Gollancz, 2019, 446 p.

This is the third (and final?) in the author’s Luna series (see here and here) and McDonald’s characteristic prose style is again in evidence, his ear for a telling phrase, the almost lyrical descriptions, but straightforwardly down to earth (down to Moon?) when necessary.

Once more we are shown ongoing events in the present tense, a device which imparts a sense of urgency – and contingency – to the narrative. The main plot here relates to who is to assume the guardianship of Lucasinho Corta who suffered catastrophic anoxia on the lunar surface in the previous book and now has to have his memories rebuilt from the recollections of others, but this is counterpointed with the ongoing conflict between the powerful lunar companies collectively called Dragons.

Since Corta Hélio has fallen, only four of the Dragons remain, Taiyang of the Suns, the Asamoahs’ AKA, the Vorontsovs’ VTO and the Mackenzies of Mackenzie Metals and MacKenzie Helium, but Lucas Corta is determined to make the most of the position as Eagle of the Moon he levered himself into in the last book. An introduction here is the University of Farside – fiercely independent of the Dragons – to where Lucasinho is taken for the memory restoration treatment and whose employees eschew former family connections.

As in Luna: Wolf Moon the defining feature of lunar life, the Four Elementals of air, water, carbon and data, rights to which are monitored by the chib in every inhabitant’s interactive contact lens, are not lingered on but this reflects the chib’s everyday nature for lunar citizens. Unless those rights run low they would not be a concern. They do, though, come into play at the dénouement.

The Dragons and their jostling for power – here joined by the incipient threat from Earth to eliminate the Moon as a competitor – is an exaggerated metaphor for unbridled capitalism, red in tooth and claw. The level of bloodshed is a warning about the consequences of the absence of legal restraints – though doubtless some readers will greet those scenes with approval. But McDonald raises the question of whether such a mode of living could be sustainable (and given the high body count here a certain degree of doubt is justified.) While their means of pursuing their interests had been indistinguishable from the other Dragons’ the Cortas’ collective insistence that family is everything suggests a different set of values is possible. It’s certainly desirable.

The scenes involving Marina Calzaghe (returned to Earth and finding herself regretting it,) though highlighting prejudice as they do, are something of a distraction from, and ultimately unrelated to, happenings on the Moon. But they illustrate McDonald’s wider vision.

Among those I no doubt missed there are embedded reference to Flanders and Swann, to Casablanca (in the film Bogart never actually said, “Play it again,” but of course Woody Allen used the phrase as the title of a play which later became a film,) and to Candide. There is a bar named The Flashing Blade, an adaptation of the Scottish (and Northern Irish?) term of approbation ‘Ya dancer’ to the US audience, a pun on ‘take the heat off them,’ another on ‘The Eagle has landed’ – this last’s setting up waiting almost three books for its payoff.

Few who read this could be disappointed with the experience.

Pedant’s corner:- “the lay of her belly” (the lie of her belly,) “a housand dins” (a thousand dins,) “in every cell her body” (cell of her body.) “The position rotate every two years” (rotates,) “blown four million years in the eruptions” (blown four million years ago,) “the size of size of her torso” (only one ‘size of’ required.) “Lucas’s hand tighten on the knurl of his cane” (tightens,) bola (the throwing weapon referred to is a bolas.) “Waiting in the corridor are AKA employee to lift and store…” (employees,) “smashed every rule the road” (of the road,) “looking down in to the” (down into,) sub-regolithis (sub-regolith.) “He strokes Lucasinho cheek” (Lucasinho’s,) “darker even that the dark basalt” (than the dark basalt,) “systems runs checks” (systems run checks,) Alexis (Alexia,) “puts out medical alert to his blades” (puts out a medical alert,) zeros (used to be spelled zeroes,) “‘there’s be’” (‘there’ll be’,) prospket (x2, prospekt,) “catches it, throw it on to another” (throws it on,) “and how she used to them” (how she used them,) “when the Earth-light in hot in him” (is hot in him,) open maws (a maw is a stomach, not a mouth,) staunch (stanch,) “the thunder of carnival give way to” (gives way to,) “loathe to involve itself” (loath, or, loth. Loathe is to despise/hate/abhor,) ambiance (ambience,) “none are as small and compact” (none is as small,) “When the Gularte’s left Caio for dead” (Gulartes.) “Wagner heart turns over” (Wagner’s heart,) “none of them are worthy of” (none of them is worthy of.)

Gravier Productions, Perdido Productions. Directed and written by Woody Allen.

Off at the unusual hour of 11 am to the local “Art House” cinema where about thirty to forty brave souls were gathered to watch Woody Allen’s latest.

And what a treat to the eye it was. From the first scene – a Hollywood party – we were drenched in Art Deco and the thirties. Lovely sets and costumes.

Booby Dorfman moves from New York to find work. After first being given the run around by his uncle Phil, a powerful agent, he is eventually given a dogsbody role. Phil asks his secretary Vonnie to show Bobby the town and of course Bobby falls for her. Vonnie is though, embroiled in a clandestine affair with Phil. Meanwhile back in New York Bobby’s brother Ben has forged a career as a gangster.

