JFDI BOOK #58 TRUE HISTORY OF NED KELLY REVIEW

 

REVIEW BY TOM WELLS
 
True History of the Kelly Gang—Peter Carey won his second Booker Prize in four years for this long,dusty journey through late 19 th C. Australia, a curious choice in any year but especially one that included Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” and David Mitchell’s “number9dream”. It’s not that the book is lacking in considerable merit: excellently written (if annoyingly punctuated); exhaustively researched; and impressively specific. But it’s the last merit that is its chief de-merit, because about two-thirds through the saga the reader begins to suffer from detail overload, as Ned and his gang of well-drawn, highly individual characters do a seemingly endless loop between jail, hideout and Mom’s house. But the
growing feeling of disinterest is nothing compared to the giant letdown of the denouement. Since all but the final chapter is in the form of a diary that Ned has kept for his daughter, it would be tough for him to write about the end of his short, violent days. Still, the authorial decision to change from Ned’s gritty, funny, punchy prose to the formal, wordy, soulless account of a newspaper columnist is the dampest of squibs. After a 500-page ride, the reader deserves better.
* * * *

JFDI BOOK #59: REVIEW OF IF ONLY THEY DIDN'T SPEAK ENGLISH

 

 

 

Review by Tom Wells

 

 

If Only They Didn’t Speak English—Jon Sopel has been the BBC’s North American editor since 2014, a stretch that has enabled him to witness up close and personal the most wrenching political transition to the ethos of e pluribus unum since the Civil War. His book tries to make sense of what to fellow Brits must look like wildly contradictory impulses of the American character—the simple willingness to help a neighbor versus the cynical mistrust of government beyond the community; the embrace of free enterprise to the extent it is literally hazardous to one’s health; the pious belief in the power of 21st C. technology to solve most problems and a vaguely worded amendment to an 18th C. Constitution to solve the others. The result is a well-written collection of anecdotes, experiences and observations backed up by cherry-picked incidents and statistics in an effort to be village-green middling. 

* * *

REVIEW OF #57 OLD FILTH

LIKE A FAVOURITE WOOLEN PULLOVER WITH HOLES IN THE ELBOWS

Don’t be seduced by the title. It has nothing to do with Ancient Porn. Though of course there is the obligatory sex, though this time a post-war liaison with a Bletchley Park lesbian, befriending an old enemy, and a barren marriage. No, this is about England. Not the stylised version of a green and pleasant land, but of the emotionally stunted orphan refugees of the Raj, of the war, of drafty public schools, of poor food, poor teeth, and a weekly bath, if lucky. Of the Inner Temple. And Malaya. And Hong Kong (hidden in the title, but I won’t ruin it for you.) Of how it was. For a man with a long life, a stammer, and a secret. The writing is spare and delectable. It would have been perfect to read curled up in front of a fire. But even though it is summer, it is still England, and in between a heat wave there are ample opportunities to gratefully put on this old pullover with the holes in the elbows and hunker down. 

5 stars

ERIC

JFDI BOOK #57 OLD FILTH JANE GARDAM

OLD FILTH

Jane Gardam

Old Filth tells the storied past of a judge with a long past emblematic of the British Emire

JFDI BOOK #56 THE WORLD IN 100 OBJECTS

A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 100 OBJECTS

Neil Ferguson

100 objects from the British Museum which tell a story of civilisations

JDI BOOK #55 THE FERRYMAN Jez Butterworth

The Ferryman

Jez Butterworth

The past resurfaces literally in a Northern Irish family during the Troubles

REVIEW OF #54 SURFACE DETAIL

FROM TOM 

I can’t vouch for Books 1 through 8 of Iain M. Banks’s Culture Series but by Book 9 it’s anything goes. A spaceship has an avatar whose idea of a character test is elevator surfing.  Of course.  A protagonist dies in Chapter One but rises from the grave in Chapter Four because a mysterious stranger once slipped her a neural lace which she eschews in her resurrected form because now she actually is risking her life for some reason that can only be down to narrative tension in pursuit of the former slave master who killed her for what has turned out to be a short while.  Naturally.  Or is it virtually? Like the world Captain Vatueil occupies in which he tunnels beneath a besieged castle before being captured, tortured and killed as part of another character test. Really? Certainly not as real as Pavulean Hell, a place of never-ending misery that makes Hieronymus Bosch’s “Last Judgment” look like Constable’s “The Hay Wain”, specifically for two investigative, dual-snouted quadrupeds intent on exposing to the outside world the endless Promethean tortures inflicted on the wicked.   

