Review of The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (Harper, 2009)

There are a couple of different ways to explore the development of science in the Romantic period (the end of the eighteenth and beginning of nineteenth century).  One is to do a broad survey, charting developments in thought across different domains and contextualising these within a general social and political frame, or to focus on a single domain as an exemplar.  Or one could detail the biography of a key individual or institution, or detail the interwoven biographies of a number of key personalities.  In The Age of Wonder, Richard Holmes mixes all these approaches together to provide a portrait of scientific development in Britain from 1768 to roughly 1840. 

In the main, the book pivots around three central characters, botanist Joseph Banks, astronomer William Herschel and chemist Humphrey Davy.  On the one hand, this focus provides some in-depth discussion of their personal lives and their professional and political work, and their interactions with each other and their collaborators.  Especially fascinating was the interactions between these scientists and literary figures and the way in which science and the arts were intertwined.  On the other, it provides a relatively narrow focus on the work of particular individuals.  As a result, rather than getting a broad picture of developments in chemistry over a 50-60 year period in Britain and elsewhere, one is presented with the work of Davy and little else.  That is fine, except occasionally Holmes does provide a broader view, for example providing a quite detailed overview of ballooning that charts various developments by pioneers in both Britain and France, and setting out a broad sweep of the development of science in Britain from the mid-1820s onwards. 

In addition, the chapter about Mungo Park was like an orphan child; Park was an adventurer to Africa rather than a great scientist and his two trips added little to science.  And the material is quite selective.  For example, in detailing Banks’ trip to the Pacific, Holmes concentrates exclusively on his time in Tahiti and largely ignores the reason for the trip, the transit of Venus, which was a significant international scientific endeavour.  Moreover, the industrial revolution that was unfolding at the same time, with significant advances in engineering and manufacturing is all but absent except for a discussion of the development of the Davy lamp.  The result is a fascinating but uneven read that is often drawn-out. 

Lazy Sunday Service

For the second weekend in a row I've bought a handful of books to help replenish the to-be-read pile.  This time I bought three more popular history books and three novels.  The latter are City of Thieves by David Benioff, Pavel and I by Dan Vyleta, and Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch.  I've already made a start on the latter.  Hopefully the two sets will get me to the New Year.

My posts this week

Review of The Methods of Sergeant Cluff by Gil North
Review of Cobra by Deon Meyer
Credit

Credit

‘Do you believe in fate, Stevens?’ Gaffney said, walking around the laboratory table.

‘I believe we create our own luck and in coincidences.’

‘Luck can be manufactured?’

‘We can create the conditions within which certain outcomes are more likely to be favourable.’

‘So this experiment wasn’t fate or luck?’

‘It was the outcome of patient work and empirical experiment guided by established knowledge.’

‘So, it’s really somebody else’s work?’

‘You seem determined to attribute my success to luck, fate or theft.’

‘Then it was genius?’

‘It was science.’

‘Revealing God’s secrets?’

‘Revealing nature’s secrets.’

‘You deny God?’

‘You deny credit?’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Cobra by Deon Meyer (Hodder and Stoughton, 2013)

Detective Benny Griessel is called to a kidnapping scene on a wine estate just outside Cape Town in which two bodyguards and an estate worker have been murdered – each shot with a bullet engraved with a cobra.  It seems the victim is a recently arrived British citizen who was prepared to pay handsomely for protection.  The British consulate confirm the passport is a fake, but will say little else; Interpol reveals that the kidnap is probably the work of an elusive hitman named ‘the Cobra’; and the South African secret service wants to muscle the case away from the cops.  Meantime, a pickpocket is working a shopping mall, trying to gather enough cash to pay for his sister’s university tuition.  Only he picks the wrong victim and suddenly there’s more dead bodies, and more bullets with cobra engravings.  Ordered to pass the case over, Griessel and his team decide to keep investigating sensing that there is more to the demand than law and order.  Still possessing the lifted wallet, the pickpocket is also being drawn into a deadly game.

