Christmas at Thompson Hall by Anthony Trollope

The year is 1870-something.  Mr Brown is a lucky man.  He has married a rich woman (née Thompson) who has a "commanding chest".  Relieved of the need to earn a living, Mr Brown and his wife spend their winters in the south of France.  In the seventh winter, a note arrives from the Thompson Family H.Q.  Roughly speaking, it says: Be at Thompson Hall for Xmas Eve dinner or be damned ever after as do-nothings.  P.S. Your sister is getting married.

Mr Brown does not want to go.  He is sure the trip into colder climes will bring on a chest complaint.  Mrs Brown says it was an offer that could not be refused, therefore, they have no choice but to go.  As they make their way northwards, Mr Brown gets progressively sicker until, by they time they reach Paris, he is all but bed-ridden.  Mrs Brown tries a home remedy to get her husband back on his feet and ready for travel, and that is when their troubles really begin.

Christmas at Thompson Hall is a nice little comic novella.  Not the greatest story in the world, but it does raise a smirk here and there.  Of course, it is easy to second-guess the turn of events, but that is of no great matter.  The fun lies in seeing how the characters deal with the discomforts of their predicament.

The moral of the story is that Christmas is a time for family and forgiveness.  It is interesting to read Trollope's treatment of the themes that Dickens had raised in his Christmas stories.  While Christmas at Thompson Hall does not share the genius of A Christmas Carol, neither does it share the dark and harrowing nature of the latter tale.  Mr Brown is no Ebenezer Scrooge (his flaw is liking his comfort, not miserliness), and does not need moral rescue for the sake of his futurity, so Trollope's tale is light and comic throughout.  Of course, it ends happily (as all Christmas stories should).

Merry Christmas, everyone, and best wishes for the New Year.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

"Let every one mind his own business ... If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

In the summer of 1849, Henry David Thoreau decided to conduct an experiment: to see if a person could find contentment in a life lived simply, frugally and independently, disentangled from the requirements and expectations of friends, neighbours and the state.  To do this, he built a small cabin on some land by the shores of Walden Pond, a lake in Massachusetts.  Here he lived for some two years, growing his own food and selling his surplus to obtain other necessities of life.

Walden is an account of his experiences and observations in those years, telescoped into a narrative that spans the course of a year from spring, through summer and autumn, to winter.  Although he does not say so, he was influenced by the ideas of the Transcendentalist philosophers of New England, especially those contained in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance"; and yet, Thoreau is explicit in his insistence that the individual must in accordance with his/her own nature, which he does fully during his time at Walden.

Thoreau explores many aspects of life: independence, literature, the natural world, human relationships, solitude and loneliness, food and farming, gossip, materialism and spirituality.

In the run-up to Christmas, we would do well to remember Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge, a man who forgot his own humanity while he quested for material riches.  Thoreau's example in Walden is the antithesis of Scrooge's.  Renunciation of crass materialist acquisition is the first step on the path to personal wisdom and fulfillment.  He says:

Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realise where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.

Walden is Thoreau's challenge to us all:

I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors [sic] up.

But what are we to think of this challenge?  Is it a beacon of sanity in an insane world, or an impractical pipe-dream blowing smoke in the face of the pragmatic demands of life?  "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," Jesus tells us.  And the Eastern philosophers say that everything we need is inside us.  On the other hand, we may like to consider the words of Joseph Conrad:

To fling away your daily bread so as to get your hands free for a grapple with a ghost may be an act of prosaic heroism ... and men who had eaten and meant to eat every day had applauded the creditable folly.

Irrespective of the conclusions we may draw about Walden on this point, it is undeniable that Thoreau makes his case calmly, thoughtfully and forcefully.  His prose ranges from the matter-of-fact to the lyrical and evocative.  Thoreau leaves the reader in no doubt about the love he feels for the natural world.  The more socially-orientated of us may find it hard to sympathise with his introverted disposition.  Nevertheless, Thoreau always speaks to the better side of one's self, and it is hard not to like someone who does so.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

If you have ever been bullied for being good at school work or your job, or for being interested in how things work, and if you have ever felt lonely as a result, then this book may well speak to you.

In an unspecified future where personal surveillance has been taken to a new level and a shadowy military intelligence organisation is busy pulling political strings, Ender (as Andrew Wiggin calls himself) is a talented six year-old child from a talented family.  The youngest of three, he is bullied by his sadist brother and nurtured and protected by his loving sister.  After a violent altercation with a schoolyard bully, Ender is conscripted into a military academy for gifted children.  There he and his new colleagues undergo specialised training to prepare them to combat an anticipated third mass invasion of Earth by an aggressive alien species.

The book follows Ender's progress through his years of training, mapping how he responds to the challenges that are set for him or thrust upon him.  In the meantime, Ender's siblings hatch a plan to capture the hearts and minds of the citizens of The Hegemony, a geo-political bloc, in order to change the future of humanity for the better.  Or are they?

In Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card has produced a tale that examines the uses of talent by society and the nature of bullying and of power.  Not that he delves deeply into any of these subjects, but they do form the matrix on which the story is woven.  In the background is the unspoken question: do the ends justify the means?  Although there is a degree of ambivalence in the book regarding this question, it does set the ground for the final chapter and (one presumes) for the sequel, The Speaker for the Dead.

Card tell his story in the straightforward style of an action thriller.  Yes, there is plenty of action interspersed between lengthy passages of dialogues and soliloquies. Or is that the other way about?  Perhaps a drawback of the tale is the eloquence and honed sensibilities of Ender and his cohorts.  It is hard to believe that sub-teens think and talk in the way they do in this book.  Well, this is the future: maybe they do things differently there.

Overall, Ender's Game is a solid effort.  Although I had expected more from it, I do look forward to reading the sequel.  And you have to admire someone who invents a simile like: 'I am about as useful as a sneeze in a spacesuit.'

Ender's Game won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for 1985.  I read the Hachette Digital ebook edition.

Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut

Ting-a-ling. Hello.

Here is a Kurt Vonnegut book I have not read before.  It is about human relationships in a capitalist society.  Walter F. Starbuck, the main character, is in his mid-sixties.  He has just served three years in prison for his undistinguished role in Nixon's Watergate scandal.  Walter narrates the story of his life from his childhood to the events in the brief time of freedom he has before he is jailed a second time.

