The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. By Steig Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Steig Larsson

Published in 2005 by MacLehose Press. Translated from the original Swedish by Reg Keeland


    This is part I of a trilogy. It is an unusual, and very readable, detective story, set in Sweden, and featuring a 'punk' heroine as one of the two main characters. Lisbeth Salander is the 'girl with the dragon tattoo', along  with a number of other tattoos and body piercings. She is also a computer hacker par excellence - she describes herself as one of the best in Sweden. She is a free lance investigator for a security company and as part of one of her assignments, connects up with the financial journalist Michael Blomkvist. The latter has been recently discredited for libeling an important financier, and is facing short jail term. In the meanwhile he is asked to write the history of the rich industrialist Vanger family. At least, this is the cover story. In reality he is inquiring into the 35 year old disappearance of the young niece of the patriarch. Together Salander and Blomkvist uncover the gruesome details that lead to the events of 1967, and later.
    The book has multiple layers. There is the story of the disappearance, underlying that is the story of Blomkvist and his duel with the financier whom he is supposed to have libelled, and underlying even that, and probably connecting the trilogy together is the story of Lisbeth Salander.  It is a nice read, though not exactly gripping. Also it does not have the integrity or honesty of, say, Raymond Chandler, to mention another writer of detective fiction.   

   

The Crystal Cave. By Mary Stewart

The Crystal Cave

Mary Stewart

Published in 1970. I read an e-version downloaded from the Internet. No publisher's name is given and I suspect it is a pirated version.

This is Part I (of a total of four) of the Arthurian saga, narrated from Merlin's point of view. This book is all about Merlin and Arthur is not yet born. Merlin is a young boy in the court of the King of Wales. He is a bastard of the King's daughter and does not know who his father is. He soon realizes that he is not like other children, but has special intellectual (engineering, medical and magical) skills, which he further develops by training and practice. As 5th century England descends into chaos he escapes to France (Brittany) where he meets up with the Romano-British General Ambrosius, who is now in exile and who is raising an army to reconquer Britain and free it from the Saxon army of Hengist. Merlin discovers that Ambrosius is his father, comes under his protection and guidance, and after five years of further training, at the age of eighteen, precedes him back to England as a scout or a spy. Ambrosius soon lands with his army, and Merlin joins him. Ambrosius defeats Hengist, and becomes King of England but succumbs soon thereafter to disease or poison. His brother Uther Pendragon becomes King, and Merlin retires to his 'crystal cave'. He is summoned about a year later by Uther, who wants his help (and 'magic') to attain the Lady Ygraine, who is the wife of the Duke of Cornwall, Uther's most trusted and strongest ally. Merlin helps him in this adultery, because he realizes that the child born from this union will be Arthur, the one who brings peace to England. This book ends at this point.

Mary Stewart writes well, and the book is gripping and easy to read. The text is lyrical, but also contemporary. Obviously, as she admits, she has based her story on a very few historical 'facts' culled from various sources. The existence, though not the exact dates, of Ambrosius, Hengist, and later, perhaps, Arthur, is known.  But there is no evidence at all about Merlin, and certainly no evidence of any connection between these four (except, perhaps, the first two).     


Stewart tries to give 'scientific' explanations for some of the mysticisms attributed to Merlin. The 'crystal cave', in which Merlin is said to be trapped in his dotage, but also loves to lie in and meditate during his youth, is a small hidden hollow, with insides completely covered with quartz crystals, deep within another cave. (Such a structure is called a 'geode', as I learnt from my recent visit to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, although the one Merlin uses must be a much larger one than the samples I saw there). Merlin performs his fabled feats with the 'dancing stones', lifting and moving huge stone blocks to rebuild Stonehenge, by engineering skills, not magic. And so on. But this particular aspect does either add to or detract from the book. In conclusion, the book is highly readable, but light.  

