I’m a fleabit peanut monkey…

/ Tony / Leave a comment

… for years I’ve been mishearing that lyric as “flea bit beat-up monkey”, what the hell is a peanut monkey?!

Anyway….

I’m not a huge Rolling Stones fan. But there’s a lot of Rolling Stones songs that I love.

Monkey Man is one of em.

Id say I have a handful of Stones albums – a couple of compilations, Their Satanic Majesties Request, Sticky Fingers and Exile… I couldn’t say that I’ve listened to them all that much – more a cherry picking of tracks. Until I read Life by Keith Richards.

But… in that imported-non-event Black Friday and the subsequent weekend of discounts, my local chain music store (if I can I still buy independent but we’re all on a budget) dropped the price on a handful of albums – going so far as to slap “1 purchase per customer” on them as if the £5 discount was as monumental as a signed cover – and I grabbed Let It Bleed.IMG_6471

It’s already been round the turn table a good three or four times. I’ve often sought it out and for three reasons: Monkey Man, Gimme Shelter and You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Any album with those on it is automatically elevated to great status.

One of my favourite song writers – Mr Bill Janovitz of Bufallo Tom – is a huge Stones fan. He’s even written a couple books; a 33 1/3 on Exile On Main Street and one called “Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones”. I don’t know that I could list 50 songs of theirs that I enjoy, probably a dozen or so.

A review for said book in the Wall Street Journal kicks off with this:

“I used to work with a salesman who wore a Rolling Stones tongue-logo tie every day. His Stones were the Stones of “Satisfaction,” “Start Me Up,” and even (yuck) “She Was Hot”—huge arena-rock songs with instantly recognizable guitar-riff intros. Then there is the Stones fan of the classic-rock variety—the “Under My Thumb” and “Jumping Jack Flash” fan for whom the group, and the world, ceased to matter around 1968. My Stones are more about “Moonlight Mile,” “Monkey Man,” “Gimme Shelter,” “Rocks Off”—tracks that have the rambling, wide-open blues and rock sound that the band perfected in the 1970s. All three of us will devour Bill Janovitz’s “Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones.”

I fall in the middle – my favourite tracks are, for the most part, of that “rambling, wide-open blues and rock sound that the band perfected in the 1970s.”

So, in the spirit of Top 10s (if it was Top 5 there’d be very little that wasn’t on Let It Bleed) and lists…. they are, in no real order:

Can’t You Hear Me Knocking

It’s not Brown Sugar, nor is it Sway or Dead Flowers… the standout track on Sticky Fingers, to my ears, is Can’t You Hear Me Knocking. I first heard this when it was used in Tedd Demme’s drug-smuggling, Scorsese-like Blow (more on Scorsese and the Stones to come of course) . I love the nasty, dirty-feeling power of that guitar riff, the breakdown and resolve of the saxophone (the hugely talented Bobby Keys appears on so much of their best work) and the fact that the breakdown happened, according to Mick Taylor because “toward the end of the song, I just felt like carrying on playing. Everybody was putting their instruments down, but the tape was still rolling, and it sounded good, so everybody quickly picked up their instruments again and carried on playing. It just happened, and it was a one-take thing.”

It’s a powerful, swaggering monster of a Stones song that contains every element of that blues rock sound that they nailed down so hard and perfectly in the Seventies.

Gimme Shelter

Another belter and, of course, also used in a few films – Goodfellas being the most memorable for me. Mick Jagger has said of it that “That’s a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It’s apocalypse”. I read that Keith came up with the tune while stuck indoors as it was pissing down outdoors, meanwhile Mick was off filming Performance in which he beds down with Keith’s then-girlfriend Anita Pallengberg. Keith was just starting to use heroin and the anxiety and dread are palpable in the tune and it’s just a glorious tune that – while Satisfaction, Start Me Up or Brown Sugar might be the most well known – is undoubtedly their best.

Monkey Man

So; I’m a flea bit peanut monkey…. Whatever that means. The lyrics here are filled with snarl and bite (“I’ve been bit and I’ve been tossed around by every she-rat in this town”), the guitars even more so with Keith giving it some hard bluesy blasts, the piano is cracking and, like so much on Let It Bleed, pinned down by some ominous, urgent sense of menace. While Jagger’s line of “I hope we’re not too messianic or a trifle too satanic” is a classic, for me it’s all about the yell of “I’m a MONKEY…….”

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

For me, one of the best few seconds of any tune comes 50 seconds into the last Stones song of the Sixties. The choir finishes, the acoustic guitar has a few seconds alone and then the French horn pipes in with what could easily be considered a lament to the decade and the first chapter of the band’s life – the song was essentially all Mick in creation, Keith was beginning his journey into heroin addiction and Brian Jones was practically gone. And yet… it’s hopeful. Despite the universal doom and gloom Jagger sings of the song comes across as a near-rousing song of hope. The gorgeous arrangement, the keys, the horns, the shuffle of the drums and the kiss-off of the chorus “you just might find, you get you need” sung with a joyous sounding choir.

