DEMIAN - Book review

 

Hermann Hesse’s first person narrative Demian was published in 1919 (although the Prologue was only added in 1960). Hesse died in 1962.

Emil Sinclair belongs to a respectable middle class family. He idolises his two sisters, mother and father – to begin with. But as he questions himself and his part in life, he is drawn to rebel. ‘... the frightened heart flees timidly back to the charmed valleys of childish virtues; unable to believe that this break too must be made, this bond also be severed’ (p116). He was encouraged in this break from his family by a school friend Kromer who then begins to bully and blackmail him. Emil is ultimately protected by an older boy, Max Demian, who becomes Emil’s mentor. In his quest to discover his self, Emil latches on to several individuals who help him on his journey of self-realisation and who have mentoring tendencies.

Instead of living his life, Emil is inclined to dwell unhealthily upon ‘self’ and ‘purpose’. As this is Hesse, there are inferences from Jung, Gnosticism, Leonardo da Vinci, and the psychological and moral growth of the main character. ‘There was only one true vocation for everybody – to find the way to himself’ (p120).

Demian is a mysterious young man. ‘I often try out an art which is known as thought-reading (p37): a technique that impels someone under scrutiny – the power of the stare – to do something unplanned, perhaps.  Demian questioned God as the supreme being: ‘it threatened the solid beliefs in me to which I felt I must cling’ (p58).

Eva is Demian’s very attractive mother, her visage haunting Emil. ‘If she could only be a mother to me, a lover, a goddess – if she could just be here! (p132).

Interesting insights. Too much me-me, perhaps; there’s a beautiful world out there that needs no psychoanalysis, just appreciation. Deep.

THE KEYS TO THE STREET - Book review

 

Ruth Rendell’s The Keys to the Street (1996) is yet another of her intriguing psychological suspense novels. This time she delves into the world of the street people, the dispossessed, the homeless.

The first lines of the book dwell on the iron spikes that surmount the gates of the London Park near the zoo. These – or similar – spikes are relevant later, when some murders occur: a couple of dossers are found impaled on them.

But this isn’t a detective story. The main character is Mary Jago, who works at the Irene Adler museum, which panders to fans of Sherlock Holmes. She has been cohabiting with Alistair, though now she fears him, as he has become controlling and prone to bouts of ill temper. Mary recently offered herself as a bone marrow donor and actually underwent the procedure, effectively saving a man’s life. Alistair is forcefully uncomfortable about this: ‘You need some sense shaking into you’ and shook her with a kind of frenzy (p52). So she plucks up the courage and decides to move out, and has found a temporary job of house-sitting for several months. There is also a dog left with the house – Gushi.

Mr Bean (no, not that one; see below) is a seventy-year-old dog walker and takes up to six at a time, twice daily, including Gushi. Previously, he’d been in the employ of a certain Maurice Clitheroe who was a deranged masochist. Since then, Bean is always on the lookout for scandal that might provide him with blackmail money, and has his sights on one dog-owning client, Mr Barker-Pryce, MP.

Mary and Leo Nash, the bone marrow recipient, meet and are attracted.

From time to time Mary sees a number of homeless in the park area. One of them is Roman Ashton – he’s reading Gogol’s Dead Souls when she first observes him. Roman suffered a tragic loss and sold up his house and lost himself in the streets. Despite not appearing or sounding like the usual street person, he gradually learns the ways of dossers, noting for example that ‘only another dosser sits on the seat where a dosser already is’ (p89).

Harvey Owen Bennett – known as Hob – is a damaged junkie who is willing to do anything to get a fix to relieve his ‘state’.

Another dosser is Pharaoh – real name Jimmy Clancy – whose coat is decorated with countless keys. Apparently he’s seeking ‘the keys of the Kingdom’ (p149). Mr Bean possesses a key to a private residents’ park.

The inner lives and varied past of these characters are examined by Rendell as we move through the novel, and there will be interconnections. Rendell appears knowledgeable about London’s labyrinthine streets, the habits of junkies, dog-walkers and the homeless. In addition, Rendell’s gift for description never fails to put the reader in the scene: ‘In the dark canal a full moon was reflected like a round white light under the water. Trees trailed thin branches across its surface as if to catch the moon in their net’ (p149).