Napoleon. By Emil Ludwig

Napoleon

Emil Ludwig

First published 1926. I read the version published by Jaico Publishing House in their 'Jaico Great Lives Series', 29th impression 2010

    This book is subtitled 'The Definitive Biography'. A great book, giving a fairly objective picture of this 'great soldier, politician, lover and the first modern European', to quote from the subtitle. I will address the book in two section. First I will summarize what it says about the life of Napoleon. Then I will talk about the book itself and its author.

      Napoleon was a Corsican, i.e. more Italian than French. His name is a version of Naplione - presumably from the same root as 'Naples' and 'Neopolitan'. Corsica was under the French when he was born, and his father was a small-time Corsican noble, who, though eager for independence from France, nevertheless used his influence with King Louis of France (who was to soon loose his head in the revolution) to get his second son, Napoleon admitted to a military academy. Napoleon's first important deeds, on joining the revolutionary French Army, was to try and free Corsica, but his imagination soon outgrew the confines of this island, and his vision encompassed the entire world, modelling his thoughts on Alexander (the 'Great'), and wishing to bring lands as far of as India under his control. His first battles as a General (at age 21!) were against Italy and in Egypt, all for the French revolutionary government. He rapidly moved up in the hierarchy to command all of the French forces, and then in a coup, he replaced the Directory, which was ruling France after the revolution, as Consul of France, i.e. dictator. He fought many great battles. First these were against the other European kingdoms  and principalities, including Austria, England, Prussia, Russia, Poland, Italy, Spain and Holland, which were unable to accept a democratic France, and were working constantly to restore the Bourbon monarchy. Some of the battles he fought have been made famous on their own, as masterpieces of war strategy or as scenes of great destruction and loss of human life. Names of these battles include Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Borodino and Hohenlinden. This last name is familiar to me from the poem by T Campbell (http://www.bartleby.com/106/215.html) that I learnt in school. His motivations became more and more mixed up with his own ambitions to emulate Alexander, and also to found a dynasty. After his initial great victories he crowned himself (literally - he placed the crown, which was a Roman style gold circlet, on his own head) as Emperor of France. I remember the painting of this event that I saw in the Louvre. His first major defeat was against Russia, as was well described by Tolstoy in 'War and Peace'. When he came back to Paris, he found that, after a decade or more of admiration, and indeed, worship, the French people, encouraged in their dissatisfaction by intriguers such as Talleyrand, started to turn against Napoleon. At the behest of the other European Kings, in particular Tsar Alexander of Russia, he was imprisoned on the island of Elba (situated between Italy and Corsica). After some months however, he escaped from the island. The people were by then sick of the restored Bourbon king, who, in the famous words ascribed to Talleyrand, 'had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing', and with their renewed support Napoleon set out once more to restore to France all the lands he had conquered for her and which now had been given or given back to other kings. In 100 days he had to meet Blucher (of Prussia) and Wellington (of England) at Waterloo, and he suffered his final and decisive defeat. He was exiled to the tiny, rocky Atlantic ocean island of St Helena, under the charge of a small-minded English Governor, and died of ill-health after about six years of captivity.

    Emil Ludwig has written this biography in the present tense throughout, giving it an air of immediacy and a sense to the reader of being actually present at the various events. Apparently he has based the book on the extensive papers, letters, speeches and diaries written by Napoleon. There are many actual quotations of conversations which may have, at least in part, sprung from Ludwig's imagination. This seems especially so when we read descriptions of Napoleon's thoughts in conversational form. (Ludwig wrote the book in German, and the English version was translated by Eden and Cedar Paul - there must be something which was added, as well as lost in the translation). The book is fairly objective, but one can see a small progression of the writer's opinion of Napoleon from bad to good.  The last few chapters especially are full of admiration for him, and occasionally appear almost  to be an apology for the misdeeds of the man. The focus of the book throughout is steadfastly on Napoleon as a person, his genius, his thoughts and his deeds. It only gives the absolute minimum background history, does not talk in any detail about even such great events as the revolution. There is no elaboration of the role or background of even such important people in Napoleon's life as Josephine. There is certainly no description, even cursory description, of battle strategies. Thus it is not a book written by or to be read by a war historian, or a strategic planner (or a management graduate). Rather it is more like a psychological study of this genius. Most of the 600 pages of the book describe what Napoleon did, and what he thought. There is, in the final chapter, about 50 pages of analysis by the author about the persona of Napoleon. Here he describes what he thinks defines Napoleon - firstly his energy (he famously could sleep anywhere for even 10 minutes at a time, and sometimes could go for days on horseback without rest, without sleep, working on an average 20 hours a day in the first decade of his career ); secondly his self-confidence (as evidenced by his constant urge to emulate Ceasar and Alexander, and his belief that he was destined to overthrow the old feudal system and rule Europe); and thirdly his imagination, which helped him to put himself in the position of his antagonists and anticipate their actions.  Whether this can be a complete and true picture of Napoleon and his motivations are difficult for me to say. I can only juxtapose against this analysis the much less flattering one by Tolstoy who, in 'War and Peace' described Napoleon as an ostensible, but not real cause of history. 

