A HERITAGE OF SHADOWS - Book review

Madeleine Brent’s historical first-person novel A Heritage of Shadows was published in 1983. 

It’s 1891 in Paris and eighteen-year-old Hannah McLeod is a waitress in La Coquille restaurant. She’s bilingual and is especially useful to the owner when English patrons dine there. She lives in a modest garret and conceals her real past and has invented an alternative which she doesn’t volunteer but which is available if pressed. She gets on well with the other staff but her only true friend seems to be a neighbour across the landing, Toby Kent, an Irish artist, for whom she occasionally poses (fully clothed).

One night on returning from her stint in La Coquille, she rescues a stranger who was being attacked by thieves. This leads to some complicated relationships which entail her taking up employment as a French teacher for two children of Mr Sebastian Ryder in England. ‘As soon as we were seated Mr Ryder said briskly, ‘Grace’. We all bowed our heads and he thanked the Lord for what we were about to receive, but in a manner which seemed to hint that he would have managed very well without the Lord’s help’ (p88).

Gradually, we learn about Hannah’s tragic past, some of it quite salacious though never graphic. ‘I have a heritage of shadows, long dark shadows thrown by my past. They are not of my making, yet I must walk in those shadows all my life’ (p197).

Hannah is a well-drawn, likeable and believable character, made of stern stuff; bold, forthright and honest – a marvellous heroine. There are several other characters of interest, too who come into her orbit – for good and ill. There is a reason why Mr Ryder had employed her. There is a betrayal, a kidnapping, and a confrontation with Mexican bandits – plenty to keep those pages turning.

Well-written, well-visualised, this is a most satisfying read. I’d previously read three Brent novels (in bold below) and enjoyed every one.

Madeleine Brent was one of the best-kept secrets of the publishing world. She was the pseudonym of Peter O’Donnell, creator of Modesty Blaise which he scripted for a comic strip, and which then became the first of a series of 13 best-selling thrillers. His Madeleine Brent books are Tregaron's Daughter (1971), Moonraker's Bride (1973), Kirkby's Changeling (1975), Merlin's Keep (1977), The Capricorn Stone (1979), The Long Masquerade (1981), A Heritage of Shadows (1983), Stormswift (1984), Golden Urchin (1986). He died in 2010.

 

 

FANTOMAS - Book review

The character Fantômas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre is a twentieth century literary phenomenon. Published in 1911 it spawned thirty-one sequels. Fantômas, a masked man in impeccable evening clothes is amoral and deadly, a scourge of France and elsewhere.

The book’s co-writers produced twenty sequels in four years; then Souvestre died suddenly of Spanish influenza in 1914. Shortly after the war erupted and Allain fought in the trenches, but survived to produce eleven more Fantômas novels (indeed some six hundred novels and many stories and articles) and married his co-writer’s widow. Besides being a successful pulp writer, he was a compulsive driver of the cars he collected; he died in 1969.

This translation (of 1986) is a modernized version of one published in 1915.

At the beginning of the book Fantômas comes to us fully formed, already notorious and feared by rich and poor alike. ‘... very extraordinary that such mysterious characters as Fantômas can exist nowadays. Is it really possible that one man can commit so many crimes, and that any human being could escape discovery...’ (p19)

It would seem so. The Marquise de Langrune is viciously stabbed in her own home while a number of guests were staying there... and the blame seems to rest on him.

Inspector Juve is pressed to drop all his other cases and investigate the murder of the Marquise. He is a master of disguise, which enables him to go places where a detective would be suspicious. Yet, to compound matters, Fantômas is also proficient at concealing his identity and taking upon himself more than one as it suits his purpose. And so the manhunt begins!

In common with most potboilers, the pace quickens and there’s an urge to keep turning the pages.

There are a number of twists – in identity and revelations and the intelligent and persistent Juve nearly gets his man more than once. Yet ultimately, he must fail – as have so many other senior detectives on the trail of fictional villains. The difference here is that there is no Poirot, Holmes or Templar to bring the miscreant to justice.

The final pages of the book are intense and grim, which is to be expected, since the introduction tells us, ‘Fantômas has no redeeming traits; greed and vengeance are his chief motivations...' (p5). Whatever the reason, his appeal still seems strong after so many years.

MAIGRET AND THE IDLE BURGLAR - Book review

 

Georges Simenon’s Maigret and the Idle Burglar was published in 1961 and translated in 1963 from Maigret and the Lazy Burglar.

