THE MOON IS HELL - Book review

 

John W. Campbell’s novel The Moon is Hell was published in 1951; my copy was from 1975, some half-dozen years after the first moon landing. The back cover blurb states ‘... is a great writer’s vision of the first men on the Moon – not as the American space programme made it happen, but as it might have been!’

Regarded as a hard-science classic, it is a relatively short read, 123 pages. It’s in diary form by Dr Duncan, a physicist and second in command.

It’s 1981. Thirteen men have been on the moon in their protected dome for just over a year on the dark side of the moon. The crew consists of a surgeon, two chemists, two mineralogists, an astrophysicist, electricians and mechanics, and an engineer and cook. They expect to be relieved shortly. Unfortunately, the relief spaceship crashes, killing all crew and destroying equipment. ‘The burning fuel destroyed everything’ (p28); yet it’s unlikely that there would be any burning as there’s no air.

Because it’s on the ‘wrong’ side of the moon, there is no direct radio contact with Earth. To compound matters they learn that somebody is stealing food from the storehouse. Nil desperandum: the moon ‘is a single vast chemical laboratory’ (p33).  They begin to manufacture oxygen and, ultimately, artificial food from clothing and paper, and photo cells for electricity and power.

It’s a race against time. By trekking to the earthside of the moon they might be able to send a message to Earth and hope that a rescue ship can get to them. Their ingenuity is laudable and life-saving.

The narrative, being technical, cold and scientific, leaves little room for characterisation, so there isn’t a great deal of empathy for anyone. A story has to have conflict and in this sense their conflict is with the inhospitable satellite itself; however, none of the individuals evince any conflict, save for the thief when finally discovered. On p10 there’s a hint that not all of them will survive. Perhaps not surprisingly for the date of writing, when food becomes an issue cannibalism isn’t considered! Yet what shine through is their adaptability and the determined resistance to defeatism.

A worthy addition to any science fiction collection.

Of course the concept was used, with adjustments, to great acclaim by Andy Weir in The Martian (2014), some sixty-three years later...

SHARPE'S STORM - Book review

Bernard Cornwell’s twenty-fourth Sharpe novel, Sharpe’s Storm is actually the nineteenth in chronological order, taking place in 1813, following after Honour and Regiment (both 1813) and before Siege (1814). It isn’t a disappointment.

Sharpe and his battalion are with Wellington’s troops in Southern France, faced with crossing the river Nive to confront Marshal Soult’s formidable force. It’s winter and there seems to be perpetual rain, and it’s cold. Sharpe is tasked with escorting a couple of naval men on a secret reconnoitring mission: one of whom is Rear-Admiral Sir Joel Chase, a man he knew years ago (see Sharpe’s Trafalgar). Sir Joel’s enthusiasm soon becomes tiresome to Sharpe’ and to make matters worse he is also hindered by the buffoon Sir Nathaniel Peacock.

As well as Wellington, on good form as usual, we meet again Sharpe’s devoted Three Aitches: Harper, Harris, and Hagman.

All the ingredients we’ve come to expect are here: a couple of skirmishes, a fraught bloody battle, wife Jane, and a brief romantic interlude, laced with humour and pathos.

Sharpe is aware that the end of this war approached and if he survived it he doubted if his services would be retained. He would be at a loss if he didn’t soldier. Fighting, that’s what he was best at. And yet again he proves the truth of that.

As ever, the author’s historical note is enlightening, revealing the real characters and the author’s strategies to shoehorn his heroes into historical events.

A satisfying entry into the canon.

Editorial comment (for the benefit of writers):

‘Quiet!’ Sharpe hissed back (p27). This is not a word that can be hissed... A couple more inapt instances crop up...

‘... firing blindly though the smoke towards the far ridge’ (p126). Of course this should be ‘through’. It’s a common oversight made by editors.

‘Your men call you Mister Sharpe, not “sir”...’ (p150) This in essence repeats an observation made on p49 in the company of Sir Nathaniel Peacock.

CAKES AND ALE - Book review

Somerset Maugham’s novel Cakes and Ale was published in 1930; my paperback copy is its fifth printing, 1981 with an author’s preface. The book’s subtitle is The Skeleton in the Cupboard.

The actual book title doesn’t appear in the text but is, apparently, drawn from a quotation in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night – Toby Belch: ‘Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?’ Or possibly Aesop's fable of ‘The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse’: ‘Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear.’ The phrase is old, understood to mean a life of pleasure, indulgence and ease.

Maugham first thought of the novel’s story as short fiction for the Cosmopolitan – between 1200 and 1500 words in length. However, he found there was no room for a character – Rosie – who persisted in crying out to be written about. ‘A character in a writer’s head, unwritten, remains a possession; his thoughts recur to it constantly, and while his imagination gradually enriches it he enjoys the singular pleasure of feeling that there, in his mind, someone is living a varied and tremulous life, obedient to his fancy and yet in a queer wilful way independent of him’ (p5).  Eventually, Rosie appeared, in this novel.

Still in his preface Maugham sympathises with fellow authors: ‘Every year hundreds of books, many of considerable merit, pass unnoticed. Each one has taken the author months to write, he may have had it in his mind for years; he has put into it something of himself which is lost for ever, it is heart-rending to think how great are the chances that it will be disregarded in the press of matter that weighs down the critics’ tables and burdens the booksellers’ shelves’ (p8). Nothing has changed there, then, even if publication is easier via the self-publish route.

The story is a first-person narrative by William Ashenden, highlighting certain snobbery in the world of books and book-writing. ‘Lady Hodmarsh and the duchess immediately assumed the cringing affability that persons of rank assume with their inferiors in order to show them that they are not in the least conscious of any difference in station between them’ (p43).

