SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH BOOKS

In this alternative history set in 1952, debut author Guy Saville assumes that the negotiations of Lord Halifax, a British advocate of appeasement throughout the war, has led ultimately to détente between Great Britain and Germany. In 1943, the two countries, wanting to avoid war, had met at the Casablanca Conference and agreed to divide the African continent into two spheres of influence. The divisions would be primarily along the historical colonial lines: West Africa would remain largely under German rule, while much of East Africa would remain British. In a dramatic opening scene, a British assassin arrives in Kongo disguised as an SS surveyor, hoping to kill Walter Hochberg, the Governor General of Kongo. Cole stabs him to death, then escapes with some of his co-conspirators, only to discover later that Hochberg is somehow alive. Reading this novel is like reading a movie. The action is so graphic and so cinematic, that it is easy to imagine a hardcore action thriller, peopled with characters as impervious to pain as Superman. By the halfway point, Burton Cole and Patrick Whaler have been beaten, stabbed, slashed, smashed, and tortured to what would be the breaking point if these bigger-than-life men could be broken, but the chases and escapes continue. The characters on both sides are stereotypical, but Saville is an exciting new author with a suspenseful, dramatic style, but I’ll be hoping for more depth of character and more fully developed motivation to bring his future novels to life.

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For more than ten years, Harry Turtledove’s Ruled Britannia has been my personal Gold Standard for novels of alternative history. Having just read (and about to review) a new alternative history, I went back to this one to see how it stood the test of time. I liked it even better. Starting with the premise that England did NOT defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588, during the rule of Queen Elizabeth I, author Harry Turtledove puts Elizabeth in the Tower of London and makes King Philip II the official ruler of Britain, with his daughter Isabella Clara Eugenia representing him on the formerly-British throne. All the leading writers, philosophers, and artists so famous to students of Elizabethan England, when it WAS Elizabethan, are still hard at work in London, but now, their patron is Spanish, not British. Writing in the language and style of the period, author Harry Turtledove casually (and very skillfully) incorporates innumerable Shakespearean quotations into his text, often with humorous intent, and Shakespeare lovers will be kept busy playing the obvious game of identifying the plays in which these quotations appear. Puns, the off-color wordplay which so often provides comic relief in Shakespeare’s plays, dialogue in which characters talk at cross-purposes, and a character who constantly misuses “big words,” are a delight for language-lovers.

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Author Elizabeth Jolley, whose portraits of elderly characters are unparalleled in their sensitivity and in the sly amusement she brings to their creation, gives life to Dorothy Peabody – or as much life as this quiet, fearful, and unimaginative woman can be said to possess, until that moment in which her life suddenly takes wing through her ongoing correspondence with author Diana Hopewell. Jolley also creates additional, vibrant and often surprising characters, also middle-aged single women, who are the protagonists of the new novel-in-progress which she shares in her correspondence with Miss Peabody. As the point of view moves back and forth between Miss Peabody’s life in Weybridge, outside of London, and Diana Hopewell’s novel-in-progress, which takes place in a polite boarding school in western Australia, Elizabeth Jolley keeps the humor and surprise at a high level, while also commenting on the nature of writing and the role of the novelist. With her wry, often poignant descriptions, and the ability to reveal her characters’ deepest yearnings through subtle and beautifully developed scenes and dialogue, Elizabeth Jolley is a writer of formidable talents and remarkable insights. Outstanding novel!

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Focusing on life in the very small community of Pagford, perhaps similar to the small communities Rowling herself grew up in as a child in Gloucestershire, Rowling emphasizes the pettiness, the rivalries, the back-biting, and the cruelties of “ordinary” life as people tryto cope with the messiness of existence as it unfolds. There is no magic here to offer any hope of change, no wizard to sweep down and offer aid, either to the characters or the reader, and as the action progresses, with its focus on the unpleasant and often violent aspects of many lives, the reader is forced to examine the elements of chance which can devastate everything that one might dream of. The style which was so effective for Rowling when she was writing Harry Potter is less effective in this “adult” novel. Here she creates characters who are memorable for some aspects of their characters without being unique, while on the level of plot, the conflicts and crises, based on real life, are already familiar to devoted readers of contemporary fiction and, I regret to say, feel trite. At five hundred pages, this novel gave Rowling many opportunities to introduce broad themes and to develop them with sophistication and attention to universal values. Instead, she gives us a long novel which is sometimes exciting on the limited level of plot, but which remains on that limited level, never soaring into broader realms of wider scope. What starts in Pagford stays in Pagford, unfortunately.

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In her previous novel, Wolf Hall, author Hilary Mantel, recreates the dramatic story of Sir Thomas More’s trial and execution in July, 1535, during the reign of King Henry VIII. As she opens this novel, set just three months later, More’s downfall is still fresh in the minds of everyone at Henry’s court. Thomas Cromwell, who prosecuted More on behalf of the king, is now Henry’s chief minister, firmly ensconced in the power structure of the Tudor Court. He will have plenty of work to do over the next seven or eight months. Katherine of Aragon, Henry’s queen of twenty years, is now living in her own court with her daughter Mary, her marriage to Henry having been annulled in 1533, while Henry was living with Anne Boleyn. Now married to Anne, a calculating but beautiful woman who has never been shy about using her wiles to get what she wants, Henry has wearied of her. Though Anne has given birth to Elizabeth, she has been unable to bear a son, and with the marriage less exciting than it once was, Henry has convinced himself that she never will bear him a son. Assigning Cromwell to find a way to free him from his new queen, Henry begins to pursue the plain and modest Jane Seymour, whose virginal ways stand in sharp contrast to those of Anne. A brilliant novel filled with unique and well-drawn characters who are revealed through their dialogue and clearly understood motivations.

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