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Tuesday 05 May 2015

Paperbacks

David Horspool, Charles Osborne and Sally Cousins review the latest paperbacks

Soldiers by Philip Ziegler (Pimlico, £10)

Ziegler's interviews with nine Chelsea pensioners, whose battlefields stretch from Passchendaele to Palestine, give a vivid, if partial, snapshot of an institution, the British Army, as well as an idea of the kind of individuals who have served in it.

He seems to have asked the same questions of all his interviewees. How important were royalty, empire and religion in their lives - usually, not very; what led them to join the Army - most often, poverty; what were their experiences - not all saw combat, but those who did are reluctant to say much more than "I don't like to think about it"; and what do they think the Army did for them. Most refer to the sense of comradeship, almost of family, that could not be replicated in their civilian lives.

As Ziegler admits, in-pensioners of the Royal Hospital are hardly representative of British soldiery: they have to have served at least 10 years in the ranks, and they have decided to return to the bosom of the Army. So it is unsurprising that few of these men are overly critical of the service to which they devoted so much.

By listening patiently to these old men, and telling their stories without pushing an agenda, Ziegler allows the decency of the average British ranker to shine through.

DH

All Souls' Day by Cees Noteboom (Picador, £6.99)

This challenging novel, by one of the Netherlands' most distinguished writers, was a bestseller in Germany. The German reading public may have first been attracted by the setting - contemporary Berlin - but the tone of the book, which expects its reader to be on nodding terms with every important thinker and writer from Homer to Hegel, is hardly populist.

Wittily translated into (American) English by Susan Massotty, it follows the peregrinations - actual and metaphysical - of a bereaved Dutch documentary film-maker, Arthur Daane. Arthur, whose wife and child died in a plane crash some years earlier, wanders the streets of Berlin, allowing the reverberations of a century of violent history to direct his steps. He meets and dines with a group of friends - a sculptor, a philosopher and a physicist - whose conversation, whether it is about sausages or Nietzsche, would make most High Table exchanges sound pedestrian.

Though the relentless cleverness can be wearing, Noteboom uses the allusions to anchor his book in an intellectual context, rather than to provide pretentious window dressing. Moreover, his powers of observation, and his sympathetic portrayal of a troubled but likeable man trying to make sense of the world, make the novel a pleasure to read.

DH

The Bulgari Connection by Fay Weldon (Flamingo, £6.99)

Commissioned by the jewellers Bulgari, this is an entertaining romp through the high-rolling world of the super rich.

Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet by Elaine Feinstein (Phoenix, £8.99)

Ted Hughes was not only one of the finest English poets of the 20th century but also, to those privileged to know him, an engaging companion and a faithful friend. He was a hugely popular figure in the Poetry International Festivals of the Sixties and Seventies, reading his poems to the great acclaim of packed houses at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Nevertheless, his life was dogged by tragedy and controversy, and he never entirely recovered from the suicide of his talented but neurotic wife, the American Poet Sylvia Plath. This biography, the first since his death four years ago, is unlikely to be supplanted for many years.

CO

Pleasing Myself by Frank Kermode (Penguin, £8.99)

Sir Frank Kermode is one of the finest literary critics of our time, with a remarkably wide range of interests, as the sub-title of this collection of splendid essays - "From Beowulf to Philip Roth" - clearly indicates. Among his subjects are T. S. Eliot, Bertrand Russell and the English Gnostics. He is engaging on the sexuality of Christ, and is probably the only critic to have come to the correct conclusions about a famous (and, at the time, immensely enjoyable) Australian literary hoax of the Forties, involving Ern Malley, a fictitious poet invented by two anti-modernists.

