Penguin Red Classics, 2006, 563p.
Translated from the Russian, Master i Margarita, by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, 1997.

The Master and Margarita displays its oddness from the start. A stranger appears to two men in the Moscow district of Patriarch’s Ponds and makes predictions of weird events – including the death of one of the pair. These predictions, of course, come true; and in short order. For the stranger – accompanied by someone who appears as a large black cat – is the Devil. Thereafter we are treated to all sorts of wonderful happenings: instant transition to Yalta, various illusions disguised as fantastic stage tricks, flying witches, a man transformed into a donkey, a party at the Devil’s house.

The Master of the title is a would-be author whose novel about Pontius Pilate has been roundly trashed in the press (despite it not having been published.) Margarita – married to a man she does not love – is the Master’s mistress, resentful of the effect the novel’s reception has had on him and of those who caused it. Extracts from this novel (an account of the torment Pontius Pilate undergoes as he is forced to condemn one Yoshua Ha-Nozri – who avers that all men are good – for comments about Cæsar) are intermittently included in the larger narrative. This is an excellent piece of writing in its own right, especially the descriptions of Yershalaim (Jerusalem.) Other recognisable names here include the priest Kaifa and one Judas of Kiriath. This internal novel (whose manuscript has been burned by the master) is responsible for the Russian phrase “manuscripts don’t burn” – as the Devil tells the master in the main narrative when returning it to him – but its contents intrude into the main body only twice, when Matthew Levi, Ha-Nozri’s sole follower, pops up in modern Moscow and when Pilate is finally reconciled.

Reflecting the Stalinist era in which The Master and Margarita is set there is much talk of possible arrests (some of them for foreign currency violations, though, which could be irregular in any polity) but the apprehension of the police and the necessity for secrecy are never far away.

Any work of fiction is an attempt to describe circumstance to which the reader has no other access but whether the full flavour of a novel such as The Master and Margarita is ever captured by any translation is problematic. The cultural assumptions under which it was written are always different to those of the reader. In the end, for me, the characters lacked sufficient agency as the fantastical elements of the book overpowered all the others. As a metaphor for lack of political and judicial accountability, though, violation of cause and effect is fair enough.

Abacus, 2006*, 402p.

The usual Brookmyre shenanigans, this time involving the nexus between politicians in the then new Scottish Parliament, the tabloid press and religious organisations. Boiling A Frog is a third outing for Jack Parlabane; except outing is not quite le mot juste, as for most of the book Parlabane is in prison after breaking into the headquarters of the Catholic Church in Scotland.

The book is flawed by the fact that the plot mostly happens in flashback or offstage while Parlabane is in jail and concerns a conspiracy to restore the primacy of “family values” to public life by framing various MSPs. It was as a by-product of the conspiracy and an unsettled state of mind due to problems in his private life that Parlabane was trapped into attempting the break-in.

If you stop to think for a minute the whole thing becomes unbelievable but believability has never really been the point with Brookmyre. You go along for the ride.

While not as amusing as other Brookmyre stories Boiling a Frog nevertheless has its moments.

Nowhere in the text is the strange title alluded to. An explanation is, however, given in the author’s note before the start.

*I read a reprint. The book was originally published in 2000.

The Mercat Press, 1986, 288p

The House With The Green Shutters has an important place in Scottish literature as when it was originally published in 1901 it represented a break from the sentimentality of the Kailyard School and prefigured the work of Hugh MacDiarmid and Lewis Grassic Gibbon, among others. A warning, though. The book does contain a wheen of Scots words and phrases which may be a barrier to the more general reader.

The eponymous house, an imposing edifice in the town of Barbie, has been built by John Gourlay to reflect his position in the life of the town where he has a monopoly as a carrier. Gourlay has a “guid conceit of himself,” as we Scots say, and throws his weight about both metaphorically and – as he has a shortish temper – at times literally. His son, also called John, expects to inherit the carriage business and has neither the motivation nor aptitude to shine at school.

