A Common Reader . . .

Review: The Last Day of a Condemned Man - Victor Hugo

I have several Oneworld Classics editions on my shelves and apart from the quality of the writing they contain, I also admire the high production values of this series.  Cover design is stylish and appropriate to the content, the paper and typography are to a high standard and the overall result is a very collectible set of books.

Oneworld have an interesting catalogue and I appreciate the idea of publishing a range of lesser known works by "classical" authors.  The About Us page on the website tells us that, "In September 2007, Oneworld Classics acquired the legendary Calder Publications list (founded 1949), with its vast array of Nobel-Prize winners and controversial authors such as Artaud, Trocchi and Miller". This is evidently going to be an imprint to watch. 

Last Day of a Condemned Man is an excellent example of Oneworld Classics publishing ethos, being one of Victor Hugo's lesser known works but presenting it in a form which will ensure its place among Les Misérables and other titles. 

The book is primarily polemical.  Hugo was a lifelong campaigner against the death penalty and Wikipedia tells that he convinced the government of Queen Victoria to spare the lives of six Irish people convicted of terrorist activities.  His influence was credited in the removal of the death penalty from the constitutions of Geneva, Portugal and Columbia.  In the Preface to the 1832 edition, which begins this volume, it is stated clearly the book is nothing other than an appeal . . . for the abolition of the death penalty".  There then follows 18 pages of carefully reasoned argument for why the death penalty has no place in civilised society, least of all a professed Christian society, for,

civilisation is no more than a series of transformations.  The gentle law of Christ will finally penetrate the penal code and extend its influence across it.

At a time when even the United States carried out 37 executions in 2008, clearly this book still has a lot to say to the nations of the world.

The preface is followed by a dramatised script of a discussion of the book at a literary salon.  The book is being criticised for its crude subject matter:

Madame de Blinval:  It really is an appalling book, a book that gives on nightmares, a book that makes one ill.

Fat Gentleman:  It must be said that morals deteriorate every day.  My Lord, what a horrible thought!  To uncover, dig up, analyse one by one without overlooking a single one, every physical suffering, every mental torment that a man condemned to death must feel on the day of his execution?  Isn't it appalling?

Chevalier:  Indeed it's monumentally impertinent.

The book itself is as the title suggests a first-person account of a prisoner's last day.  Victor Hugo covers every aspect of this final period of the condemned man's life from the gruesome details of his physical incarceration to his inner thoughts and the increasing terror he goes through.  We read of his hopes for a pardon right to his last moments, and his last steps up to the guillotine.  At times I was reminded of Edgar Allen Poe's stories, particularly when reading about the dungeon in which the man is held while awaiting his execution, or the descriptions of prisoners being chained together for their journey to a lifetime of hard labour. 

This is not a pleasant book to read, but then Hugo's intention was to show his fellow-citizens what really went on after the court had delivered its judgement.  And of course there are still a large number of countries where this sort of experience still happens.  Possibly The Last Day of a Condemned Man is of its time and place but its message remains all too relevant and I believe that Oneworld Classics are doing us a service in republishing this important book.

Review: Memoirs of an Anti-Semite - Gregor von Rezzori

I came to read Gregor Von Rezzori through reading an article, Chronicle of Loss, by John de Falbe in Slightly Foxed magazine no. 15.  As a book reviewer, it is easy to concentrate on new books to the exclusion of many excellent novels which are fast-fading from public gaze.  Who for example reads Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene or Daphne du Maurier these days?  Slightly Foxed magazine publishes articles about writers from the last 100 years or so and reminds its readers of so many 20th century gems that the subscription seems well worth-while.

Gregor von Rezzori is a deeply reflective writer.  He writes what might be called memoir-based fiction, but he is not just interested in his stories, but wants to bring out the meaning behind them.  His mind is hugely inventive and the reader gets the impression of someone who can see all points of view and incorporate them into his stories.  He seldom allows his characters to get away with expressing their prejudices and long-held opinions but always sets them in juxtaposition with someone holding an opposing view, or else shows the absurbity of their statements by setting them in a context of personal decline and ultimate failure. 