She’s A Rainbow

This is here almost entirely for personal reasons – it’s a song loved by my wife and I and played during our wedding – but it’s still a great Stones tune. Undoubtedly the prettiest thing they ever did and really the only one on Their Satanic Majesties Request that stands up on repeated listen. The delicate, pastoral piano, the shakes of the tambourine and then the dissonant breakdown with sharp, stabs of strings and the lewd “she comes in colours…” If the album was their attempt to take on Sgt. Pepper this song shows they could have knocked the Beatles into a hat and then jumped on it.

Their Satanic Majesties was a turning point in a way probably not intended. However, from here they went into an unbroken run of classics up to and including Exile On Main Street and kicking off with Beggars Banquet, featuring…

Street Fighting Man

To me, more so than Sympathy for the Devil, this one marks the start of the next chapter for the Stones. The lyrics came after a massive anti-war protest Jagger had witnessed, there’s no electric guitar on it with Keith building layer upon layer of distorted acoustic (via a cassette recorder!) and Brian Jones adds sitar and tamboura into the mix, keeping it rooted in the Sixties.

Thru and Thru

Ah Thru and Thru… Perhaps not the most obvious choice and I’d be surprised if it turned up in too many critical lists but this is my list and I love this. I first heard it when used on an episode of the Sopranos and the subsequent soundtrack. That it’s a Keith-sung number threw me off at first as I didn’t realise it was a Stones song. I love the slow build up, the layered vocal of “waiting on a call from you…” and Keith’s bluesy growl (though the ‘love as a takeaway’ lyric might not be his best). You know the subtle strings, build up and minimal guitar is going to break, has to break – especially with the thunder-crack drums appearing around the two minute mark – and yet the build up continues perfectly for more than half of the song and when the full-band does kick in, it’s glorious.

Mother’s Little Helper

“What a drag it is getting old….” An absolute ripper of a song about pill-popping mothers all wrapped up in under three minutes with a gleeful “oi” at the end. I continually find myself singing that opening line.

Wild Horses

Yeah, yeah… but it had to be on the list really. But it’s only lately that it’s snuck in there (over, say, Honky Tonk Woman) for me. Why? Because I read that Keith had written the chorus for his infant son as they were about to head off on tour. As a father I know that sentiment all to well. That it’s also among the best examples of how Mick and Keith wrote together – Keith had the riff and chorus, Mick added the rest (supposedly his relationship with Marianne Faithful going into his lyrics) and the pair of them sharing the mic for the chorus. The music is that most Gram Parsons inspired acoustic strum Keith had down at the time andsounds like it could sit on the Almost Famous soundtrack, underpinned with some beautiful electric lines and piano and is so well known it really won’t benefit from my prattling on about it.

Paint It, Black

Of course you can’t have any kind of Best Of list for the Stones and not have this song. That drone, that sinister sitar (Brian Jones’ legacy, to me, is in how much of their early work he got that instrument into), the drums and those lyrics that would no doubt inspire only Bailey knows how many ‘moody’ emo lyrics –

“I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door I must have it painted black
Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts
It’s not easy facing up when your whole world is black”

Even if, according to Keith, it was written as a bit of a joke, they penned a classic here. Aftermath is the first Stones album to benefit entirely from the Jagger / Richards song-writing partnership, a move which meant Brian Jones got a tad bored with guitars and began exploring instruments like the sitar. This song is the perfect summation of the early-Stones’ parts.

Tracks: Aspirins and Alcohol

/ Tony / 1 Comment

I’ve tried writing around this track as a post a few times and stalled. So let’s give it another pop…

As mentioned in my recent mumbling about Last Days of April’s latest On A Sea Of Clouds, I don’t recall how / when I first heard the band. I do, however, remember very vividly first hearing Aspirins and Alcohol. Or, at least, the first tumble of chords that kick it off – sitting in on a friend’s band practice when it was light-heartedly suggested as an exception to the “no covers” rule and the first twenty seconds or so of it were blasted through.

It’s certainly one of the Swedish band’s best songs and I’ve got fond memories of getting my request for it granted at small gig in a local venue (courtesy of a casual acquaintance at the time with the promoter).

There’s something immediate and arresting in the urgency of this song’s start that never fails to hook. It’s a very bitter track lyrically – I remember reading a review that said something along the lines of how Last Days of April used to write about every possible angsty teenage relationship and this one certainly fits that; just read the comments on the SongMeanings page. Hell, you can imagine goodness-knows how many ’emo’ kids agonising over this as if it were MY. SONG.

But get beyond that. It’s a belter, first and foremost. A massive rush and charge and I love the bitter, sarcasm in the lyrics and the “that’s nice…” kiss-off. It’s certainly a highlight on the album Angel Youth – which also includes a stellar second-half kicking off with the harpsichord-lead Make Friends With Time.

The band moved on from this sort of lyrical content pretty soon and gradually evolved into a more ‘mature’ sound – which has reached the point of lap-steel tinged Americana on their latest album – but this is certainly a call back to a time when labels like Deep Elm and Bad Taste were the ones with the rosters to watch and it was all so serious.