Walter feels that what he has achieved was accomplished through the patronage of others and that his mistakes were accidents.  His life is a demonstration of the old adage that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  

After graduating from university (his tuition having been paid by his father's millionaire employer), Walter seeks employment as a public servant for a noble purpose:

It was my plan when I entered Harvard to become a public servant, an employee rather than an elected official. I believed that there could be no higher calling in a democracy than to a lifetime in government.

Walter's career in the public service is safe and undistinguished.  Looking back on it he says: "Never have I risked my life, or even my comfort, in the service of mankind. Shame on me."  Crucially, Walter makes a decision not to repeat one of his mistakes and it lands him in jail.

 In Jailbird, Vonnegut examines the merits of socialist thoughts and actions as opposed to those of the capitalist ethos.  While Walter F. Starbuck puts forward the merits of socialism, he runs up against the stark reality that any wealth-creating enterprise is doomed if it does not turn a profit.  Indeed, one of the characters has embarked upon a massive scheme to return the wealth of the United States to its citizens; but the irony is that the means to do this is summed up in a capitalist directive: 'acquire, acquire, acquire.'

Vonnegut, being Vonnegut, raises some of the big humanist questions: Where is God during a war? How does meaning and kindness enter the world?  Walter F. Starbuck says, 'We are here for no purpose, unless we can invent one. Of that I am sure.'  Vonnegut, in his prologue, says:

So I have always been enchanted by brave veterans like Powers Hapgood, and some others, who were still eager for information of what was really going on, who were still full of ideas of how victory might yet be snatched from the jaws of defeat. “If I am going to go on living,” I have thought, “I had better follow them.”

Of course, there is a lot more to Jailbird than I can relate in the brief time and space available to me.  Vonnegut, comparing himself to himself, gave it an A along with The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night and God Bless You, Mr Rosewater.  Jailbird is certainly worth reading, but it gets a B+ from me.  The other three books are a smidgen better, IMAO.

Ting-a-ling.  Goodbye.

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

There was a time when reading Thomas Hardy novels was almost a rite of passage, at least in my part of the world.  I spent many an hour being made perfectly miserable by Hardy as I waded through The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess of the d'Urbervilles.  Tess polished me off, and I swore that I didn't need Hardy to make me sad as I could do that all on my own.

That was over thirty years ago.  Recently, I detected that my happiness quotient was quite high, so I thought I would give Hardy another go:  'Do your darnedest, Tom!' I said.  'Bring me down, I dare you.'

Well, I wish I had read this one all those years ago.  Compared to Tess, it is positively joyous.  Oh, it has its fair share of misery, but the supporting cast is affable and two of the five protagonists end up happily.

Amongst other things, The Return of the Native is about love triangles.  Set in Egdon Heath, a fictional expanse of furze and heather in Hardy's Wessex, the ephemeral human inhabitants eke out a fragile living from the eternal landscape, just as their ancestors had done through the long ages.  Most are happy to be in the land where they were born and raised.  Some are not.

Clym Yeobright, the native of the title, returns from a long stint in Paris where he worked in the diamond trade.  As exciting as Paris may have been, Clym has decided that Egdon Heath is his true home, and he has come to settle down.  In returning, he disrupts a love triangle between the beautiful Eustacia Vye, the wayward Damon Wildeve and the unimaginative Thomasin Yeobright, Clym's cousin.  Eustacia, who had already told Wildeve 'I wish I hated the heath less - or loved you more', becomes smitten with Clym as she perceives him to be her ticket out of the place, being unaware of his plans to stay.

Take all the varying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards the heath, and translate them into loves, and you have the heart of Clym.

Given this, can Clym and Eustacia become anything but star-crossed lovers?  What now for Thomasin and Wildeve?  And moving in and out of the action is the stalwart and diligent outcast Diggory Venn, whose profession excludes him from the love he deserves - what of him?

Hardy does a sterling job of setting up the place and its people.  Slowly and surely we are introduced to the protagonists and their dilemmas.  We see their actions play out as they succumb to their foibles rather than playing to their strengths.  Fate intervenes to twist their trajectories in unexpected ways.  Immovable objects collide with irresistible forces, so there is a lot wreckage.  And in amongst all this are Hardy's observations of the human condition, for example:

A man should be only partially before his time: to be completely to the vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame.

 and

So the subject recurred: if [Clym] were making a fortune and a name, so much the better for him; if he were making a tragical figure in the world, so much the better for a narrative.

For the newly-fledged youngster starting out in the world of work and love there is a lot of vital, if sometimes grim, wisdom to be had from The Return of the Native.  Hardy has even foreshadowed Stephen Sondheim's advice: 'never fall in love during a total eclipse.'  Do it at your peril.  You have been warned.

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

We seek him here, we seek him there, 

Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. 

Is he in heaven?— Is he in hell? 

That demmed, elusive Pimpernel.

La! Odd's fish! Begad, and strike me for a lupin! but  I've been meaning to read this book for the longest time. It's just one of those things - apart from hearing a few cultural references and mistakenly reading one of the sequels, I've somehow managed to avoid The Scarlet Pimpernel in all its manifestations.

This is the book that sets the scene for the series.  Paris 1792.  The Reign of Terror is in full swing.  The tumbrel business has never been so good as a seemingly endless supply of French aristocrats and their families meet their appointment with Madame la Guillotine.  Well, except those who are rescued in spectacularly inventive ways and whisked away to safe haven in London by an anonymous mastermind and master of disguise known as the Scarlet Pimpernel.  So successful is the Pimpernel, the French authorities send their agent Chauvelin to England to unmask and neutralise him or her.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a far better book than its third sequel, Eldorado.  While it suffers from the same defects as the sequel - mildly purple prose, slow action by modern standards, and the narrator telling rather than showing us the action/characters' internal state - it is inventive and charming in its own way.  There is much interest in seeing how the main characters get themselves out of the trouble that is either devised for them or is of their own making.

Not the greatest book in the world, but it is certainly one that helps while away a wet weekend enjoyably.

The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs

In these days of spy satellites and global positioning systems, it is very difficult to believe there may be an undiscovered continent lurking somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean; yet that is what Edgar Rice Burroughs, writing in 1918, asks his readers accept as a possibility.  What would Hollywood have done without the possibility of a Kong Island in South East Asia or a Shangri-La in the Himalayas?  It is sad that our technologies have now rendered the whisper of such a 'what if ' absolutely mute.  Still, we must play the game and suspend our disbelief, if only for a short time.

