Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

Taking us underground into the subterranean World War One tunnels in which it is set, this novel gives us a first hand view of the unimaginable battle raging just below the surface. In Sebastian Faulks trusted way, Birdsong is set on the cusp of transformation, comparing the rural and traditional with the modern technological world and studying how people coped with this startling transformation in their external lives. This is a flawed love story, but one which resonates underground when all the lights have gone out. I would advise everyone to buy this book, regardless of their literary taste. You will find few novels so brimming with humanity, in all its forms.

7.5 out of 10

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

Read: January 2007

Like a fellow Bloomsbury publishing sensation, this is a book about magic. But while Harry Potter’s magical world is glitzy, exciting and full of dramatic wand waving, the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is dark, dour and academic. It is a startling achievement to produce such a wonderfully unique view of magic. Susanna Clarke has littered this book with wonderful settings, original ideas and a gloriously imaginative plot. It is just a shame that she is not a great writer. The prose is languid, uninspiring and clunky, the characters two-dimensional and the novel about 500 pages too long.

It is rare to read a book which has such a clearly wonderful idea and it is testament to the brilliance of the authors imagination that she was able to make it feel like a dark, gothic library full of shimmering ghosts and half remembered history. This is a good book, just not a well written one.


6 out of 10

Cathedral of the Sea - Ildefonso Falcones

Read: December 2007

Cathedral of the Sea is at once a work of carefully researched historical fiction and a paean to the Catalan spirit. It is a work dedicated to celebrating the efforts of the humblest of Barcelona’s people who laboured over 54 years in the fourteenth century to build, stone by stone, a magnificent church to overlook their harbour. It stands to this day as a monument to a golden age in Catalan wealth and a symbol of the unflinching identity of the Catalan people. And that is the point in this book; it is a work of populist nationalist celebration. And that is probably why it has sold nearly a million and a half hardbacks since its release.

On the run from a cruel and vindictive feudal lord who raped his wife and abducted his son, Bernat Estanyol heads for Barcelona and the promise of freedom, for it is guaranteed that in Barcelona anyone who resides in the city for a year and a day can be freed from their status as a serf. Seeking refuge in the home of his sister’s husband, Bernat begins work as an unpaid servant in exchange for protection and a future for his son. But when his son, Arnau, is involved in the accidental death of one of the other children they are soon punished and find that freedom from serfdom does not mean freedom from compulsion. For there are many different layers of slavery and those chains may never be broken.

During a famine in the city, Bernat, incites a rebellion for which he is executed leaving Arnau, and his adopted brother Joan to fend for themselves. And so, at the age of fourteen, Arnau joins the Bastaix, a group of manual labourers who load and unload ships. Despite the tremendous physical exertion Arnau loves his work, finds friendship and honour in the Bastaix, and a substitute parent in the form of the Virgin of the Sea. For it is on the Bastaix’s backs that the huge stone blocks used to build the grand church are carried across Barcelona. It is their church, and they are contributing everything they have to building it.

And so, despite famine, plague, thwarted love and war Arnau begins to make his way in the world and when a powerful Jew offers to make him rich as reward for saving his children from a religious lynch mob, Arnau grows successful beyond his wildest dreams. And after his bravery saves Barcelona from invasion the king makes him a Baron and offers his ward Eleanor’s hand in marriage. But Arnau doesn’t love her and despite swearing his eternal fidelity refuses to consummate his marriage and before long he finds that hell hath no fury as that of a woman scorned. Added to which, his democratic and populist actions have made him a great number of powerful enemies only too happy to bring about his devastating fall.

Arnau’s story takes the reader on a journey across all walks of medieval Catalan life, from the poorest rags to riches beyond his wildest dreams. Throughout he struggles against the prejudice and inequality of the feudal system and the absurdity of fundamentalist religion. His is an epic tale of the simplest sort: good versus evil in which the battle lines have been clearly drawn. And throughout the journey the edifice of The Cathedral of the Sea is rising majestically into the sky.