Review: The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds

From 1837 to 1841, John Clare, the peasant poet, was a patient in a private asylum in the Epping Forest.  Clare and his wife Patty had six children and life was proving increasingly burdensome to Clare, who began to suffer bouts of severe depression, leading to alarmingly erratic behaviour and serious delusions.  In The Quickening Maze, Adam Foulds has written an imaginative recreation of Clare's years in the High Beech Asylum, and while the result is firmly fictional, the picture presented is realistic and consistent with the known history.  

The book is sparsely written.  Foulds does not write lengthy descriptive or scene-setting passages, but each small vignette contributes to a rich picture of the cloistered life of a 19th century private asylum. 

This is no mad-house.  The asylum is run on orderly lines by Dr Matthew Allen, a thoughtful man who likes to get to know his patients.  However, the finances of the asylum are precarious and Foulds describes Allen's attempts to mix the cure of souls with mechanical invention and patents.  Poor Allen finds his time increasingly spent trying to "diversify his business", but without success. 

In the meantime, the patients are allowed a relative freedom, and for a while John Clare is allowed a day-pass from his confinement, a privilege he abuses by staying overnight with gypsies and returning much the worse for wear.  I found the section where Clare is with his gypsy friends particularly well-written, showing the considerable research Foulds has put into this book.  The detailed description of how to prepare a hedgehog for the pot is particularly enlightening! -

The body he gave to Judith to pack in still clay and went on to the next one.  Judith made a smooth ball around the animal and placed it in the fire.  An hour later, the baked spheres were rolled out of the fire with a stick, cracked open, and the cooked hedgehogs were lifted out naked and steaming.  Their prickles remained stuck in the clay and pulled easily from the flesh . . and the fine smelling meat was passed around.  John ate.  It tasted as well as he'd remembered: a sweet, earthen, secret flavour.  The meat was tender.  Warm grease coated his lips. 

Review: Burial - Neil Cross

I read my first Neil Cross book about a year ago, and since then have been seeking out other books by this remarkable writer.  Neil Cross specialises in complex psychological novels in which ordinary people get involved in highly disturbing crimes.  His ability to capture the horror of suburban man as he is sucked into unresolvable conflicts is second to none.  I can only think of writers like Ruth Rendell or Frances Fyfield who also twist the knife into the psyche of middle-England, leading to late nights as their readers plough on through these literary nightmares to find out what happened next.

In Burial, a young man called Nathan goes to a party, where drink and drugs flow freely.  Nathan is about to break up with his girl-friend and hooks up with Elise, an appealing and friendly young woman who seems to be happy take over where his previous girl-friend left off.  Nathan also meets Bob, an old acquaintance who offers to drive Nathan and Elise out in his car to a remote spot where they can take more drugs and have what seems (mistakenly) to be a good time. 

I have no intention of spoiling this book for other readers and must stop my description there.  But it will do no harm to say that Nathan ends up years later with a horrendous situation to deal with involving the exhumation of an ancient corpse, the concealment of appalling secrets from his wife, and an attempt to sort out Bob, who now has a terrifying hold over him but has also degenerated into a shambling and confused wreck.  Half-way through the book, the reader suddenly sees that the whole situation is so impossible for Nathan to deal with that there seems to be absolutely no resolution other than some sort of nuclear option.  It is at this stage that the reader's late nights begin. 

Review: Pygmy - Chuck Palahniuk

Although I've heard of Chuck Palahniuk, particularly in the context of his highly successful novel Fight Club, I'd never read anything by him before until being sent  Pygmy through the post.  At first I was not sure that this was going be my sort of thing, but within a few pages I was hooked. 

Imagine a country containing an amalgamation of all the worst attributes of North Korea, Communist China and Nazi Germany.  Children are tested for their future educational and career needs at the age of four, and those who show high potential are whisked away from their parents into state institutions.  There they are brainwashed into complete subservience to the state, using a curriculum involving extreme martial arts, political indoctrination, chemical warfare and urban terrorism.

