Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

Part of the ‘Into and out of Africa’ reading journey

The story opens on board a yacht moored in the Thames but due to set sail for parts unknown; the men aboard are drinking and swapping yarns as they wait listlessly for the tide to turn. The setting sun provides a brooding backdrop and leads one of the men, Marlow, to declare “this also has been one of the dark places of the earth” and launch into a tale.

He’s speculating how the first Roman invaders must have felt sailing up the river into the unfamiliar British terrain in an inhospitable climate populated by savage natives; an interesting parallel to his own experience captaining a river steamboat up the Congo to ‘relieve’ the resident of a remote ivory trading post.

The man at the centre of the mission is the charismatic Mr Kurtz whose trading prowess is second to none due in part to a skill in oratory that gives him a Messianic quality that spellbinds colleagues and natives alike. In fact the natives are so devoted they don’t want him to leave.

Marlow’s engagement, induction and voyage up river is recounted; with hard-nosed detachment as far the physical dangers are concerned, but with more circumspection as regards the psychological pressures that emanate from the jungle beyond the riverbank – the continent’s heart of darkness. He can begin to understand how a white man may succumb to “the fascination of the abomination” that can be found there and be prey to “the growing regret, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate”.

The immensely powerful language (quoted to do it justice) gives the novella the feel of a horror story; as it is – but there’s nothing supernatural here, it is all horribly, if unfamiliarly natural in the time and place that was Equatorial Africa in the time of colonisation. And Conrad should know, he did the steamboat job himself and, as a result, this anguished take on colonisation provides an interesting contrast to Rider Haggard’s bravado. (See previous review of King Soloman’s Mines).

Derby Day - D J Taylor

Read as part T of the “Along the Library Shelf” reading journey

Chosen because

It seemed to promise a classic Victorian mystery with a cast drawn from the various layers of society, maybe in the vein of Wilkie Collins with a dash of Dickens.

The Review

The classic Derby horse race attracts the interest of all classes in Victorian England from the gentlemen owners, through the working poor who like a spectacle, to the disreputable bookies and petty criminals who grub around anywhere that money changes hands.

Representatives of these social strata permeate the book as they orbit, at various distances, one of the big race favourites – Tiberius. Most of these characters seem fairly stock - the widowed owner with an impoverished estate, troubled daughter and a new young governess; the scheming ‘gentleman’ of modest means but high ambitions to marry money and own the Derby winner, with a shady sidekick in tow to do the dirty work; the lady he has targeted but whose own scheming is a match for most; and a master safe-cracker who has a no-nonsense police detective on his trail – but they are all well developed into individuals with stories to tell.

Over the months leading up to the race the plot develops and thickens slowly like a pot of stew on a Victorian range as the diverse ingredients are stirred and mixed to deliver up a tasty concoction. As Derby day at approaches events accelerate and all head to Epsom with more to resolve than whether Tiberius wins the race.

The measured, laconic style with the odd wink to the reader worked very well for developing the characters and building the plot but was less effective in describing the climactic events of the race day itself. A minor issue though in an enjoyable read.

Read another?

Maybe give “Kept” – another Victorian mystery - a go.

Brooklyn – Colm Toibin

The book follows Eilis Lacey, a young girl on the verge of womanhood but with limited prospects in 1950s rural Ireland. She’s studying bookkeeping but despite being ‘good with numbers’ can only get a Sunday job serving in a local grocery.

Her elder sister has contacts at the golf club and soon it is arranged, almost without Eilis’s involvement, that she will go to the land of opportunity, America - specifically Brooklyn - where there is an established Irish community and an ex-pat priest who can smooth her path to employment and lodgings.

The experiences of the voyage to New York and of immigrant life in the cultural melting pot of Brooklyn are the meat of the central section of the work (interesting but not, to me, riveting). Ironically as the homesickness is overcome and she begins to carve out her new life she is called back to Ireland; older, more experienced and suddenly with a choice of prospects, she faces the dilemma of whether to stay put or return to what she has left behind in Brooklyn.

In my ignorance I assumed Colm Toibin was a woman such was the intense focus on Eilis and her life, with only the photo inside the back cover putting me right. Maybe my own gender contributed to a lack of empathy for Eilis for most of the book. She is a bit of a mouse, generally following the line of least resistance; but at the end as the pressure (not quite excitement – Eilis does not do excitement) builds the question is will she finally decide for herself what we wants for her future?

The writing is understated, in line with Elis’s character, but subtly builds up layers of feeing and experience that shape and influence an ordinary life. It clearly impressed the critics, leading to the Man Booker long list and a Costa award, but it won’t make it onto my ‘books of the year’ list.

The Lewis Man – Peter May

In this second book of the Lewis trilogy, now ex-DI Fin Macleod is drawn back to the Hebrides where he plans to restore his parent’s crofthouse back to habitable state. This means he is on hand when an annual peat cutting ceremony unearths a potentially ancient ‘bog body’. These occasionally emerge, well preserved by the acidic peat moss, and this one is immediately dubbed ‘Lewis Man’.

The title is short-lived as the autopsy reveals that the deceased young man not only suffered a violent death but also sported an Elvis tattoo; so it’s a potential murder from half a century ago. DNA also points to a connection to Fin’s family, but the old man who may know the answers is suffering from dementia and can’t help.