It’s winter in Paris. Maigret has been called out to a murder and his wife advises him to ‘dress up warmly. It’s freezing hard’. Simenon captures the scene with a few pen-strokes: ‘Drawing back the curtain, he saw frost-flowers on the window. The street lamps had the special brightness that only comes with intense cold, and along the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir there was not a soul to be seen or a sound to be head – just one lighted window, in the house opposite; must be someone ill there’ (p3).

The call-out is unofficial as this is Inspector Fumel’s case.

Fumel’s marriage is on the rocks and he has a mistress. He ‘always had a soft spot for women, in spite of all the trouble they had brought him’ (p114)

Maigret is still fuming about how the Ministry of the Interior organisation has changed – ‘the whole bunch of college-educated law-givers who had taken it into their heads to run the world according to their own little ideas’ (p3).

The face of the dead man was bludgeoned. However, Maigret recognises a tattoo. Eventually, the man is identified as a burglar who Maigret had interviewed on several times. Maigret’s superiors are eager to dismiss the killing as an underworld vendetta, something the police should not concern themselves with: ‘Let ’em kill one another, down to the last man. That’ll save the hangman trouble and the taxpayers money’ (p52). Besides, it was not his case. They were more anxious that he track down the perpetrators of several post office robberies.

As usual, there are a number of fine turns of phrase from Simenon; here’s one: ‘Typewriters clicked like falling hailstones’ (p105).

While leading his team to track down the robbers, Maigret also spends time on finding out who was responsible for killing the burglar. In his investigations he meets a number of interesting characters, all sympathetically described.

Editorial comment:

Maybe changed in translation, but I thought that capital punishment in France at the time was not by hanging but by guillotine (two were executed by this method in 1961). The death penalty was abolished in 1981, ratified in 2007.

SHARPE'S ASSASSIN - Book review

Sharpe’s Assassin is Bernard Cornwell’s twenty-second Sharpe novel (number 21 in his timeline/chronological sequence), his first Sharpe book in fourteen years. This tale follows immediately after Sharpe’s Waterloo (1990). Needless to say, we know Sharpe survives, since he appears in Sharpe's Devil (1992) which takes place some five years after Waterloo.

At Waterloo Sharpe lost a number of his chosen men and the story begins with our two heroes, Patrick Harper and Sharpe burying Daniel Hagman. He is summoned by the Duke of Wellington.

The Duke gives him the task of freeing some prisoners from the citadel at a nearby town called Ham. One prisoner in particular is important, an Englishman called Alan Fox. It’s considered a fool’s errand. But it is necessary. As the Duke says, ‘For this job we need a ruthless bastard.’ And that’s Sharpe.

While he’ll be away Sharpe’s battalion is handed over to a newly arrived Major Morris. This is not good news. Years ago Morris was responsible for Sharpe getting flogged for something he didn’t do. Now, however, Sharpe outranks Morris.

All Sharpe wants to do is retire to Normandy with Lucille, his common-law wife. After this last task, perhaps?

Yet the assault on the Ham citadel leads to the revelation that a cabal of Frenchmen have organised to wreak havoc on the occupying forces, with the intention of assassinating British high-ranking officers, in particular Wellington. Sharpe and Harper enter occupied Paris in search of this evil fraternity.

As with the earlier Sharpe books, the fiction is laced with historical events, lending added authenticity.

Throughout, the voices of the TV series’ actors resonates in the dialogue. There’s blood and gore aplenty, clever tactics to confound the enemy, lashings of humour at the expense of the French, honour and betrayal, and bold and foolhardy bravery.

Welcome back, Richard Sharpe! You’ve been away far too long.

Criminal tendencies - a week of crime!

All this week, Crooked Cat Publishing is promoting three crime thrillers at special low prices for the e-book versions.

MESSANDRIERRE

There's something going on in the sleepy village of Messandrierre in Angela Wren's book of the same title. People disappear without a trace. Could it be a serial killer?

Sacrificing his job in investigation following an incident in Paris, Jacques Forêt has only a matter of weeks to solve a series of mysterious disappearances as a Gendarme in the rural French village of Messandrierre.

But, as the number of missing persons rises, his difficult and hectoring boss puts obstacles in his way. Steely and determined, Jacques won't give up and, when a new Investigating Magistrate is appointed, he becomes the go-to local policeman for all the work on the case.

