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.

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

The editorial notes on this Penguin edition emphasise the prophetic nature of this memoir, written in the early 1960s when the writer was successful, well known and seeking by a journey across America some refreshment of his faculties. He does make some telling observations about consumerism and the impact of mass communications that are as valid today as they were then. Which maybe tells us something, as the world has not gone quite to hell in a hand cart as he, in his gentle and humane way, sort of predicts.

His companion is the Charley of the title, a giant French poodle and there is much to enjoy here for anyone who has a dog or even a passing interest in them. Charley acts, as Steinbeck says, as a diplomat, breaking the ice with the people he encounters and, when we reach the only dark section of the book in the racially charged melting pot of the South, acting as a cypher for the hatred that seems to seep everywhere. The dog is shaggy and sits on the front seat. Steinbeck recounts how many times he was told by white people 'I thought you had a nigger in there.' It is a very sharp way of putting the sad, sad situation that prevailed at the time in the context of the book overall.

The book is full of nice vignettes and Steinbeck's style is intellectual but at the same time easy and accessible. He is relaxed about the autobiographical nature of some of what he writes, shifting easily from straightforward accounts of his domestic and family arrangements to ruminations on the Great Divide (the line of mountain ridges that divide the Atlantic east of America from the Pacific west) and the depopulation of the American west.

A nice, thought-provoking but enjoyably down home sort of book.

Blood River by Tim Butcher

This account of the author's journey in the early 2000s up the Congo River is educative but fast-paced and genuinely gripping.

I had read King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochshild and In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz by Michela Wrong so I had some familiarity with the terrible, terrible history and current state of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo but was for a few years called Zaire by the murderous nutcase then in charge, Mobutu Sese Seko.

Tim Butcher is a journalist and his style reflects that. It is workmanlike rather than artistic or poetic but this is really a documentary account of his journey with brief but well-timed and instructive digressions on history and culture. The framework of the book is based on the notion that he is following the journey made by Henry Morton Stanley in the 1870s, when he became the first white man to travel overland from east to west Africa. following the Congo from Lake Tanganyika to its outlet to the Atlantic Ocean.

The most fascinating thing about the book is its contemporariness. The author made this journey in 2004 and his description of how life is, in today's Congo, is profoundly, heart-rendingly bleak. He describes sharply how times have changed from the Belgian colonial era in a material sense, finding regularly bits of old infrastructure that used to be part of a comfortable western European civilisation transported to the heart of Africa. Of course, it was only comfortable for white people and the crimes against humanity of the Belgians are well documented in Hochshild's book.

But Butcher's central conclusion, depressing though it is, is that Congo is actually one of the very few places in the world that is going backwards, not forwards. People are becoming poorer and more disconnected from the rest of humanity while a criminal elite extract wealth from one of the most fertile and richly-endowed countries in the world.

In the face of such overwhelmingly negative evidence, the author does his best to sound positive. But I was left with the feeling that he concluded his journey with a sense of despair. We should be grateful to him for carrying out this demanding and horrible journey ('ordeal travel', he calls it) and reporting it so well and so clearly. But God knows what the solution to Congo's troubles is or can be. The final word is best left with Conrad's Mr Kurtz: "The horror! The horror!".

The Story of Philosophy by Bryan Magee

This is actually the second time I have read this book. For many years, I have hankered after an understanding of philosophy but have perhaps too much relied on books like this - introductions, summaries, syntheses. I have read Sophie's World and Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, as well as other of Magee's books.

This is good as it has lots of pictures. And he writes beautiful summaries and short descriptions of how philosophy has evolved. But it is curiously difficult to remember the actual arguments and beliefs he mentions. I suppose it must follow that time spent reading, say, Kant will give you a firmer grasp of his beliefs than a nicely written summary. But reading Kant is a bit of an undertaking. After reading this, I thought about reading Nietszche but after browsing a few volumes I realised it would be hard to fit in to a busy life where reading is primarily for pleasure.

So maybe I am condemned to reading digests and summaries of philosophy as a means of self improvement. Hey ho.

Fludd by Hilary Mantel

A nicely crafted little novel. It tells the story of a mysterious priest who comes to stay in a remote Yorkshire village at a time when doubt besets the Catholic congregation and their own, local, priest.

I went to a Catholic school and I suspect some background knowledge of the weirdness and absurdity of the Catholic faith enhances the reader's enjoyment. It is a funny book, with an amusing twist at the end. The narrative is self contained (deliberately, I am sure) and, in that sense, timeless. It does not draw on external events, either of a historical or contextual kind.

But it is short and easy to read, with a nice style. I enjoyed it more than A Place of Greater Safety, which was a bit long-winded for my taste.

Wellington - a personal history by Christopher Hibbert

I have long retained an interest in the Napoleonic period. Not sure why -  the names are somehow evocative and perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it is the only period of history I remember at all from my schooldays.

Wellington is also a figure who has fascinated me. I visited Apsley House a few years' ago, for work of all things, and remember it well. So I decided to read a biography and a quick search on Amazon came up with this one, which I then bought on Abebooks. (I have largely stopped buying new books - Abebooks is a great service. It is the second hand version of Amazon and is part of the same company.)

This subtitled 'a personal history' and it does indeed focus on the great man's private life. But the big historical events are covered, albeit a bit obliquely, as background to the personal stuff. But it is very nicely written and never flags. I enjoyed it a lot and feel I know a lot more about Lord W than I did before, without any sense of having had to work at it.

Mr Hibbert is a bit of a career biographer, so he knows how to keep a story moving while at the same time sticking to the facts. In fact, that is a point worth mentioning - he does not impart his own judgements but lets the material speak for itself. I liked that.