There is so little literary quality to critique here it is impossible to know what to say. The plot rattles along at the speed of light, discordant and basic, the characters are two dimensional, either overly good or ludicrously stroke-my-heavily-waxed-moustache-and-cackle-evilly evil, and the repetitive cycle of plague, famine, war, Inquisition, suffering suffering suffering grows tiring after a while. The author has never learnt that just because you have researched something it doesn’t mean you have to reproduce it all word for word on the page. Maybe this is good historical detail, but I don’t need to read a list of all the different ships being used at the time, the different foods on the table, the different types of material used in building the houses. Cathedral of the Sea may have won prized across Europe but it is not a great book.

And yet where other more lyrically pleasing books often fail to satisfy, somehow Cathedral of the Sea does just that. Reading it is enjoyable, you rattle through the plot and genuinely care about Arnau, no matter how much of a big harmless teddy-bear-esqu saint he is. The plot covers so many different topics – from treason and plague to anti-Semitism and the Inquisition – that there is not a dull page. In scope and epic social proportions it reminds me of Charles Palliser’s stunning Victorian mystery The Quincunx, if it was set in medieval Barcelona and written by Dan Brown. It is not in the same stratosphere of quality as The Quincunx, but then few books are.

In short Cathedral of the Sea is an enjoyable and well researched vision of Catalan history and the people who went to making Catalonia’s unique identity which still survives today. If you read for easy enjoyment then this is the book for you. Do not be put off by the length of this epic novel, there will be no more easily read novel published this year.


5 out of 10

Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell

Read: July 2008

Voted by the good people of a Scottish village as their favourite of the Best of Booker shortlist, The Siege of Krishnapur is J.G. Farrell’s humorous take on the British Empire in India, 1860’s style.

After years of global supremacy, the age of Britain’s unrivalled Empire is coming to an end. The Indians are finding their voice, and a series of mutinies have broken out in small cantonments. Small and isolated, Krishnapur could be next. How do we know? Because chapattis have begun to appear all over the place, in collections of three. No-one knows exactly why, or what it means. But to the Collector, obsessed with the demonstration of human potential at the Great Exhibition, it spells disaster. It is an example of the new speed of communication between people hostile to British rule, their organisation, and impending threat.

First of all he is mocked. People whisper that senility is claiming him. But soon his fears are proved correct. And as the Sepoys close in on Krishnapur, the British are forced to retreat to the Collector’s residency and build their fortifications. But they are a ramshackle bunch of administrators, retired servicemen, women and children; against the organised enemy they stand no chance. So, with falling rations, awful sanitation, and no contact with the outside world, they set themselves to wait out the siege until someone comes to rescue them. Yet with resolute determination and imperial arrogance the soldiers just about manage to repel the attacks in their makeshift, stumbling sort of way. But as the months pass by, more and more is sacrificed to defend both the lives of the people living within the compound, and the British way of life itself. But if help doesn’t arrive soon, they are doomed.

The Siege of Krishnapur is witty, intelligent at interesting. There is a fascinating battle between the two doctors, one a quiet young Scottish physician; the other a superb orator, confident, learned, absolutely convinced of his methods. When an epidemic of cholera breaks out the two are brought into conflict for the hearts and minds of the people, and the validity of their scientific methods questioned. The people of Krishnapur take sides, following like sheep with wilful abandon, transforming their loyalties at the flick of a switch. They carry cards indicating which doctor they wish to treat them, and often these cards demonstrate that they have switched allegiances regularly. Old orators may rule the roost, but faced with life and death it is practical results which will judge who is correct.

And for the Collector there is an even greater test: will his treasured new technology be able to save their lives?

There is one great problem with this book, however. At no point in the plot did I really feel involved in the action. There are various characters and they are involved in some pretty hairy situations, but to be honest, I didn’t really care whether they survived or not. There is the Collector, who is reasonably interesting, a young lad named Fleury who is wet as a fish, a deluded and arrogant doctor, another quiet and reasonable doctor, a committed but out-of-touch reverend, and a bunch of other people with generic names such as The Magistrate. Half the time, I wasn’t even sure who was who! Many say this is a great, exciting novel. But to be honest, I found it pretty slow going. In my opinion it doesn’t matter whether a book is intelligent and witty, if it doesn’t have a narrative which compels you to read on, then it will never be the joy it should be.

That the people of the Scottish village rated this book is probably enough praise for you to buy and read it. And you will probably enjoy it. But in my opinion, The Siege of Krishnapur is not in the same league as Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, or J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. It’s doesn’t even belong to the same universe.


6 out of 10