The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Here is a handful of tall tales from the creator of Sherlock Holmes.  In this volume of short stories we are introduced to Brigadier Etienne Gerard, a fictional Hussar (light cavalryman) who served in the French army during the Napoleonic Wars.

Gerard is an old man when he begins telling stories of the exploits of his youth.  A career soldier, Gerard is aware of the courage of soldiers from all countries.  They are all equally courageous, says Gerard, but the French are the bravest of them all while he himself is the bravest of the French.  

Yes, the Brigadier is a blowhard, and in his stories you find out how he saved the emperor Napoleon (several times), how he got the best of his British enemies (and of the Spanish, and the Prussians, and the Poles ...) and how he rescued damsels in distress, amongst other exploits.  The reader soon realises that Gerard is saved by good luck more often than by his own resourcefulness, and it is in this that much of the charm of these stories lie.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knows how to tell a good tale.  The plots are well thought out, the narrative gallops along, and the dialogue is crisp and clean.  The characters in the stories need to be larger-than-life so as not to be dwarfed by Gerard's ego, and Conan Doyle manages to make them so without producing stock characters.  Overall, the stories have just enough whimsy mixed in with the derring-do to make for a delightful read. 

The Brigadier Gerard stories were published between 1894 and 1903.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography was first published in 1847.  It tells the story of the eponymous heroine from the time she was ten years old until her adulthood.

We meet Jane, an orphan, shortly after her uncle and guardian has died.  Her aunt feels burdened by her responsibility for Jane and soon finds a pretext for having her placed in an orphanage.  Here Jane meets initial hostility from the self-righteous administrator.  Very soon she proves her worth as an honest and moral person, and she becomes popular with her fellow orphans.

Shortly before she turns eighteen, Jane gains employment at Thornfield Hall as a governess to a young French girl Adele who is the responsibility of Mr Edward Rochester, the owner of Thornfield.  Before long, Mr Rochester proposes marriage to Jane, but fate intervenes and the two are parted.  Will Jane find true love again?

Over 160 years after it was first published Jane Eyre still holds an attraction for the modern reader.  The language is hardly archaic or obscure, and Charlotte Brontë largely avoids using the long and convoluted sentences that feature in so many novels of the era.  Brontë has a talent for drawing sharp and detailed portraits of her characters.  Her descriptions of both the human and the natural world are elegant, and she has a talent for finding unusual but convincing metaphors.

Jane Eyre herself is portrayed as a strong, independent and resourceful person.  She has a moral depth to her that shines through in every crisis.  In the novel, we see the dilemmas that faced such a person in a time when women were considered to be chattels belonging to a patriarchal household.

So, if you want to read a story with psychological and moral depth, and one that has a strong  female lead character, then Jane Eyre is the book for you.

Travels with a Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson

Image from Wikisource.org

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes was first published in 1879.  It is Stevenson's account of a twelve day journey he undertook in 1878 through the mountainous and isolated Cévennes region of France.

Stevenson purchases an ill-used donkey called Modestine to be his pack-animal, and he needs a beast of burden because he has a cumbersome sleeping bag of unwieldy proportions that he designed himself.  Modestine, it turns out, has a personality of her own, and Stevenson not only has to deal with the weather, the terrain, the baggage and the locals, he also has a fickle donkey on his hands.  It promises to be an interesting twelve days.

Stevenson knows how to spin a yarn.  He mixes beautiful descriptions of man and nature into his narrative and adds the odd soliloquy here and there about life, the universe and everything.  The following is one of his more inspired passages:

In this world of imperfection we gladly welcome even partial intimacies.  And if we find but one to whom we can speak out of our heart freely, with whom we can walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation, we have no ground of quarrel with the world or God.

The latter part of the book concentrates heavily on the history of the region, which was and is a protestant stronghold in France.  Stevenson goes into a bit of depth as he recounts the villainy and demise of the leader of the Inquisition in that part of the world.  It is the story of a man who, after being rescued from death by the kindness of strangers, makes a career of persecuting his fellow humans, even unto their death.

And throughout it all there is Stevenson's struggles with Modestine, and poor Modestine does suffer for it more than he.  Perhaps folk in the nineteenth century were not as sentimental about animals as we may be today.  Modestine is sold as easily as she was bought, but her absence stings Stevenson and he reviews his feelings:

...I became aware of my bereavement.  I had lost Modestine.  Up to that moment I had thought I hated her; but now she was gone, "and, oh! the difference to me!" ... She was patient, elegant in form, the colour of an ideal mouse and inimitably small.  Her faults were those of her race and sex; her virtues were her own.  Father Adam wept when he sold her to me; after I had sold her in my turn, I was tempted to follow his example; and being alone with a stage-driver and four or five agreeable young men, I did not hesitate to yield to my emotion.

Yes, perhaps there is hope for the boy after all.  You may like to read this book if you are interested in seeing the early work of a master story-teller.  Parts of it are rough and callow, but the kernels of talent are there in abundance.  Just be warned that the attitude towards animals was not the same then as it seems to be now (at least in my part of the world).

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

I Shall Wear Midnight is the fourth installment in the Tiffany Aching series for young adults.  The title is likely to be a reference to the poem "Warning" by Jenny Joseph:

When I am old I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

Tiffany is a young witch who is coming of age; however, she is not yet psychologically ready to swap her brightly coloured clothes for the traditional midnight-black garb worn by her sister witches.  She spends her time looking after the people of the Chalk Hills, easing their pain as they muddle their way through life and, for some, easing their way out of it.

But something has happened that ushers a malevolent force, the Cunning Man, into the world, and he is looking for Tiffany.  His mere presence causes people to become distrusting of, and then hostile towards their witches.  Will Tiffany be able to take the great step into full witch-hood and defeat the Cunning Man?  Her challenge is to accomplish this task without the help of the Nac Mac Feegle (the blue-skinned pixies that feature in the three previous Tiffany Aching books) or to fall into darkness.

I have mixed feelings about this book.  It is well written, but it rehashes many of the themes Pratchett covered in his Granny Weatherwax stories: the need to respect others, particularly the weakest; helping others overcome the darker side of their nature in order to make the world a better place; and finding the strength within oneself to overcome external adversities.  

Also missing to a large degree is the sparkling wit and insight that was the hallmark of Pratchett's earlier writings.  I Shall Wear Midnight is a dark tale, and Pratchett has pulled no punches as he weaves domestic violence, teenage pregnancy and the social neglect of the old, the infirm and the lonely into the story.  These are all worthy themes and are adroitly expounded; but they are grim truths and, in this case, they are ones whose gravity is not ameliorated by the usual measure of Pratchett's levity.  

Alas? Maybe. Yes, mixed feelings in this review.  I Shall Wear Midnight is a good novel, but it is not nearly one of Pratchett's best.  Read it for itself, by all means.  It is worth it.  Sometimes sci-fi and fantasy stories can succeed just as well with Truths as do realist novels, just don't expect the usual loads of laughs.

I am aware that Sir Terry Pratchett is ill, and has been for some time.  I send my best wishes to him and his family.  He has made the world a better place (for me, at least) with his Discworld stories.

Publishing details: (E-book) RHCB Digital, London, 2011