The working out of the relationships eventually leads to Bobby returning to New York to run a (legitimate) nightclub for Ben, where a few years later the past in the form of Vonnie and Phil intrudes to complicate things.

This is no Blue Jasmine but was a worthwhile experience all the same. A few Allen style jokes are thrown in though I was slightly disturbed by the ethics of playing gangland murders for laughs.

Once again from the opening titles this could not be mistaken for anything other than a Woody Allen film, the font of the titles, the (wonderful) jazz soundtrack, the worldview. It was none the worse for that.

It was unusual to see Ken Stott (playing Bobby’s dad) as a Jewish New Yorker but all the performances were excellent.

Gravier Productions. Written and Directed by Woody Allen.

So it was off to the local “Art House” cinema again. I was going to say for the first time since we went to see Brave (which I didn’t blog about because there wasn’t much to say about it – typical feel good Disney fare) but I’d forgotten about Austenland. I must have almost blanked it out.

You couldn’t mistake Blue Jasmine for anything but a Woody Allen film. It has titles in that font he’s used since nineteen hundred and a long time ago and a jazz soundtrack. It’s unusual for a Woody Allen film to be mainly set in San Francisco though.

It tells the tale of Jasmine, a New York socialite who has fallen on hard times after her husband was arrested for illegal business dealings. She is shown as self-obsessed from the outset. On the plane to San Francisco, where she is going to live with her (half-)sister, Ginger, she babbles incessantly to the poor woman in the next seat who doesn’t know her from Eve.

She looks down on both her sister and Chili, Ginger’s boyfriend, who was about to move in until Jasmine’s arrival upset their plans.

The film charts Jasmine’s attempts to navigate her new cash-strapped life and try to make something of herself – or at least find a man who can give her back her former lifestyle – interspersed with flashes back to the “good” times with her husband (Alec Baldwin) who is revealed to have been dodgy in all aspects of his life.

Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of the teetering on the edge of sanity Jasmine is a wonderful piece of acting. Sally Hawkins as Ginger (a strange choice of name for a brunette) is also convincing as a woman not terribly sure of herself or her worth. Apart from Chili (Bobby Cannavale) who seems genuinely attached to Ginger, most of the men in the film are untrustworthy in some way.

The final unravelling of the plot depends on a coincidental meeting but the information exchanged in this encounter would have emerged later in any case. This was a suitable way to dramatise it though.

There were acute observations of humanity here and as with much of Allen’s output in his latter years only a few laughs. Fine performances from the cast – especially Max Rutherford’s and Daniel Jenks’s stunned expressions as Ginger’s two sons when Jasmine unloads her woes on them while baby-sitting.

At the local “Art Cinema”, the Adam Smith Theatre. Whoopee! No round trip to Dunfermline just to see a film. (Still on tonight, 14/2/12, if anyone wants to go.)

This is a Woody Allen film and many of his tropes are present. The lead character, Gil, is typically Allenish with his verbal mannerisms, we have the fascination with the past (Zelig; Broadway Danny Rose) and an intrusion of the fantastic (Play It Again, Sam; Broadway Danny Rose.)

Gil is a writer on a trip to Paris with his fiancee and her awful parents; a moneyed couple, snobbish and intolerant, with no redeeming features. But none of these four are really sympathetic. There is a fine cameo by Michael Sheen as a friend of the fiancee, with just the right degree of irritating know-allness.

To escape this lot, Gil walks through Paris and gets lost. At midnight he is invited into an old car cruising the streets. He is taken to a party where he encounters Cole Porter, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. On subsequent nights he meets Gertrude Stein (Alice B Toklas has a small name check,) Pablo Picasso and his mistress, Salvador Dali, Louis Buňuel and Man Ray. Gil is delighted as he is fascinated by the 1920s, his perfect time. He is also much taken with Picasso’s mistress who thinks the Belle Époque was the best era to be alive.

If at times this all seemed a bit too overloaded it is the sort of stuff with which Allen can have a bit of fun, as when Gil suggests a film scenario to Buňuel.

Stein agrees to read Gil’s novel manuscript. At one point she describes it as Science Fiction (it is set in her future.) I was dubious at this usage and checked; the term apparently wasn’t in common use until 1929.

Gil is drawn more and more into the 1920s milieu and strolling with Picasso’s mistress one night they are invited into a horse-drawn cab and end up in the Belle Époque. Cue Toulouse Lautrec, Degas and Gauguin. Here Gil realises that no-one likes their own time and the past isn’t necessarily a better place.

But he determines to stay in (present day) Paris and chucks his girlfriend.

It was the fantastic element that I found most satisfying, the going into the past aspect is the sort of thing that makes Altered History (or Alternative/Alternate History if you must) so intriguing, but the present day characters were just so crass; apart from Carla Bruni as a tour guide and a female seller of old records Gil bumps into on a shopping trip.

This was minor Allen but entertaining enough, with quite a few laughs. I enjoyed it.