In 1916, an unnamed traveller to Greenland happens upon a thermos flask bobbing in the surf off Cape Farewell.  In it he finds a manuscript recounting the incredible adventure of one Bowen Tyler.  In the early days of the First World War, Tyler has two unfortunate encounters with a German U-boat.  One thing leads to another, and Tyler and his colleagues are transported to the South Pacific where they find the large, uncharted island of Caprona.  It is after making landfall that Tyler's problems really begin.  Can he save himself and the woman he has come to love?

There is no disguising it, The Land That Time Forgot is unashamedly an adventure story which

trades in scientific fantasy.  There is primordial nastiness, hungry and vicious, on Caprona Island, and the hero is pitched from one dire predicament to another and must call on all his resources in order to survive.  Yes, there is not much chance of literature here, but Burroughs is capable of turning a memorable phrase:

I clung to life because some ancient, reptilian forbear had clung to life and transmitted to me through the ages the most powerful motive that guided his minute brain - the motive of self-preservation.

 And:

... the same deathless passion that has come down unchanged through all the epochs, periods and eras of time from the beginning, and which shall continue to the incalculable end - woman, the imperishable Alpha and Omega of life.

On the other hand, Burroughs was a prisoner of his time, like the rest of us: there are a few racist and sexist howlers in the text that are not easy to overlook and offend modern sensibilities.  Those are the lumps.

I enjoyed The Land That Time Forgot.  Despite its shortcomings, it is a well-written and entertaining tale that certainly kept me turning the pages.

Dune by Frank Herbert

Dune - Science Fiction Classic - A Must Read.

Ah-h-h-h, how easy it is to parody Frank Herbert's writing style; but few have ever matched his imaginative scope, at least not in the case of Dune.  This is the biggie of Science Fiction: big in its inventiveness, big in the sweep of its action, big in the scale of its ambition.

'A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.'

Where to begin?  This book is about so many things on so many levels.  It can be seen as a tale about monopolies in a far-flung future where humans have colonised the stars - monopolies of military strength, transportation, pharmaceuticals, technology, genetic manipulation and mental training.  They collide in a war centred on the planet Arrakis, also known as Dune; and by the end of the story one of these monopolies is broken and another rendered pointless, changing forever the power structure of the galactic empire. 

Frank Herbert presents the reader with a political situation mired in byzantine court intrigues and centuries-old vendettas.  The parties ranged against one another seek to exploit their enemies' weaknesses and their own strengths.  Their calculations are wide-ranging and made down to the minutest level, and for many of the players their grand strategies are undone in the most unexpected ways by the numerous wild cards that come into play as the action progresses.

Herbert tells his tale in a very idiosyncratic style.  Chapters are preceded by gnomic quotations, there is a lot of reported internal dialogue, the characters say 'Ah-h-h-h' a lot, and it is fun to count the number of times any one of them 'swallows in a dry throat', or that the word 'mouth' is used.  

Even so, Herbert steadily and surely paints a vivid and believable picture of a world utterly unlike our own.  You can never visit it, but you will want to.

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

A haunted castle, secret passages, a villain, a damsel in distress, an unwanted wife and a hero with a shrouded past: all the vital ingredients for a gothic novel - in the case of The Castle of Otranto (1764), the first gothic novel.

Conrad is heir to the lands of Otranto; unfortunately, he dies under very odd and inexplicable circumstances on his wedding day.  Isabella, his betrothed, has been spared marriage to a sickly young man.  Lord Manfred, Conrad's father, desperate for an heir, hatches a monstrous plot to marry Isabella himself.  What follows is a desperate game of hide and seek.  Can anyone save Isabella from Manfred's clutches?

The basic conceit of this novel is contained in the preface to the first edition.  Supposedly, the book is a translation  of an Italian manuscript dated 1529 that was found in a private library somewhere in the north of England.  

The first edition was well received by the public.  Walpole caused a bit of an uproar by revealing in the preface to the second edition there had been no manuscript and that the work was entirely from his own imagination.  In this preface he makes clear his artistic intentions:

It was an attempt to blend ... two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern. In the former all was imagination and improbability: in the latter, nature is always intended to be, and sometimes has been, copied with success.

In other words, Walpole was trying to tell a tale of the supernatural using a realistic narrative style.  He succeeded.  

One can understand the popularity of the novel amongst its contemporary readers and those in the following generations.  Indeed, it spawned its own genre - the gothic novel - and there have been many imitators and innovators.  We are still telling gothic tales in modern times: The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco's popular novel of the 1980's, adopts Walpole's premise of a mediaeval Italian manuscript coming to light and being translated; Ridley Scott's Alien is a gothic tale set in outer space.

It has been 250 years since The Castle of Otranto was first published.  This presents a problem for the modern reader: we know these gothic tropes so well it is hard for the work to seem fresh and new.  From our perspective it is, perhaps, the unravelling of the supernatural mystery at the heart of the tale that presents the greatest interest.

World War Z by Max Brooks

It has been a long time since I devoured a book, but that is what I did with World War Z over the course of a very enjoyable day.  And when it comes to a book about zombies, devour is a very apt word.

Zombies?  Really?  The book is subtitled An Oral History of the Zombie War, but don't be fooled by the name.  This is a story about what people do when they are confronted with an unrelenting enemy; the zombies are just a satirical device.  

It is not a coincidence that Brooks sets some of the action in countries like Israel, South Africa, North Korea, Cuba and the United States: all these are countries where the resident population (or at least parts of the population) have perceived themselves to be under siege from larger, hostile forces.  Let us not forget that in the real-world cases of Israel and the United States, both countries are building physical walls of separation from their neighbours.

The book is set out in the form of first-hand accounts from survivors of the war, starting from the outbreak of a zombie plague and going through the various phases of the war between the zombies and the rapidly dwindling human population until the war's conclusion.

Brooks has done a marvellous job of giving authentic voices to the several dozen respondents who were interviewed for the history.  We get insights into their psychology as they recount their stories and the actions of those around them, as well as finding out how war on a vast scale impacts the lives of individuals and communities.  The respondents come from a wide variety of nationalities and backgrounds: doctors, soldiers, social engineers, politicians, and ordinary, everyday civilians; Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, Iranians, Russians, Latin Americans, Canadians and Yankees.