All begins to change with the return to Barbie from a sojourn in Aberdeen of James Wilson, whom Gourlay, in true Scottish fashion, at first dismisses due to his origins, (the, “Ah kent his faither,” reflex – see under ‘ken.’) Wilson soon sets himself up as a rival carrier. The opportunity the coming of the railway presents to Wilson gives him the lever to outwit Gourlay and precipitate a slow spiral of descent. Gourlay’s determination to outdo Wilson in everything leads him to send his son to University in Edinburgh where his character faults become magnified.

Throughout the book the author illuminates many aspects of the Scottish character as well as more general traits. The “bodies” – perhaps “sweetie wives” would be a more modern description – who gossip and scheme on street corners are especially well depicted. However, as perhaps reflects the times in which the book is set, the women characters are little more than cyphers.

The novel is apparently the first book in the English (sic) language read by Jorge Luis Borges (see under ‘criticism’) who thereafter, “wanted to be Scotch.” Bizarre.

Vintage, 2009, 218p

The back cover blurb of What Becomes makes explicit reference to the old Jimmy Ruffin (among many other performers) hit What Becomes of the Brokenhearted and this collection of short stories does mainly examine fractured or doomed relationships within or outwith marriage. The emblematic story title here would be Whole Family With Young Children Devastated though in the story concerned it actually refers to a notice about a lost pet displayed on local lamp-posts. Two stories are exceptions. Another concerns the careful reconstruction of a new life and relationship after the woman’s husband has died, while As God Made Us is about the camaraderie of a group of ex-soldier amputees and the prejudice they still face.

Kennedy’s style in her short stories is oblique. Very little is stated outright either by her narrators or by the characters but it is all exquisitely, carefully written. The overall sense is of people clinging on, desperate to make connetions.

There was one peculiar phrase where a character was described as, “constructing these laborious smiles which I think were designed to imply he was a dandy youngster and blade about town,” – of which I can only make sense by assuming that similes was the intended word. But if it’s not in fact a typo it’s brilliant.

The Book Society, 1969, 208p

Aside:- It’s not often I particularly remember where I actually bought a book but Croft-Cooke had been recommended to both me and the good lady so when she alighted on this one in a great second-hand book and antique shop we stumbled on in Saffron Walden on our October trip it was a must.

On his uppers in Paris and with no previous experience of anything much at all John Scout writes, with the aid of his otherwise reticent girlfriend (who forces him to sleep with a sheet between them,) a novel called The Strip Teas for French pornographic publisher Klick. This is taken up as a ground-breaking work by a reputable English publisher who changes its title to Grand Climacteric and the author’s name to Jakki Trover. This gives Croft-Cooke the opportunity to satirise the publishing industry in all its aspects from agents through publishers to book reviewers and authors keen to raise their profiles as well as other topics including the law and prudishness.

The tone is that of the comic novel, no really serious points are made, but Wolf From The Door is very readable, though slight. Most of the story is carried via dialogue, though, and I found the consequent lack of description of surroundings irritating – as was Scout’s naivety.

The chapter titles are all listed at the beginning and refer to the process whereby a book comes into being, The Book, The Agent, The Contract, The Publisher, The Proofs etc. so it’s not a spoiler to say that Grand Climacteric becomes subject to a prosecution for obscenity. Scout, who always knew The Strip Teas/Grand Climacteric was rubbish, writes a completely conventional novel for his next effort.

Wolf From The Door was published in the 1960s. Perhaps things were better in those days as I only noticed three or four typos, a strike rate modern books in general far outdo. One particularly felicitous example was where Scout “threw his coat onto a char.” Another occurred in the “reproduction” of the advert for the English book where “Trover”’s novel is given second billing to another from the same publisher but its title is spelled Grand Climateric. I thought this was going to be used as an example of where publishers fail to do the best by their authors but none of the characters comment on it so it must be a genuine typo and not intentional by Croft-Cooke.

I am left wondering how typical of Croft-Cooke’s prodigious output Wolf From The Door is.

Penguin, 2007, 306p

Reasonably successful writer Eve Smart, her philandering lecturer husband Michael and their family are renting a house in Norfolk when they are intruded upon by a female stranger called Amber, who proceeds to inveigle her way into their home, befriend Eve’s twelve year old daughter Astrid and seduce her teenage son Magnus.