 

 

 

Turning Pages

/ Tony / 4 Comments

Another month plus slips by without finding time to put anything on here. You know; life.

However – lots of reading and listening did happen. I’m charging through books at a pace that I hadn’t achieved for some time prior thanks to a late-summer / early autumn break and less-interrupted nights affording greater page time.

A relatively recent trip to Cambridge meant a stop in Heffers there (Oxford wasn’t on the route) and a quick trio of books were added to the shelves at home that might not otherwise have been considered. The first of which was The Death’s Head Chess Club by John Donoghue. A very original premise set amongst one of the most horrific backgrounds you could probably imagine for fiction as a master chess player is forced to play chess against guards, SAS offices and Gestapo members at Auschwitz with some very high stakes; the lives of fellow prisoners. It’s a startling read – while perhaps too heavy on the technicalities of chess, it’s no doubt useful in terms of offsetting the brutality at the novels core as the protagonist struggles to come to terms with events decades later and the novel becomes an exploration of guilt and forgiveness. I burned through this one pretty quickly, the pace is quick and the plot gripping but – as with any written word on this subject matter – at times harrowing and thoroughly devastating. Nonetheless; a clever and compelling read that – while not looking beyond the horror as such – tackles the emotions of those involved on both sides.IMG_6233

Given how heavy a subject matter and setting anyone could be forgiven for seeking something lighter. So I turned to an old favourite: Small Gods. I could – and probably will – write a whole lot more on the importance of Terry Pratchett in my library and literary explorations but it cannot be underestimated. I had, prior, to his sad passing earlier this year, been slowly putting together a Discworld collection of my own over the last few years. In a somewhat trivial – but important to me – element this has been somewhat slowed as I a) will only buy if I’m about to read and b) am not all that fond of the new range of paperback covers. Of his work there are three particular novels that stand out in my mind as “must read next”s – what I consider the best three, one a year from 1992, 1993 and 1994; Interesting Times, Men At Arms and Small Gods. It’s for these three in a good edition that I’ve been searching and at Heffers I found Small Gods as part of the newer hardback collection. It had been years since I read this first – perhaps as many as twenty – and it felt just as fresh, original and funny. Less ‘fantasy’ perhaps than some of his work (there’s no trolls, vampires or dwarves of indeterminate gender) and more of a biting satire and swipe at religion – Small Gods is, to my mind, one of Pratchett’s best and, yet, often overlooked works. With the question of religion and fundamentalism still causing more questions around the world it’s always a good time to pick this one up.

This somewhat out of order as prior to both of these I’d spent a week or so devouring Catch-22. I can’t believe that it took me this long to read this book. I don’t know why I’d ignored it before – I seem to have had the impression it was something different and far less accessible and funny. I ended up grabbing Joseph Heller’s masterpiece (and it certainly deserves that title) for just £2 in HMV not long before going away for a week and wanting something I could page-flick while relaxing. There’s a site – gobookyourself which I thoroughly recommend but can easily get lost in- that linked it to three other books I’d loved so I figured it was worth a punt for such a small sum. Out-and-out hilarious – there were times when I had to put the book down I was laughing so hard. There is a kind-of sequel that I’m not sure I want to read; I need to keep this one as singularly perfect as it is. A deliciously funny and wicked and scathingly satirical read that’s equal parts farce and slapstick of which far too much has been written by other reviewers for me to able to add much except to perhaps say that I wholeheartedly agree with Heller’s response in the below:

hell

I seem to be going in reverse order here. For before churning through so many books so promptly I spent a fair few weeks lost in Perfidia. Again; bought on something of a whim on the premise of it having had countless strong reviews and being set in World War 2. I wasn’t really prepared for this one because Holy Shit this book is good.

I’d not read anything of Ellroy before and I was some pages in before I connected the dots to the fact that he’s behind LA Confidential and the Black Dahlia et al. This is the first in a planned quartet of books set before the events of those previously mentioned – in 1941, in the days surrounding the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour. Nobody else writes like Ellroy. This is a huge novel in terms of intricacy and detail. The writing is intense and all-consuming – I genuinely felt like I’d been immersed in another world when I finally turned the last page and left itching for more. Time permitting I’m pretty sure I’ll be heading back to Ellroy’s LA.

I started reading a lot of Nordic crime / noir / thriller type stuff this year and thoroughly loved a couple of books by Jo Nesbø – The Snowman (my introduction to Harry Hole) and The Son. As such it kinda galls me to write this as I don’t think (hope) it’s indicative of his work but…  Headhunters is a ‘no thank-you’ from me. I didn’t find the first person narrative so convincing, found the plot so-so, the pacing lacklustre, the characters flimsy and the main character such a general twat that it’s hard to find any interest in reading ‘his’ story. So much so that – and this is indeed a rarity – I simply couldn’t find any reason to push further than 100 pages into this one. This being said I seem to be far from the majority in this view and so I may try and give it another go when time permits but, with so many strong contenders lined up on the To Read pile, it might be some time.