All of the respondents are eloquent storytellers, and there are some memorable quotes in the book:

Lies are neither bad nor good.  Like a fire they can either keep you warm or burn you to death, depending on how they're used.

I must admit, I allowed my emotions to rule my hand. I was the typhoon, not the lightening bolt.

The monsters that rose from the dead, they are nothing compared to the ones we carry in our hearts. 

All up, World War Z is an entertaining, well-written and thought-provoking book that asks us what it means to be human.

Greenmantle by John Buchan

It has been a hundred years since First World War began.  How the world has changed in that time, and yet people are still fighting wars.  They are also still reading books.  John Buchan wrote several books during the war.  The most famous is The Thirty-nine Steps (1915) which is set just before war broke out.  Greenmantle (1916) is the sequel, and is set in the months leading up to January 1916.

Richard Hannay, now a major in the British Army, is recovering from wounds received in the Battle of Loos.  Sir Walter Bullivant of the Foreign Office offers Hannay a secret mission.  Something is brewing in Europe that threatens to set the Islamic world on fire.  What that something is Bullivant is not sure, but he tells Hannay:

The East is waiting for a revelation. It has been promised one. Some star – man, prophecy, or trinket – is coming out of the West. The Germans know, and that is the card with which they are going to astonish the world.

The Germans know; the British only have a cryptic three-word clue from a now-deceased intelligence agent: "Kasredin, cancer, v.I."  It is up to Hannay to scour Europe to find out who or what the threat is, and to end it, if possible.  And so the adventure starts.

Buchan has expanded Hannay's stage.  Whereas in the first Hannay novel the action took place in Scotland and London, our hero now travels to Berlin via Lisbon and strikes out from there for Constantinople and beyond.  Hannay is pursued on land and on water, by boat, car and on horseback.  As always, Buchan provides terse but highly evocative descriptions of the natural world - one of his great strength as a writer; and, as usual, once the action gets going it keeps going, only punctuated with brief respites to let everyone to catch their breaths before starting up again.

If you can suspend your disbelief long enough to get past improbable coincidences (and there are quite a few in this book), then Greenmantle is a first-rate adventure story.  And it is interesting to see what people were reading and enjoying during the First World War.

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

I discovered Hermann Hesse when I was in my early twenties.  It is a wonderful time of life, one where we  have the opportunity to find our feet as adults, to experience and test new ideas and new sensations, and it is an age Hermann Hesse seems to speak to perfectly.  I have fond memories of The Glass Bead Game and Narziss and Goldmund; however, Siddhartha is one of Hesse's works that escaped my attention at that time.

Siddhartha tells the tale of the eponymous character who lives in India at the same time Gautama Buddha was seeking enlightenment.  Siddhartha knows he must leave his father's house in order to find himself and the meaning of life.  Accompanied by his friend and fellow seeker Govinda, he first takes the path of an ascetic Samana and through physical rigour learns to discipline his mind and body.  On their journey they encounter the newly-enlightened Buddha and hear his sermons.  Govinda decides to follow the Buddha, but Siddhartha says the Buddha's philosophy is not for him and that he must find his own path.  The two friends part company.  Not long afterwards, Siddhartha has his own awakening: instead of detaching himself from life he decides that it must be embraced and lived to the full.  The second half of the book describes the consequences of Siddhartha's decision.

Siddhartha is a profound little book (about 150 pages).  Hesse has managed to set the problem of a young man leaving home to find wisdom and independence in a remarkably succinct fashion.  The narration is told from an omniscient third-person point of view, but we are given insight into the characters through their thoughts, words and actions.  The plot is built up by a series of interlinked vignettes in which the action rises and falls repeatedly, and in which new insights into the human condition (and the associated philosophical and moral problems) are introduced.

As this book deals not only with adolescence but with middle- and old age, it can be instructive to all who are seeking clarity about what is what, not just to youngsters finding their way in the world.

For me, reading Hesse on this occasion was like meeting an old friend who has never changed and is all the more lovable for it.  Highly recommended.

Hopes and Prospects by Noam Chomsky

Have you been slumbering dogmatically?  Then why not wake up with Noam Chomsky?

In Hopes and Prospects, Chomsky analyses U.S. foreign policy from 1776 to 2010, although the majority of the book focuses on the period from the 1980s onwards, and particularly on U.S. involvement in Latin America and the Middle East.  

The picture Chomsky paints is not a pretty one:  the U.S. populace have been made spectators rather than participants in politics; the Democrats and the Republicans represent the political interests of corporations and an economically empowered and tiny minority; successive administrations routinely support repressive regimes and punish or oust popularly elected progressive ones (either overtly or covertly); hundreds of thousands of people in Latin America and the Middle East have died directly and indirectly as a result of U.S. policy and intervention; millions more have become 'unpersons' - without self-determined political representation, suffering dislocation and vastly reduced access to food, water, energy, sanitation and health services; international free-trade policy is promoted by first world countries who have used centuries of self-subsidy and protectionism to give themselves a competitive advantage over the developing nations on whom the policy is detrimentally foisted; all this has occurred with the tacit collusion of the West's mainstream media, who are under-reporting, misrepresenting or ignoring these issues.

Let me be clear: these are my words about my interpretation of Chomsky's message, but I think I have given you the gist of it in the limited space I have chosen to devote to the matter.

Hopes and Prospects is a powerful book with plenty of mind-food; however, it is only a starting point.  The numerous footnotes provide avenues for further research, as do any of the matters raised.  The recent developments in improved self-determination and self-empowerment by certain nations in South America described by Chomsky are encouraging. If such steps can be made in that arena, they may provide a road map for the fractured and tormented Middle East. 

There were two occasions when I thought Chomsky resorted to assertion rather than to a reasoned and documented argument; however, these lapses hardly undermine the analysis and arguments presented in the rest of the book.

Certainly a book for our times, and one I highly recommend.

Hopes and Prospects was first published in 2010.  I read the eBook published by HAMISH HAMILTON.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (Starring Steve Coogan)

Hostage situation.  Comedy.  That is about as oxymoronic as you can get, and yet it is what we get in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. Steve Coogan's alter-ego gets another outing in this full-length movie.  And let's face it: Alan Partridge is all ego and no alter.  

