First draft complete (thankfully)

Yesterday evening I finally completed first drafts of my 685 entries for the forthcoming Oxford Dictionary of Human Geography.  Each entry was either c.75-100 words, c.300 words or c.750 words.  Up until now, July has consisted of little else other than researching and writing definitions and explanation.  I'm now onto editing entries in response to feedback/edits from my two co-authors, and also editing/commenting on their entries.  The end is at last in sight.  Thankfully.  Taking a break from it next week when I hope to catch up on reading some fiction and sorting out the garden.  Time for a sup of beer ...

Review of The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Allied Prisoners of War in the Second World War by Midge Gillies (Aurum Press, 2011)

The Barbed-Wire University provides an overview of the lives of British prisoners of war in Europe and the Far East.  It’s strength is the insights it provides into the everyday lives and experiences of the prisoners, showing how they coped with being in captivity.  The book deliberately avoids the dramatic tales of escapers and instead concentrates on the mundane and banal - gardening, entertainment, sport, learning - as well as work details, camp conditions and contact with home.  At one level it is fascinating, using individual accounts to provide a rich description.  At another, it has a number of shortcomings that prevents the text from rising above an empiricist account. 

The principle problem of the book is that it describes the men’s lives largely outside any in-depth contextualisation of how camps were structured and organised both by the prisoners and guards or the inter-relationships between these groups.  Indeed, the guards and the structural organisation of camps are curiously absent in the text except for brief mentions.  There is very little about the social relations between men, the social structure, how regimes of regulation and punishment operated, the power dynamics operating, or even how the camps and work were temporally and spatially organized.  There is very little detail on how the allies organised their connections to prisoners beyond a short discussion of Red Cross parcels and it would have been good to get a better sense of how that was all organised and operated.  Instead, we get descriptions of football games or organising concerts or taking education courses which are interesting, but lack a real depth of analysis that frames and explains what was going on a deep social and psychological level. 

Second, given that the book covers a wide range of experiences and not just education, I took the main title to be synonymous with the idea of a ‘university of life’.  However, the subtitle is a little misleading.  The book almost exclusively relates to the lives of British prisoners of war, with the occasional mention of Dutch or Australian.  There is either no, or very little, discussion of Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders, Indians, Poles, French, Russian, etc.  How nationalities and ranks were treated and their experiences in captivity were very different.  Indeed, the book could have been strengthened by much more systematically comparing and contrasting the experiences of Allied prisoners, and with how Allied prisoners were treated vis-a-vis Axis prisoners.

Third, I found the structure of the book a little odd.  It’s divided into six parts.  Parts 1 and 3 concern Europe, parts 2 and 4 deal the Far East, and parts 5 and 6 relate to the closing of the war and repatriation, and after the war.  In the latter two cases, Europe and the Far East are dealt with together, comparing and contrasting the experiences.  That probably would have been a more effective way of dealing with the first four parts as well.  As it is, themes are repeated across all four parts and it’s left to the reader to do the work of comparison.  Moreover, it’s not really clear why there are two parts per continent as there’s no real differentiation in time or the logic of themes between them.  It all seems a little haphazard.  Rather than organise the book almost exclusively around activities, it would have been profitable to also have mixed in structures, organisation and social relations. 

Overall, an interesting account full of description and anecdote, but lacking any real depth of analysis as to how the camps operated as social systems that shaped the life that took place in them.

777: Seven sentences from page seven.

I was tagged at the weekend by Margot Kinberg to take part in the 777 challenge.  Writers are invited to share seven sentences from page seven, or page seventy-seven of their work in progress and then to pass the challenge on to seven other writers.

Here's the first part, seven sentences from page seven of Dark Light, which I confess I haven't worked on for months due to other commitments (like completing the dictionary).

It had soon become clear that experience had to be accompanied by an ability to write; that it wasn’t as simple as sitting at a keyboard and tapping out a couple of thousand words a day.  There were the issues of sentence construction, punctuation, grammar, prose, character development, plot, structure, and narrative flow.  

Delaney had anecdotes.  He had fragments of stories.  He had a jumble of stereotypical characters who spoke with flat, lifeless dialogue.  Locked in his head he had thirty years of experience of every crime on the statute books and the full circus of society.  What he didn’t have was a talent for the written word.