    My own take on Napoleon is of course modulated by my being a modern non-European with left-of-centre liberal ideas. I think Napoleon was a thug, maybe a genius thug, but a thug all the same, in the mould of Dawood Ibrahim or Don Corleone. He was large-hearted and generous, but so are/were Dawood and the Don (and many more such). Perhaps his initial motivations were honourable, i.e. to protect the revolution against obviously hostile kings in the neighbourhood, but with power, these good intentions were soon corrupted. In that respect, he was the same as his idols - Ceasar and Alexander.

    Here are some particular quotes and scenes from the book. 

->Napoleon on  meeting Goethe for the first (and only) time: "Voila un homme!" Ludwig interprets this to mean that the only intellectual equal to Napoleon was Geothe and that both these megaminds recognised this.
->"Napoleon never grew wise, but was always clever."
->"Do you not see," he exclaims to his brother, "that I can only keep my seat upon this throne by means of the fame which brought me to it? That a private individual such as I, who has risen to become a ruler, dare not call a halt? That such a one is constrained to mount higher and ever higher, and is doomed to perish the moment he stops climbing?"
->"Wherever I may be, I command, or else I keep silence."
->"I am a man whom people may kill, but will not affront."
->"One who worships the golden calf may have money, but not honour."
->"I am always at work. I think a great deal. If I appeared to be ever ready and equal to any occasion, it is because I have thought over matters long, before I undertake to do the slightest thing; I have foreseen all eventualities."

Emma. By Jane Austen

Emma

Jane Austen

First published 1816. I read the Penguin Popular Classics edition.

The story of Emma Woodhouse, a somewhat arrogant, beautiful girl, who tries to patronize  another young, pretty, not-so-well-off orphan girl in the neighbourhood, whom she takes a fancy to. She tries to make a match for her with another acquaintance of hers, disdaining the farmer suitor who first proposes to the orphan friend. After much to-ing and fro-ing, with parties being thrown, and balls being danced and visits being arranged, and marriages being made, things are finally sorted out and each of the principals finds his or her appropriate match. Emma herself marries the man who's obviously meant for her from the beginning, and who  is treated throughout the book as setting a kind of the standard of sensible conduct, against which the behaviour of the others is measured (and mostly found wanting!). The story is not much, actually not even as much as any Dickens novel (which were written only a little later), but the writing is delicious. The characters are all sketched very well, in 'full 3D', rounded and fully believable, mostly likeable, with one or two to despise. The conversation is witty, especially that of Emma, and also that of the hero. A nice read, if slow.  Of course, the attitudes and social arrangements are those of the early 19th century, not generally acceptable today (though still found extensively, even in my own experience - and I don't mean just caste, but 'class' and 'status' as well, whatever those mean!). 