Alan, now well into middle-age and with a broken marriage and the better part of his career behind him, is working as a DJ for a regional radio station in England.  When the station is taken over by new management and about to have its image overhauled, staff are worried about redundancies.  Alan, fearing for his future employment, betrays one of his fellow workers (Pat Farrell) to management, who is then summarily dismissed.  Arriving at work the following day,  Alan blithely walks into a hostage situation - Pat, armed with a shotgun, has taken over the station and imprisoned his ex-colleagues.  Alan soon becomes both a police negotiator and a confidant to the sleep-deprived Pat.  As the crisis progresses, Alan finds a renewed celebrity as the public face of the siege and his ego duly takes over. Things can only get worse.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is an entertaining and amusing movie.  Coogan is surrounded by a wonderful supporting cast, notably Colm Meaney as the tragic Pat  and Felicity Montagu as Alan's long-suffering P.A Lynn.  The action alternates skillfully from farce to pathos and back to farce again as each scene is played out.  Sufficient space is allowed for the development of the key characters in their interaction with each other so that their humanity is allowed to shine out over the comedic elements of the story.

All up, this is a fine comedy movie with many modern sensitivities included in its story telling.  Do the good end happily and the bad unhappily?  Watch it and see.

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

Dear Harry Harrison.  It has been over a quarter of a century since I read anything by him.  He is always good for a rip-snorting tale that goes and goes and never lets up.  That is exactly what you get with The Stainless Steel Rat.

James Bolivar diGriz, known in criminal and law-enforcement circles as "Slippery Jim", is the Stainless Steel Rat - a person perfectly adapted to survive in a world made of concrete, steel and glass.  

Slippery Jim is a highly adept confidence trickster, thief and master of disguise.  Things have gone well for diGriz until one day when a greater criminal mastermind gives him an offer he can't refuse.  His mission: to capture a still greater criminal mastermind who is threatening to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting galaxy.

Harrison has given us a utopian/dystopian vision of a far-flung future where humans have colonised the stars.  The galactic community is wealthy, prosperous and peaceful, and its citizens have all their basic requirements met.  On the other hand, stability is bought with a combination of chemo-psychology and a zero-tolerance approach to criminality.  Aberrant people like diGriz tend to get "wiped".

The stakes are high for diGriz as he tries to outrun the law while tracking down his target.  Can he win through and still maintain his identity?  In posing this problem, Harrison keeps the action moving from one adrenalin-fuelled moment to the next. He lets diGriz provide the first-person narrative, and we get an insight into the intriguing mind-set of an intelligent, confident and self-justifying misfit.  

All up, The Stainless Steel Rat is a solid suspense story full of thrill and spills.  Well worth the time if this is your kind of thing.

I listened to the Brilliance Audio spoken-book version narrated by Phil Gigante, who did a sterling job of evoking the energy and spirit of Harrison's tale.

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

Neuf á la banque.  

It is one of those odd coincidences: the first James Bond movie (Dr No) and the first Beatles single (Love Me Do) were released on the same date.  Both Bond and the Beatles were to dominate the popular culture landscape of the Sixties, but who would have ever suspected that on 5 October 1962?

The Beatles have come and gone, as has Ian Fleming, but James Bond is still going strong, with the latest installment in the Bond movies, Skyfall, being released 50 years after Dr No.  Having seen all the Bond films but never having read an Ian Fleming novel, I thought I would kick off with the first in the series, Casino Royale (1953).

The plot is quite a simple one: Bond's assignment is to bankrupt Le Chiffre, a union organiser and suspected Soviet agent, by playing cards against him at the casino in the French resort town of Royale; Bond's cover is blown even before he arrives; attempts are made on his life; he meets a beautiful woman and falls in love; and he survives.

He does survive, but he does so mostly through sheer dumb luck rather than by any skill on his part.  It is surprising, in the light of what we know of Bond from the movies, how bereft of skill he is.  He really is an ordinary, flawed human being, subject to the passions and fears that inflict us all; however, the ending of the book leads us to believe all that is about to change.

Fleming's portrayal of Bond is quite nebulous.  We find out a few things about Bond: he likes the finer things in life, he knows how to play the card game baccarat, and he has killed other men.  Other than that, we don't really learn much more about him.  Perhaps it is this lack of characterisation that allows the reader to identify to some degree with an ordinary man in an extraordinary position.  

Still, Casino Royale is a suspense novel, not high literature, so we shouldn't expect too much of it; and as far as suspense novels go, it is a competent but not masterly effort.  Short (it can be read in an afternoon) and oddly compelling, it does make you want to find out what happens next.  Accept the book for what it is and reading it becomes an enjoyable and entertaining experience.

Ian Fleming, bless him, takes a chapter to tell the reader how the game of baccarat is played, and another chapter to show it being played.  So if you have ever wondered why the croupier in the Bond films keeps saying 'neuf á la banque', all is made clear. 

And if you want to find out the significance of the nine of hearts, you will have to read the book.

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde

This diverting and thought-provoking book is the third installment in the Thursday Next series.  

We pick up from where we left off in the last novel, Lost in a Good Book.  Thursday has gone into hiding inside an awful romance novel, and she finds she is having some serious difficulties with her memory.  To add to her troubles, Thursday's closest colleagues are dying horrible deaths one by one, and it seems that someone is after her too.  And there appears to be a problem with the latest book operating system.

The Well of Lost Plots is a better book than its predecessor.  Although it suffers from the same slow start, its satirical edge is sharper and more clearly defined.  It is also a funnier book with many laugh aloud moments; and once the plot really gets going, it is a real page turner.

Like the previous books, The Well of Lost Plots is set in 1985 in an parallel world that is much like our own; however, there are supernatural beings, and beings with supernatural powers, and it is possible for people to enter into works of fiction and for fictional characters to enter into the real world.  

In this novel, Fforde expands and embellishes his conception of the reality operating inside the totality of the written word.  There is government, politics, espionage and dirty dealings; and there is love, heartbreak, loyalty and friendship.  It is a world that Thursday must adapt to - and quickly - if she is to survive.

If you read the first two books in the series with pleasure, this installment will not disappoint.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

What, precisely, is Jane Austen's schtick?  Is she a chronicler of her age, a satirist or just a teller of romantic tales?  Or is she all of the above?

