Books

Disgusting Bliss: The Brass Eye of Chris Morris

Lucian Randall

I don’t think this hagiography of Chris Morris is likely to challenge Claire Tomalin’s biography of Dickens for the Costa book prize this year, largely because it is very much hagiography. Clearly Randall is a Morris fan. That said, if you too think Morris is one of the great creative comic forces of the last 20 years, you will find much of fascination in this book. Sadly, little concerns the man himself, but the detail around his major projects is fascinating.

Unlike most of the current crop of comedians, Morris was never in stand up. His background was a gigging bassist and local radio DJ. So he did not import a theatrical or clubbing humour into radio and TV, he was always a creature of the media he so successfully satirised. I have been with him largely from the start of his Radio 4 career; first hearing On the Hour is etched on my memory as forcibly as the first episode of The League of Gentlemen some years later. This convincing parody of an insane news programme appealed to my ‘insider’ humour. It was so clever!  I hadn’t realised that even at this stage, Armando Iannucci was so crucially involved. He was at the BBC then, but soon moved to Talkback – two doors down from my old NMR! Productions office in Percy Street. I have a memory, though it may be a false one, that Iannucci visited the office to see Geoff Challinger when Geoff used to use my office to go through his client’s accounts.

From then on the book becomes a list of his achievements and the people who coalesced around him, fascinating for the fan, less so for the uninitiated. Generally I have met few of the initial Morris group, though a few fascinating names crop up in alter Brass Eye days – Charlie Brooker working on the programme before Matthew brought him to my attention writing a column in PC World, Simon Pegg was in Brass Eye and Peter Serafinovicz (both of whom I have worked with) was a runner. Even Luis McCloud, a really talented impressionist I used to know well in the Sound Company days was involved with Brass Eye Special.

Brass Eye remains a seminal programme for C4 and TV humour in general, although Jam was arguably even more innovative but just too weird. I didn’t know anything about his Observer columnist persona, Richard Geefe, who was contracted by the Machiavellian editor to write a column which would culminate in his own death by suicide and, embarrassingly, I didn’t realise that when I listened to an episode of Blue Jam lying on the floor of Battersea Arts Centre in the total dark, BAC was run by Chris’ brother Tom.

Although Disgusting Bliss details the smokescreens Chris put up to obscure himself from the limelight, Randall himself has failed to penetrate it. It may be fascinating that many of the myths the popular press pedalled about Morris came from his own press release, but sadly the question of who Chris Morris really is will have to await another biography further down the line.

Our Kind of Traitor

John le Carré

Still suffering from the inanity of Pregnant Widows I reached for the latest le Carré novel to come out in paperback, Our Kind of Traitor. Although over 80, le Carré continues to  produce superbly written, well plotted and provocative novels which, to me at least, are at least as good, if not better than his more famous Cold War oeuvre. He effortless juggles multiple plot lines, locations and characters and retains tension and suspense. His political insights are sharp, his approach to espionage stills seems utterly authentic and his work is completely enjoyable.

That said I felt this book was ‘only’ very good’ rather than brilliant. It started surprisingly conventionally, and for 100 pages we get one coherent story. When it does break up into a more multilayered story many of the characters are from the list of le Carré staples – the domestically troubled operations officer, the naive civilians, the brilliant the but maverick spy chief.  The subject of the story – a Russian money launderer wanting to trade in his contacts before those contacts murdered him was also plausible enough, but perhaps not overly original. Overall, an enjoyable read, excellent written but perhaps just a decent book.

Until the last page.

Damnit, I don’t know what to make of it. I now want to read the whole book again. With just a handful of words left, this book suddenly becomes an explosively angry condemnation of modern UK governance. It is so simple yet so shocking. I think le Carré is saying that the very essence of Englishness, fair play is now a dead value; the government, the Service is not honest, or trustworthy or deserving of respect. How? Why? And would the modern MI6 really hang out two civilian amateurs to dry like that?