Enquiry. By Dick Francis

Enquiry

Dick Francis

Published in 1969 by Fawcett Crest

A jockey and his trainer are accused of fraud, of throwing a race deliberately. He is barred from racing, but investigates, and after some violence, clears his name. Some mystery about who set him up, but not edge-of-the-seat stuff. Maybe I'm just growing too old and cynical for this sort of book. For example, I kept thinking throughout 'Do you mean to say that horse racing has ethics and honesty? Since the whole point and excitement about most of horse racing is the betting anyway, isn't that like saying smuggling or counterfeiting (or T20 cricket!) is ethical and honest?'. I think I should stop reading Dick Francis.

Cat's Cradle. By Kurt Vonnegut

Cat's Cradle

Kurt Vonnegut

Published by Penguin Books, 2009. First published 1963.

       A kind of SF novel. Rather than being a story, the book serves as a vehicle for Vonnegut's expression of his complex thoughts about war, science, bombs, and so on, all things dear to what we would call neo-cons today.  The story, such as it is, is about a journalist trying to write a book about the father of the atom bomb, who's a 'mad scientist' stereotype called Felix Hoenikker (echoing, maybe not deliberately, the name of the East German dictator, who got thrown out in about 1989).  Hoenikker also invents something called ice-nine which, if it came into contact with any water in any form or mixture, including blood, sea water, slush, etc., would act as a seed crystal and instantly crystallize all of it, such that re-liquefying would require 119 degrees C of heat. The only few samples of this material, which could end all life on the planet, end up on the island of San Lorenzo - modeled on Haiti - and ruled by a crazy dictator called 'Papa' Monzano - modeled on Papa Doc Duvalier. The island is populated by a few tens of thousands of black 'freed' slaves who practice a banned (on the pain of death) religion called Bokononism, which is modeled vaguely on Vodoo. (There are some parts of the book that remind me of 'The Comedians' by Graham Greene.) Bokononism has as its scripture 'the Books of Bokonon'  which are collection of 'Foma' or 'harmless untruths'. Several examples of these are given through the book, and I quote below some of them.

'Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy'

This is how the Books define a 'karass': 'Man created the checkerboard. God created the karass'. A karass is a group of people whose unifying factor is some object or purpose called a 'wampeter'. Otherwise there would be nothing at all common to them: 'Oh, a sleeping drunkard up in Central Park, and a lion hunter in the jungle dark, and a Chinese dentist and the British queen  all fit together in the same machine.  Nice, nice, very nice, nice nice very nice, nice, nice, very nice - so many different people in the same device.'

A 'granfallon' on the other hand is group of people united by some obvious but really meaningless (according to Bokonon) concept such as nationality or the same school etc.: 'If you wish to study a granfalloon, take the skin off a toy ballon' 

Actually though, these foma are less foma-like that the sayings of Sathya Sai Baba (Love all, serve all, for example) or the advice of people like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Bokonon lives! and Bokononism is perhaps the most widespread religion in the world, though of course it goes by hundreds of different names.  

So what is the book all about? It's difficult to summarize, there's no one idea, but a lot of ideas that would today be called 'liberal', all expressed savagely. Worth reading many times, if only to understand and recall the foma.

The Cider House Rules. By John Irving

The Cider House Rules

John Irving

Published 1985 by Ballantine Books

   This time Irving writes mainly about the process of birth, abortion, conception, contraception and so on. I suspect that he was writing at the time the 'Pro choice' v/s 'Pro life' debate was going on in the United States. Irving clearly is on the side of 'Pro choice' and presents the many of the well known arguments for his position, including rape, incest, accident, etc. as events that would lead to  pregnancies that it would be morally OK to terminate. He even describes one conception that happens due to a deliberately and maliciously introduced pinhole in the condom. In India of course, there is no debate on this, at least not in the law. MTP (medical termination of pregnancy) is legal, and offered in most hospitals, only up to a particular stage of the pregnancy of course.   

   Like many (if not all) of Irving's books the story is set in New England - Maine in this case. But a rural, backward undeveloped Maine in the first half of the 20th century. The book is full of a great many likeable characters (Homer, Larch, the nurses, all three of them, Wally, Candy...) and a few bad ones. But even those, redeem themselves somehow towards the end of the book. 
   This is a good book by John Irving, though I like 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' better.