 

How To Be Brave

/ Tony / 1 Comment

imageThis has probably been said a million times or more and will no doubt continue to be stated while simultaneously irritating those who have yet to realise just how true it is due to lack of personal experience, but; everything changes when you become a parent.

So much so that I couldn’t possibly attempt to describe it here. Nor would it be relevant to do so. So why do I start this post, a review of the fantastic How To Be Brave by Louise Beech with this?

Well one big shift when becoming a parent is that of self-concern giving way to an all-consuming focus and worry your child’s well-being; what if something were to go wrong? What if they were to become ill?

It’s very hard to put this into words in a manner that truly captures the feeling let alone one that does so in a way that others might want to read. Louise Beech, however, does just that. In How To Be Brave she vividly evokes the sensations of panic and dread that accompany being a parent when a child falls ill and perfectly captures the feeling of isolation from the rest of the world that occurs at such times. Not that it’s a ‘dark’ book, far, far from it.

Natalie’s nine-year-old daughter Rose collapses in the kitchen one Halloween. Following an ambulance trip to the hospital and a little diagnostic testing, Rose is confirmed as having Type 1 diabetes and will require finger-prick tests and insulin injections for the rest of her life. An extremely daunting concept to cope with.

What follows is a great story of a mother and daughter coming to terms with the illness and its ramifications. Louise Beech does a cracking job of portraying the “shut out the world”, “nation of us” feelings that pervade at times of crisis in a family with a tight bond.

It’s also the story of Natalie coming to terms with her daughter’s growing independence and realising that – as much as she or any parent would like to – she doesn’t have to hold her child’s hand all the time anymore.

But that’s not all. For within this story another two are interwoven with Natalie’s attempts to reconnect with her daughter and keep alive her love of books which, in the resultant, insulin-driven emotional fall-out of her diabetes diagnosis had threatened to vanish completely.

First is the mystical presence / visitation of Natalie’s grandfather who appears to both Natalie and Rose and how it leads them to finding another story and a way to connect by leading them to his diary and, in it, his tale of being lost at sea for fifty days following the torpedoing of his merchant ship in World War Two.

(Grandad) Colin’s story is told – via Natalie – in exchange for finger-prick test and insulin injection cooperation from Rose. Through this storytelling we travel to a small boat adrift on the Atlantic Ocean where Colin and the remaining survivors fight to stay alive in their wait to sight land or rescue.

The story of Colin and his plight is told brilliantly and the reader is kept on tenterhooks between instalments and there are times you feel as much eagerness to get back to the men on the boat as Rose does.

Beech artfully weaves the two narratives together with times of crisis for Natalie and Rose mirrored by those times of peril on the lifeboat. As Colin and the survivors are literally cut off from the world and their loved ones Natalie is cut off by the changes in her life, distanced from her daughter by the changes diabetes has on Rose’s personality and seperated from her husband, Jake, by his unit’s tour in Afghanistan. Indeed as Colin’s salvation arrives it’s clear that Natalie and Rose, too, have turned a chapter and have navigated the worst. Rose is now back to her old self and both mother and daughter are at peace with her diabetes, their relationship is restored just as Jake returns, belatedly, home (quietly matching the time at sea spreading beyond the previously calculated 30 days from land).

How To Brave is two wonderful stories wrapped into one compelling read. Louise Beech is adept at both narratives and styles and writes with a confidence and trueness of voice that can only come from experience and yet manages to turn what must have been a truly testing time in her life into a great, gripping and thoroughly rewarding read for all. She’s clearly an author to keep an eye on.

My thanks again to the wonderful Karen at Orenda Books for sending me How To Be Brave and asking me to be part of its Blog Tour. Check out Live Many Lives for yesterday’s and Welsh Librarian Blogspot for tomorrow’s stop and get a hold of the book today, you won’t be disappointed.

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The Defenceless

/ Tony / 1 Comment

There’s a statement on the cover of The Defenceless, Kati Hiekkapelto’s second novel to feature police investigator Anna Fekete: “Best Finnish Crime Novel 2014”. I’ve not read a Finnish crime novel before nor have I yet read this book’s predecessor, The Hummingbird, but, and let’s get straight to the point here: The Defenceless is one hell of a good book. Great, in fact.

CMd78rFWgAEcd-vAt the centre of The Defenceless lies a mystery – an old man (Vilho Karppinen) dies, presumably, at the hands of a drug dealer, only for his death to be pinned on an Hungarian au-pair. Two girls stumble onto an alarmingly fresh crime scene in a forest – snow soaked in human blood, tyre tracks leading from the trees and a knife found at the scene – but missing the vital ingredient; a body. Then, one of Karppinen’s neighbours, goes missing. Is there a connection? Is it her who’s body is missing from the murder scene? Is a killer prowling the streets of this Finnish town?