Sense and Sensibility is an odd novel.  On face value, it is a tale of two sisters looking for love.  They find it; they lose it; and when it comes calling again, love turns out not to be so straightforward.  So far, so good.

On the other hand, the novel is studded with more than its fair share of unattractive and insensitive characters.   A social calculus, based on each individual's social standing, appearance, personal fortune or likelihood of inheritance, is always at play.  The prospects of the characters are bloodlessly assessed on this basis.  John Dashwood, contemplating the negative effects that illness has had on the looks of his half-sister, says: "I question whether Marianne now will marry a man worth more than five or six hundred a year, at the utmost ..."  A callous observation, indeed, and one that draws no protest from Marianne's sister Elinor.  John's wife Fanny, a worthy successor to Lear's Goneril and Regan, is equally unattractive.  Over-zealous in protecting her own son's patrimony, Fanny effectively disinherits the widow and daughters of her father-in-law, and her husband meekly acquiesces to her views on the matter. And we haven't even got to the dubious suitors.

Are we to assume that this is how Austen's contemporaries actually thought, spoke and acted, or is she satirising their fears and vanities?  Is Sense and Sensibility itself a satire on the genre of the sentimental novel?

Elinor and Marianne Dashwood embody, respectively, the attitudes sense and sensibility alluded to in the novel's title.  Where Elinor is pragmatic, thoughtful and guarded, playing her cards close to her chest, Marianne is ruled by her passions and wears her heart on her sleeve.  Both experience heartbreak, and each deals with it according to their own nature, almost disastrously in Marianne's case.

Comparisons are odious, as Dr Johnson said, and this novel will not fare well when compared to a work like Pride and Prejudice.  Its relative lack of restraint in terms of emotion and analysis, perhaps, mars rather than elevates it.  Having said this, I did enjoy this book despite its flaws, mainly because Austen gave me good reason to care for the gentle characters in the book.  I became genuinely anxious for their welfare and happiness, and that is something I cherish in a novel.

I read the Signet Classics 200th Anniversary Edition.  It contains an introduction by Margaret Drabble and an afterword by Mary Balogh.  In some respects, these two treatments of the novel are diametrically opposed to each other, which in itself is thought-provoking.  Worth the money.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) Marvel Studios

Guardians of the Galaxy is a very enjoyable movie - not deep, but enjoyable. 

Peter Quill, a free-lance adventurer and thief, acquires an artifact he intends to sell on the black market. He doesn't know what it is, and he is blissfully unaware that a lot of creatures in the galaxy, including some very powerful and evil individuals, want to take possession of it. Quill's bliss is short-lived, and he is soon beset on all sides by numerous foes who all want what he has got and are prepared to take it by any means, including murder. Quill quickly finds himself entering into very uneasy alliances with four other creatures, including a walking tree and a talking, tech-savvy raccoon, and they go off together to regain the artifact. Little do they realise what kind of powers they are up against or the vast schemes in which they will become entangled. 

Chris Pratt puts in a very creditable performance as the swaggering womaniser Quill. Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista provide equally creditable performances as the aliens Gamora and Drax. The show, however, is stolen by the CGI characters Rocket and Groot (the raccoon and tree I mentioned earlier). It could be argued that the CGI rendering of both theses characters and of the various backdrops of the film far outstrip the quality of the plot and the script. Alas, as happens too often in Marvel films, the action frequently descends into chases and shoot-outs that add nothing to plot or character development. 

So, if you enjoy a rollicking adventure in the spirit of Indiana Jones, and if you like a good space opera, then Guardians of the Galaxy is the film for you. If that isn't your cup of tea, you can always enjoy the scenery and admire how far the art of CGI has come. Most definitely keep an eye on the tree and the raccoon.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

In our last exciting episode, Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Moriarty had fallen to their deaths at Reichenbach Falls, Switzerland.  Yet here he is again in a collection of thirteen new short stories.  How is that possible?  Well, the answer is far from elementary, and you will have to read the first of the stories in this collection to find out the improbable answer.

Despite declaring that he did not intend to write any more stories about Sherlock Holmes, Doyle did eventually write The Hound of the Baskervilles after a seven year hiatus; three years after that, he produced this collection of stories.

The elapsed time has not changed Holmes or Watson, but it has changed the character of the stories.  In many of them there is no crime to be solved, only problems - usually that of missing persons.  I wouldn't be Robinson Crusoe if I said this collection is not as strong or as pleasing as the two volumes that preceded it, and I wonder how much of that can attributed to the absence of crime.

Having said that, I did spend several enjoyable weekends following the exploits of Holmes and Watson.  True to form, I did not solve any of the cases.  I didn't even come close.  This is due to my own limitations and not those of the author.  Doyle is a masterful storyteller, and he did take me on exciting and perplexing excursions into the English countryside. I look forward to sharing future rainy afternoons with Holmes and Watson in their continuing adventures.

I read the Oxford World's Classics edition which contained an informative introduction and enlightening end notes.

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde

Lost in a Good Book is the second installment in the Thursday Next series. In it we are reacquainted with many of the characters from The Eyre Affair.

Literary detective Thursday Next is living a contented life, and then something - or, rather, several things, several very odd things - go wrong, and Thursday is in a whole lot of trouble with just about everyone. To make matters worse, she gets a special sneak preview of the end of the world.

Like the previous novel, Lost in a Good Book is set in a world much like our own, except the year is 1985, there are supernatural bogies and beasties on the loose, some of the humans have superhuman powers, while some of other humans aren't as human as they seem.

Fforde has expanded and added detail to his fantasy world.  Thursday is now able to enter novels and poems by force of will, and she finds that inside these literary works there are worlds that have as much beauty, terror and politics as our own and her own.

While this book got off to a rather prolonged and slow start, once the action started going and the plot began to ripen, it became quite an enjoyable, funny and absorbing story.  It suffered in comparison to its predecessor as it did not have strong central bad guy, but this is only a minor flaw.  Overall, it is a worthy and entertaining book, and I am very much looking forward to reading the next in the series.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Welcome to winter.  Here is a book that chilled me to the bone when I first read it as child.  I remember I had a yellowed and  battered Pan paperback copy of the book, the cover missing and  the pages dog-earred by previous owners.  In the wee, small hours I read the following:

It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burned out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguish light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

That opening of 'the dull yellow eye' caused the first instance of my being truly scared by literary writing.  Where Jules Verne had thrilled me, Mary Shelley had terrified me.

