.

   

"Fargo Rock City", Chuck Klosterman

Easily mentioned in the same breath as Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" or Giles Smith's "Lost in Music", "Fargo Rock City" could tempt the reader in thinking they were set fair for a tongue in cheek rite of passage tale linking North Dakotan life with a slightly troubling obsession with Heavy Metal. 

This would be a mistake.

In the afterword Klosterman confesses he had wanted to name the book "Appetite for Deconstruction", which in many ways would be a closer analogue to what is contained within. While there are undeniably entertaining elements of personal reflection, many of which are connected with the rural location of Klosterman's upbringing, this is a much more thought provoking work which rewards the reader that thinks about the concepts introduced, and locates music in a wider social context.

That said there are points of autobiography which both entertain and challenge. When the work was initially released a lot of attention focused on a frank exposition of Klosterman's relationship with alcohol, which juxtaposes a clear admission that he has a problem with a conclusion that deep down, he doesn't really care. It's a difficult bit to read, and coming late in the book it serves to twist your opinion of the author. More entertaining perhaps is the discussion of what music is a good accompaniment to sex, and what elements of Heavy Metal resonate with this most, which in most rational readers is going to cause a wry smile and a shake of the head; but then thinking about it, my sole contribution to this from my youth was a request from long departed girlfriend that we distinctly not have Tangerine Dream playing when anything like that was likely to happen, so maybe I'm in no position to comment.

It helps if you were born in the 1970s, so you can identify with the social change that swept the ground from underneath Heavy Metal with the rise of the Seattle sound and Grunge in the 1990s. Klosterman neatly paints a picture of hubristic anticipation surrounding the release of Guns 'n' Roses double album "Use Your Illusion" in 1991, and how it masked what, in retrospect, was the much more significant arrival of Nirvana's "Nevermind". To me this resonated a lot, I clearly remember being distinctly perplexed that Nirvana could sell out their December 1991 concert in Edinburgh, thinking that "this was indie music, it doesn't sell anywhere out". Seismic social changes often happen without us noticing.

For all that the language can sometimes jar - to read that Vinnie Vincent's "Invasion" is "like a Tasmanian devil whirling towards vaginas and self destruction" can stop even the most hardened of readers in their tracks - this is nonetheless an engaging read. Approach it without a burden of expectation and you'll leave more informed and, if nothing else equipped with a rich vein of anecdote to punctuate a musically related conversation.

"The Holy Thief", William Ryan

Historical crime fiction provides us with a useful lens with which to both interpret the past and be entertained with a context that we can readily flesh out more completely by reading around the period in question.

William Ryan's "The Holy Thief", set amidst the increasing paranoia of mid 1930s Stalinist USSR, gives us a simultaneously gruesome and humorous work reminiscent in parts of Cruz Smith's "Gorky Park". Graphic brutality and banal poverty of life is juxtaposed with the pleasing absurdity of Soviet hyper-ambition. Characters who grub around for food and clothing rations can talk of how technological development will lead to not just skyscrapers, but wider roads, because in future buildings will be on movable rails. Herein Ryan's book starts to transcend the police procedural, and becomes valid socio-historical comment. In Soviet Russia anything is possible, which links with some contemporary Western commentary, such as the Webb's work on Soviet Communism or George Bernard Shaw's rapportage.

Amidst this Ryan's core character, ex-soldier, ex-footballer, Christian, and all round good chap Alexei Dmitriyevich Korolev unpicks a series of murders connected with an icon smuggling racket. His interaction with the rest of Soviet society and the smothering bureaucracy keep pace in the novel, as we steadily unpick the threads of what is involved, and why the body count around Moscow keeps rising.

Like a lot however, the early game of The Holy Thief is probably better. By the end there's a drift away from a tight narrative focus, and you're left decreasingly engaged with what the actual ins and outs of the crime are. Perhaps however this in itself is a commentary on Stalin's Soviet Union. Much as there's a backdrop of Yagoda's fall and the rise of Yezhov (himself short lived) what is and is not a crime, and who is and is not a criminal becomes a blurry concept. 

As said before, in Soviet Russia anything is possible.

