Can you forgive her? by Anthony Trollope

Trollope is a bit unfashionable these days, I fear. People like John Major saying 'I like to go to bed with a Trollope' and acting as if it is so...droll.

But he is a very readable writer and that is what I most liked about this book. Like other Victorian writers, you can see how the discipline of the regular instalment keeps the pace up nicely. Dickens wrote many of his novels as serials in various periodicals and this novel, the first of Trollope's Palliser novels, or the 'political novels' as they are called by the afficionados, benefits from the need for suspensive breaks and regular reminders of what is going on. The cadences are rhythmic and engrossing, after a few chapters.

The characters are not all convincing and this is very much a novel about the upper middle classes. But it rattles along and Trollope is all plot and action; he doesn't dwell on long descriptions or long digressions.

This is the first of a series of about 6 novels and I will certainly get hold of 'Phineas Finn', which comes next. It may sound odd, to say of a Victorian novelist, but Trollope is great recreational reading.

I won't spoil the plot for you by talking about it in detail but one of the most fascinating things about it is the way in which social  mores are so suffocating and yet so formative. The sense of human passions and emotions being diverted by inviolable social custom, like a river meandering in response to rocks and other obstacles, underpins the whole book.

I strongly recommend it, especially of you are planning a long journey. It is, in the best sense of the word, diverting.

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

This I found to be a slightly mannered novel, in that all the dialogue is crafted to carry meaning rather than sound authentic. Nothing wrong with that but it weighs heavily on the comedy.

The book is essentially about being, and not being, Jewish. It is also about the rather rarified world of the London intelligentsia and, as far as one can tell, the world to a large extent inhabited by the author. It has some funny and bathetic moments but the artfulness of the dialogue makes it hard to empathise with the characters. The emotion feels created rather than felt.

But it moves along nicely and is an enjoyable read.

The Ambassadors by Henry James

I was listening to the radio and writers were being interviewed about books that had been tough to read but which in the end proved worth the trouble. Henry James was mentioned more than any other writer. I can half see why they said that, after reading this; but only half. Unfortunately for me, I think the half that is missing is the half when you say 'ah, so it was worth it'.

I had only read the Turn of the Screw before this, which I enjoyed. But that is only a novella or, perhaps, as short story.

His style is so vague and elliptical, in this book, that it is often hard to figure out what, if anything, is going on. He uses ambiguous phrases like 'make out' and 'bring on' in the course of dialogue which is often opaque in its meaning. This is clearly deliberate, as we share in the protagonist's journey of understanding. He has been sent by a rather buttoned-up American family to bring the son, perceived to be errant, back from Paris. He realises during his mission that things are not so simple, of course. This creates a bit of dramatic tension, hard though that is to follow behind the linguistic mists of James's style. It also supports one of the novel's central themes, the nature of civilisation and the differences between cultures.

Much is inferred rather than stated, not least in relation to sex. I spent a lot of the book trying to understand whether we were dealing with friendships or love affairs. Perhaps that uncertainty reflects real life and is to be appreciated on that basis. But it can be bewildering when spread out over a whole novel.

A practical point - I was reading the Penguin Classics text and it contained a number of annoying typographical errors.

I won't be rushing to read another novel by Henry James, to be honest. The period he wrote in fascinates me, however, and I fancy Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence. But for this reader, James is a bit too much like hard work, for now at any rate.

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman

There can have been few better times in the last 100 years or so to read this book. It was written in the 1960s by the American historian Barbara Tuchman and it deals with August 1914 and the outbreak of the First World War.

I have read several books on this period, trying hard to understand the reasons for what we think of today as a war of unexampled pointlessness yet destructiveness. This is the best I have read. She portrays brilliantly the unthinking nationalism and direly stupid autocracy of Europe's governing elites. British readers, brought up like me on the myth of unstinting British heroism in both world wars, will find the cool analysis of British intransigence and disorganisation in the weeks preceding the outbreak of war and, especially, the early and crucial weeks of the campaign, unsettling. And any American reader who thinks the French deserve the nickname of cheese eating surrender monkeys (ironically created though it was) can be disabused by her account of amazing French heroism.