What with it being winter and all, our tale appropriately begins in the icy wastes of the Arctic, where a man more dead than alive is hauled aboard a sailing ship.  When the man comes to his senses, he tells the story of how he came to be marooned on the ice.  Through his tale he, Victor Frankenstein, a scientist, takes his listeners on a journey from the high vales of the Alps, to extremities of Britain and Ireland and then on into the deep north of Russia and out onto the polar ice. Frankenstein relates how in an attempt to find a cure for the physical ills of humankind he had given life to a monster, a monster that had pursued, haunted and ruined him.

The great thing about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is that it bears little resemblance to Hollywood's Karlovian treatments of the story.  No, the monster is lithe and quick, intelligent and sly, and there is a great philosophical and psychological depth to the story of a creature who yearns to gain acceptance from the creator who shuns and reviles him, of how a worthy and innocent individual is perverted by the prejudices and the unrelenting unkindness of those who should know better and of those who don't.

Frankenstein is arguably  a work of genius, and it is hard to believe it was written by an eighteen-year-old woman in an era when everything was stacked against outstanding female achievement in public undertakings.  Then again, Mary's parents were William Godwin, the political theorist, and Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of The Vindication of the Rights of Woman, both exceptional people who mingled with exceptional people.

I read the Penguin edition, which contains a very informative introductory essay about the book and its creation. The tale of how Frankenstein came to be written is an intriguing one, but that's another story. 

Frozen (2013)

This animated movie musical from Disney was lots of fun to watch.

Once upon a time in the realm of Arendelle there were two princesses.  Elsa, the elder  of the two, has a secret she needs to hide not only from her sister Anna but from the entire kingdom too.  Alas! when Elsa is crowned queen after the untimely death of her parents, her secret is exposed and she goes on the run.  Anna now sets out to find her sister and bring her home.  Can she do it?

In the course of the movie, we meet bad guys, henchmen, good guys and sidekicks. The good guys are particularly memorable, especially Olaf the snowman who steals every scene in which he appears - he is quite unforgettable.  There are dark and threatening moments in the film, providing a good contrast to the lighter and more endearing scenes; and the tension in the movie rises and falls in a pleasing rhythm.

The film features an interesting assortment of songs, one of which won the Oscar for best song.  I particularly liked the duet between the backwoodsman and his pet reindeer.

I think it is no coincidence that Frozen has become the biggest grossing animated movie of all time.  There is lots in it for children and inner children of all ages.  And remember to keep an eye out for the snowman.

Five Children and It by E. Nesbit

This is a story about what happens when wishes go wrong.

Robert, Anthea, Jane, Cyril and their infant brother move with their parents to their new home in  countryside Kent.  As they explore their new acreage, the children encounter a Psammead, a type of fairy that can grant wishes.  But there is a catch: the wishes last only until sunset.  The Psammead agrees to grant them one wish per day.

The children's parents are called away for a few days by the sudden illness of their grandmother, and the children are to stay at home under the stewardship of their nanny.  While the cats are away the mice will play, and the children start experimenting with their wishes.  They soon find that all their wishes have unexpected and unwanted consequences, and the children have to meet these challenges in brave and resourceful ways.

Five Children and It is basically a series of vignettes, each dealing with a wish.  The author invents some rather interesting twists that derail the intention of each wish - although some are more intriguing than others.  The prose style is breezy and informal, but despite this the action does build into suspenseful climaxes and tapers off into settled resolutions.  There are authorial intrusions into the story at times.  These tend to be didactic in nature but are done with enough good humor to make them welcome.

I enjoyed this story of magical hijinks set in Edwardian rural England - there is something safe and comfortingly familiar about the place, like The Shire.  

The One Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

I liked this book a lot and had a great time reading it.  I wasn't expecting it to be the best thing to happen to modern literature (it certainly isn't that) but it was thoroughly enjoyable for what it is: a stratospherically tall tale about the history of the 20th century.

Let me start by answering some of the book's critics.  The work is derivative, yes, and it uses the same conceit as Forrest Gump - that a nobody was influential in shaping popular culture (or, in this case, modern history). Yet Forrest Gump was not the first to use such a device - I'm thinking of the Illuminatus! trilogy.

Secondly, the novel's structure and storytelling style is uncannily similar to those employed by Kurt Vonnegut.  Vonnegut's style of storytelling pre-dates the modernists, so he wasn't that original in this respect.  As for structure - well, tell me how many authors have been wholly original in that department?

Finally, the central character, Allan Karlsson, doesn't really develop over the course of the novel, and he seems incapable of forming lasting emotional bonds with either people or credos.  So?  This may be central to literary fiction, but not all fiction has to be literary - it would be a dull world if that were the case.  Some just want to tell you a story to cheer you up, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Having said that, what could possibly be right with the book?  Well, it does bear an uncanny resemblance to some of Kurt Vonnegut's work but without the latter's sardonic inflection.  That's a good thing in my books.  Allan thinks the world is what is and goes along for the ride.  And what a ride it is.  A lot can happen in a hundred years, and a lot of it happens to Allan. I don't want to spoil the fun by giving the plot away, because a lot of the fun is in finding out what happens next.  

If you are the kind of person who can't loosen the corset enough to let a silly story carry you away, then this book isn't for you.  If you are a stickler for historical accuracy, then forget it. If you want to enjoy a tall tale, then this one is one of the tallest.

The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

'The big blank spaces in the map are all being filled in, and there's no room for romance anywhere.'

My father was born before television was invented, and I have never known a world without it.  I once asked him what it was like before television.  He said they had radio instead, and he made this observation: with television, you are presented with the pictures as well as the words and sounds; with radio, all you had were the words and sounds, and everything else had to be filled in by your own imagination.  He said this made the scary stuff far scarier than anything you can see on TV, such is the power of imagination.  

Of all the things he heard on the radio, the scariest was a dramatisation of The Lost World, and he said that he still had vivid memories of the pictures other people's words had conjured up in his imagination.

There is a lot to be scared about in this novel: wild Amazonian natives, murderous bandits, river rapids, sheer cliffs, ravenous dinosaurs, evil ape-men and a rampaging professor of archaeology. The story is simple enough: the scientific community guffaws at Professor G.E. Challenger's claims of having discovered an isolated plateau somewhere in the Amazon basin where Jurassic dinosaurs survive to this day (1912), and he has to return there in order to bring back concrete evidence and clear his name.

