Call For The Dead

Call For The Dead, John le Carré

Courtesy of Amazon's 99p Kindle offers, a bit of a dip into past classics this time. I've read le Carré before, but it's only ever been his more recent, post-Cold War work. This novel is instead from his early writing, and introduces his most famous character, George Smiley, to the world. Clearly framed as a spy novel, it's almost more of a crime novel, with a murder, followed up by gradual and diligent investigation, and capped off with the unmasking of the murderer and their motive. It's a great breezy little read with a simple but engaging central story, and a narrative that both provides a potted biography for Smiley, and a closing case report for those who've not quite followed its twists and turns. I'll be back for more.

Heroes Of The Frontier

Heroes of the Frontier, Dave Eggers

A breath of fresh air following Gould's Book of Fish. A straightforward tale of the travails of Josie, a former dentist, and her two young children in the wilds of Alaska, told with impressive ease by Dave Eggers.

Escaping from a career-ending lawsuit, and a disinterested man-child of a husband, Josie packs up Paul and Ana, rents a rickety RV and takes to the road. Ostensibly there's a plan to visit her adopted-sister, Sam, but Josie's slippery grip on her imploding life quickly takes her family into a succession of scrapes and near-calamities as they cross the state amid a series of wildfires.

Despite a rather unsympathetic lead with a knack for consistently - and annoyingly - making the wrong choices, this was an enjoyably off-kilter road trip. Sometimes alarming, sometimes funny, and sometimes touching on the profound, I ultimately enjoyed it as a low-key, Zeitgeisty freefall through the calamity of modern life. Helped, needless to say, by Eggers' great writing.

Gould's Book of Fish

Gould's Book of Fish, Richard Flanagan

I almost never fail to finish a book. Even John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany, which took me several years of intermittent attempts to finally finish and be disappointed by, got wrapped up in the end. But this one, an incoherent jumble of a book straddling the found-fiction, unreliable narrator and historical fiction genres, has succeeded where lesser books have failed.

Ostensibly the novel is the retelling of a 19th century diary of a convict transported to Australia by a present-day furniture restorer / scam-artist. But it just rambles on and on through page after page of incoherent episodes that might have something to do with colonialism, but mostly just come across as trying to be clever by banging on about fish. About a third in, I just gave up. While in my 20s I was prepared to tolerate Owen Meany's ridiculous parable, life's too short now that I've reached my 40s.

Unfortunately, this was the last of my picks from @mrbsemporium. However, it was the only duff pick of six books, and, given that they knew I'm an oceanographer, it probably seemed a safe one. Sorry @mrbsemporium, not my bag this time, but I really enjoyed the rest of your choices for me.

The Two-Bear Mambo

The Two-Bear Mambo, Joe R. Lansdale

Another @mrbsemporium pick, and another good one. Back in crime territory but somewhere in the middle of a series that I've never heard of known as the Hap and Leonard novels. The protagonists are friends who sporadically play investigators in their corner of the Deep South. Hap is white, blue collar and a former 1960s idealist, while Leonard is black, gay and a Vietnam veteran, making for a classic "odd couple" pairing.

On this outing, the pair travel to East Texas to track down Florida Grange, a journalist and former girlfriend of Hap, who's gone missing while covering a seeming miscarriage of justice. However, deep in Klan territory, a black journalists sticking her nose into a death in custody doesn't go down well, let alone the arrival of Hap and Leonard in pursuit. Cue violence and mayhem as the boys only gradually discover who they can trust, and who knows Florida's fate.

Considering that I jumped in some way into a series, I didn't have any trouble with this at all. Quite a rollicking read, somewhat akin to Carl Hiaasen, but with more violence and more serious undercurrents. And very satisfyingly twisty, although well within the normal bounds for crime fiction.

Merivel

Merivel, Rose Tremain

Rose Tremain's 1989 novel, Restoration, was an unexpectedly - to me! - enjoyable work of historical fiction set within King Charles II's extended court, but taking in the Plague, the Great Fire of London and the early flowering of modern science. It was particularly memorable for its central narrator, Robert Merivel, whose journey into - and then out of - the King’s favour it told. Medically-trained but lacking - at least initially - the drive to do good, Merivel was an enjoyable character to spend with, and his rise, then fall, and then rise again made for an engaging tale.

Flash forward more than 20 years, and Tremain’s sequel, the eponymous Merivel, picks up his story in the latter stretches of the King’s reign. While back within the King’s favour, and doted upon by his daughter, he is listless, and looking for some new goal in his life. Taking a trip to the court of King Louis in France, he encounters new challenges, but finds a new amour, as well as renewed purpose in studying animals and promoting their rights. But life is never plain-sailing for Merivel, and his adventures are soon disrupted by a jealous husband, the serious illness of his daughter, and, in the background, King Charles’ own faltering health.

While enjoyable to a point, the pleasures this time are solely from meeting up again with Merivel. The events of his world are largely much less historic in nature, and Tremain really struggles to make them feel as significant as, say, the Great Fire. The novel is also rather excessively haunted by the spectre of illness, age and death. The preceding volume also had its share of death and strife, but its story gave this context and meaning, whereas here, everything it just feels hopeless. Which was maybe what Tremain was trying to achieve, but it makes for a much less satisfying read.

SPOILER WARNING

Finally, I can’t let Tremain’s closing coda to the novel pass without comment. Even for a novel already on a bit of a downer, its closing pages really are a kick in the teeth, and something of a betrayal of everything that’s gone before. This postscript serves no narrative purpose beyond, I interpret, Tremain burning her bridges.

Acceptance

Acceptance, Jeff VanderMeer

With the preceding novel, Authority, closing in calamity, the final volume of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, Acceptance, has the task of picking up the pieces and arranging them into a completed whole. Which, it half-does, and it half-doesn’t. It takes places partly in the aftermath of Authority, following Control and the steadily changing Biologist into Area X. But also partly in the form of filling in the backstories of Control’s predecessor, the Director, and her childhood acquaintance, the Lighthouse Keeper, both of whom have been significant characters, or presences, in the preceding volumes. Again, the novel does atmosphere well, and again it’s a fairly propulsive read. But, as I feared previously, it’s also more than a little bit flaky on clearly wrapping things up. By the end, it remains indistinct as to whether Area X is a protected part of Earth, not part of Earth at all, under the watchful gaze of Space Aliens, a consciousness-is-everywhere superorganism, or what. That none of these disparate explanations can be ruled firmly in or out indicates how deftly Vandermeer steers the novel towards revelation but never gets there. So enjoyable, but not entirely satisfying. Sometimes keeping the mystery in place works, especially in single volume books, but where a mystery has been teased extensively, and over several volumes, as here, this can be more than a little frustrating. But, despite this, I’d still recommend the trilogy – although I’m as yet unconvinced that it will make a successful leap to the screen, a journey that it now appears to be making.