The author repeats his trick from ‘The Blackhouse’ of having a back story related in parallel to Fin’s efforts to solve the riddle, this time using the dementia sufferer to relate to the reader historic events that he can only communicate to Fin in tantalising snippets.

Fin’s own personal story also moves forward, unobtrusively, as he warily picks up the pieces of his Island life after the revelations in the previous book.

This book is every bit as atmospheric as the first and again reveals to a wider audience an unusual Island tradition, central to the story; this one quite shameful (but thankfully no longer current).

The action builds to a powerful climax and leaves the reader both satisfied and eager to move on to the concluding volume ‘The Chessmen’.

Black Swan Green – David Mitchell

It is 1982 and Jason Taylor is 13, an ordinary kid living in the quiet backwater that is Black Swan Green tucked away in the Malvern Hills. His family – executive father, home-maker mother, older sister who calls him ‘thing’ – is middle class normality, better off than most but not excessively.

He also knows his place in the schoolboy pecking order – outside the top dogs who set the trends and call the shots, but above the perennial no-mark losers who bear the brunt of their juvenile posturing. There are two flies in the ointment: he’s a secret poet (“how gay”) and has a stammer that is getting increasingly hard to disguise and that he worries will sooner or later become a stick for the bullies to beat him with.

Jason takes us through this formative year as his stock within the adolescent pack fluctuates according to events and the whims of others. The account is articulate, painfully accurate but without self-pity – he accepts the way of his world; but when the going gets really tough, at home as well as at school, will that be enough to survive?

The quality of writing and characterisation drew me in easily and just as I was thinking this is a pleasant nostalgic read (It’s a Knockout on TV; space invaders in the pub; Chariots of Fire at the cinema and the Falklands war in the news), but going nowhere special, something kicked in and gripped me through to the end.

David Mitchell was born in Worcestershire and was 13 in 1982 so he writes from personal knowledge of the time and place that oozes authenticity. He absolutely nails the world of the 13-year-old boy, at least in 1982 (and 1966 for me); particularly how small incidents magnify in the lens of adolescence into ludicrous highs and desperate lows.

Having also enjoyed ‘The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet’ (see August 2012 review) I am in danger of becoming a bit of a Mitchell fan and may try one of his more esoteric creations such as ‘Cloud Atlas’.

King Solomon’s Mines – H Rider Haggard

Part of the ‘Into and out of Africa’ reading journey

Grizzled veteran big game hunter and adventurer Allan Quatermain (familiar these days for his resurrection in the 2003 film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) is on a boat to Natal when he is approached by two other Englishmen – the aristocratic Sir Henry Curtis and ex-Royal Navy Captain John Good – who are on a mission to find Curtis’s estranged younger brother.

It’s a small world in colonial Africa and Quatermain has heard tell of a young hothead who set off to find the legendary King Solomon’s Mines, fount of untold riches in gold and diamonds. A fool’s errand in Quatermain’s view but as it happens he does have a map he was given years ago by a dying ‘Potugee’ that purports to show the way. And while he wouldn’t undertake such a wild goose chase for the fabled riches, he is prepared to lead an expedition with the noble cause of helping a couple of good chaps recue a fellow Brit. Of course if there are any diamonds available he will take a share.

What follows is a ripping yarn that helped to make the template for many more, with hardships endured, pitched battles fought, and narrow squeaks negotiated; all faced with stiff upper lip and manly camaraderie.

The story is presented as a memoir of Quatermain, so he obviously makes it, but the fate of his comrades and success of the mission are the driving force of the narrative. The wonder of the African interior probably has less impact on the modern reader – we’ve seen it all on TV courtesy of David Attenborough – but at the time of publication would have contributed to the book’s popularity.

Published in 1885 as the European scramble for Africa was gathering pace, Haggard sets this tale in the Southern Africa that he knew from personal experience. As such the book is of its time and its attitude to the native African is instructive. The white man’s supremacy is a given but there is respect for the inferior race, many of whom have admirable, even noble, qualities (including deference!). Indeed the attachment of one of the party to a young native girl could have led to a rather awkward social situation if not terminated by an unfortunate (or fortunate) incident. More distasteful is the gleeful description of the wanton slaughter of elephants, only valued for their ivory tusks.

In summary an instructive read with a period charm and a strong narrative thread that carries the reader steadily through the 300 pages of adventure and derring do.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote

The unnamed narrator is looking back a few years to the early 1940s when, newly arrived in New York, he moved into an apartment block and was intrigued by the mail box label for Apartment 2 which declares “Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling”.

The name and the voice on the stairs soon take form in the delightful Holly – petit, short hair, dark glasses perched on up-turned nose, and chic little black dress (in other words Audrey Hepburn) – and he is smitten by the kitten. As other neighbours tire of her charms in the wake of her late night parties, that she either hosts or returns from keyless and demanding entry to the block from anyone she can rouse, he is more than happy to step up to the plate.

Is she just a good time girl, a gold-digger, or something more professional? What is her background? What’s behind her weekly visits to Sally Tomato imprisoned in Sing Sing? The more she reveals the more the less sense it makes.

Told mainly in snappy New York dialogue it’s an engaging portrait of a free spirit in single minded pursuit of the good life, epitomised by having breakfast at Tiffany’s among the diamonds and the rich smells of alligator wallets and silver.

The narrator is not in that league so he shouldn’t have a chance with Holly; but he’s on hand when her fragile confection of a world looks in danger of collapsing.

Little more than a novella in length and format it makes an excellent quick read.