The lesson is, never disregard a le Carré until the last word is spoken.

The Pregnant Widow

Martin Amis

Should you judge an author by their book? Almost certainly not, since anyone writing satire or irony is immediately open to misinterpretation. I believe in the power of imagination and that you don’t have to be a toff to write about the aristocracy, or a collier to write convincingly about life in Wales in the 30s. But below this I comment on Sebastian Faulks being ‘too nice’ to really extract the most dramatic effect from A Week in December, so clearly over a number of books I do reach judgements on a writers’ character. As it happens I suggested that Martin Amis would have been a less nice writer of A Week in December; after reading The Pregnant Widow I endorse my own comments, and increasingly worry about Martin Amis. Why is a man of about my age writing stuff like this?

· Between pages 1 -100 we establish our characters. Keith is a 20 year old boy spending the summer of 1970 in a castle in Italy with his very attractive girlfriend Lily and her friend Scheherazade. Keith is obsessed with Scheherazade’s breasts and there are pages and pages of descriptions of them. Despite fucking Lily every night, Keith is desperate to fuck Scheherazade

· Pages 101-150. Keith continues to be obsessed with Scheherazade’s tits and there are endless pages describing them.

· Pages 151-250. There are various arrivals and departures at the castle, and a lots of sexual encounters. One of the new arrivals is Gloria who has wonderful tits and an amazing arse. There are many pages of description of Gloria’s arse, almost as many as of Scheherazade’s tits. Keith is fascinated by Gloria’s arse, but still obsessed with Scheherazade’s tits.

· Pages 251-350. Keith fucks Gloria! This confuses him. In fact he remains confused for ten years.

· Pages 351-460. We find out what happens to Keith in later years – for instance, he gets to fuck Gloria again 7 years later and turns into a deeply unpleasant person. He also marries three of the women who were in the castle during that holiday.

I have a number of problems with this book. Firstly, nothing happens for hundreds of pages. Secondly, although I like descriptions of sexy girls as much as the next man..... really,do we need quite so many discussions of Scheherazade’s tits and Gloria’s arse? Is it Keith who is obsessed or, as I really think, Mr Amis? Thirdly, I can neither like nor empathise with a single character. They are either complete monsters (Gloria, Keith, Adriano, Rita (called by everyone ‘The Dog’ for heaven’s sake)) or dull (Lily, Scheherazade). They are all too rich, too good looking, too idle and too hypercritical. Keith, Lily and Scheherazade are supposed to be hard left sympathisers! Fifthly, while I know my experiences in Shropshire in 1970, where I was at the age of 17 (not 20), may have been different to that experienced by rich metropolitans, I find no echo of 1970 in this book. Despite his discussion of the sexual revolution (when women could become ‘cocks’) this is a timeless fantasy as far as I can see. Even allowing for wild exaggeration even my most sophisticated or permissive friends were nothing like these people. I just don’t believe them, or their time or their place.

None of which would matter of course if the book provided wonderful entertainment, a few insights into the human condition, pause to think about life and society, its changes its impacts on us or our children. Amis drops in the odd intellectual bit, about Echo and self-love, chunks about Victorian novels (“Clarissa.... 2000 pages for one fuck!”), but it doesn’t really do anything except highlight the banality of the rest of the prose. Amis it seems is still struggling to accept the sexual revolution. He seems to want to revert to ‘simpler times’ when a man’s job was to fuck a woman and her job to make dinner afterwards. There is much agonising about the necessity of sharing domestic roles equally, something Amis through his character seems to think unfathomably appalling.

In the end, however, there is just too much obsession with the bodies of young women; I am not convinced that this is not simply a wet dream written down by a rather unpleasant writer.

Smut

Alan Bennett

Not a great deal to say. Two short novellas from Alan Bennett, featuring middle aged, middle class women desperate to break out, disrupt the humdrum, have adventures and have sex. Decidedly naughty stories, full of wicked humour and laugh-out-loud writing that made it an embarrassing book to read on the sort of commuter route which would be ready material for Bennett’s wit. Nothing new here, and why should there be? Just very funny, razor sharp observation. If you like Bennett, just enjoy....

