Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Funnily enough I did not start reading this because of the film, I had made it a mission to complete all of le Carre's books, and I actually started with The Honourable Schoolboy.

TTSS is a reader's book, its not a book for someone who only flirts with the words on the pages, you have to pay attention. You snooze, you lose type of reading. It is a fab read. Le Carre's sense of place, time and context are always strong. The sense of location in this book is amazing, the subtle enmity between the us and them contextualisation is what espionage thriller writing is all about.

I fell in love with George Smiley, a quiet unassuming type of hero who somehow personifies all that is good and noble about being british. He is assigned a task, gets on with it, delivers the result and totters off again. Brilliant sharp mind and his ability to deduce the unknown from the known is what eventually reveals the identity of the mole at the Centre.

Great book.

Bookshop porn

Even though I do think downloads and the advent of Kindles and other e-book readers has and will continue to inspire more people to read, I still love a good bookshop. One of my favourites in London (because it is so close to my place of work and my old uni), is Waterstones on Gower Street. I have moments of bookshop porn. Like making love, I will refuse to cum out (ha ha see what I did there?) until I have quite literally satisfied my browsing (foreplay), 3 for 2s (going down and returning the favour), indulging curiousity with a book outside my usual subject area (new position) and finally THE PURCHASE or the HOME RUN, THE ORGASM the thing that MAKES YOUR EYES ROLL TO THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD.

I had a bit of a shitty morning. Nothing wrong intrinsically, still healthy, hair still has a nice gloss to it, bank balance in the black, but one of those uninspired rather blah mornings, which was only further shittified by stupid people engaging their brains before sending emails. One of those mornings. I felt the need to be a bit reckless ... I didn't want to spend a packet in Whistles or Jigsaw or Aubin & Wills. I needed books. The problem with downloading is that you don't quite get ladywood when browsing Amazon or iTunes store for iBooks. It's just not the same. Stick me in a bookshop however, and "HELLO SANTA!"

I went in empty and returned with the following:

Imran Khan: Pakistan, A Personal History
Simon Heffer: Strictly English
Miguel Syjuco: Illustrado
Armistead Maupin: MaryAnn in Autumn (long awaited sequel to Tales of the City!!)
Siddhartha Mukherjee: The Emperor of Maladies (winner of 2011 Pulitzer for non-fiction)
Tom Gjelten: Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba
Lyndall Gordon: Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family Feuds
Andrew-Graham Dixon: Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane

If I look a bit flushed the next time you see me you will know why  ; )

Making love to a book is great - no STDs, pregnancy or mind-games. The only thing to establish is "your place or mine?"

Lynch's Road by D.D. Armstrong

I met the author of this book at the official launch of Brenton Brown by Alex Wheatle. I was bowled over by D.D's passion for writing and he sent me an extract of the book. A friend of mine, a West Londoner had the book, it seems it has a cult underground following for anyone living in a "W.XX" postcode. Being an East Londoner, I know how West London thinks we are naff, so I was hoping D.D's book would give me a bit more insight into "West".

D.D's story-telling is extremely clever, witty, pacey and most of all believeable. I believed in every single one of the characters; from the major to the minor ones. Without giving too much away, the book is an excellent example of a story within a story. The premise of the book is that a drug dealer's story is distributed amongst a group of characters in West London. His story has a profound and lasting effect on each of them. This is where D.D's skill as a writer really shines through. It would be quite easy to portray the effect of a drug dealer's tale on various characters as one-dimensional: from pusher to punter. But where this book excels is in the perpetual motion of cause and effect.

The book presents us with stark realities of London life, from rich to poor, white to non-white, social class to underclass. It's not presented in a preachy or patronising self-indulgent manner either. D.D has been balanced in taking archetypal representatives from each background and stripping away the mechanical stratifications and laying them bare, so that Gilyan's tale can be imprinted on them. 