As for the second part, here are seven writers (no obligation folks).  Check out their websites and work: 

Gerard Brennan 
Susan Condon
Paul O'Brien
Ruby Barnes
Louise Phillips
RJ McDonnell
Sean Patrick Reardon

Sunday Service: I Hear Sirens on the Street by Adrian McKinty

In the past week I've won two fiction related competitions, neither for my writing!  First off, my suggested title of 'Both Barrels' was voted as the choice for for Shotgun Honey's first anthology.  Second, I guessed the page length for the edited proofs of Adrian McKinty's new book, I Hear Sirens on the Street, the second book in the DS Sean Duffy trilogy set in Belfast in the early 1980s.  Like many reviewers I gave the first book, The Cold, Cold Ground, a five star review, as I did Fifty Grand and Dead I Well May Be, so it's going to be a real pleasure to receive the final draft version of I Hear Sirens (right) complete with doodles, editing notes, queries, etc. and to take an early read.

My posts this week
Third birthday
The lonely men
Both Barrels
Review of Shaman Pass by Stan Jones
The Clearing

The clearing

The undergrowth thins and I stumble into a clearing.  I’m soaked to the skin, wet jeans cold and clammy.  My naked arms, taped together behind my back, itch from their encounters with briars and nettles.  A voice shouts somewhere behind me, answered by another.  I stumble forwards, tripping on a root, landing heavily on my side at the edge of a dark pool.  Half of me wants to just lie here and wait.  The other half knows it would be a fatal mistake.  I struggle to my knees, then up onto my feet and set off back into the woods.


A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

Review of Shaman Pass by Stan Jones (Soho Press, 2003)

‘Uncle Frosty’, a Inupiat mummy originally found in a cave in Shaman Pass, has been returned to Chukchi, Alaska, by the Smithsonian Institution.  Not everyone is happy that he will be displayed in the local museum rather than being left on the tundra in the traditional way after death.  Within a few hours he has been stolen along with an ancient ivory harpoon and amulet.  A day later Victor Solomon is found out on the ice sheet next to a fishing hole speared with the harpoon.  State Trooper Nathan Active, an Inupiat born locally but raised by white adoptive parents in Anchorage has the task of investigating the death.  The evidence seems to point a local indigenous rights activist, but it is clear that there is more to the case than meets the eye, the key to which is the identity of ‘Uncle Frosty’.

Shaman Pass is a fairly straightforward police procedural, but one given a nice twist through its setting and Nathan Active’s position as an outside insider.  Jones does a very good job of capturing the social relations and tensions of an Inupiat community interfacing with white culture and laws and of placing the reader in the landscape and creating a sense of place.  Active is a solid lead character and provides a nice pair of eyes through which to view the local community and its ways.  The writing is nicely paced and expressive and the plot for the most part works well.  The final third of the story, however, falls a little flat.  The mystery element is gone, replaced with more of a thriller-style conclusion and some sub-plots, such as Active’s relationship with his grandfather, are forgotten.  Overall, Shaman Pass was an enjoyable and engaging read and I’m looking forward to catching up with Trooper Active in the third book in the series, Frozen Sun.

 

Both Barrels

My suggested title - Both Barrels - has won the competition to be the title for Shotgun Honey's forthcoming anthology.  There is still two weeks in which to submit a short story (1-5,000 words) for possible inclusion, if you're interested.  Details can be found here.  I need to get my act together and draft something.  I could probably do with both barrels being placed at the back of my head to nudge things along.  I'm still working away at entries for the dictionary I'm writing.  Only ten more to go.  They're all meant to be c.750 words, but I should met the end of the month deadline for first drafts.  Hopefully I can squeeze a short story in as well.

The lonely men

There are two themes running through the books that Amazon is presently recommending to me.  Here are eight of the top ten books that the site recently suggested I might like to read.  I clearly have a taste for fiction involving lonely, siloletted men!  For some reason, I also want to read spy thrillers, with a dash of crime.  I'm not going to deny they are right, I'd quite happily read all the books below.  What is it about the siloletted man, though?  He seems to be appearing everywhere these days.

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Third birthday

The View from the Blue House was three years old as of last Thursday.  Somehow it feels longer!  In that time I've posted 987 posts, including 314 book reviews, 26 short stories and 49 drabbles.  The site gets a steady trickle of traffic and hopefully those that pass by get something useful from it.  Many thanks to everyone who has visited and commented.

