The Russia House, by John LeCarre
7/10
A newcomer to LeCarre might be forgiven for expecting a Tom Clancy who didn’t talk quite so much about guns, and in The Russia House at least, that expectation might mostly be borne out. There are the same businesslike spooks; and complex, psychologically shattered “humint sources”; and everything seems to take place in an embassy or a square in Petrograd, or some exotic location like that. Very much the sort of thing that has become standard fare for the secret agent genre.
Of course, le Carre is a much more mature writer than many others of similar genres, and he seems to have much more interesting motivations for his stories. Instead of showcasing how great America is, he seems to focus on the individual characters – and although they are the same recycled stocks as one might expect – the femme fatale, the washed-up middle-class no-hoper, the cynical spymaster with the heart of gold – it is pleasant to have a story focused on what it is like to be a spy, rather than a rehashed plate of leftover geopolitical theories held up by some scenes with machine guns.
Also a pleasant surprise was le Carre’s restraint; in what was essentially a love story based on spies seducing one another, all such scenes were treated modestly and politely, and even his most lurid characters (Niki Landau, for instance) imply much and say and do little. While graphic and torrid sex scenes in novels are becoming the norm, there was nothing in this book that needed skipping, and the book certainly did not seem prudish or awkward for the omissions. His style of narrative was also quite delightful, with incredibly informal moments when it seemed more like the transcript of a pub conversation, woven seamlessly with a much clearer third person style. Whether or not this is one of le Carre’s usual traits or a brilliant experiment in this particular book, it worked very well.
My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James and Chris Collier
8/10
Historical fiction for children or teenagers is as a rule dreadful gaudy stuff, full of beads and the proper way to churn butter, respectful apple-cheeked children and dreadful litanies of mucking out farmyard animals and lighting fires. There is always some note of pain or loss, to teach youngsters how tough things were in the olden days, and the stories always end on a positive note–all the better to worm their way into school libraries, where tragedy is seldom encouraged.
This rather simple tale of the American Revolutionary War incorporates striking realism (that is to say, it has just the right amount of domestic humdrum) to be good history; at least equivalent a six-hour trip to a carefully recreated colonial town. It has all of the hallmarks of a rather pithy story attempting to disguise education as something interesting and relatable, but it also manages to tell a decent adventure story, and the Colliers do a good job of limiting the tiring stuff of tavern life, and bringing the war to the forefront. Whenever wood-chopping or cow-milking is mentioned, the reader will have an almost palpable sense of the authors’ impatience, and their welcome desire to take their story somewhere more interesting.
Ultimately, it is the politics of this book that distinguish it from the swirling slurry of tawdry adolescent fiction. The conflict is described in simple terms, but with a constant and noticeable escalation throughout the book. Never do the writers rest on their laurels, but continually develop and elaborate the various tensions between the loyalist and rebel parties. If they can be accused of spelling things out somewhat painfully at times, they have their target readership to think of, and if they can be blamed to some extent for the drearier sections of this book, then they can at least be praised for their effort to balance the historicity with a compelling story.
Skeletons at the Feast, by Chris Bohjalian
3/10
Firstly, Bohjalian’s description of the budding romance between Callum and Anna was simply unreadable, and begs the question whether there are any clean historical fictions left to us! Gratuitous, and utterly unimportant to the story itself. It actually detracted significantly from the gravity of the situation, and while it is understandable that Bohjalian wanted to show “normal life” thriving even amidst such horror, he could have done it quite well enough without all the rumpus.
That aside, Skeletons at the Feast was generally an unsatisfying read. There was no sense of climax or crisis, only a plodding inevitability that mirrored the depression of some of his more deprived characters, and trickled to a sudden and rather bland ending. His greatest success in the narrative was how he effortlessly blended scenes from past and present, and switched viewpoints with an elegance and delicacy rarely seen in modern fiction. This intriguing and capable style rescued the book from what otherwise might have been an utter loss, when considering its insipid storyline and truly awful attempts at romance.
Sirens of Baghdad, by Yasmina Khadra
7/10
Moulessehoul (Khadra) is foremost a terrific writer. He writes fabulously multifaceted characters and is not at all afraid of spending time on them, rather than treating them as simple plot devices. He manages this without letting his story drag, and is also unattached enough to allow his creations to drop out of the story quite suddenly, if his plot demands it.
The story itself began as a thought-provoking and painful narrative that claimed to offer unique insight into the Bedouin mindset. It is not immediately clear why Moulessehoul is qualified to offer us this insight, but he does it without flinching and without apology. He drifts a little from there into a rather bleak and almost nihilistic mood, with echoes of Orwell and sudden digressions, where he diverts attention towards a few rather peripheral characters, who often seem like mere soapboxes for the author to speak from: jarringly different from the main characters, and not altogether welcome, though they do serve well enough to exposit Moulessehoul’s agenda.
Finally, and rather unfortunately, the entire thing devolves into fantasy worthy of Tom Clancy, with an entirely unfulfilling and morally ambiguous conclusion. The book is not ruined by its ending, but its authority is quite badly dented. What began as a heartfelt lament turned into a third-rate political thriller, without any conviction of its own, and with a pace and a focus completely different than its beginning. The agony of impotence is done away with; the frustration and the powerlessness that made the narrator such an interesting character vanish in a whiff of smoke, and his moral dilemma is dulled into a pressured and rushed decision. There is a story to be told out of that, perhaps.
As a storyteller, Moulessehoul is exceptional, but sadly Sirens of Baghdad does not offer much in the way of original or compelling conclusions, or indeed any closure at all. It is this ambiguity–not only an open-ended narrative, but a schizophrenic sort of confusion as to what sort of story he is actually telling–that weakens an otherwise interesting novel.
The Fourth Person 