The novel is split into three sections, The Beginning, The Middle and The End in all of which each family member has a narrative strand. Astrid’s narration is initially irritating as she has a habit of using ie (or even id est) in circumstances which do not warrant it. Thankfully, she – or Smith as the author – grows out of this by The End. Each section is preceded, and hence followed, by a framing narrative in the first person from Amber’s viewpoint. (This does not illumine Amber’s behaviour overmuch.) The unravelling of the Smart family’s life under Amber’s influence is the meat of the book.

There are several infelicities. Not only are a couple of characters unsympathetic but the changes of viewpoint initially jar and for a long time the lack of justification in the text irritated me. The ragged right hand margin was too much of a distraction. By The End, though, the characters (apart from Amber) are more established and these concerns fade.

I noticed that the “cloud” on my Library Thing tags this novel as Scottish Fiction. (According to the book’s blurb Smith was born in Inverness in 1962 but now lives in Cambridge.) Fantastic Fiction also designates her as Scottish. There is nothing identifiably Scottish about The Accidental, though; not its setting, its themes, its dialogue nor its vocabulary. Mind you, the same could be said about Allan Massie’s The Sins of the Father or Andrew Crumey’s Music, In a Foreign Language both of which I read recently. Interestingly enough, Library Thing has those two books tagged as Scottish Literature.

QPD, 2005, 398p

After the relatively disappointing aberration of Fury this novel sees Rushdie return for his setting to the locales and interests from which he made his name. He treated with Indira Ghandi’s India in Midnight’s Children, Pakistan in Shame and Islam in The Satanic Verses, before returning to (modern) India with The Ground Beneath Her Feet. In Shalimar The Clown it is Kashmir on which he focuses. In this sense the novel’s start is misleading as it begins in California with the daughter of a former ambassador in the days leading up to his assassination by his chauffeur/factotum, the titular Shalimar the Clown.

The book ranges far and wide with many digressions. In a strange resonance with the previous book that I read the ambassador, Maximilian Ophuls, [why Rushdie chose for his character the name of a film director is somewhat obscure; to me at any rate] was a (Jewish) native of Alsace forced to flee, leaving the family printing business behind, after the Germans took over in 1940. He became a leading member of the French Resistance, was involved in US-French relations, emigrating to the US at the end of the war, and was appointed ambassador to India in the 1960s. This novel is not without incident.

The story arc of the book deals, though, with the relationship between Noman Sher Noman and Boonyi Kaul (both of whom, along with Max and his daughter are given sections of the book – I was going to say to themselves, but other characters pop up all the time all over the book, in typically Rushdiean profusion) and the two villages in Kashmir, Pachigam and Shirmal, where they grew up. It seems all of life is here; the picture of a community, a way of life, is detailed. The plot of the novel is almost buried at times – yet this is true of every section. And is the placid, comradely, nature of existence there before the tensions between India and Pakistan led to strife in the region a touch overplayed? Whatever, the growth of Islamic fundamentalist influence, the deterioration in the situation and the horror of communal conflict is well depicted. Neither the Pakistan backed Muslim terrorists nor the Indian Army are spared implicit criticism.

When Ophuls visits the villages Boonyi seizes her chance to escape, only to end up in a different kind of entrapment. Noman meanwhile burns for revenge. He is recruited as a terrorist and suppresses his character while training. In this context the use of his name (no man) as a signifier seemed perhaps a little trite.

A short review can only touch the surface of the myriad elements which go into a novel which, like this, tries to deal with a big issue. There has to be some kind of story on which to hang the subject matter but at times, here, the human dimension is lost in a surfeit of detail. Do we really, for example, need to know the history of the main characters’ parents? This is a trope which Rushdie has employed in previous books. (A similar trait annoyed me in Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead where, every time the author switched to a new viewpoint, we were treated to the character’s whole life story to that point, fatally interrupting the novel’s flow.) In Shalimar The Clown moreover, many passages are told rather in the style of a historical narration than a novel. I shall not reveal the true identity of Shalimar, even though it’s not hard to guess.