Now move forward to a mid-Western church in America where a female missionary feels such concern for these children that she arranges an exchange visit for a number of them to stay with American host-families.  The children arrive in America to have six months of respite from their harsh existence, and as the host-father puts it, to "to sing our songs and share the fellowship of our homes and church".  However, unbeknown to these generous-hearted families, these children have been given a plan:  their educators have shown them how to wreak "Operation Havoc", a terrible act of destruction on the evil American town in which they have come to stay.

This book is one of the funniest books I have read in a long time, but also immensely clever.  The whole book is written in the first person by one of the children, Operative 67, using a sort of pidgin American which takes some getting used to but provides considerable insight into the regime they have been brought up in. 

Begins here first account of operative me, agent number 67 on arrival mid-western American airport greater _______ area. Flight ____. Date ______. Priority mission top success to complete. Code name. Operation Havoc.

Fellow operatives already pass immigrant control, through secure doors and to embrace own other host family people. Operative Tibor, agent 23; operative Magda, agent 36; operative Ling, agent 19. All violate United States secure port of entry having success. Each now embedded among middle-income corrupt American family, all other homes, other schools, and neighbours of same city. By not after next today, strategy of web of operatives to be established.

Review: Chess - Stefan Zweig

Ever since reading Stefan Zweig's longest novel, Beware of Pity, I tend to pounce on any book I find by this early 20th century  Austrian author.  Chess is what may be called a "slim volume", being only 73 pages long, but readers of Zweig will be used to slim volumes - for with such a small oeuvre, publishers seem unable to resist issuing Zweig's novellas and short stories in small portions.

Regular visitors to A Common Reader will know that I don't hesitate to comment on the physical attributes of a book - binding, cover art, price and anything else that strikes me about the production before me. In this case, while the production is excellent the price is silly - I am only grateful to ebay which enabled me to pick up Chess for £0.99 rather than the £5.99 cover price allocated by Penguin. 

Quibble over, the novella is as well-nigh perfect as might be expected.  A wealthy passenger on a Buenos Aires bound ship, discovers that a famous chess-master Czentovic is also on board.   Czentovic, the chess-master was an infant-prodigy peasant with no education or talent in other fields, but has risen to prominence in the world of chess with this single talent which has failed to civilize him in other ways, leaving him brutish and insensitive.  

The narrator decides to challenge Czentovic to a game, but the chess-master replies that he is unable to play any game for a smaller fee than $250.  The narrator clubs together with a group of aquaintances and take on Czentovic as a team, only to be roundly beaten and in very few moves.  During the next game, a mysterious stranger approaches the group and offers advice, leading to a draw, much to the surprise of Czentovic. 

Review: Three Ways to Capsize a Boat - Chris Stewart

Ever since Jerome K Jerome had such a phenomenal and long-lasting success with Three Men In A Boat, other travellers have written humorous accounts of their exploits, increasingly so in recent years.  There seems to be a vast market for these books, and I enjoy reading them from time to time, usually as light relief from my heavy schedule of more serious books.  The range available is vast: there are accounts of going to live in foreign countries (e.g. Stephen Clarke, A Year in the Merde), taking on ridiculous challenges (e.g. Tony Hawkes, Round Ireland With A Fridge) or just humorous travel journals (e.g. Stuart Maconie, Pies and Prejudice).

Chris Stewart's books are firmly in this category, and I can say they are among the best.  Ever since his hugely successful Driving Over Lemons, Chris has charmed us with his light-hearted approach to seemingly impossible challenges.  I remember reading "Lemons" during a period of commuting to London in a cold winter and turning away from views across Battersea to Chris's descriptions of Andalucia, which helped me forget that I was about to join the "I did not know death had undone so many" hoards scurrying over Waterloo Bridge. 

Chris Stewart is a little like Michael Palin, in that he seems to be a genuinely nice guy, an ideal travel companion, even on the printed page. John McCarthy interviewed him on Radio 4's Excess Baggage last week about his new book Three Ways to Capsize a Boat and clearly Chris is a generous-minded man, given to self-deprecation and complete lack of boasting.  I had this book on my "to be read pile" at the time, and as I injured my knee last Sunday and was pretty much bed-ridden from Monday to Wednesday, I decided to promote "Three Ways" to the top of the pile and see if Chris could lighten my mood as he did those years ago while on the commuter train.