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.