Gilyan's tale interestingly is called The Journey of a Slave, he is a slave to his trade: dealing, shottin', juggling. He is a slave to the super-imposed restrictions that wider society and culture jealously forces upon him. But he is resisting, his journey of self-realisation in turn awakens self-realisation for the characters who read his story. His tale could be interpreted as the harbinger of doom or salvation for some.

I have been quite careful not to give any spoilers away as Lynch's Road does not have the 'bank rolling' of a major publishing house behind it so that it can afford a few spoilers; it is published by a small PULP house called SmashnGrab Books. I would strongly recommend you all to read this,  it's brave, honest and best of all has a sense of place and location that Londoners will recognise and love. 

I found the story of Jade (a single mother) who also happens to read The Journey of a Slave particularly important, and I am glad that D.D spoke from the perspective of a young single mother. As group in society, the label "single mother" just lends itself to stigma and approbation. What Jade takes from Gilyan's tale is fundamental; I think to her maturity and her outlook. Again, no spoilers, so you will have to read for yourself. I only mention this, because is is argued that young male writers cannot possible relate to the existence of young women, especially young women who are in a disadvantaged position. D.D clearly knows his readership, he knows that young women, mothers or not will be inspired to read his book, and the story of Gilyan may have a particular resonance for some of them. 

What I like best is that this book is authentic, sometimes you come across a book in which an author desperately tries to authenticise something which they have never actually experienced for themselves. Like I am not going to try and write about fly-fishing, a) because I couldn't give a fuck about fly-fishing and b) I couldn't give a fuck about fly-fishing. But D.D's tale reeks of authenticity, when he tells us through Gilyan's eyes the manoeuvres he has to make to keep the feds' off his back, deal with lousy punters, etc it is believeable.

For more info on the author: D.D Armstrong and where to buy a copy of Lynch's Road see here:

SmashandGrab Books

Favourite childhood books

There are some books which when we come across as adults immediately take us back to our miniature selves. I was talking to a friend of mine earlier and he told me that he didn't have any favourite books from when he was a kid. He claims he was brought up on 1970s New York movies and Scarface, which I highly doubt as he is about as gangster as my Lolita the Bunny hot water bottle cover. 

Everyone who was encouraged to read as a youngster surely has a list of favourite books from their childhood. I can reel mine off without even thinking, and so without further ado; a list of my favourite books below with a memorable line or episode; and why the book was special to me. 


First up is the series of book written by Beverly Cleary about a character called Ramona Quimby. I adored these books when I was wee, as I thought I was Ramona. Imaginative, curious, unwitting trouble maker; a girl who found it difficult to make herself understood to her parents and her older sister "Beezus." 


One of my favourite episodes from Ramona's quaint childhood was the wedding between her Aunt Bea and her best friend Howie's Uncle Hobart from the book : "Ramona Forever." This book marks a definite change in Ramona's relationships with her parents, his sister and her BFF: Howie. It's a book which underlines how "change" can affect an 8-year old girl, albeit one with an over-active imagination and very big heart. 


Ramona Forever


Second up is a series of books which probably foretold my interest in books which are darkly comical. The series "Arabel and her Raven" entertained me for so many hours. I owe a lot to Joan Aiken's very dry style of writing. Even for young readers, Aiken's prose is hilarious and very very "close to the bone." The series is about a young girl who adopts a raven called Mortimer as her pet. All manner of comic shenanigans arise from the odd pairing who are inseparable. Quentin Blake provided the illustrations for this fabulous series which further adds to my affection for this series. Aside from Mortimer, who as a raven is quite sage like, not unlike Yoda from Star Wars; Mr Jones (Arabel's dad) was probably my favourite character from the books. In the first book: "Arabel and her raven", Mr Jones comes across an injured Mortimer on the road. He believes that he is fated to save the raven's life as his horoscope from the Taxi Driver's Herald declares that "due to your skill, a life will be saved today."