Even when the twist occurs, there is no let-up for the reader. The pages have to be turned to find out what happens next.

An excellent read.

Editorial comment:

The choice of the name ‘Mr Bean’. I can’t understand why Rendell would opt for this since Rowan Atkinson had made his comical Mr Bean famous in 1990 and thereafter.

A TEST OF WILLS - Book review

Charles Todd’s debut book A Test of Wills (1996) is an unusual well-written mystery novel.

It’s 1919 and Inspector Ian Rutledge returns from the Front to take up his job in Scotland Yard. His fiancée Jean walked away from him while he convalesced in a clinic. However, the trench warfare has left an indelible mark on his mind, though there are no outward signs of shell-shock. ‘he’d discovered din the trenches of France that hell itself was not half so frightening as the darkest corners of the human mind’ (p167).

[The cover is excellent - those hands holding the sufferer's head resembling the flames of conflict.]

Rutledge hopes that getting back into the work groove will finally heal him. Hamish is not so sure. Hamish is a Scot, killed in the war, and now Rutledge’s pestering conscience. ‘He’d seen his return mainly as the answer to his desperate need to stay busy, to shut out Hamish, to shut out Jean, to shut out, indeed, the shambles of his life’ (p64).  ‘Nightmares strip the soul’ he is told. Rutledge found no answers for that’ (p124).

It begins with the murder of Colonel Harris by person or persons unknown in a Warwickshire village. The main suspect is Captain Wilton, VC. But there are other likely candidates, too: Lettice Wood is the ward of the late Colonel and the fiancée of Wilton; Mrs Davenant, previously in love with Wilton; Catherine Tarrant, a famous painter cursed by scandal; Reverend Carfield, who lusts after Miss Wood; Royston, who looks after Mallows, the Colonel’s home; Mavers, an unpleasant individual who has always plagued the Colonel; and Hickam, a village drunk who suffers from shell-shock and nightmares.

Rutledge felt he had to understand the murdered man, no easy task; at one time, before the war, he’d found it much easier. ‘How do you put your finger on the pulse of a dead man and bring him to life?’ (p63).

About halfway through Rutledge experiences a flashback to the trenches and in a mere three pages Todd conveys the terror and futility of trench warfare – very telling scenes that explain a great deal, including the voice of Hamish.

There are many instances of fine writing and description. When viewing Catherine Tarrant’s paintings, for example: ‘If you wanted to capture the waste of war, what better expression was there than this, the very antithesis of the dashing recruitment posters?  A girl in a rose-splashed gown whirling in  ecstasy under the spreading limbs of an aged oak. The lost world of 1914, the innocence and brightness and abandonment to joy that was gone forever’ (p119).

A bird began to sing in the trees beyond an open window of the Inquest room. ‘The sound was sweet, liquid, but oddly out of place as a background to a quiet discussion of death’ (p172).

The doctor’s housekeeper observes about Hickam: ‘… that man suffered. Whatever he did in the war, good or evil, he’s paid for it every hour since’ (p139).

The book’s title doubtless stems from this passage: ‘She looked up at him, eyes defensive but resolute. It was a strange test of wills, and he wasn’t sure exactly where it was leading…’ (p226).

The denouement is well done, shifting the book into psychological mystery territory.

At present there are twenty-two Inspector Rutledge books available, which is no mean feat for any author!

Editorial comment

My bête noir is this: ‘he thought to himself’ – (p89). He thought would suffice. ‘Himself’ is tautology.

Charles Todd is American and on the whole has successfully captured the English nuances. The text contains US English spelling. Many, many years ago a family friend used to work for Penguin books in London and her task was to Anglicise American spelling in books written by their US authors. I suspect this is no longer considered necessary or even viable. For interest, here are a few Americanisms I detected:

‘You’d better come, they’re about to lynch that stupid devil Mavers!’ – In England we’d say ‘hang’ not ‘lynch’.