Cobra is the fourth novel in the Benny Griessel series.  Like its predecessors, it’s a fairly high octane police procedural thriller, with a strong sense of place and nicely penned characters.  Griessel, along with his feisty female colleague, Captain Mbali Kaleni, are once again the stars of the show, along with Tyrone Kleinbooi, a pickpocket trying to pay his sister’s way through university.  In this outing, Benny should be happy, now off the booze for some time and having moved in with new love, Alexa.  But his sense of inadequacy with Alexa and the job is giving him the blues.  The kidnapping of a British citizen and the death of two bodyguards and a wine estate worker provides an welcome distraction.  When higher authorities try to push Griessel and his team to one side, it’s clear that they’ve started to investigate a case with international connections and local connotations.  For Kaleni, the case gives the strong whiff of corruption from the Apartheid era and she’s not prepared to be sidelined.  Tyrone is a pickpocket with a code who has chosen the wrong bag to lift a wallet.  The plot is pretty linear as Griessel, Kaleni and co try to track down the hitman, ‘the Cobra’, and Tyrone tries to negotiate a swap of the wallet for his sister.  However, Meyer skilfully swaps the narrative back-and-forth between the cops and Tyrone, providing a storyline that races along and was certainly difficult to put down.  However, the tale runs out of steam a little towards the end and halts quite abruptly, which was a bit of a shame.  Nonetheless, an entertaining read and I’m looking forward to the next instalment.  

Review of The Methods of Sergeant Cluff by Gil North (1961, Chapman & Hall, reissued British Library 2016)

On a wet and windy night in the Yorkshire town of Gunnarshaw the body of Jane Trundle is found in the passageway next to the town hall, her purse full of money.  A good looking girl who worked in the local chemist’s shop, Jane had ambitions to climb her way out of the poverty of her parents, who live in an area of tightly packed, back-to-back terraced houses.  Attention focuses on Carter, a young man who idolised Jane, who was seen with her earlier that night.  While Inspector Mole feels it’s an open and shut case, Sergeant Caleb Cluff is not convinced.  Instead he focuses his attention on Greensleeve, the chemist, despite the lack of evidence linking him to the death, the man’s position within the community, and his protestations of innocence.  Cluff has his own methods and he’s not about to let procedure and protocol get in the way of intuition and passive intimidation.

The Methods of Sergeant Cluff is the second book in the Cluff series, presently being re-issued by the British Library.  In this outing, Cluff is investigating the death of a good-looking, social climbing chemist’s assistant.  While his colleagues suspect a young man who doted on her and was seen in her presence earlier that evening, Cluff is convinced the man is innocent.  Instead he focuses his attention on the young woman’s boss.  As with the first book, Cluff’s method is to largely ignore his colleagues and to passively intimidate the focus of his attention, hanging around outside the shop, visiting his wife, and searching his premises and making it obvious he has done so, waiting for his quarry to crack under the pressure.  The problem is that the chemist insists he is innocent of the murder, though he’s clearly got something to hide.  The characterisation is excellent: Cluff is very much his own man, a stoic loner who ploughs his own furrow, Barker is a local constable who has a soft spot for his distant sergeant, Inspector Mole is an officious outsider who’s fond of the easy path, and Greensleeve is a self-important man with connections.  North has them talk past and ignore each other, with some nicely observed social interactions.  The plot unfolds in a somewhat linear fashion, though the tale rises in tension and there’s a couple of twists at the end.  Overall, an enjoyable police procedural.

Lazy Sunday Service

I've usually got 3 to 5 unread books within an arm's distance, so when I finish one book I can pick up another.  However, I was down to my last book yesterday, so was thankful that an order had turned up at the local bookshop.  I've now added Jason Hewitt's Devastation Road, Joseph Wambaugh's The Choirboys, Jane Thynne's Black Roses, Mark Douglas-Home's The Malice of Waves and Adam Zamoyski's 1812 to my to-be-read pile.  I'm particularly looking forward to reading the latter having visited the Borodino panorama in Moscow recently that depicts that battle in an enormous 360 degree painting.