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel

I seem to have been complaining that novels I have read recently have lacked weight or been slightly unsatisfying. I was wary before starting to read Wolf Hall, the 2009 Booker winner and generally acclaimed by everyone as a great book. Too often I have been disappointed by such hype. However all these fears have been swept away by this monumental work. It is a stunning achievement.

As my novel reading is punctuated these days with reading fairly serious history books, historical fiction is hardly my favourite genre. And yet I have been so captivated by this tale and the way it is written that I have to keep reminding myself that it is fiction; it is utterly convincing and, rightly or wrongly, I feel my understanding of Tudor life has been greatly enhanced. In some way – quite how I haven’t worked out – the dialogue is both clear and yet something makes you always aware that it is not quite contemporary. It is also written in what I can only term aggressive third person. ‘He’ is always Thomas Cromwell, regardless for circumstances. Sometime Cromwell has not been mentioned in a scene but ‘he realised...’ means Cromwell. If I had more time I would be tempted to analyse this very particular writing style.

The story, and what a story it is, is one of social mobility, how an uneducated, unsophisticated boy from a rough and difficult area ran away from a violent father. He subsequently survived in the French army, learned business in Spain and Italy, settled as a merchant in Antwerp before returning to England and rising to become the most powerful man in the country, after the King. Obviously such a journey of social climbing could not happen today, but it could in the 16^th Century. What is more, Tom Cromwell is credited as the architect of the Church of England and the peculiarly English Reformation

Cromwell’s rise is pure meritocracy. He is ferociously clever, but also utterly practical. He speaks a dozen languages, is familiar with the cultures of every country in Europe, is a successful businessman who knows how to negotiate, do deals, make a profit. He is an expert in people, constantly analysing their behaviour, their reactions, looking for strengths and weaknesses. And yet he spends his life with people who could crush him in an instant. That they don’t is because he is too useful, too clever to be discarded.

As Cardinal Wolsey’s main adviser he had a good apprenticeship, but when Wolsey’s failure to negotiate a divorce from Catherine causes his fall from grace, Cromwell, unexpectedly remains loyal. The commoner sticks with his drowning prelate. It seems mad, it seems inexplicable. But for Henry, surrounded by sycophants or powerful Dukes working solely in their own interests, Cromwell’s commonality ie he doesn’t have a son or daughter to promote to the throne, or landed estates to be gained or lost, and his obvious loyalty to his previous master became huge advantages. Tom loses Wolsey and slowly become Henry’s most trusted adviser. Mantel portrays Cromwell’s counsel as robust and harsh. He is no sycophant, but he is, always is very useful, and invariably correct.

Mantel’s portrait of Anne Boleyn is unflattering. Vain, scheming, precocious and arrogant, she is not a very nice person. But for Cromwell there is something he likes about her – her intelligence. For this reason alone he persists with her and becomes a confident to the greatest femme fatale in English history. But not too close. Cromwell plans for the next game and the one after and the one after that...

I could not help but empathise with Cromwell. He is doer who has a finger in everything and a desire to know everything about everything. He loves manipulating events, and actions, changing Europe with his careful hints and promises. One moment talking to the ambassador of the Emperor who would invade in an instant given the opportunity, the next discussing theology with the Archbishop of Canterbury. So Wolf Hall was no let down, but lived up to its hype. A thoroughly enjoyable book, great story superbly written and full of deep historical insights.

But you’ve all read it already, haven’t you?

A Week in December

Sebastian Faulks

This was a highly entertaining read. A sharp, contemporary London-based novel filled with interesting characters and sufficient plot to ensure you keep turning over the pages. The puzzling bit, for me at least, was that this just didn’t seem like a Sebastian Faulks novel.

