Book review: do we need another Second World War novel? First Time Solo by Iain Maloney

"Our time here is infinitesimally small in the span of geological time yet we fill it with such importance." So says one of the four trainee RAF pilots of First Time Solo, musing upon the nature of humanity in the midst of the Second World War. The question this may prompt the reader to ask is, in this infinitesimally small time we have is there really need for yet another novel set during the Second World War?

 

Iain Maloney’s debut to some extent justifies its existence with riffs on the relationship between war and music. His narrative follows Jack Devine, an aspiring pilot from a remote Aberdeenshire farm with an unusual zeal for jazz. This allows Maloney to play with the synchronicity between losing oneself in music and in flight, to juxtapose the liberation of music with the repression of war. He persuasively uses the mesmeric rhythms of jazz as a means by which to escape the terror of reality; Jack frees himself from the "barriers, frontiers, prison bars" of notation to play his trumpet with true abandon.

 

Jack befriends and forms a jazz band with fellow recruitees Joe, Terry and Doug – a union that gives them a tantalising picture of their potential future, were they not facing imminent death in the fight against "Jerry". The boredom, exhilaration, hard graft and horror of training are all present in this novel, but are never quite conjured with real potency. And as Joe becomes increasingly deranged and dangerous, the friendships break down and so does the legitimacy of the plot – the lethal tricks Joe plays begin to seem contrived simply to create dramatic urgency, not only tricking the characters but also the reader into thinking they should feel emotion rather than genuinely inducing it.

 

Maloney fluctuates between traditional narrative and stylistic play with short, sharp sentences, which disintegrate convincingly at points into fragmented half-thoughts as Jack struggles to process his experiences. Sometimes this works, sometimes it feels overly simplistic rather than poetic. Tellingly, the note at the back of the book in which Maloney cites his own grandfather’s experiences as the inspiration forFirst Time Solo retrospectively gives the whole narrative more emotional heft. But that impact just isn’t there in the novel itself, and after a rather anticlimactic ending it feels like Maloney never quite gets off the training blocks and truly takes flight.

This review was first published on We Love This Book.

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Book review: a 'puzzling' debut from Andrew Ladd

A quiet lament to a lost way of life haunts What Ends, Ladd’s debut novel chronicling the slow but inevitable decline of a small community living on the fictional Hebridean island Eilean Fìor. The guesthouse run by the McCloud family, last remaining inhabitants of the island, represents a complex nucleus of home comforts and uncomfortable entrapment that exist in constant conflict and eventually lead the family, and their home, to implode. 

The three children represent three wildly differing attitudes towards the island. Through them Ladd offers no judgement on the paths taken by them or their stubborn but goodhearted parents. Barry, bullied on a mainland school, is severed irrevocably from the innocence of the island. Flora remains conflicted between the artistic inspiration she draws from the island’s wildness and a need to validate her life by seeking approval beyond its shores. Only Trevor, the youngest, retains a sense of wonder at the human and natural history of his home, and a desire to explore and preserve it. 

Ladd's prose has flaws – there is some clunky dialogue and images bordering on cliché that undermine an otherwise thoughtful novel. In tone he evokes the quietude of John Banville (although does not reach Banville’s linguistic virtuosity). And Ladd’s angry, lyrical mourning of a lost community echoes Brian Friel’s great Irish play Translations, even in the shared storyline of starstruck lovers, one native trying to escape and one foreigner desperate to assimilate a dying way of life. 

It feels as though Ladd develops as a writer even through the course of the novel. At its beginning, he struggles to inhabit a young child’s mind convincingly; by the end, he presents a stunning vision of dementia, rendered stylistically with such precision and flair that it leaves the reader wishing he had exhibited this more. Using the trope of crossword clues once beloved of the afflicted character, the narrative intertwines his thoughts with poetically concise thoughts-as-clues, which are as multi-layered and satisfying to ponder as crossword puzzles themselves. A powerful end to an intriguing, understated debut. 

This review was first published on We Love This Book.

Poem: An Anchor

First published in Miracle, Tuesday 15th July 2014

Two of my poems have been published in the most recent issue of Miracle, an online and print-on-demand literary and art magazine.

The theme is 'Cage', which I interpreted liberally.

Here is one of them:

An anchor

You drew an I♥U

on my trouser leg. You

linked the letters so it looked more

like a Popeye tattoo. I let you

because these trousers are old and,

as you say, it’ll probably

come out in the wash.

Read both poems in Miracle's 'Cage' issue >>

Poem: Hilda Horsley’s Alarm Clock

Published on The Missing Slate, Tuesday 6 May

My first published poem appears on The Missing Slate as their Poem of the Week.Inspired by the World War I Centenary and a desire to see it not just from the point of view of the men fighting but the women affected at home, it is from the point of view of Hilda Horsley, a 17 year old dressmaker in Hartlepool in 1914. She was the first civilian and the first female casualty of the First World War, when the Germans shelled Hartlepool on 16th December 1914.