Lazy Sunday Service

It's relatively rare that I'll read two books at the same time, even rarer that I would manage to misplace both of them.  Yet that's precisely what I've done with Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis and The Barbed Wire University by Midge Gillies.  I know where I've left them, so it's just a matter of collecting them on Tuesday and picking up where I left off.  In the meantime, I've made a start on Shaman's Pass by Stan Jones, catching up with Trooper Nathan Active in a very chilly Alaska (much like Irish summers, well almost).

On other news, I'm into the home stretch of completing my share of the Oxford Dictionary of Human Geography.  I'm down to the final twenty entries of my 685 allocation.  Unfortunately, the remainder are all longer, 750 word pieces.  Still, two more weeks and I should have a complete set of first drafts.  Then onto editing my own and my co-author's entries.  The end is almost in sight.  Thankfully.


My posts this week:
Review of Silesian Station by David Downing
Can vacant housing solve the social housing waiting list?
Review of Black Skies by Arnaldur Indridason
Review of The Envoy by Edward Wilson
Desperately seeking ...

Desperately seeking ...

She read the ad out loud.  ‘Late forties, divorced, overweight, fashion illiterate, employed, solvent, honest man seeks relationship.’

‘Jesus, Dad, is that the best you can do?’

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘The idea is to attract a date!  How about: handsome, young-at-heart, GSOH, caring, generous man seeks fun with soul mate?’

‘It would fail the Trade Descriptions Act.’

‘Who’s going to sue, the date who shows up looking like a cubist painting?’

‘Assuming she turns up.’

‘There’re people out there as desperate as you, Dad.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Probably just as fat, as well.’

‘Don’t push your luck.’

‘Like you, you mean?’


A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

Review of The Envoy by Edward Wilson (Arcadia, 2008)

In 1950s Britain Kit Fournier is a career diplomat and spy, notionally the Counselor for Political Affairs at the US embassy on Grosvenor Square, but also the CIA Head of Station.  His family have a foreign service pedigree and Fournier is well travelled, schooled and networked.  The Cold War is well underway, both the US and Russia have the hydrogen bomb, and Britain is struggling to remain a world power and hold on to its empire.  Fournier’s primary job is to spy on and undermine his supposed ally, bringing them evermore under US influence and control.  To that end he seeks to disrupt British-Soviet relations and to keep an eye on Britain’s attempts to become an atomic power, running covert operations and a network of agents.  Through his cousin, the beautiful and alluring Jennie, married to a British nuclear scientist, he hears about developments at Orford Ness, an island off the Suffolk coast.  Determined to find out what is happening and to disrupt its progress he plays a dangerous game with MI5/6, the KGB, and his own spymasters, being drawn into a position that’ll take all his guile and skill to handle.

The Envoy is a superior spy story that blends real world events and people with a fictional tale.  It is complex, multi-layered, atmospheric, full of historical and political insight, and reveals deep insight into human relations.  Wilson constructs a compelling and plausible plot that cleverly uses real events, such as the Ordzhonikidze incident in Portsmouth harbour, Britain’s hydrogen bomb program, and the Suez crisis, and real personalities such as Allen Dulles, Jack Kennedy and Dick White.  He recreates the social landscape of Britain and the wider political atmosphere and diplomatic games being played in the 1950s, providing a deep sense of historical realism (indeed, the bibliography at the end of the book shows that Wilson did a fair bit of research in plotting the book).  In particular, Wilson captures the spy’s world of deception, lies, betrayals, coercion, blackmail, state-sanctioned murder, paranoia, danger and constant worry, and that half the battle is the games within and between one’s own organisations.  His characterization is excellent, especially his portrayal of Kit Fournier as a self-reflexive spy racked with self-loathing, yet compelled out of duty and honour to play his role, and he does a good job at exploring the human condition and what drives and shapes people in particular circumstances.  Overall, a very well told story, with a couple of nice twists and turns, and an excellent resolution that proves that nothing is as it seems, even to those that think they can see the hand that each party is holding. 