Given that we’re witness to Karppinen’s demise you may be forgiven for wondering where the police investigation into his death is going at first, chiefly because it looks as though, to all intents and purposes, he died at the hands of a drug dealer in an argument over noise. It’s almost a case of waiting to see how long it takes for the Hungarian au-pair to be cleared. Yet as the story develops, Hiekkapelto skilfully weaves in more mystery and plot twists, adding intertwining sub-plots involving gangs, corruption, drugs and social commentary into an addictive, compelling novel with more questions building with each page turn; are the killings related to the violent gang that’s trying to establish itself in Finland that Fekete’s partner, Esko, is trying to snuff out? How is that gang related to the drug dealer? Are they behind the murder scene? How are the Hell’s Angels involved? Is the au-pair all that she seems?

There is a lot going on in The Defenceless, a world of story lines packed into less than 300 pages. Rubbing ink with the main case and Esko’s investigations (not to mention the ticking-clock of his health) is Anna’s own sense of isolation and removal from a homeland that no longer exists, her brother’s battle with alcohol, family illness and, of course, Sammi.

Sammi is a refugee from Pakistan, now in hiding and living rough following the rejection of his asylum claim and facing deportation to a country in which he faces persecution and death for his beliefs. Desperation leads him to increasingly extreme measures in his attempts to remain in Finland. There’s no heavy hand here, no resorting to the didactic in telling Sammi’s side of the story and the futility of his fight against blind bureaucracy, just a talented author using her art form to affectively shine light on an increasingly absurd system (one not unique to Finland) that differentiates between people and their rights to basic human existence according to the particular piece of this Earth that chance happened to place their birth. The message couldn’t be more pertinent given the humanitarian crisis facing the world today and it’s the conclusion (or non-conclusion) of that story which will stay with you beyond the final page.

With The Defenceless you’re so caught up in the characters, the sub plots and the hunt for what appears to be a brutal killer that when the killer’s identity and motive are revealed it comes like a bolt from the blue. It brings to (my) mind the reveal in Håkan Nesser’s The Unlucky Lottery. I do hope that doesn’t serve as a spoiler, more as a nod to another gripping Scandi-noir detective series.

There’s a growing number of crime novels with a conscience out there and this ranks up there with the best, leading the charge with a heady blend of mystery, suspense and social drama that hooks from the off and doesn’t let go even when the last page is turned.

A sign of a good novelist is not seeing them in the text, if you follow me. A writer needs to disappear, to allow their characters to take centre stage, become real and express themselves rather than parroting the views and sensibilities of the author. It’s not the easiest of tasks but it’s one which Kati Hiekkapelto pulls off nicely.  The Defenceless is populated by characters who are not only engrossing and fully realised but, when the narrative shifts to them, tell the story in their own way without filter – especially so in the case of the oh-so-politically-correct Esko who’s passages are so vociferous with their racial hate as to be at polar-like odds with those of the empathetic Fekete.

The translation – by David Hackston – should also receive the strongest nod of approval; at no point in reading The Defenceless was there any indication that this was anything other than the language the novel was written in and the deft translation ensures that the novel’s momentum and feel flows uninterpreted across the language transition.

While The Defenceless is the second Anna Fekete I’ve not yet read  The Hummingbird and I don’t believe it’s essential to have done so to enjoy this novel – another plus – which manages to stand brilliantly on its own. That being said, it does mean that, for me, The Hummingbird is an essential ‘to read’ and I’ll now go about getting my hands on it while eagerly awaiting the next instalment from Kati Hiekkapelto – clearly an author to watch.

I was, again, delighted to be sent this book by Karen at Orenda Books (a publisher who’s first year has certainly cemented it as a purveyor of quality, original fiction) and be asked to take part in the Blog Tour. Check out the other stops and keep an eye on Crime Thriller Girl for tomorrow’s stop and – of course – read The Defenceless.

Defenceless Blog Tour

The Dust That Falls from Dreams

/ Tony / 1 Comment

91e3i+vVdTLI go back a bit with Louis de Bernières. Well, I say that – like most I started reading him thanks to Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – the first few lines of which were used as discussion point in an A-level English class in – I’d guess – ’97. The perfectly self-contained opening chapter, a beautifully written piece of charming prose, a (what I know now to be) typical de Bernières style light-hearted slice-of-life scene setter with a fantastic description of an inner ear as “an aural orifice more dank, be-lichened, and stalagmitic even than the Drogarati cave”.

I took the print outs containing that first chapter (Dr Iannis Commences his History and is Frustrated) home, passed it to my father and the book was soon in our home and passed into my hands following his. It’s a novel well-known, commented upon, discussed and dissected. As such I won’t here.

There followed the discovery of and lapping up of de Bernières’ South American Trilogy, earlier novellas and plays, the stop-gap Red Dog and, my personal favourite Birds Without Wings. 

Birds Without Wings arrived some ten years after the publication of de Bernières’ previous novel. But he isn’t a writer of small books; his novels are of epic proportion and scope.

It’s not too surprising, then, that The Dust That Falls From Dreams arrived another ten years after the publication of Birds... Not that he was idle. Between times there was A Partisan’s Daughter a (somewhat smaller though nonetheless impressive) novel set in more contemporary times and familiar locales and, in 2009, Notwithstanding – a charming, if non-consequential collection of semi-linked short stories all set in an English village of a certain southern England type and charm, populated by characters of a particular eccentricity.