Will he find the perpetrators before his lover, Beth, becomes a victim?

Messandrierre – the first in a new crime series featuring investigator, Jacques Forêt.

http://mybook.to/Messandrierre
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/598765

PILL WARS

Beware of the side effects of anti-depressants in Vanessa Knipe's chilling Pill Wars! They could turn you into a zombie...

Happiness in a Pill

The government has rushed through drug trials to release Pacifex, a powerful anti-depressant. Inventor Torin Oakwood is a hero: he makes people happy!

Jessica Fleming is thrilled to start her new job at Oakwood Industries. Yet, as she arrives, Torin Oakwood flees from the army sent to arrest him.

In the ensuing chaos, Jessica is left in possession of a file that exposes a cover-up in the drug trials. And it turns out her boyfriend is one of the many Pacifex addicts in danger of turning into a mindless, raving monster.

Chased by the army, government agents and anti-government activists who all want the file, she must find Oakwood and force him to create an antidote.

Can her first day at work get any worse?

Pill Wars

http://mybook.to/PillWars
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/478154

CATALYST

Cat, a kick-ass heroine, awaits you in Catalyst, the first in the popular 'Avenging Cat' series by Nik Morton. She's out for revenge for the suspected murder of her parents.

Catalyst - #1 in the 'Avenging Cat' series

Catalyst, a person that precipitates events.

That's Catherine Vibrissae. Orphan. Chemist. Model. Avenging Cat.

She seeks revenge against Loup Malefice, the man responsible for the takeover of her father's company. An accomplished climber, Cat is not averse to breaking and entering to confound her enemies.

Ranging from south of England to the north-east, Wales and Barcelona, Cat's quest for vengeance is implacable. But with the NCA hot on her tail, can she escape the clutches of sinister Zabala and whip-wielding Profesora Quesada?

Catalyst

http://mybook.to/Catalyst
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/499416

Also available in the series: #2 – Catacomb and #3 - Cataclysm

FFB - The War at Troy

This book was released (2005) to coincide with the major film release of TROY. Lindsay Clarke’s retelling serves to reveal in eloquent prose the characters behind these tales of two powerful generations of men and women on the cusp of history and myth.

Clarke has used the classics – The Greek Myths by Robert Graves and The Iliad by E V Rieu, among others, to retell these tales in modern prose and has succeeded brilliantly.

The characters – there’s a helpful glossary of deities and mortals at the back of the book – are all drawn well and believably. You feel for them in their happy and tragic moments. Especially the time when King Agamemnon has to sacrifice his daughter to the goddess Artemis.  These scenes are particularly moving as the thirteen-year-old meets her father for the first time in nine years. He must kill her to appease the gods, ‘for the good of all.’ How hollow those words ring through history!

As we know, the gods ceased to have form once nobody believed in them anymore. At the time of Troy, men not only believed in their gods, some actually met them.

Unlike the film, which had a limited time-span to tell its story, this book fills in the background to Paris, explaining how he was adopted by a woodcutter and only learned of his true birthright as King Priam’s son from the interfering goddess Aphrodite. From that point on, his life is blighted. More than once afterwards, he wished he’d stayed in the countryside! We can sympathise with him and the other characters, knowing what will happen.

In fact, Helen’s flight with Paris was merely the excuse that Agamemnon needed all along. What comes across here, however, is the honourable and generous nature of Helen’s husband Menelaus – truly, the film did him a disservice! His betrayal by Paris was great indeed.

But the story is more than about the love affair between Helen of Sparta and Paris of Troy. They are merely the cause. It’s about heroism, stubbornness and honour. When King Priam sneaks into the Myrmidons’ camp to claim his son’s body, you feel for the anguish of the old man and even for Achilles. (This was conveyed very well in the film, too).

The war with Troy actually raged for ten years, as prophesised. And it was in under thunderclouds and rain, not only under the blazing sun. Some of the battle scenes are gripping and gruesome and you can almost feel and smell the stink of warfare.

There’s humour, irony, cunning, laughter, betrayal, tragedy and of course cruelty aplenty in these pages. Striding this stage of epic stories about Troy is Odysseus, wise, honest and clever; he was of course the originator of the wooden horse, a fine piece of writing that blends dreams and facts. Yet there are other mortal men who were looked upon as almost gods – Achilles, Ajax and Hector. Their names – and others, such as Cassandra, Penelope, Electra, Orestes and Thetis – echo down the ages. Clarke has managed to bring them alive again for a new readership who might balk at the apparent dry classics.  