Ashenden has been asked to join a select few to visit a famous author, Edward Driffield; as a young fifteen-year-old boy he had known the author and his wife Rosie before he was famous. Rosie had enchanting eyes: ‘She gave herself as naturally as the sun gives heat or the flowers their perfume. It was a pleasure to her and she liked to give pleasure to others’ (p176).

Driffield ‘had written something like twenty books, and though he had never made more than a pittance out of them his reputation was considerable’ (p119). ‘It is always pleasant to be assured that you are a genius’ (p124).

One of the character’s remembered vividly from Ashenden’s childhood is Mary-Ann, a likeable depiction: (she) dropped her aitches freely’ (p56).

Some years later, Driffield’s second wife Amy has asked Ashenden’s writing associate Kear to write a life of her recently deceased husband. Kear seeks Ashenden’s early knowledge of the author, stating ‘... she could trust my discretion. I must behave like a gentleman.’ To which Ashenden responds, ‘It’s very hard to be a gentleman and a writer’ (p102).

This request resonates with Ashenden. ‘... nothing can bring back the past like a perfume or a stench’ (p168).

Cakes and Ale is a fascinating read, perhaps dwelling too much on the vicissitudes of writers and satire on the London literary society of the time, and yet there are plenty of amusing asides, regardless. Ashenden has little time for politicians, it seems: ‘no-one can have moved in the society of politicians without discovering that (if one may judge by results) it requires little mental ability to rule a nation’ (p93). ‘... now that the House of Lords must inevitably in a short while be abolished’ (p117).

Maugham inevitably perhaps inserts vignettes that could be construed as autobiographical, notably Ashenden’s medical studies and then subsequent authorship. There are many instances where his wit, sense of irony and descriptive imagery shine through:

‘... he gave a sort of low roar, like an orangutan in the forests of Borneo forcibly deprived of a coconut’ (p152).

‘The sky was blue and the air, warm and yet fresh, crackled as it were, with the heat. The light was brilliant without harshness. The sun’s beams seemed to hit the white road with a directed energy and bounce back like a rubber ball’ (p54).

‘... the weather was dreadful, a boisterous wind whistled down the street, piercing you to the bone, and the few women who had an errand were swept along by their full skirts like fishing boats in half a gale’ (p73).

There is a fine twist at the end and explains the subtitle.

Maugham seemed to be fixated on the name Ashenden as his First World War secret tales feature a character with that code-name (which are highly recommended). Some other non-spy stories feature the name also.

LIZA OF LAMBETH - Book review

Somerset Maugham’s first novel Liza of Lambeth was published in 1897; my edition is 1978.

Almost all of the dialogue is in the vernacular of the period, a bold decision for a first book. Maugham uses the omniscient point of view, which was probably appropriate at the time of publication due to the story’s controversial nature. ‘That is not precisely what she said, but it is impossible always to give the exact unexpurgated words of Liza and the other personages of the story; the reader is therefore entreated with his thoughts to piece out the necessary imperfections of the dialogue’ (p10). ‘Oh, you - ! she said. Her expression was quite unprintable, nor can it be euphemized’ (p12).

Liza Kemp is a nineteen-year-old factory girl who lives with her ailing often drunk mother in fictional Vere Street in Lambeth. Her best friend is Sally, who is being courted and is eventually wed: Sally had ‘an enormous mouth, with terrible square teeth set wide apart, which looked as if they could masticate an iron bar’ (p22). The Blakeston family has just arrived in the street – Jim, his wife and five children.

 Liza is popular with everyone, especially Tom who wants to court her. She likes him, but not that much: ‘Na then, she repeated, tike yer ’and away. If yer touch me there you’ll ’ave ter marry me’ (p33). She’s quite outspoken yet ingenuous at the outset. ‘Neither modesty nor bashfulness was to be reckoned among Liza’s faults’ (p40).

On a hot day, during a jolly street outing that entailed the quaffing of much beer, they all have a good time. ‘The ladies removed their cloaks and capes, and the men, following their example, took off their coasts and sat in their shirt-sleeves. Whereupon ensued much banter of a not particularly edifying kind respecting the garments which each person would like to remove – which showed that the innuendo of French farce is not so unknown to the upright, honest Englishman as might be supposed’ (p34). It is during this outing that Jim makes a pass at Liza, which has a stirring effect upon her. ‘Her heart seemed to grow larger in her breast, and she caught her breath as she threw back her head as if to receive his lips again. A shudder ran through her from the vividness of the thought’ (p49).

There is quiet humour, ribaldry, and black humour – notably when there’s a discussion about a corpse seemingly too large for his coffin. The grimness of the life in the slums is conveyed without layering it on with a trowel. Apparently, when first published this book received a mixed reception due to its subject matter, working-class adultery and its consequences and its tragic end, and yet it sold out within three weeks and was reprinted. Maugham was a medical student by day and wrote at night, qualifying shortly after the publication of Liza. While a student he encountered the poorest working-class, ‘life in the raw’ as he put it.

Maugham’s Liza is a vividly revealed character – as is her mother (‘me with my rheumatics, an’ the neuralgy!’ (p73)). It’s a moral tale, delivered with empathy, told by a twenty-three-year-old observant writer who quit medicine and relied on his writing for the rest of his life.

Editorial comment (for the benefit of writers):

 ‘he lifted her off her feet and threw her to the ground’ (p106). Unfortunately, this happens indoors, so ‘ground’ should properly read ‘floor’.