It is shocking still to read of how atrocity and gross intimidation were written into the German approach to war; these were formal policy,  not isolated incidents. So fearful were they of French and Belgian snipers that they adopted a disciplined approach to horror, shooting whole villages, including children, with bureaucratic dispatch, as reprisals.

Tuchman describes the events through personalities and the telling anecdote. When Europe is going through economic convulsion, it is timely to remind ourselves just how corrosive nationalism has been in Europe in the relatively recent past. We still see vestiges of it in the Balkans and elsewhere. World War I was, according to this distinguished and readable account, ultimately caused by a collective derangement over 'national interests'. Where have I heard that phrase invoked in the councils of Europe recently?

A visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

This is the first book by Jennifer Egan that I have read. I can't remember now why I bought it - I think I had read a good review somewhere.

I thought it was only OK. It lacks universal appeal; it might wring some wry smiles from young professionals but I didn't find the characters engrossing at a human level. It is basically about how time changes people: "time is a goon".

It is cleverly written - by no means a bad book. It just didn't grab me.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

I decided to reread this after reading Tim Butcher's book. He reminded me just how powerful it is, the more so for its brevity. It is a novella, really, of only 120 pages.

The book is now quoted regularly. Apparently even Mobutu, with astonishing self regard and perhaps even ironic self awareness, used perhaps the most famous line from the book: "The horror! The horror!", when visiting the scene of a horrendous massacre during his many years of crazed and despotic rule.

I remember the quote used by T S Eliot in The Hollow Men: "Mistah Kurtz - he dead." I did not know the book then, so it seemed exotic and mysterious. But the shortness of the book gives the text something of the portentousness of writ. Each word means something in a long and inexorable journey to....what?

The introduction by Paul O'Prey to the edition I read, in Penguin, makes the point that the whole book is premised on dancing around the mystery at the heart of human motivations and perversions. It does not offer an answer; it just describes the question. But what a beautifully crafted question!

I also think it is a very strong rejection of colonialism. It was published in 1902, when the horrors of Belgian colonial rule in the Congo were only recently revealed and still subject to suppression by the Belgian Government. You can be in no doubt about Conrad's utter disgust with the whole venture.

But he brings in other metaphysical mysteries, too. The motley-clad figure who meets him at the Upper Station, in awe of Kurtz but still a remarkable survivor, seems to represent the sprites and fleeting acquaintances we meet in life, who engender a sense of unease but also a frisson of excitement. He is a glimpse of an unknown world, unsettling and morally corrupt.

It is hard to read the book today without seeing connections to 'Apocalypse Now', the Francis Ford Coppola film set in the Vietnam war and loosely based on 'Heart of Darkness'. The character just mentioned, for example, was played by Dennis Hopper. The impact of film on how books are understood and appreciated is immense.

But this is a true classic. I have enjoyed Conrad for many years. His maritime interests and his feel for the position of the stranger in foreign lands are attractive, of course. But he carries authority; you believe what he says. Which makes this book all the more creepy.

At Home: a Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

I like Bill Bryson. I read A Short History of Everything and enjoyed it and this book is similar in structure and style. I would love to see his desk, or wherever it is he works. He collects loads of information, finds intriguing and amusing anecdotes and connections within this pile of facts, then puts it into a framework of chapters and narrative.

He has an exceptionally easy going style and his tone is never patronising. It feels like some well-informed, humble, well-intentioned and enthusiastic companion is walking beside you as all these facts and the connections between them unfold before you.

The book is full of fascinating facts. Did you know that the human excrement in rooms and corridors at the Palace of Versailles was cleaned up once a week, and only after complaints became too frequent? Did you know that Beau Brummel did not actually dress in bright colours but in only a few subdued tones; and that it was the cut of his clothes and the sheer quality that gained him his reputation? Or that beds used to be made of a frame with rope latticing to provide the 'mattress', which was only comfortable when stretched taut, hence the saying 'sleep tight'?

Maybe you did know all these things but I didn't and I thoroughly enjoyed learning them in such an entertaining and discursive manner.

Nice one, Bill.