 
The sequel, Return from Troy (2006), is about Odysseus.

Book of the film – The Paradise

Okay, it isn’t a film but a TV series, and the book is not quite the same title, but The Ladies’ Paradise. I must admit that both publishers of the paperback of Emil Zola’s 1883 novel have taken liberties on their covers: ‘As seen on TV’ and ‘A BBC TV series’ . The series is inspired by this book, but apart from a few similarities, the book is not the story depicted on TV. Bill Gallagher, the creator and scriptwriter of the TV series is to be applauded for not only transposing the original from Paris to an English northern city, but also for redrawing virtually all the characters and infusing them with even more complex lives.

BBC's 'The Paradise' based on Zola's novel

In the book, Denise does indeed come to the city (Paris), but she has two young brothers in tow when she arrives on the shop doorstep of her uncle, Baudu. Her uncle is married and has a daughter and they have a lodger who works in the shop too. Denise does find employment at the department store, Au Bonheur des Dames, in the department run by Madame Aurélie (Miss Audrey in the series), who happens to have a husband, ‘Lhomme, the cashier, a fat man who had his right arm cut off by an omnibus.’ They also have a rather lazy son who works in the store.

The imperative of the department store owner, Octave Mouret is similar to that depicted by John Moray in the series: ‘You can sell as much as you like when you know how to sell! Therein lies our success!’ (p74) And next page, ‘… he spoke of the exploitation of women… It was women the shops were wrangling over in rivalry, it was women they caught in the everlasting snare of their bargains, after they had dazed them with their displays.’

Alma Classics version, 2013

Widower Mouret was a womaniser, at least until he was smitten with Denise, and liked nothing better than to be surrounded by the fair sex – ‘in the midst of the heady scents which were rising from their hair, he maintained the composure of a conqueror, taking little sips of tea, the perfume of which cooled down those other more pungent scents, in which there was a touch of musk.’

While Denise is ambitious and forthright in the book, it is Mouret who gets the brainwaves about enlarging the premises, introducing a restaurant: ‘… idea came to him after a cousin’s wedding; stomachs were always good for business, for he had been made to pay ten francs for some washing-up water with a few noodles swimming about in it.’

The intriguing possibly sinister character of Jonas is an amalgam of L’Homme and  old man Jouve who was constantly writing reports on the staff and engineering dismissals (p195). Some other staff members have been retained – Pauline and Clara – and others introduced to good effect in the series. Intriguingly, Mouret’s business assistant Bourdoncle has a great antipathy towards Denise (contrary to his counterpart Dudley in the series); perhaps he feared for his own position, perceiving in her innocence ‘the dark enigma of woman, death disguised as a virgin’ (p322).

‘Mouret’s sole passion was the conquest of Woman. He wanted her to be queen in his shop; he had built this temple for her in order to hold her at his mercy there’ (p229). And yet he is confounded by Denise, who is not seduced by his charms, to the point that his mind is filled with her most of the time. He is so besotted that he even gives up his mistress, Madame Desforges (Katherine in the series).  He gradually learns that Denise ‘... supplied all the good to be found in women – courage, gaiety, simplicity – and her gentleness exuded a charm with the penetrating subtlety of perfume… if she deigned to smile, one was hers for life.’(p324)

This book is much more than a romance about Mouret and Denise, however. Zola undertook considerable research in two Parisian department stores, Le Bon Marché and Le Louvre, interviewing staff. In the book he reveals a great deal that is commonplace in the retail trade today, whether that’s loss leaders, enticements at the entrance, the destruction of small shops nearby, and even a ‘returns’ system. These insights are fascinating.

Any potential reader expecting to renew acquaintance with the TV characters might be disappointed, but they shouldn’t be, because they will be enriched by Zola’s characters and his story regardless, as well as his sensuous language: ‘The silk department was like a great room dedicated to love, hung with white by the whim of a woman in love who, snowy in her nudity, wished to compete in whiteness. All the milky pallors of an adored body were assembled there, from the velvet of the hips to the fine silk of the thighs and the shining satin of the breasts ‘(p404). Above all, Zola was an observer of life, and attempted to reveal it in all its naturalness. And with flair, of course: ‘… and beneath the heavy downpour nothing could be seen but a confused procession of umbrellas jostling each other, swelling out like great gloomy wings in the darkness.’