CO

Stan and Ollie: The Roots of Comedy by Simon Louvish (Faber, £8.99 )

When A man is tired of Laurel and Hardy, he is tired of life, as Dr Johnson would surely have said. From their first screen appearances in the 1920s to their final vaudeville tours 30 years later, Laurel and Hardy were the most famous and most popular comedy team. There have been several books about them, but none to equal Simon Louvish's fully researched biography of Stan from Lancashire and Ollie from America's deep south, with their films lovingly and vividly described. A must for all fans of this life-enhancing duo.

CO

You'll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again by Julia Phillips (Faber, £9.99 )

The town is Hollywood, and the author a film producer who blazed a trail as one of the very few females to break into the upper echelons of a notoriously chauvinistic industry. She had a talent for making deals, and a considerable appetite for drink, drugs and sex, but while her predilections were tolerated and even encouraged, she found herself gradually ostracised. By the late Eighties she was ready to burn bridges and name names, and the result was this coruscating, star-studded memoir. Julia Phillips died some months ago at the age of 57, but her book will stand as a frank and entertaining account of Hollywood life.

CO

Redcoat by Richard Holmes (HarperCollins, £8.99 )

The Redcoat is the British soldier in the age of horse and musket, and this is not a book about Generals or battles but about the pawns of battle, the men and women who served in the army in a century when Britain painted the world red. Intended not for military buffs but for the general reader, it describes the ordinary soldier's participation in battles front the Seven Years War through to the Crimea. Beautifully written, it is full of anecdotes both entertaining and moving.

CO

Alice in Exile by Piers Paul Read (Phoenix, £6.9)

One of our finest novelists has here produced a complex and vividly written story that begins in Edwardian England with a colourful heroine who falls in love with the son of a baronet. When their affair falls apart leaving her pregnant, she meets a charming Russian nobleman, and he invites her to return to Russia with him to take charge of his children. Deciding that exile is preferable to shame, she accepts, thus living through the years of Revolution. Meticulously researched and rich in period detail, this is a totally absorbing novel.

CO

Now You See Me by Lesley Glaister (Bloomsbury, £6.99)

An unusual love story by one of the most underrated writers of her generation, Now You See Me tells the story of Lamb and Doggo. Don't be put off by the names: their gaucheness is of a piece with their bearers, two chronic social misfits with enough emotional baggage to last a lifetime. Lamb has dropped out and now lives like an animal in the cellar of the old man whose house she cleans. Doggo is a criminal on the run. They make an unlikely couple, but Lesley Glaister charts the growing tenderness between them with real deftness.

SC

At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill (Scribner, £6.99)

The personal and the political are seamlessly interwoven in this impressive first novel. Jim and Doyler, the two boys of the title, are childhood friends in Dublin at the time of the Easter uprising of 1916. Jim is shy and bookish. Doyler is made of much coarser stuff. But as they go swimming off the rocks together, they forge a deepening commitment, both to each other and to their country in its struggle for independence. Jamie O'Neill has not been afraid to milk his story for emotion; he also shows himself a master of crisp colloquial dialogue.

SC

The Summons by John Grisham (Century, £10.99)

The summons of the title is personal rather than judicial. It comes from Judge Atlee of Ford County, Mississippi, and is issued to his sons, Ray and Forrest, who are to attend him in his study to discuss the details of his estate before his expected death. Unfortunately, the judge dies too soon, leaving a shocking secret behind . . . If the novel is not quite John Grisham of the premier cru, its account of two siblings from opposite ends of the earnings spectrum, locked in tense rivalry, is consistently absorbing.

SC

Gallows Thief by Bernard Cornwell (HarperCollins, £5.99)

1817. Two aldermen of the City of London are guests of honour at a quadruple hanging at Newgate prison. The governor promises them devilled kidneys for breakfast. The hangman grumbles that he is understaffed. Outside the prison, a large crowd gathers, jostling for the best vantage-point... It is a terrific curtain-raiser to a terrific novel. Bernard Cornwell is taking the popular historical novel to ever greater heights and this fast-moving thriller, moving effortlessly across the social gamut of Regency England, is one of his masterpieces.

SC

 

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