The conceit is simple, but effective. The action takes place between Sunday December 16^th and Saturday December 22^nd 2007, and all the characters are linked by an invitation to a Saturday night dinner party held by the wife of a newly elected Conservative MP. This allows Faulks to assemble a set of newsworthy stereotypes: the supra-rich Hedge Fund boss, a premiership footballer, an Islamic student on the verge of a terrorist act, a barrister, a porn star....

Like Ordinary Thunderstorms, this strikes me as very much a London book. It is filled with recognisable descriptions of London features. The opening description of Shepherds Bush and the drive to Sophie Topping’s house were perfect descriptions of areas I know well. The concerns were contemporary and metropolitan. As well as the threat of Islam terrorism and radicalised youth, other themes included poor parenting, wealth inequality, reality TV, diets.....

Although there is a huge character list, luckily the story concerns just a few. The Hedge fund manager spends the week planning his coup to take down the World’s major banks, while his son falls deeper into skunk-based psychosis, a Scottish rich young Muslim plans to bomb a hospital, and an unsuccessful barrister falls for his train driving client.

The problem in some ways is that Faulks is too nice a person to write this book. I could imagine A Week in December being written by either Martin Amis or Ian McEwan, and in either case the characters would be nastier, the plots darker, the writing angrier. Even at the end, as Veals declares himself a master of the universe, you know that Faulks actually quite likes him, despite his odious behaviour and total lack of ethics.

Hardly Birdsong, or Charlotte Gray or even The Girl at the Lion d’Or, but a cracking read for all that.

The Windup Girl

Paolo Bacigalupi

Back in the day I used to read an amount of Science fiction, and enjoyed most of it. What I enjoy about SciFi is the way in which it can challenge ideas and assumptions and paint alternative views of how the future could be cast. I always thought Doris Lessing’s decision to turn her back on ‘serious’ fiction in order to write SciFi was a brave and excellent one; And what I have read of the results, far more entertaining than the Golden Notebook! But I can’t remember the last time I read such a work. The Windup Girl was a Christmas present from Matthew, bought because the book was compared to William Gibson, who Matthew really thought I should be reading.

In SciFi the ideas are the important thing and plot second. The key features of my more usual reading – character development and so on = are well down the list. Things have improved over the years; thirty years ago the first few chapters would have set out the world the writer has created, whereas nowadays we have to work it out for ourselves, a more enjoyable process. Bacigalupi’s world is post apocalypse, except now the apocalypse is climatic not nuclear and political. We are 2-300 years in the future. Sea levels have risen and many of the world’s great cities are just a memory. Carbon based power has gone, and the predominant technology is Newtonian kinetic energy. Springs power the world. The other technology that has progressed is genetic engineering, and food sources are all owned by the great Agri-giants, the so called calorie companies that control the nature of the world’s food. Not always successfully, apparently as plagues regularly sweep the world. Buying a fruit you need to see the certificate of purity – although no-one really believes them .

The plot is set in a salvaged Bangkok, in a Thailand that has gone for isolation, keeping out the great Calorie companies and turning its back on the nascent development of world trade. There are factions of course, who support opening the borders, and those who will do anything to stop it. Anderson Lake is spending vast amounts of money building super-springs but is actually an AgriGen executive, waiting for an opportunity to open the borders. The Wind up girl of the title is a Japanese pleasure robot – or she would have been a robot or a replicant in a former generation of books, but now she is a genetic creation, designed to serve rich Japanese, in work, business and pleasure. Illegal in Thailand she is dependent on a patron to pay the bribes that allow her to survive in return for turning very expensive tricks. None of the central characters is particularly sympathetic; power-obsessed executives, fanatics from both sides, military egos looking for wealth and power or gangsters exploiting the poor and vulnerable.

As you might expect, it all comes to a head. The one group who do still have petrol-driven vehicles are the army, and civil war rips the kingdom apart and allows Lake to bring in the Agri-companies militia. The Windup Girl herself manifests her true potential and things do not turn out as you might expect.