Arabel and her raven


Roald Dahl's books gave me so much joy when I was a young reader, that even now I still find it hard to pick out one stand alone favourite from his arc. However, the book that gave me the most laughs is undoubtedly "The Twits." The story of the two most horrible characters ever written about in children's literature still raise a laugh. Dahl allegedly gave Mr Twit a disgusting beard and was particularly graphic about his beard because he hated beards! The Twits should be given to all couples considering marriage, beware; "this may happen to you!" The Glass Eye chapter still makes me laugh until I can no longer breathe. Mr and Mrs Twit's constant pranks and terrorising of the animals eventually give way to their demise, this is is a gem of a book.

The Twits

Dahl knew that what children want in literature is the opposite of what they want in life."

A fabulous piece on the relativism of James and the Giant Peach... and was Roald Dahl an absolute sod?

Roald Dahl

A Dance with Dragons: Fait Accompli & this post includes spoilers so if you are gonna cry about it - dont read.

To be honest, when I first picked up my HARD copy HARDBACK from Waterstones in Gower Street, I skipped back to my office, quite trick to do considering I'm 5 ft and this book weighs more than I do. Regardless, I started to read with vigour, vigour soon turned into confusion into down right despondancy.  It all started so well, the early chapters were strong, the characters had depth, but now with hindsight I realise it was because the earlier chapters centred on familiar Tyrion, Dany and Jon Stark.  GRRM updated us on their fates: Jon was pretty much Stannis Baratheon's bitch, Dany stuck in hot, sweaty and dusty Meereen with a fragile population and under threat of attack by the Sons of the Harpy, Tyrion was literally out at sea. But this was fine, this was comfortable and familiar. THEN, holy mother of all that is sacred, GRRM had Westerosi characters and characters from Essos descend upon us in their droves. The genealogy at the back provided scant help. Why? Because its almost as long as a chapter !

I really think this book should have been split into two volumes like A Storm of Swords. Unless the characters were Westerosi, the rest lacked the same substantial depth and "readability" as the Westerosi characters. Some of the chapters did not add to the storytelling. Dany's chapters meandered, we learn she boffs Daario before marrying Hizdahr and flies off on her son Drogon. What else did she achieve really? The female characters did not achieve much in fact.  It's a shame as GRRM's two strongest female characters feature heavily in this book - Arya probably not as much as she should have done, but Dany has a large proportion of the book dedicated to her rule. Its encouraging to see her emerge as a very wise and just queen, BUT; like a school girl she dreams of Daario in between her legs as mush as she does about the fate of her dragons or her subjects. The Red Lady Melisandre as King Stannis's svengali is a clumsy attempt I think at readdressing the sexist balance. Apart from the few and far between prominent female characters, this book is a pissing context between the male dominated Westerosi families: Starks, Freys, Karstarks, Boltons. The earlier volumes when they featured female characters helped to temper some of the "my cock is bigger than your's" prose, but in this volume, they were sorely missed.

A charge of racism parading as exoticism is levelled at GRRM in this book. Race and identity, gender and identity are characteristically not dealt with sensitively in fantasy writing. However, as a genre, it is one that fosters exoticism as a way of distinguishing "the other." En masse, I don't see fantasy writing moving away from the canonical anglo-saxon norm. So to be fair, why should we expect GRRM to be any different? However the constant bombardment of whores, bed slaves, the C-word, the predilections of the Essosians and Southern Islanders implying the fact that they are DIFFERENT to the Westerosi is clumsy on the part of GRRM. Not what I would have expected from a writer so skilled at plot intricacies. His characterisations have let him down in this volume.

I didn't enjoy this as much as I had enjoyed the earlier volumes, it was a chore to get through. It could have worked as a split volume a lot better, a lot of loose ends to be tied up and an unenviable task lies ahead for GRRM.

Here are two contrasting reviews to further inform your judgement:

Channelling words

Hiopinion

Read this by all means, however be prepared for a long ride and a sore bum.