I wrote the previous paragraph after reading the first hundred pages of SURFACE DETAIL and thinking it was a dog’s dinner thrown against a wall of week-old pizza. I mean, spaceships with comma-infested names? Was that so they’d sound the way William Shatner would pronounce them? By page 200 I just wanted to get through the book as quickly as possible before any more characters of grotesque physiognomy, vocabulary or morality were introduced. I was speeding to the end of a thoroughly dissatisfying read when the character Yime Nsokyi reappeared after a 100-page or so absence and I thought, Remind me, why in the name of Pavulean Heaven is she pursuing main character Lededje across the galaxy? And through the magic of the Kindle “Search” option I not only found the answer to my question but also just about every other one I had about this book (pages 165 to 179 in case you’re interested).

And then the scales fell from my eyes. In an instant, what had seemed like a mish-mash of indecipherable, apathy-inspiring gobble-di-gook made sense, and I thought, Wow, this is one impressive achievement of created world and plot intricacy.

FOUR STARS

JFDI BOOK #54 SURFACE DETAIL Iain M. Banks

SURFACE DETAIL

Iain M. Banks

Ninth in a series of sci-fi alternative views of the universe where death is a reboot.

REVIEW OF THE OLD DEVILS #53

TOM’S REVIEW

THE OLD DEVILS by Kingsley Amis

A famous late 20th C. Welsh poet, Alun Weaver, after a lengthy stay abroad, returns to the bosoms of both a land and a group of friends with which/whom he has a fraught relationship. The opinion of 83% of JFDI members pretty much mirrors that of the character Charlie Norris, whom Alun asks to review his initial stab at writing a novel: “I read twenty pages carefully, then skipped to the end.”

Kingsley Amis won a Booker Prize and a gushing review from his writer son Martin for a novel of manners about a month or so in the life of twelve sexegenarians (more or less) whose common bonds are sex, booze and regret. Like the best of Henry James, THE OLD DEVILS reads like a play with clever and demanding prose. Unlike any Henry James I’ve read, there isn’t a single character you don’t want to beat the living shit out of. 

Which means, if you read it for story and character, you want to bin it after twenty pages, let alone skip to the end. And if you read it for style, passages like “He had seen a good deal of that sort of glance at school, where he had been bullied more than his fair share for a boy not undersized, foreign or feeble…” or “there is a Welsh word truth, same word, spelt the same anyhow, and it means falsehood” make you want to hang in there.

Ultimately, this is a work by a writer about a writer, which may be why the writer Martin Amis , aside from wanting back in the will, called it a book that “stands comparison with any English novel of the century” . Mind you, he didn’t say what comparison. 

3.5 stars

ERIC’S REVIEW

A word to the wise. Never read a book where the most glowing report comes from the author’s son.

Like having your teeth pulled by a long-winded dentist with palsy and halitosis. The best part about this book was that it ended, eventually. 

Not with a bang (though the main character Alun popped his clogs in one of the most matter-of-fact banal life-endings ever) but with a whimper. 

Nope, I cannot agree with my learned friend Tom that this book made it above the mediocre. 

Booker, schmooker. 

2 stars. (Because I like it when the Real Welsh Sing Land of My Fathers at the Millennium, nothing to do with old farts getting drunk at the squash club and banging each other’s wives)

JFDI BOOK #53 THE OLD DEVILS Kingsley Amis

THE OLD DEVILS

Kingsley Amis

 

 

A word to the wise. Never read a book where the most glowing report comes from the author’s son.

Booker, schmooker.

 

1.58 stars/5

JFDI'S FIRST REMOTE

 Corona be damned. JFDI (amending its moniker slightly to Just F***** Dial In), had its first remote meeting on Google Hangouts. Aside from a substantial technical issue (Tom could be seen and not heard...come to think of it not such a bad thing hahaha) the meeting was lively, resulting in the second highest rating ever.  Including a digital show of hands (below)

And we have a transcript of Tom’s interventions below. 

Corona be damned. But I repeat myself. 

4.9 btw. (Minus our postal vote Alastair). 

JFDI FOREVER! 

TOM’S WORDS

Unknown Senderi just skyped at 5 pm and microphone was no prob

6:57 PM

Unknown Senderwhere am i looking

6:58 PM

Unknown Senderblack

6:58 PM

Thomas Wellsthe speakers work!