"The City of Shadows", Michael Russell

"We learn slash and burn is the method to use, set it flame, burn it new", Tolerance, 10,000 Maniacs.

I grew up in Ireland, and still have a real affinity for the country. I learned to read there, and having the opportunity to revisit it through literature is something I genuinely appreciate. The likes of Declan Hughes, Benjamin Black, and now Michael Russell, provide a ready window into the country, and reinforce the point that Ireland is not Britain with some engaging local colour, but in fact is somewhere that despite the similarities that come from so much shared history, there is something very distinctive and different about it.

Michael Russell's début novel is a polished and highly enjoyable crime thriller that captures the profound challenges that faced Irish society as the Free State evolved towards the Republic during the 1930s. We're consistently reminded of distinct direction that Ireland under De Valera tried to take - ploughing a lonely furrow with avowed levels of independence and autarky which had the effect of creating a society that in struggling with the legacy of the Civil War and Church vs State tensions becomes a place when viewed from a contemporary perspective feels unappetising.

The concept of 'otherness' and intolerance is central to the book. It captures the rarities in a Catholic dominated society, not taking the easy route of talking about the remnants of the Anglo-Irish ascendency, but looking at the rarer Jewish, gay, and immigrant communities, and the levels of both tacit and overt intolerance to which they were exposed. This is fitting though, because as is accurately pointed out, "[a]bsence was in Jewish blood the same way it was in the blood of the Irish" (p.114).

Much in a similar vein to Alan Furst and John Lawton "The City of Shadows" captures the small human elements in the emerging tragedy of the mid-20th century, individuals striving to find some light in surroundings that can often feel almost overwhelmingly dark.

As is pointed out in the text, "In Ireland history never quite goes away" (p.211). From this perspective this is a novel that should make anyone with an affinity with Ireland rightly ashamed and angry, but at the same time a sense of pride can be derived from the fact that the nation did not take what could have been an easy path towards a fascist theocracy, but instead emerged to be the vibrant society it is today.

"The City of Shadows" was an almost accidental discovery last week, it deserves to succeed.

Book Launch, "Dead Men Should Know Better", Dominic Canty

My local bookstore, the wonderful Beckenham Bookshop is one of these places that defies the usual pessimism about high street retail through a combination of fantastic service, being really friendly, and having the creativity to get out there and understand that there's a lot more to selling books than simply having them on the shelf and providing a check-out function.

In this light I'm really pleased to see they're holding a book launch evening for a local author next Tuesday. It's the sort of thing that very much should be encouraged - I'm going to try and be there, and if you're in South London, like books, and think an independent approach to business, publishing, and literature in general should be encouraged, you should try to get along too.

"Uncommon Enemy", Alan Judd

As an author, Alan Judd has sporadically accompanied me through a lot of my adult reading life. As a teenager "The Noonday Devil" served to keep my enthusiasm for a university education high, even if the reality was no more like that described by Judd than using Evelyn Waugh as a guide would have been.

At a similar time I encountered Charles Thoroughgood. His appearance in "A Breed of Heroes" provided a counterpoint to the swashbuckling military figures to be found in the thriller authors that had been my standard reading material to that point. Pronouncedly different, "A Breed of Heroes" was not an especially easy read in such a context, but over 20 years later remains memorable.

The Thoroughgood trilogy, written over such a span of time, encompassing the British Army in Northern Ireland, 1980s Cold War espionage, and now, the murky ambiguities of the war on terror, by nature has to be made up individual works that can stand on their own - reliance on distant memories of previous works is dangerous - the second volume, 2001's "Legacy" is after all 10 years ago, and unlike "A Breed of Heroes", was only read by me once. This does make the introduction to "Uncommon Enemy" a slightly difficult process, as memory scrabbles to see if there are threads to be picked up, and intertextuality challenges too - with linkages in particular to Adam Thorpe's "Flight" being felt.