My posts this week
Post advertised: Postdoc on ProgCity project
Review of The Piccadilly Murder by Anthony Berkeley
Smart Dublin – in one word
Review of The Nuremberg Enigma by Yves Bonavero
Impressions of Songdo, an urban growth machine in progress
October reads
Alienation

Alienation

‘Alienation.’

‘What?’ Law glanced left at the old man.

‘Alienation from neoliberalism and the end of empire.  Too much inequality, distrust, social and economic instability, and walls crumbling down.’

‘Sorry?’

‘This.’ The man pointed at the screen mounted on a wall.  ‘Brexit. Trump. Militarised police. Fascism. Make America Great Again.  Take Back Control.  Trickle-up wealth.’

Law glanced at the screen and turned his attention back his pint.

‘And this is just the end of the beginning.  The prelude.  It’s as if history has taught us nothing.’

‘Hey, Citizen Smith,’ the barmaid intervened, ‘let him deal with his alienation in peace.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of The Piccadilly Murder by Anthony Berkeley (House of Stratus, 1929)

Ambrose Chitterwick is taking afternoon tea in the Piccadilly Palace Hotel when his attention is attracted to an old lady arguing with a man.  He’s called to a telephone and when he returns the man has gone and the woman is dead.  It appears Miss Sinclair has committed suicide, but Chitterwick witnessed the man’s hand hovering over her tea cup as he distracted her.  When the man reappears for what he says is a scheduled meeting he’s arrested by Chief Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard.  Further analysis reveals that the woman died from Prussic acid poisoning.  As far as Moresby is concerned Major Sinclair killed the old lady to obtain her fortune before she changed her will once she’d realised he’d married against her wishes.  At the request of the Major’s wife and influential friends Chitterwick agrees to keep an open mind and to re-consider his evidence by investigating the circumstances of the death more thoroughly.  He quickly comes to doubt his original conclusion, but if the Major is not the murderer, who is?

Anthony Berkeley was a journalist and crime writer and one of the founders of The Detection Club.  The Piccadilly Murder was published in 1929 and was the first of two books to feature amateur sleuth, Mr Ambrose Chitterwick.  Chitterwick is a man of means who lives with his over-bearing aunt who hen pecks him.  He has impeccable manners, always acts formally, and wants to do the right thing.  On witnessing the death of an elderly lady in the Piccadilly Palace Hotel, and sure he saw the man with her add something to her cup, he volunteers his information to the police.  They quickly apprehend her nephew, Major Sinclair, who fits the description of the man dining with her.  When a duke and his sister ask Chitterwick to come and stay he feels obliged to do so, though he knows that they are going to ask him to consider his evidence.  They persuade him to at least re-examine the death, which Chitterwick does, somewhat to the bemusement of the police, who seem to tolerate his interference due to his social standing.  Berkeley has a nice eye for detail and his dialogue is nicely done with Chitterwick barely able to end any sentence.  In a way the plot is a form of locked room mystery, though conducted in plain sight in the middle of a busy tea room.  While the mystery has Chitterwick and everyone else confused, the identity of the murderer seems fairly obvious to the reader.  However, Berkeley does reveal a dramatic twist at the denouement, though it wasn’t really that convincing.  Overall, an enjoyable amateur sleuth procedural tale from the Golden Age.