7:02 PM

Thomas Wellsive tried all forms of reboot and none work

7:03 PM

Thomas Wellsim prepping for the end of the world

7:03 PM

Thomas Wellsis there any evidence its happening

7:03 PM

Thomas Wellsi like the book a lot. well written page turner

7:04 PM

Thomas Wellsi'm surprised that time mag named tara westover one of the 100 most influential of 2018 but its still a powerful tale

7:05 PM

Thomas Wellsshawn wants you to punch him

7:06 PM

Thomas Wellsa classic!

7:06 PM

Thomas Wellshey, toms still here!

7:06 PM

Thomas Wellsshe says at the end that the family has bifurcated into those who went to college asnd those who didnt. that defines many divides in america today

7:08 PM

Thomas Wellsthe harvets

7:09 PM

Thomas Wellsis biall listening

7:10 PM

Thomas Wellsniall

7:10 PM

Thomas Wellsbeyond the obvious abuse, one of the subtly horrible things about Gene was how he would allow some freedom to Tara and then close it down

7:12 PM

Thomas Wellsthere was also the freedom he gave to Tyler and the oldest brother but so much less to Tara and Audrey. Not surprising but still disturbing.

7:14 PM

Thomas Wellsone of the upsetting things for me is how much support from the community this family got, especially after the business took off. People at church knew about the abuse and the damage done to the children but allowed it to persist.

7:17 PM

Thomas Wellsgo see the play book of mormon

7:17 PM

Thomas Wellsthere are sects of the mormons that are extreme. the daanites were a nasty offshoot in the 19th c that informs Gene.

7:18 PM

Thomas Wellsi agree with philip. this is about extremism of any strip.

7:20 PM

Thomas Wellsno

7:21 PM

Thomas Wellsgreat recommendation

7:22 PM

Thomas Wellswhat she got from her family is a work ethic

7:23 PM

Thomas Wellsshe also was raised to put all energy into a task and see it to completion. i think she gave her mother a much easier ride than i would have mine.

7:24 PM

Thomas Wellsand did

7:24 PM

Thomas Wellsshawn, be war

7:25 PM

Thomas Wellsbeware

7:25 PM

Thomas Wellsgoosebumps

7:26 PM

Thomas Wellsits called the dead souls

7:28 PM

Thomas Wellsthis book was recommended by three different people in the u with very different taste

7:29 PM

Thomas Wellsthe us

7:29 PM

Thomas Wellsim going for wine

7:30 PM

Thomas Wellsthere aremany great things about this book but the best may be that we proved that jfdi abides in a post apocalyptic world

7:32 PM

Thomas Wellsphilip, read oryk and crake as proof of how defiant we are

7:32 PM

Thomas Wellscatalytic converter

7:33 PM

Thomas Wellsreimagine this, buddy

7:33 PM

Thomas Wellsread the dead souls. youll LOVE it

7:34 PM

Thomas Wellsstop at one phil

7:35 PM

Thomas Wellsi read it. not as good as dead souls

7:36 PM

Thomas Wellsass

7:37 PM

Thomas Wellsto throw at john preston

7:37 PM

Thomas Wellsitaly is in much worse shape and no hoarding is happening

7:38 PM

JFDI #51 THE TOPEKA SCHOOL Ben Lerner

THE TOPEKA SCHOOL

Ben Lerner

JFDI #52 EDUCATED Tara Westover

EDUCATED-Tara Westover

An astounding journey of escape, discovery and development. 

REVIEW OF STORIES OF YOUR LIFE

TOM’S REVIEW

All head and no heart. That's Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others. Cerebral, meticulous and challenging, for sure. Original, philosophical and even spiritual, yep. Moving, emotive and poignant, nuh-uh.  

If I had one word to describe this collection of seven stories written over the course of twenty years it would be "detached". One of the recurring themes that Chiang explores--you could say it's the primary one--is how language connects not just humanity with itself but also with AI and ETs. But Chiang's lexicon centres on words such as gestalt and logogram and teleological and eunonym and hermeneutics, not exactly quotidian idiom.  "Coca-cola, ok" it ain't.  

And maybe that's the point. Maybe Ted Chiang is the forerunner of Yuval Noah Harari, describing worlds in which you up your brain or get left behind. Or, if you fall prey to such sloppy sentiment as undying love, an eternity in Hell. 

3.77629 stars

Written in the Gatwick departure lounge. Radios, amigo. 

50th COMMEMORATIVE DINNER

Eight years. 50 books. Laughs and tears. Well done, JFDI confreres. 

Once a JFDI, always a JFDI.