Perseverance rewards; "Uncommon Enemy" is a rich and rewarding work. Book ending Thoroughgood's professional life, the story draws from his university days, the latter part of his spy's life in the 1990s and early 2000s, with the main narrative set in the contemporary period, where now retired, he is recalled to track down an asset, "Gladiator", with whom he shares an deep and extensive personal history. This tale of relationships subsumes what we initially assume to be the core premise - the attempt to use "Gladiator" to track down an Al Qaeda plot in the UK - remember - this is no traditional linear spy thriller.

Judd is easily locatable in the espionage literature universe alongside Charles Cumming and the obvious John Le Carre. Here he is perhaps most reminiscent of Le Carre's 1995 "Our Game", where a similar feel of tiredness and lost certainties can be found. Here too is an ambiguity in ending; there is closure to "Uncommon Enemy", there's a feeling that something akin to 'the right result' has been found, but there are still questions, still a suspicion that the whole story has not been told, and the book is very much better for it.

My old paperback copy of "Legacy" has now come off the bookshelf to be revisited - perhaps the most real endorsement of how enjoyable "Uncommon Enemy" is.

“Mission to Paris”, Alan Furst

I’ve long maintained that Alan First needs to be read in a cold climate. There’s something about him that calls for a stinging rain against the window and an audible wind. Presumably for commercial reasons, his publishers have lately taken to releasing his work in time for summer reading, and that doesn’t work for me. I tried reading “Blood of Victory” in an Umbrian villa by the pool, and it didn’t hand together at all, so since then, no matter when they’re released I wait for nights to grow shorter and the right time to put some Furst into my life.

My reading of “Mission to Paris “ might violate this, because there’s no stinging rain, and the temperature’s anything but cold, but somehow early autumn in the art deco surroundings of Shanghai’s Peace Hotel, with jazz tinkling up through the atrium, wine sipped from elegant glassware, and the knowledge that Noel Coward wrote Private Lives while staying a few doors down the hallway somehow all makes it okay.

Eleven years ago “Night Soldiers” came with me to Moscow. I still miss the sprawling narratives and enormous purview of Furst’s earlier works, but after what’s felt like a little bit of a stutter with “The Foreign Correspondent” and “Spies of the Balkans” Furst seems to be hitting the mark in a way that resonates that little bit more.

Paris has always been a constant in Furst’s work, and here it’s at the heart of the novel, and deep down this works. Ultimately for all it can feel a little repetitive, Paris is a happier hunting ground for Furst.

“Mission to Paris” is all about pre-war cinema – people always liken Furst to watching Casablanca for the first time round, so somehow it makes sense that he’s written something so overtly about cinema – okay, we’ve been here before with the Casson books (who gets a nod here, with the marvellous description of him doing “tasty little films” about gangsters with hearts of gold) but here the film industry is front and centre.

We’ve got a memorable Kristallnacht scene, where Stahl is at the Adlon while Berlin burns. This is redolent of the Iron Exchange chapter in “Dark Star”, ramming home the lingering menace of Nazi Germany as it descended into humanity’s abyss.

Orlova (a marvellous character who, one hopes, will be made more of) reminds of David Downing’s Effi (surname?) – which leads on to the other tribute that can’t surely be accidental – can a character called Stahl who once played “Dr Lawton” really be anything other than a veiled hat tip to John Lawton and his very different historical novels which successfully transcend the pigeon hole of “period crime fiction” or “historical thriller”.

Downside? The denouement seems somehow rushed. Escape is never quite so simple, or is it? There feels as though there should be more of a story here, more opportunity to explore and draw out the story, which otherwise has a languid pace to it? Or is this a reflection of a hunger on the part of the reader to discover the fates of characters they have to care deeply about? Either way the ending doesn’t quite feel as sorted as the rest of the novel –the ambiguity you find in “Dark Voyage” or “The Polish Officer” adds a lot – equally the unravelling at the end of “Dark Star” is ultimately highly satisfying – tying off knots makes for a more satisfying short term reading experience, but lessens the chance of the book remaining with you over a more prolonged period of time.

Ultimately though, it’s an Alan Furst book. Whatever warts it might have it’s an evocation of the world in a dark time that’s completely absorbing and makes your life better for having read it. It’s autumn, the light is growing shorter, there are foghorns on the Huangpu: it’s the ideal time to read it.