 ‘He just lays there…’ (p138) – In England we’d say ‘he just lies there…’

‘… questions had gotten him nowhere. (p189) – In England we’d say ‘questions got him nowhere…’

American English uses ‘toward’ while UK English uses ‘towards’.

And, inevitably, Rutledge walks along a sidewalk instead of a path or pavement. (‘Pavement’ in US English is the road). Separated by a common language, indeed.

SPEAKING IN TONGUES - Book review

 

Jeffery Deaver’s 1995 psychological thriller Speaking in Tongues didn’t get the paperback treatment in UK until 1999. The back of the book offers up a small mystery: ‘Filled with the brilliant twists and turns that are Jeffery Deaver’s hallmark, this is the long awaited, completely revised paperback debut of his classic thriller.’ The mystery is – what was ‘completely revised’?

Meghan is a troubled teen and is marginally schizophrenic. She is attending a session with her therapist; only it’s a new guy, Aaron Matthews. He’s much better than the usual fella, bald Hudson. Smooth-talking, approachable – until he injects her with a drug that knocks her out.

For several years Meghan’s parents have been separated. Mother Bett has had a string of failed relationships. Father Tate Collier is a retired lawyer who spends his time on the family farm and barely sees Meghan from one month to the next. Tate was a glib talker when in the courtroom. So there are two men who both have a way with words that can convince.

Ostensibly, it seems that Meghan has run away from home, having left an accusatory letter. But it doesn’t seem quite right. Tate calls in favours from friends in law enforcement. Gradually, it dawns on them all that Meghan has been abducted. Worse, people who might have been in contact with Meghan just prior to her absence start dying…

The past is coming to haunt Tate… 

This is yet another edge-of-seat Deaver thriller, told mainly from the point of view of Tate, Bett, Meghan and Matthews. Nobody seems safe.

Un-put-down-able all the way to the end.

The Alienist - book review

Caleb Carr’s debut thriller The Alienist was published in 1994; it has only recently been released as a series on Netflix.

The title derives from the fact that before 1900 people suffering from mental illness were believed to be ‘alienated’ from society and even their true nature. Experts who studied these individuals were known as alienists.

The tale takes place in 1896 in New York. John Schuyler Moore is the narrator. He’s a journalist. He’s also a good friend of Dr Laszlo Kreizler, an eminent physician and alienist. One night they are both called out by the Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt: there has been a gruesome murder of a boy prostitute, which is not the first, apparently. As Roosevelt is at his wits’ end he reluctantly calls upon Kreizler and Moore to undertake a private investigation. They recruit the formidable Sara, Roosevelt’s secretary, to assist.

At over 500 pages, this is not a page-turning thriller. But it is nevertheless engrossing, not least because Carr has inhabited not only the persona of Moore and the time-period but also the great city itself. To reinforce credibility, he has populated the story with real people as well as fictional. Religious, political and criminal characters leap from the page – and can be found in the prizewinning tome Gotham – A History of New York City to 1898 by Burrows and Wallace (pub.1999).

As they attempt to formulate the psychological profile of the serial killer who persists in murdering boy’s and depriving their corpses of their eyes, the investigative team are repeatedly baulked by criminal elements and even the city’s Protestant and Catholic archbishops.

The gradual unravelling of the culprit’s past is compelling and fascinating.

As the brief outline above attests, the book is not for the squeamish. Sadly, whatever atrocity a fiction writer might write about, in the annals of crime the truth is often by far worse.

An accomplished first novel. Others have followed.

More Than Human - book review

 

Theodore Sturgeon’s classic science fiction novel More Than Human was published in 1953 and won the International Fantasy and Science Fiction Award (1954). It comprises three connected stories – ‘The Fabulous Idiot’, ‘Baby is Three’ and ‘Morality’; the middle story was previously published as a standalone in Galaxy magazine in 1952; the book-end tales were written for the so-called fix-up novel.

The book concerns five beings – two little black girls with a speech impediment yet with the ability to teleport, an introspective girl whose mother was of easy virtue, one seemingly mentally impaired baby who can absorb and transmit thoughts, and a so-called idiot who is anything but and adopts the name Lone.

