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.