Review of The Nuremberg Enigma by Yves Bonavero (Lark & Frogmouth, 2016)

April 1945.  Russian troops are nearing the centre of Berlin.  As the Third Reich nears collapse its leaders start to plot their escape, including Adolf Hitler.  When the Russian’s reach the German leader’s bunker they discover two burnt bodies, one of which appears to be Hitler, with similar dental work but missing finger tips.  While the world is told Hitler is dead, there is some doubt as to whether this is the case.  At the same time, T-Force officer, Peter Birkett, is making his way from Brussels to Kiel, keeping up with or running ahead of frontline troops in order to secure valuable scientific sites and scientists.  His Russian counterparts are doing the same, including Elizaveta Terisova, a Volga German who has managed to survive Stalin’s purges.  They are particularly keen to track down refined Uranium for use in developing atomic bombs.  Both parties are converging on a coal field, each determined to secure the area’s assets for themselves not realising there’s a potentially greater prize hiding in one of the mine shafts.

I received a free copy of the book from its publicist in return for an honest review.  The Nuremberg Enigma takes two storylines – one an alternative history concerning the death of Hitler and the other a factional account of a T-Force officer – and merges them together.  Since I read a lot of fiction set between 1930 and 1960 and military history of the Second World War (including recently a book on T-Force) the story seemed an ideal fit for my reading tastes.  The story starts quite promisingly, with a nicely written opening section set in centre of Berlin in the dying days of the Second World War, setting up a scenario where Hitler potentially survives the final onslaught.  The story then shifts register and voice – swapping to first person - to follow the exploits of Peter Birkett, a young British officer in T-Force, a specialist group that seeks to move forward with the troops to secure scientific sites.  This is interspersed with a third-person telling of the similar exploits of a young Russian intelligence officer of German extract.  There’s an imbalance in the telling of the back stories of these two characters, with much greater description of Elizaveta’s personal history.  Personally, I think the telling would have worked better if the whole story had been told in the third person.  Moreover, the emotional register of the story is uneven with, for example, a key death barely registering on one of the central characters.  More problematic, however, is the believability of the alternative history of Hitler thread which, while nicely set up, lacked substance and credibility and often made little sense.  And the thread leads to one of the most ridiculous endings I’ve read in quite some time (which is difficult to discuss without giving spoilers).  Overall then, while the story is interesting and has plenty of action it is somewhat uneven in its telling and plot and ultimately wasn’t convincing. 

October reads

Quite a mixed month of reading.  My book of the month is The Life We Bury, a thoughtful literary crime tale, by Allen Eskins.


A Gentle Axe by R.N. Morris ****
Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith ****
The Life We Bury by Allen Eskins ****.5
Season of Darkness by Maureen Jennings **.5
The Human Flies by Hans Olav Lahlum ***.5
Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear **.5
Oblivion by Arnaldur Indridason ***.5
Slicky Boys by Martin Limon **.5

Lazy Sunday Service

After reading two 'oldies' last week - Anthony Berkeley's The Piccadilly Murders and Gil North's The Methods of Sergeant Cluff (reviews soon) - I'm back now with detective Benny Griesel in modern day South Africa, reading Cobra.  It's a bit of a contrast with 1930s and 60s England.

My posts this week
Review of A Gentle Axe by R.N. Morris
Smart Moscow
Review of Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith
The last one

The last one

Fletcher tugged up the collar on his sodden coat.  It was a futile gesture.  He’d probably barely notice the difference if he tumbled into the canal, he was that soaked through.

‘Sir!’ A torch beam danced amongst bare branches; a figure appeared on the towpath.  ‘We’ve found her!’

Fletcher picked up his pace, mud sucking at his shoes.

‘This way, Sir.’ The policeman pointed his torch towards a derelict building.

She was lying in the grate of a half-collapsed chimney.  Brown hair covered her face, her dress bunched around her waist.

‘She’ll be the last one,’ Fletcher vowed.  ‘The last.’ 