Perhaps, in hindsight, those stories within Notwithstanding were perhaps something of an exercise. I’m inclined to see them as de Bernières – known for novels set in Greece, Latin America and Turkey – setting out his stall in ‘middle England’, gaining confidence in the styles and character types that would populate his next saga for, as we’re now aware, The Dust That Falls From Dreams is the first of a planned trilogy.

And so, to it.

The Dust That Falls From Dreams is every bit the opus I’ve been waiting for as a fan of de Bernières. Yes, some will complain that he’s switched a setting like Cephalonia or Cochadebajo de los Gatos for Kent, but arseholes to them. This is a novel of epic proportions and every bit as “de Bernières” as his previous five “big” novels.

Kicking off with death of Queen Victoria and the commencement of the Edwardian era, we’re introduced to the McCosh family as they hold a belated coronation party with their neighbours. With a sudden time-jump we’re off to the Georgian era and slap bang on the doorstep of the First World War.

Of all the writers to task themselves with chronicling this most heinous of periods, the upheaval and destruction it wrought, there are few who could do so as well as de Bernières (Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong is, of course, another exemplary example) – bringing all too real the events both home and abroad that bought an end to an era and threw individuals into a torrid world where the sense of the individual was lost.

CJAjyIFWcAEeatZIn The Dust That Falls From Dreams de Bernières is at his best. The plot and author play with our fears and guesses and – as those familiar with the author will expect – deliver both uproariously funny and uplifting moments with one chapter before just as skilfully delivering gut-wrenching emotional blows to the heart in the next (this is the Great War, after all). I won’t dwell and deliver spoilers as to who de Bernières casts asunder but will say I felt the final one, unrelated to any ‘cast’ member was a little uneccessary and particularly crushing, especially after the soul hitting account of the Folkestone bombings. Though, in hindsight, this too shows the author’s mastery at engaging a reader and rendering you completely spellbound.

The McCosh girls’ visit to a local medium and the scenes that unfold add a welcome touch of the fantastical, hearkening back to the author’s Latin American Trilogy, and well-chosen historical references help set a thoroughly well realised setting in both time and place, home and abroad.

At times the characters could perhaps be considered a little two-dimensional (though I don’t recall too many layers being attributed to Don Emmanuel) but this is the start of a trilogy and I have little doubt that as the whole saga of the McCosh family unfolds in de Bernières’ magnificent style, all will become fully rounded and developed.

The Dust That Falls From Dreams is a saga that encompasses three families at one of the most dramatic times the World faced. It deals with a vast array of subjects beyond the core of love and death, picking up the politics of class and gender, religion and industrialisation as it goes.

While not quite up there with Birds Without Wings this may well be the start of something amazing as the saga continues and should well be considered a fantastic novel in its own right. I await the next instalment with high expectations.

On a side note; why do we get lumped with such a cack cover image in the UK compared to the more attractive cover design they get in US?

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On A Sea of Clouds

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Ah, Last Days of April; now here’s a band that should be known to a much wider audience.

How and when I first came across this band I cannot entirely recall – I recall the name being one of those that were bartered about by a few of those friends of mine back a decade or so ago (before the internet was what it now is) amongst which music tip-offs were traded continually and all were keen to turn another on to a great band – Deep Elm / Bad Taste Records’ rosters supplying plenty of fruit…. think Appleseed Cast, American Football etc.

I can recall sitting in on a friend’s band practice when the guitar player hit the opening chords of Aspirins and Alchohol (of which I shall write more in another post) and getting hooked.

CJYR7RyWcAA6ImZThis Swedish band – which has now evolved into a somewhat rotating cast of musicians around core singer/songwriter/guitarist Karl Larsson – has been steadily releasing music since 1997 and evolving with each addition to the catalogue. Having been along for the ride since If You Lose It (and having caught a couple of shows in intimate venues), I’ve relished the band’s continued progress.

Arriving three years after their last effort Sea of Clouds marks a continuation of their sound’s evolution and Larsson’s maturity as a singer and songwriter.

Since Might As Well Live – the album which I think marks the end of the original LDOA sound – Larsson appears to have become an artist of second halves. Both Gooey (see the extremely catchy ‘Forget About It’ and ‘Why So Hasty’) and 79 (‘Lily’ and ‘Feel the Sun Again’) have reserved their best moments for Side B. That’s not to say these albums are only worth playing on one side, more that Larsson appears to stretch out and push beyond the simple pop structure. It’s then that the real fun is to be had.

The same is most definitely true of Sea of Clouds; it’s on those songs where Larsson is pushing beyond the sounds of his earlier records that the best songs are found. ‘The Artist’, ‘The Way Things Were’ are charming and straight-forward, ‘Oh Well’ a little more contemplative than LDOA of old and then we get to ‘The Thunder and the Storm’ – a stately tune underpinned by some superb playing that finally lets loose and propels the song into something else altogether. ‘Someone For Everyone’ is probably the most LDOA sounding song on the album but it’s the title track that holds it altogether.