Review of Black Skies by Arnaldur Indridason (Harvill Secker, 2012)

Sigurdur Oli has found himself at a crossroads.  His long-term relationship has recently come to an end and his life has not turned out as he hoped.  He’s even questioning whether he wants to continue being a police officer.  When a friend who is being blackmailed asks for unofficial help, he agrees to try and resolve the issue.  He arrives at the blackmailer’s house to find her badly injured and her attacker fleeing.  He calls for backup and an ambulance, but is unwilling to tell his colleagues what he was doing there in the first place.  He should withdraw from the investigation, but instead he sets off trying to solve the case by himself.  Slowly he starts to piece things together, whilst also trying to come to terms with his own social situation and his father’s illness, and dealing with a tramp who keeps trying to tell him something important but never quite imparts his tale.

Having read all seven, translated police procedural novels by Arnaldur Indridason featuring Erlandur and his team, I was looking forward to reading Black Skies.  It was, however, a book I struggled to get into and I might have put it to one side to pick up again later except for the fact that it was the only reading material I had on a flight.  The first hundred pages or so seemed ponderous and lifeless, the writing, especially the dialogue, flat.  Sigurdur Oli is out of sorts and so is the tale.  Indridason’s writing is always a little ponderous, building up in layers, gently engulfing the reader in an atmospheric fog, but it didn’t quite work in the first half of Black Skies.  However, by the second half of the book the story took on more shape, purpose and pace, with the various strands being woven together to create a nice tapestry.   It was almost if Indridason started off without really knowing Sigurdur or the plot and developed each as the story unfolded, slowly putting a form on each.  The tale itself, with its three interconnected storylines - the murder investigation, Sigurdur’s private life, and Andreas’ disassembly - eventually work themselves out nicely.  Moreover, given that the story is set just prior to the Icelandic financial meltdown it provides a nice insight into the national psyche concerning its new found wealth and its trappings.  Overall, a book that takes a while to get going, but rounds out into a satisfactory police procedural.

Review of Silesian Station by David Downing (Old Street Publishing, 2008)

July 1939 and British-born John Russell returns from a trip to the United States with his son to re-enter ‘The Cage’ of Nazi Germany.  As a foreign correspondent, Russell is aware that war is coming and the trip has provided him with an American passport that will enable him to stay living near to his son and close to his lover, the movie actress Effi Koenen, and a new job working for the San Francisco Tribune.  The passport came for the price of spying on behalf of the United States, the job on condition that he exposes the plight of Jews in German controlled Europe.  He arrives back in Berlin to find Effi in a basement cell of the Gestapo headquarters.  The price for her release is Russell working for the Nazis, offering his services to the Russians, to whom he’ll pass on disinformation.  Russell has communist leanings and on contacting the Russians offers to be a double agent.  As tension rises along the Polish border, Russell plays a dangerous game of trying to keep his three controllers, plus his employer, content without revealing his duplicity, travelling to Prague, Breslau, Warsaw, Bratislava, and Moscow, notionally to cover unfolding events.  To make life even more difficult, he has agreed to help a friend track down the Jewish niece of one of his employees that disappeared on arrival in Berlin, and Effi wants to find ways to resist and undermine the Nazi regime. 

There’s a lot to like about Silesian Station and it’s a step up from the first book in the series, Zoo Station.  The characterization is richer and more keenly observed, and the plotting is excellent, interweaving a number of strands that collectively keep the dramatic tension high throughout the story.  The historical context is well realised, both in relation to the larger macro-politics across the continent in the lead up to the start of hostilities, but also the everyday realities with respect to the diverse circumstances and views of people within communities, and how politics and communal relations played out in different locales (Berlin, the Polish border, Moscow, Prague and so on).  Whilst the prose is quite workman-like, Downing nevertheless captures the sights and sounds, the cinema and cafes, the streets and apartment living, the fashions and pastimes, and the hopes and fears of people in difficult situations.  The result is a rich, rewarding and entertaining read that steadily builds in tension and is satisfyingly resolved. 

Lazy Sunday Service

It's quite a long time since I read a book in a single day.  Yesterday I worked my way through Edward Wilson's superb, The Envoy, a Cold War spy story set in 1950s Britain that skillfully blends real world events and people with a fictional tale.  It's complex, multi-layered, atmospheric, full of historical and political insight, and reveals deep insight into human relations.  Full review in due course.  I also hope to post reviews of David Downey's excellent, Silesian Station, and Arnaldur Indridason's, Black Skies, this week.


My posts this week
June reviews
Review of The Trinity Six by Charles Cumming
A limited haul from Edinburgh
'Resolved' is a relative term if you live on an unfinished estate
It is was it is