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of A Gentle Axe by R.N. Morris (Penguin, 2007)

St Petersburg, 1866.  A man is found hanging from a tree in a park.  At his feet is a suitcase containing the body of a dwarf.  It appears the man killed the dwarf then took his own life, however, investigating magistrate Porfiry Petrovich is not so sure.  Despite the protests of others he pursues an investigation into the deaths.  His enquiries convince him that there was foul play, but proving it and finding the killer is not going to be straightforward, especially when there is no clear motive or suspect.  Methodologically he starts to piece together the lives of the two victims, hunting for clues as to who might have killed them.

A Gentle Axe is the first book in the Porfiry Petrovich series set in St Petersburg at the late nineteenth century.  The central character is borrowed from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and works as an investigating magistrate in the bustling city, which is stratified by wealth and class.  In conducting his cases Porfiry Petrovich has to negotiate the formal social structures and politics, as well as mix with the poor and needy.  It requires diplomacy and determination, especially when certain elements would prefer the case he is working on – the death of a bulky yardmaster and cantankerous dwarf – to be declared closed without a fuss.  Morris does a good job of detailing the character and atmosphere of the city and its social relations.  The characterisation and the interactions between them is nicely observed.  The procedural-style plot is engaging with Porfiry Petrovich stoically unearthing and following clues, though some of the detective work is based on intuition rather than deduction and the denouement involves plenty of accusation and conjecture but not much concrete evidence.  Perhaps unsurprisingly then the reader is left guessing as to who the murder is and their motives until the end.  Overall, an interesting and entertaining historical crime tale.

Review of Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith (1989, Random House)

After fleeing Moscow former state investigator Arkady Renko has worked his way east, hiding in the shadows, always moving on before his former colleagues track him down.  It is now the time of Perestroika and Renko is working the slime line of a large factory ship, gutting fish before they are frozen.  In the spirit of cooperation the boat is working with American trawlers, storing their catches.  When one of the trawlers deposits the body of a female crew member onto the deck of the Polar Star the captain asks Renko to investigate her death.  To the consternation of some of the crew Renko suspects foul play.  At first he is reluctant to investigate further, but like many of the men who encountered the woman before her death he feels drawn to her.  It soon becomes clear, however, that investigating her death might have deadly consequences.

Polar Star is the sequel to Gorky Park, the first book in the Arkady Renko series.  Set a number of years after the first book, Renko has fled his former life and colleagues, taking a succession of menial jobs, working his way east across Siberia.  He eventually finds himself working on a factory ship in the Bering Sea, processing fish caught by American trawlers.  When a young woman is dragged from the sea by a net, Renko is persuaded to turn investigator once again.  Given the closed setting, the woman could have only been killed by one of the Russian crew or the crews of the American trawlers; she was last seen on the stern of the factory boat after a party on-board which the Americans attended.  It’s a neat set-up, made more compelling by the number of potential suspects given the woman’s promiscuity, the secrets held by many of the crew, their reluctance to aid Renko, especially since his investigation seems likely to cancel shore leave after four months of sea, and the inherent suspicion between Russians and Americans.  Smith gives a real sense of life on-board a factory ship operating in freezing territory and the uneasy thawing of relations been cold war rivals.  He slowly winds up the intrigue and tension, with the plot unfolding towards a nice denouement. The only flat note is the sense that Renko should have been dead within the first third of the tale and somehow manages to stay alive despite the many opportunities to kill and dispose of him.  Indeed, that he’s alive at the end of the book is something of a miracle.   Nonetheless, Polar Star is a gripping crime thriller.

Lazy Sunday Service

I've spent the last week in Moscow and St Petersburg.  It's been a great trip so far and I've been very well looked after by my hosts.  Tiredness has now caught up with me. Too many 9/10am to 10/11pm days, including 9 hours of lecturing and two 2 hour public lectures, meeting folks from Smart Moscow, Yandex (the Russian Google), Habidatum (urban big data company), Strelka (Institute for Media, Architecture and Design), being filmed for a documentary, and doing some sightseeing.

My posts this week
Review of The Life We Bury by Allen Eskins
Review of Season of Darkness by Maureen Jennings
Snow White