It's a story that could not credibly be told nowadays, not with the globe having been thoroughly explored and surveyed on land and from space.  All the blank spaces on the map, big and small, have been filled in, and there is little room for romance (except in the imagination).

So if you are in the mood for an old-style ripping yarn, and if you can overlook the racist subtext in the novel, then The Lost World is one of the better ones - Sir Arthur knows how to tell a tale.  Like my father, I enjoyed allowing his words to stir my imagination.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.'

Well, at least that is what the mothers and daughters in the town of Meryton believe; and when the affable Mr Bingley, young, rich and single, moves into the neighbourhood, the mothers want him for their son-in-law and the daughters want him for their husband.

Mr Bingley has brought his friend Mr Darcy with him. Darcy is far richer and more handsome  than Bingley and just as single. He's a dream come true for the ladies of Meryton, and then he opens his mouth.  It quickly becomes a truth universally acknowledged that Darcy is a self-opinionated and bumptious snob.  Who would want to marry such a man?  Certainly not Elizabeth Bennet, the second of five daughters of a solidly respectable country gent.  She says of Darcy:

I believe, Ma'am, I may safely promise you never to dance with him.

And with these words Elizabeth seals her fate.  All we need do now is wait and see which path she and Darcy will take to the wedding chapel together.

In the course of the novel we get to see the little world of the Bennets and the people who move in and out of their circle - some of them endearing, some repulsive, and some of ambiguous personal merit, but all very memorable and well drawn.  It is to Austen's great credit that readers can easily immerse themselves in the story and come to care for the people they meet in the pages.

Pride and Prejudice gives us insight into the world of the English rural gentry in the early nineteenth century, and the reader is scarcely made aware that England had been at war with Napoleon's France for the better part of a decade.  No, the novel strictly confines itself to an examination of the manners and morality of that small slice of English society in a diverting way.  And why not?  Diversion is good when it is this entertaining.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

When I misspent my youth I read a lot of The Mighty Thor comics.  It was my favourite of all the Marvel comics then available, and I liked the mixture of faux mythology, magic and swashbuckling. I saw the first movie in the Thor franchise in the cinema and enjoyed it very much.

Thor: The Dark World is not so nearly a successful vehicle as its predecessor.  There is a bad guy, Malekith the Dark Elf, who has the motive and opportunity to destroy the universe.  What a pity the character is given neither the charisma nor the intrinsic power to match his grand scheme.  In short: the baddie is boring and oddly impotent, unlike Loki (the arch-villain of the previous movie) portrayed with great likability and subtlety by Tom Hiddleston.

Here's the thing:  whenever Loki appears, the film becomes interesting; in his absence, things quickly become dull and plodding.  Kat Denning and Jonathan Howard provide some welcome light comic relief at times in their roles of Darcy and Ian, while Stellan Skarsgard's character Eric Selvig is put through an unbecoming vaudeville escapade by the scriptwriters.

Also jarring was the predominance of high technology and the lack of light in the action scenes.  The thing about Asgardians is that they are the possessors of elemental god-powers, but they rarely use them in the film; and Malekith has a suite of magical powers which don't get used either.  No, what we get is spaceships and ray-guns on one side and swords and flying boats on the other.  And it all happens in a murk so deep it is very difficult to discern what action is actually happening

If you haven't seen the first Thor movie, I recommend it as a solid action movie with one of the great baddies - Tom Hiddleston's Loki.  Thor: The Dark World is perhaps mandatory viewing in that it will be the prelude to matters to be raised in subsequent Marvel movies.  I understand that there will be a third movie in the Thor franchise.  All I can say is: guys, more magic and more light next time.

The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft

No desire have I to recount the horrors I have endured in reading a collection of short stories by H.P. Lovecraft, and yet I feel that I must - not for my own sake, for I am lost, but for those who may read these words of mine and, having done so, still harbour hopes of sleeping an untroubled sleep.

For myself, I am now only too aware that there are nameless forces with names like Yog-Sothoth, eldritch entities powerful and malign, waiting to issue into this gloomily adjectival world of ours from dimensions dark and numberless beyond the count of numbers.  

Should they succeed - and who knows how many of the foolish and degenerate among us are willing to open the portals on their behalf, whether for motives of power or of vain vanity - then there will tentacles, lots of tentacles, and rats, and noisome smells at once both repugnant and repellent, and unheard sounds that can never be heard nor described so as to be intelligible to the pitifully limited faculties of our all-too-human minds, and there will be more tentacles.

Such is my warning to you, my dear and unwittingly doomed fellow travellers: there are people who like Lovecraft's brand of horror, and you might know one.

Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde

'...we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

Margaret, Lady Windermere receives gossip from an impeccable source that her husband of two years frequently visits a certain Mrs Erlynne, a woman with a reputation for having amorous affairs with married men.  Later that day, Lord Windermere reveals that he has invited Mrs Erlynne to his wife's upcoming birthday party, explaining that he wants to introduce her into society.  Margaret reacts badly to the news, but Lord Windermere is insistent that the invitation stand; and when Mrs Erlynne arrives at the party that evening, a train of events is put in motion that threatens more than the domestic happiness and the reputations of the Windermeres.

Lady Windermere's Fan marked Oscar Wilde's debut as a playwright.  It was first produced in 1892 and then published in the following year.  The play satirises 'polite' London society, and especially the institution of marriage among the well-to-do.  

Wilde puts forward two propositions to be tested: 1) All men are mostly bad; and 2) most women are good.  The satire then proceeds, and when the equilibrium of the Windermere's social circle is broken, we get to see who acts virtuously and who doesn't.  All the characters are in the gutter in so far as every human being has their failings, but some rise above it to look at the stars.

The same character, Lord Darlington, who made the observation about the gutter and the stars also asserts: 'It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.'  Does Wilde really believe this himself?  After all, the play is subtitled: A Play about a Good Woman.

Lady Windermere's Fan, while being a worthy piece, does not have the same timeless quality possessed by The Importance of Being Earnest.  And while it has it's share of frivolity, the play does touch on darker matters, such as blackmail, betrayal and gold-digging.  Even so, it is a minor gem sparkling with its own light and can be well enjoyed for what it is.