The bell sings       no more. A tooth

chipped, no cheshire cat

smile.    ‘Oh dear! Oh dear!’ It isn’t half

gawkey. The clock’s     face

scarred worse than         mine

when they found me, a       yawning

gape                                      ripped

straight through its afternoon

or dead                   of night.

At eight o’clock in the morning a piece

of shrapnel burrowed its tick into the small

intestine, like clockwork. The ground

shook still, and worried

the dinger into a frenzy of chattering

fit now only for hysterics.

I fumbled

the key in the shrunken lock with needle-

thin hands. Perhaps if the clock

had only broken

earlier I might have over-          slept

not been buried beneath

the clemmies of the front door

with that sound                ringing

out the blood from my    soaking

clothed                     bones.

Hilda Horsley's Alarm Clock on The Missing Slate >>

Theatre review: Translations at Rose Theatre Kingston

Translations by Brian Friel
Dir. James Grieve
Until Sat 3 May

«««««

Erosion – of language, of a culture, of the hearts of a generation – is central to Brian Friel’s great play Translations (1980). In a superlative co-production from the Rose Theatre Kingston, English Touring Theatre and Sheffield Theatres, the audience’s heart too is eroded by the intense emotional contours of this quietly angry account of the English colonisation of Ireland in the 1830s.

Set in Baile Baeg, Friel’s fictional town (literally meaning a universal ‘small town’ in anglicised Irish), we witness a close community disintegrating as the English military set about mapping Ireland, and in the process renaming every parish, hillock and stream. Friel makes it clear that centuries of identity and meaning are eradicated in the process; by placing the action in a backwater hedge school with an irascible old master still bent on teaching spoken Latin, Greek and Irish, we perceive both the futility of keeping dead languages alive and the conflict of imposing a coloniser’s language on a people who must choose either to fight against it or embrace it as progress and revitalisation.

Director James Grieve’s consummate production allows Friel’s play to breathe, staying faithful to the text and instilling it with a vibrancy that echoes through the centuries. His two blundering Englishmen, Lancey and Yolland, are at first hilarious (the audience was howling with laughter at Lancey’s bungled attempts to explain their project through ludicrous sign language and over-enunciated Queen’s English). But this is poignantly offset as a star-crossed love blooms between Yolland and Máire, a women determined to better her position by learning English. They dance around each other in a theatrically taut expression of love that both understand implicitly despite not knowing a word of the other’s speech. Friel’s great experimental triumph is to have both characters speaking English on stage – understanding and misunderstanding are in a constant, agonising dialogue in which the audience plays an integral part.

The acting is superb, from Roxanna Nic Liam as the dumb shrinking violet Sarah to Niall Buggy as Hugh, drunken master of the hedge school who pulls off inebriation faultlessly and brings to Friel’s great lines a gravitas that echoes through the whole play. Paul Cawley is pitch-perfect as Lancey, transforming from bumbling sapper to deadly soldier seamlessly. The whole cast are exceptional, Grieve’s direction is highly intelligent and Lucy Osborne’s set provides an evocative backdrop to the play’s subtle tragedy.

Now, nearly 200 years on from the play’s setting, it is clear that Friel’s themes of colonisation, identity and linguistic mutability are just as vital and relevant to our world. As Russia imposes its might on Ukraine, as the West deliberates its actions toward Syria, we are relentlessly faced with the moral, political and social problems of imposing one set of values, culture and language on another. All too often, humans are insensible to or blatantly disregard the consequences. 

This production allows Friel’s individual tale to appeal to the heart while making the audience draw its own conclusions about the rippling resonance of Translations today. This play is theatrically, linguistically and emotionally perfect. So good, I had to go twice. See it, now.

Translations at the Rose Theatre, Kingston

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Joseph and the Bird – How will I know?

A stunning cover of an almost unrecognisable Whitney Houston song – such an original take on a 90s classic it feels like it could become a 20tweens classic in no time...

The seductive, perfectly controlled tones of vocalist Romy Quinnen and ingenious production from Joseph Luxton speak for themselves. The video is hypnotic. From the starry sky to the fading street lights projected onto a tantalising silhouette, you want to immerse yourself in its sights and sounds.

Watch it, now:

Book review: The Gospel of Loki by Joanne Harris

Published 13 February 2014 by Gollancz

In a world of gods, ice folk and dwarves, Joanne Harris chooses as her hero the trickster god Loki, bent upon making mischief throughout the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology.

Unfortunately for the reader, his tongue-in-cheek tone and irritating colloquialisms make him less an endearing anti-hero and more an annoying younger brother with a penchant for tall stories.