While I could have done without the ascent into fantasy in the final section, Rushdie’s sympathies are always in the right place and, despite the various horrors the book describes, overall it is, as perhaps all fiction should be, life–enhancing. After Fury, it represents a return to form.

A couple of days ago Dobie Gray, now, on Tuesday, it was Russell Hoban.

Looking on my shelves I find not only his children’s classic The Mouse and his Child nor yet just the remarkable Riddley Walker but also The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, Kleinzeit, Turtle Diary and Pilgerman.

Hoban was quite prolific (Fantastic Fiction lists 87 books) so I didn’t manage to keep up with all his output.

His work spanned a multitude of genres from the post-apocalyptic Science Fiction of Riddley Walker through Fantasy to Realism and he seemed equally at home in them all.

In the field of Science Fiction, though, and its close relation Fantasy, it will undoubtedly be for the tour de force that was Riddley Walker – a novel written in an English so far from the standard that it might at first seem totally unreadable (trust me, with a little bit of effort it isn’t, and is well worth that effort) – and The Mouse and his Child that he will be most remembered.

Russell Conwell Hoban: 4/2/1925-13/12/2011. So it goes.

Dedalus, 2004, 243p

Not being a straightforward narrative this is a difficult novel to describe. Tenses shift within sections, there are stories within stories, false starts, rewritten chapters, repetitions of scenarios and the narrator is at pains to point out the fictionality of it all, indeed at times it reads more as a disquisition on literary efforts than an attempt at one. Yet, for all these strictures, it was immensely readable.

The tricksiness begins early as the novel starts with Chapter 0, where the narrator is thinking post coital thoughts about two characters who meet on a train and about whom he intends to write a novel. The bulk of Music, in a Foreign Language deals with the back story of one of these, a young man called Duncan, and the events leading up to the death of his father, Robert Waters. Waters and his friend Charles King had at the time been involved in slightly subversive activity in a Soviet style post-war Britain. This was the first appearance of that altered history in which Crumey also set parts of Mobius Dick and Sputnik Caledonia. The compromises such a society demands, the paranoia it engenders – and the betrayals it necessitates – are allowed to emerge organically from the story. Despite the title, music as a motif appears sparingly.

My one minor caveat is that the female characters are not as fully rounded as they might be, but the book’s main focus is on the friendship between Waters and King, so perhaps that is understandable.

I was equally as impressed by this, Crumey’s debut novel, as I was by both others of his I have read. If you like well written, thoughtful – even playful – novels you could do worse than give Crumey a try.

Abacus, 1997.

A wealthy and powerful newspaper owner is murdered in a luxury house in Perthshire. The police have apprehended the four burglars responsible. But one of them has left a package with his lawyer, to be opened if he didn’t make a quick return to her office. And the security consultant Donald Lafferty, friend of journalist Jack Parlabane, dies minutes after uttering an oblique message to the assembled TV crews outside the police station where the suspects are being held. A tale of intrigue and conspiracy follows where skulduggery at the heart of government is revealed and unravelled. While the plot and its resolution is not entirely convincing the book is vastly readable with the occasional joke or reference thrown in to lighten things. I particularly liked, “I’m a man of stealth and haste.”

It is interesting that this was written in the dog days of the 1990s Conservative Government yet reads as well now as it might have done then; as if nothing has changed, which of course, in some respects, it hasn’t.

I have noted before Brookmyre’s usage “borne of” when “born of” makes more sense. He adds here, “up to high doe” (which gave me an image of a deer on a plinth) and “thrusted” as the past tense of thrust.

This was only Brookmyre’s second novel so a few infelicities are to be expected. But he has the increasingly irritating habit here of beginning every new scene in medias res and then flashing back to its beginning. He also feels the need to provide backstory for every new viewpoint character when they take up the narrative thread. While this is a timeworn literary technique it is no more than a form of info dumping.

The Country of the Blind is a Brookmyre. It does what it says on the tin. All well and good. Sometimes that is what hits the spot.