***

Perhaps life imitates art, too.  Zola had been married to Alexandrine since 1870, and remained with her for the rest of his life (he died in 1902), but in 1888 he began a long-term affair with Jeanne Roserot, a 21-year-old who entered service in his household. He installed Jeanne in an apartment in Paris and she gave birth to a daughter, Denise in 1889 and a son, Jacques, followed in 1891. After Alexandrine discovered the affair in 1892 (an anonymous letter), a mutually acceptable arrangement was set up and Jeanne and the children lived as part of the Zola family.

The English version I read was published by Alma Classics, translation by April Fitzlyon.

FFB – The Ladies’ Paradise

The popular BBC television series, now in its second season, The Paradise, is based on this book by Emil Zola. First published in French as Au Bonheur des Dames in 1883, it is in fact the eleventh novel in his series, The Rougon-Macquart Cycle, which in twenty volumes depicts two branches, one legitimate (Rougon), one illigitimate (Macquart), of a family from Plassans, a town in the south of France, considered to be Zola’s fictionalised version of his home Aix-en-Provence. In its wider context, it’s also the story about the period of France’s Second Empire, the authoritarian regime of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III (1850s-1870s).

The Ladies’ Paradise encapsulates in luxurious detail the new phenomenon of consumer society – obsessed with image, fashion and instant gratification, laying bare the department store in 1860s Paris. Octave Mouret is a business genius who transforms a modest draper’s shop into a hugely successful retail enterprise, masterfully exploiting the desires of his female customers and ruining small businesses in the process. Sound familiar?

Through the eyes of trainee salesgirl Denise, we see the inner workings of the store and the relations and intrigues among the staff, human dramas played out alongside the relentless pursuit of profit. The various characters find themselves torn between the conflicting forces of love, loyalty and ambition. (Arthur Hailey did something similar with his books in the 1960s and 1970s [Hotel, Airport, Wheels, Moneychangers, Overload etc]; surprisingly, he never examined a department store; maybe he’d thought it had been done so well by Zola!)

Zola evokes the giddy pace of Paris’ transition into a modern city and the changes in sexual attitudes and class relations that were occurring in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Not lost in translation

I bought two versions of the book as Christmas presents. Interestingly, the translations differ, which is to be expected. The job of a translator is not to literally transcribe word-for-word from one language to another; indeed, that’s impossible, because different cultures have different idioms, phrases and even several meanings for certain words. In the new language, there must be a constant battle between accurate translation and narrative flow.

Here you’ll find the opening two paragraphs from Chapter One. You might like to note the subtle changes employed by the translators. Doubtless, a third translator would opt for another slight variant. Either could appear as a draft version in English – certainly, some authors would vary their prose to this degree, striving for clarity and style.

The Ladies’ Paradise, translation April Fitzlyon, 1957,2008: Alma Classics, 2012.

Denise had come on foot from Saint-Lazare station where, after a night spent on the hard bench of a third-class carriage, she and her two brothers had been set down by a train from Cherbourg. She was holding Pepe’s hand, and Jean was following her; they were all three aching from the journey, scared and lost in the midst of the vast city of Paris. Noses in the air, they were looking at the houses, and at each cross-road they asked the way to the Rue de la Michodiere where their Uncle Baudu lived. But, just as she was finally emerging into the Place Gaillon, the girl stopped short in surprise.
            “Oh!” she said. “Just have a look at that, Jean!”

The Ladies’ Paradise, translation Brian Nelson, 1995: Oxford University Press, 2012

Denise had come on foot from the Gare Saint-Lazsare. She and her two brothers had arrived on a train from Cherbourg and had spent the night on the hard bench of a third-class carriage. She was holding Pepe by the hand, and Jean was walking behind her, all three exhausted from the journey, frightened and lost in the midst of the vast city of Paris. They kept looking up at the houses, and at every intersection they asked the way to the Rue de la Michodiere, where their uncle Baudu lived. But on arriving in the Place Gaillon, the young girl suddenly stopped in surprise.
            “Oh!” she said, “look at that, Jean!”

In a later blog, I'll look at other books that have been translated. The world of reading is a richer place thanks to translators. I will also write about the book of the film (TV series)...