An intelligent, well written book with some good ideas of how things could develop given certain set of circumstances. An entertaining read certainly, but I perhaps felt in the end not quite as satisfying as it should have been.

The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes

Jonathon Rose

Amanda has been on at me to read this for ages, and it proved as fascinating to me as she expected. The book charts the history of British working class education, through the autodidactic working class education organisations of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. His main source material is a collection of working class autobiographies, a unique insight into what was really happening to working class education – as opposed to how the educated thought they were! The collected narrative is an uplifting story of extraordinary intellectual achievement on a much wider scale than I was aware of. Particularly in the 19^th century the spread of subscription libraries, mechanics institutes, the easy availability of publications and the emergence of more organised groupings such as the Workers Education Authority spread deeply into the industrial heartlands of the country. We hear tales of philosophical debate in the weaving rooms of Yorkshire, the widespread demand for poets such as Pope in Lancashire, passionate study of literature in Scotland and indiscriminate, idiosyncratic reading by self educated men and women.

The research is never less than rigorous, and the text leans heavily on quotations. He looks at the records of subscription libraries in South Wales, concluding that Marx was perhaps less popular than popular memory might suggest, looks at the reading of the first swathe of Labour MPs and Trade Union leaders, as well as the formative texts of the memoirists. Certain books tower above all others: Pilgrim’s Progress and Robinson Crusoe in particular. Rose points out that it is too easy to assume that readers, particularly ‘uneducated’ readers will take from a book what was intended. So the autodidact might read in Pilgrim’s Progress not the message of Methodism as intended but any number of alternative views of perceiving the deity; indeed, any alternative to the limited discourse allowed in their communities could have a evolutionary affect. Crusoe was leapt upon by all classes as a story of travel and excitement, and was as popular in the Colonies as in England; the colonialist message apparently not occurring to those actually living under its yoke.

The 20^th century sections are dominated by the socialist/communist split. For every Ruskin College there is a Communist alternative, for every Labour leader committed to the education of the Coop there is another from the communist arm. This book at least sees the rigidity of communist ideology, and the excitement of the ‘academic’ questioning as preventing a take-over of the British working class intelligentsia by hard-line Marxists.

The story does have s slightly anticlimactic ending. Post 1944 and the great labour education act, the working classes fall out of love with education. The traditional route of aspiration and betterment ceases to attract people in the way it used to. State sponsored education-for-all effectively stifled the creativity and excitement felt by the early pioneers and gave us an apathetic young working class of low aspiration and ambition.

Solar

Ian McEwan

Had Michael Beard been a fully fledged monster, he would have been considerably less interesting. That his less than a monster, but considerably more than flawed, makes him a finely drawn character. Perhaps Beard is best described as an particularly over-grown schoolboy; he is arrogant and self-centred, incapable of commitment and utterly unable to turn down instant gratification. He is not unaware of the distress his behaviour causes, not unsympathetic to those he causes distress to. He has no intention of hurting those who are close to him (he is close to nobody) but is as incapable of turning down any sexual offer as he is of passing by a meal or an extra glass of scotch. The book portrays his ever expanding girth as well as his phenomenal infidelities. He is also a brilliant scientist and Nobel laureate. And a mess.

If you haven’t read Solaris, you probably know that it is McEwan’s book about climate change and that it is surprisingly funny. In the former it has to be said that it is not about climate change, it is about the loathsome Beard; in fact it is neutral on global warming. In the first half of the book Beard is sceptical of climate change, largely because of his distrust of its champions. In the second half he is a believer, but then his financial schemes now depend on it. When his US business partner starts to worry about the change in public attitude Beard assures him there is no need to worry ‘It will be a catastrophe alright, you needn’t worry.’ Which also illustrates the humour. There are laugh out loud passages – the account of Beard’s interaction with post-modernism in particular, but mostly the humour is of a grotesque nature. Beard is a grotesque, constantly hit by an ironic natural world that combines to make an idiot of him. It is a grim humour that surrounds this brilliant, dislikeable, selfish man.