Shape-shifting and deceiving his way through the tale, Loki rises from the depths of Chaos to dwell among the gods of Asgard, ruled by the Allfather Odin who repeatedly (and inexplicably) gives him the benefit of the doubt. A series of misadventures, tricks and tussles each bear a chapter title relating to Loki’s attempted enlightenment of his reader, his gospel ‘Lokabrenna’. These consist of such platitudes as ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ and ‘Most problems can be solved through cake’. Tension builds as Loki pushes the boundaries of the gods’ – and the readers’ – patience, until finally he colludes in bringing about Ragnarok, the cataclysmic end of the gods.

Harris does succeed in constructing a vivid, convincing world in which cinematic set pieces shimmer with the ‘glam’ of runes and bristle with the looming dramatic compulsion of prophecy. But this world is so sullied by the incongruous cleaving to it of contemporary idioms that it feels inescapably artificial. The story should be a thrilling one, but somehow Loki’s infuriating slang (‘Chillax’, ‘Boom!’) and heavy-handed presaging of things to come (‘But that was a lesson I had yet to learn’; ‘Just proves how wrong you can be I guess’) turns his adventures into a succession of contrived vignettes that do not fuse together into a satisfying whole.

AS Byatt’s recent foray into Norse Mythology, Ragnarok, proves how compelling and poetic this world of gods can be. She sums Loki up in one succinct, beautiful phrase: ‘Ungraspable Loki flamed amazement and pleased himself.’ Joanne Harris has taken an entire novel to do the same, with less success. The dust jacket sells The Gospel of Loki as a retelling of history, as its hero’s ‘turn to take the stage’. Perhaps this incarnation of Loki failed to make his voice heard for a reason; perhaps he should have stayed in the wings.

This review was originally published on We Love This Book.

South London Bookshop Review: Herne Hill Bookshop

289 Railton Road, South London, SE24 0LY

Where?

On the corner just as you come out of Herne Hill Station, a cheery green façade welcomes you into this small but savvily stocked bookshop. On Sundays it is a fitting piece of the jigsaw of shops that frame Herne Hill Farmers Market, which offers organic food and trinkets to complement a discerning reader’s taste in literature.

What?

Its somewhat bare shelves first imply a poor collection or a struggling business, and create an atmosphere of slight dilapidation. But on closer inspection there is quite a range of works for such a small place – a medley of contemporary and classic fiction, plus a line in local interest and children’s books. They’ve clearly stocked for the local demographic, including the yummy mummies of nearby Dulwich.

Reason to visit?

If you’re indecisive. Here lies a pared-down selection of good books, so a certain amount of the fearsome choice that faces you in larger bookshops has already been made. All you have to do is pick up pretty much anything, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History or Benjamin Zephaniah’s Refugee Boy – and you’ll find a book worth reading.

What’s missing?

Lots. But as I say, that’s not always a bad thing. If you want something specific, it’s likely you’ll need to order it in (as the smaller sister of Clapham Books, you can request anything they don’t have from down the road). It's a shame that instead of stuffing their shelves there are some gaping holes, which feels almost embarrassedly naked. But this bookshop works wonders as a place for a quick pop-in and browse when you’ve got five minutes to spare while the butcher wraps up your joint of beef for Sunday lunch.

East London Bookshop Review: The Book Stall, Spitalfields Market

The Book Stall, Old Spitalfields Market, E1 6EW

Where?

Amidst the tarnished ‘vintage’ jewellery and ubiquitous owl-patterned dresses of Spitalfields Market, one unassuming stall juxtaposes that hipster consumerism with a quiet, unpretentious erudition. Its prime spot at the edge of the market stops passers-by on their journey to the over-priced bric-a-brac, and rewards them with a wide array of classics, modern classics and esoteric books at very reasonable remainder-stock prices.

What?

Anything from Vintage imprint Woolf, Kafka or Faulkner to Oliver Sacks’s entire oeuvre, How to thrive in a digital age by Tom Chatfield or an intriguing volume of Graffiti Argentina. All books are around £3 - £4, and all are pretty much guaranteed to enhance your experience of the world.

Best on the shelves?

Forgotten editions of modern classics, particularly for authors whose collected works have since been standardised into series with consistent book jackets. The gleeful cat grasping the moon on the 2003 Vintage cover of The Master and Margarita; a slender arm and coy collar bones adorning the Faber Firsts edition of The Bell Jar; the arched curve of the diving boy on the 2009 edition of Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna. These aren’t as rare as lost or vintage editions, but are often usurped designs that have their own beauty and deserve still to be appreciated. And all for a bargain price – what’s not to love?

What’s missing?

The limitations of this book stall are the preconditions of its existence: not enough books and no new titles. But cool-as-cucumber Ezra, the stall owner, fills the small space with a discerning selection that maximises on quality. And any bookshop can sell the new, zeitgeist titles – this stall picks from the zeitgeists of years gone by the books that deserve to be remembered. Well worth a trip.