With intense psychological understanding, Sturgeon weaves the lives of these apparent ‘freaks’ and shows how over time they evolve into a single entity, a gestalt. The new human, perhaps? And he poses the question: would they be feared or embraced. We know the answer, of course. So this gestalt is secret, hidden from ordinary humans.

I don’t know but I can imagine Stephen King, among others, read this book and was influenced by its concepts and characters. There are definite similarities: the telepathic child, the dysfunctional characters, the underlying mystery and threat. And there are inchoate elements of the X-Men here too.

Sturgeon’s writing is colourful, imaginative and mindful of the human condition, and at times can pack a powerful punch.

More Than Human is still thought-provoking, even after all these years.

Book review - Lohengrin

Antony Melville Ross’s ninth book Lohengrin (1986) is a spy thriller set during the Second World War. It’s a tense and believable read but has been out of print for some time, which is a pity as it’s a competent suspenseful story about the incredible yet true Double-Cross System, when the British security service actively ran and controlled the German espionage system in the UK.

We’re introduced to the highly attractive Claire Helier who is ‘a favourite of London society and an orphaned daughter of an ancient house.’ She is recruited into MI5’s ‘Beautiful Bitch Brigade’ who helped suborn identified German spies. Her target is Frank Pelham, a man who has been allocated the codename Lohengrin. Claire’s controller is George Pemberton, whose earlier turned German agent, Parsifal, had committed suicide due to the pressure.

Claire and the security service entrap Frank, playing on his emotions. It isn’t hard for Claire, because she fell in love with him. That was an uncalled for complication. But while she loved Frank, she hid her duplicity, and he was convinced that if he didn’t cooperate with the security service Claire would be hanged. The psychological submission and attempted rebuilding of Frank is plainly detailed, and could be construed as shameful, yet in this case, as with others in a similar situation, the end justified the means. Most nights London and elsewhere was bombed. Life went on, but few knew if it might be snuffed out in an instant. The XX system was an ingenious and essential way to fight back.

At one point the daring manipulators send Pemberton with Lohengrin to Portugal and thence to Berlin. Ostensibly, Pemberton was offering to be a double agent for the Germans. This is tense stuff; he is interviewed by Admiral Canaris, among others, and treated to watch an entertainment – two Nazi women whipping a naked black marketer to within an inch of his life. The audience is in raptures over it; while Pemberton later is violently sick, wondering if a similar fate awaits him: ‘Pemberton took his second shower of the night, spending ten minutes under it as though disgust was a material thing he could cleanse from his body.’ (p239)

The narrative is tense and suspenseful, laced with humour and good observation for the period. ‘May I have the boiled mutton without spinach, please? I know that spinach is good for you, but I’ve always hated it and as I don’t want muscles like Popeye it would be a waste.’ (p185)

The subtext is about trust, honesty and being true to oneself.

The German viewpoint is touched upon. Despite being ignorant of the deception, they were circumspect: ‘We have learnt to suspect anything put out over the BBC, but the British press is a different matter. It can have a “D” Notice forbidding publication applied to it, but I doubt there is the machinery to enforce the printing of misleading information. Their reporters are too curious and freedom of the press still means a great deal to the British, even in time of war. It’s almost an article of faith with them.’ (p183)

The ending is perhaps inevitably downbeat. Maybe this accounts for the book being all-but forgotten. The title might not have helped sales either. Of the ten books by Melville Ross, seven are one word titles.

In the 1980s he was a respected author of tense thrillers. He called upon his experience in WWII in command of his own submarine, was awarded the DSC, and worked in the Secret Service after the war. He evokes a powerful feeling for his characters, whichever side they’re on.  I’m certainly inclined to look up his other books.

Blindfold (1978)

Two Faces of Nemesis (1979)

Back Lash (1979)

Tightrope (1981)

Submarine quartet

Trigger (1982)

Talon (1983)

Shadow (1984)

Command (1985)

Shaw’s War (1988)

Antony Melville Ross died in 1993, aged 73.