‘Sea of Clouds’ is likely to become one of the songs I listen to most this year. A real slow-burning bruiser of a song, the title track is the best thing on here. A huge leap in songwriting from his earlier material, Larsson’s voice here is both wiser and more assured than ever as it’s given room to lament over a rolling-dark-cloud like backing with some sublime guitar flashes.

There’s a line in ‘America’ from Gooey: “I can’t go back to you, America” which has proven strangely prophetic as it seems that, starting with 79 and continuing here, Larsson has very much been under the thrall of America – specifically Americana. Where once LDOA albums tore past in a frenzied rush of fiercely strummed electric guitars, drums and songs about everyone’s love life, here the songs are of a calmer, more mature nature, embellished instead with delicate acoustic guitar layered with lapsteel – even a bit of honky-tonk on ‘Get You’.

A much more sedate and contemplative record than I was expecting but a strong and compelling collection of songs that’s not only impressive on first listening but suggestive of a real grower in Sea of Clouds. Hopefully it won’t be another three year wait until the next instalment.

 

Pirate Hunters

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I can’t stand Johnny Depp. Thoroughly disliked the part of Pirates of the Caribbean film I saw and found no inclination to watch any more. I grew up with numerous pirate films on tv in the background, Errol Flynn prancing around with his skinny sword flailing in another “swashbuckling” adventure, enough to get bored with what Hollywood told us “pirates” were.

Now, though, now I find myself browsing for more information on pirates, particularly on one pirate – Joseph Bannister, captain of the Golden Fleece.

Why? Because I just read Pirate Hunters by Robert Kurson – the story of two men’s fight to find just that ship and it’s told with such a contagious delight and reverence for the period that it’s impossible not to be caught up in the thrill of the hunt and the enthusiasm. Pirates, real Pirates, have, like so many, been done a massive disservice by technicolor.

IMG_4893Let’s rewind, a little, to the late seventeenth century – the Golden Age of Piracy. Pirates operating out of Port Royal in Jamaica are in their prime – silver pieces of eight are bank rolling a city that would give Sodom and Gomarrah a run for their money. A time populated by those pirates whose names now echo down through the years. Enter into this one of history’s all-but forgotten Pirate greats – Joseph Bannister.

During an age where Pirates such as Henry Morgan, William Kidd and “Black Sam” Bellamy and even Blackbeard himself roved the seas, plundering the English and Spanish galleons for all their worth, you’d have to do something pretty balls-out brave and audacious to stand out. How about stealing the very-well-armed merchant ship you’d captained for years, recruiting a crew of pirates and embarking on a new career of piracy? How about robbing Spanish ships, getting caught, convincing the jury (made up of locals that benefited profusely from the local Pirates) to find you not-guilty and, while awaiting re-trail, get your ship re-sailed and sneak it out of Port Royal under the noses and huge gun batteries of the governor and go straight back into piracy? How about then being cornered by two massive Royal Navy frigates tasked with destroying you and, instead of surrendering, careen your ship, mount your guns on the land and engage them in a massive two-day battle that leaves them with many dead, out of ammunition and, in an event never-heard of, force the Royal Navy to slink away in retreat?

Well that’s what Bannister did. All that an more. While Bannister survived the encounter and made his getaway The Golden Fleece was essentially destroyed in the battle and sunk, never to be found.

Never, that is, until a pair of modern-day treasure hunters John Chatterton and John Mattera took on the task of locating the wreck and, in so doing, discover only the second pirate ship ever found and positively identified.

Robert Kurson’s Pirate Hunters is the story of that quest. It’s a story of two men consumed by one goal, pretty much at the cost (financial and otherwise) of all else.

I’d given little thought to such adventures. Never watched any Discovery Channel-style documentary on it, never really realised just how much was involved – how much dedication, expertise and strength both physical and mental was needed to prise relics from their resting places. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think you’d pull up a 17th Century ship by paddling off the beach with a scuba mask on, but the events portrayed in Pirate Hunters are intense. Along with what must be mind-numbing and frustrating days of combing the depths with a sonar and diving on every blip, there’s painstaking research in Spanish historical vaults, consultations with legendary modern-day treasure hunters and risking it all on hunches and gut-feelings. At one point Mattera finds himself ambushed by opportunistic robbers while driving down the wrong dirt-road and, later, both he and Chatterton are pursued by yet-another would-be-robber on a motorbike. There’s also the competition from other treasure hunters looking to get in first, fraying personal relationships and a ticking clock as political changes threaten to scupper Chatterton and Mattera’s pursuit for the wreck.

Kurson relays the events that lead to the discovery of The Golden Fleece as though they’re that of a thriller novel – there’s no reason the quote on the cover comes from Lee Child. The pace maintains a driving momentum and avoids lingering on the slower elements of the chase. It doesn’t hurt that Johns Chatterton and Mattera are practically the stuff of legend in their own rights – both of whose biographies would provide a gripping read – and Joseph Bannister and his history provide a thrilling back story. There’s a whopping of amount of insight into the world of pirates and discoveries of more than just shipwrecks – the motivation behind Bannister turning Pirate is a revelation into a world that Hollywood has practically rendered dull.

In Pirate Hunters, Kurson not only injects excitement and enthusiasm into the pursuit of The Golden Fleece but re-injects a sense of passion and true adventure into a period of history so easily nullified by over-exposure. As is so often the case, reality can be so much more interesting than fiction and no amount of Hollywood script writers can do justice to the era in such a way as Kurson has done in just a few hundred pages. As an account of a search for sunken wonder, Pirate Hunters is both compelling and factual – a well balanced mix of fact and gripping narrative. As a taster, an introduction to the fascinations of the Golden Age of Piracy… it’s even better.

Oh, and a big thanks to Elliott and Thompson for sending this my way to read.

 

 

Currently Spinning

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It’s not just books. I’m consuming a lot of music lately. Specifically I’m playing the arse out of the new albums from Built to Spill and Last Days of April (of which more to come).

 

I’m stuck on this song:

 

Still blasting the My Morning Jacket album from the car:

 

And, because my son still rocks out to this album:

He’s Back, and he’s Fuhrious

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I’ll admit it – I bought this book after seeing the advert at a tube station and laughing at the pun “He’s back, and he’s Fuhrious”

Modern day Berlin. A man wakes up on a piece of scrub land in Berlin. He’s in full military uniform. He’s unaware how he got there and has trouble remembering anything of the previous day or two. He’s Adolf Hitler.

The Adolf Hitler.

IMG_4755So – Hitler has, somehow, been removed from the pages of history and deposited back among modern Germans. A world he expected to not exist: he had given orders for it to be burnt to the ground. He believes that he’s here due to the intervention of ‘fate’ and has been enlisted to save Germany, again, from the horror it – according to him -finds itself in.

Mistaken as an impersonator, a very intense one who refuses to break character, he finds himself taken in by a newspaper vendor conveniently located close to a television production company who buy into his act and line him up with a slot on a comedy tv show.

The humour here in Timur Vermes’ Look Who’s Back is both laugh out loud and extremely dark.

There’s a fantastic section early in where, having been caught in civvies while his uniform is cleaned, Hitler berates a young tv producer who had made a comment about Poland. Chastising him for his slovenly appearance, Hitler launches into a tirade, doubting that the young man even knows where Poland is, demands to know if he’s ever served in the army while doubting so as he clearly does not know where his uniform is. Hitler knows where his uniform is at all times, produces a ticket from his pocket and announces “it is at the dry-cleaners”.

There’s the suggestion that Hitler write a marriage / relationship advice book: “you could call it ‘Mein Kempf – With My Wife'”.

There’s the point that Hitler’s uniform is a little damp and, for some reason, smells of gasoline…

The combination of Hitler of old mixing with the modern world is funny but can run the risk of being a one-joke pony with diminishing results. So Vermes uses the voice of Hitler to take a satirical swipe at present day politics – Putin is admonished for appearing with his shirt off, Merkel mocked, the ideals of Germany’s Green party likened to some of his own and the Hilter of old rocking up on the doorstep of the current National Democratic Party and tearing them apart as pale imposters.

There are, however, two elements that stop this book from being a great one. Both are down to the fact that the character here isn’t fictional. It’s hard to imagine the real Hitler ever acclimatising and adapting to modernity quite as wilfully and quickly as he does – in order to propel it toward it’s function – here. The fact that he takes so easily to computers and smart phones enables all that follows and is necessary as such but isn’t quite plausible. That being said, suspend your element of disbelief and get past it, it’s a comedy after all.

And… therein lies the rub. It is a comedy, never lays claim to be serious. But while the book is clearly a satire and takes swipes at all things modern and politico, it does so from the eyes of one of History’s monster. As a bit of a history buff I’ve spent several years expanding my knowledge of World War 2 – not the dates and the statistics, the human stories. A large part of my bookshelves are given over to it. I’ve read the accounts of those who both witnessed, suffered and lost at the hands of this nasty entity and his followers.  Even if we are continually reminded that “the Jews are no laughing matter.”

There’s a theory that if you expose an audience to only one point of view, one take, one narrative for a certain amount of time, they’ll begin to find little ways to identify with that voice. To do so with Hitler is a very bold move. It works at times but the over-riding element here, especially given the lack of character change and arc (there’s no reason the real Hitler would consider any opinion other than his own so wouldn’t change), is that this is still told through the eyes of a man responsible for some of worst atrocities known to man.

As such Look Who’s Back fails to be completely laugh out loud throughout – it’s hard to laugh with abandonment at his admonishing of modern day Nazis for failing to to live up to the party when you know just what his version of living up to that party would be. But it is a very funny, satirical swipe at both how he rose to power in the first place and could, conceivably, do so again – anyone who’s been sickened by the rise of the petty, small-minded and similarly prejudiced Farage and his friends can see it’s not too much of a stretch after all.

This wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but there are plenty of laugh out loud moments and a few moments that make you think.