The Light Between Oceans, by M.L. Stedman. Book review

Doubleday 2012. ISBN 978-0-857-52100-2. 362 pages

The Light Between Oceans is set in Western Australia in 1918–1930 with an epilogue in 1950. All the characters and events are fictional.

Tom Sherbourne, veteran of the First World War, is now keeper of the lighthouse on lonely Janus Rock, situated a hundred miles off the south-western coast of Australia where the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean meet. The steady rhythm of tending to the light begins to heal the scars of war, and when Tom falls in love with the beautiful and lively Isabel and brings her to the island as his wife, their happiness seems complete. But Isabel, who longs for a child, suffers a series of miscarriages, and the repeated tragedies take a heavy psychological toll on her. So when a rowing boat containing a dead man and a healthy baby washes up on Janus, to Isabel it seems like a miraculous answer to her prayers. Tom knows he should report it – somewhere there may be a mother grieving for the lost baby in the boat – but can he bring himself to deprive his beloved Isabel of the child she yearns for?

This book was described to me as ‘a real tear-jerker’ and there are certainly some emotional scenes. I can’t describe the central emotional dilemma without spoilers so I won’t say what happens – only that good people, all acting with good intentions, manage to create a situation that is bound to be heartbreaking for somebody and might well be a tragedy for everybody. At the heart of the novel is the question: given that this impossible situation has arisen, what to do for the best? Readers may not necessarily agree with the various characters’ answers to that question – and indeed some will probably find some of them incomprehensible or even reprehensible. But the novel does an excellent job of making the people and their conflicts feel very real.

All the main characters are fully developed as individuals with their own personalities, their own vulnerabilities, hopes and fears, and a mix of appealing and not-so-appealing characteristics. For example, Isabel’s liveliness, irreverence and youthful enthusiasm make her attractive – I can see why the older and more reserved Tom falls head-over-heels for her – but she also has a childish egotism that leads her to some distinctly unpleasant actions. Tom’s sense of right and duty, and his desire to protect Isabel and make her happy, are appealing, but his half-baked attempts to do the right thing without hurting Isabel seem ill-thought-out at best – it’s clear that he did not intend to be cruel, and yet it’s hard to see what other effect it could have had.

The other characters are equally distinctive, from the captain and crew of the store boat that is the only link between Janus Rock and the mainland to the humane local police sergeant.

Landscapes are also vividly described, from the isolation of Janus Rock surrounded only by ocean and stars to the mainland forests with their populations of exotic birds and animals. Western Australia was totally unknown to me before I started reading this book, so I had only the descriptions on the page to create a picture in the imagination. Readers who know the area will be able to assess whether the descriptions are accurate; all I can say is that they successfully created a ‘virtual world’ to step into. I have no idea whether Janus Rock really exists or not, but it certainly exists within the pages of the novel.

There’s a useful map at the front of the book for readers who, like me, are unfamiliar with the geography of Western Australia. As almost all the events take place either on Janus or in the small mainland town of Partageuse the map isn’t really needed to follow most of the book, though it was useful for me to be able to look up the location of the epilogue.

Compelling tale of people caught in an emotional and moral dilemma of their own making, where there are no easy solutions and no right answers.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith. Book review

Abacus 2008. ISBN 978-0-349-11675-4. 233 pages.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is set in Botswana in the 1990s.  All the characters are fictional.

Mma Precious Ramotswe is the first and only lady detective in Botswana. Having established the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency with a modest legacy from her beloved father Obed, she now sets herself to solving her clients’ problems, large and small. In this she has the help of her secretary, Mma Makutsi, various old friends and acquaintances at the hospital and in the police, and the shy Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, owner of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. But her greatest assets are her own powers of observation, intelligence, and a keen appreciation of the foibles of human nature.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is a highly enjoyable, light, quick read. The book is structured more like a collection of linked short stories than a novel, making it easy to read in short snatches of time. Most of the cases occupy a single chapter, and there are also stories describing Mma Ramotswe’s childhood and her father’s time working in the South African mines. A sweet and understated love story runs through the book as a common thread.

Most of Mma Ramotswe’s cases are human puzzles, rather than serious crimes. Sometimes no crime at all has been committed.  Where crime is involved, it is more likely to be fraud or theft than murder, and when Mma Ramotswe solves the case and confronts the miscreant, matters are usually resolved swiftly and humanely.  Even when darker aspects intrude, such as traditional witchcraft and a potential clash with the local organised crime boss, they do not overshadow the generally wholesome atmosphere.  The most chilling aspect of the novel is the description of Obed Ramotswe’s time in the mines, which is safely in the past.  Readers who expect a mystery novel to be packed with danger and drama may find The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency something of a let-down; conversely, readers who like a tale full of engaging characters and human eccentricity will find much to enjoy.

Botswana is described with great affection. Mma Ramotswe is proud of her country and has a deep love for its landscapes, wildlife and culture (both traditional and modern).  This is all the more effective because the affection does not tip over into sentimentality. The harshness of the dry landscape is recognised as well as its beauty, the very real dangers posed by wildlife such as cobras and crocodiles are accepted, and the drawbacks of traditional culture are acknowledged. For example, Mma Ramotswe recognises that the tradition of supporting relatives is open to abuse by ‘charlatans and parasites’, as she puts it. Women in particular can be appallingly badly treated. The kindly cousin who brings up Mma Ramotswe as a little girl has been abandoned by her first husband in favour of another woman, and then treated as a despised domestic slave by her own mother and grandmother – all of which is accepted as quite normal.  Mma Ramotswe herself has an abusive marriage in her past. The cousin hopes that this state of affairs will change for the better, and takes great care to educate little Precious Ramotswe.  By the time of the novel it is evidently possible for women who have some money of their own to live independently and to own businesses and property, as Mma Ramotswe does, yet it is still accepted as normal for a woman to have her career path blocked regardless of her ability (“I don’t think I can get any higher because all the men are afraid I will make them look stupid,” as one character says).

Characterisation is deft and vivid, with even minor characters given individual personalities in a few bold strokes. As the central character, Mma Ramotswe is described in most detail, with her strong sense of right and wrong, compassion, warmth and shrewd insight into human behaviour. She is not always infallible, though, as demonstrated by the case where she completely (and comically) fails to anticipate the client’s reaction when presented with the requested evidence.

I found it useful to have an atlas to hand to locate the main places mentioned in the text, as there is no map in the paperback.

Enjoyable, warm-hearted collection of tales from the casebook of Botswana’s first lady detective.

Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks. Book review

First published 1993. Edition reviewed, Vintage 2011, ISBN 978-0-099-52838-8. 503 pages.

Birdsong is set in Amiens, northern France, in 1910, on the battleground of the Somme in the First World War in 1916-1919, and in London in 1978-1979. All the main characters are fictional.

In 1910, Stephen Wraysford comes to Amiens to learn about the French textile industry. Staying with a local factory owner, he falls in love with his host’s unhappy wife Isabelle, and they begin an illicit love affair. Six years later, Stephen is a British infantry officer serving in the trenches, and strikes up an unlikely friendship with the men of a tunnelling unit working in his sector of the line. It is early summer in 1916, and the campaign that will become notorious in history as the Battle of the Somme is just about to start. Amid the unimaginable slaughter of industrial warfare, Stephen will find out if he has a reason to keep on living, or if his spirit has been crushed beyond all endurance.

The First World War left an indelible mark on Europe’s history. In England, even a small village will have its war memorial, with the roll-call of the dead from the First World War almost always exceeding that from the Second. Often the names come in heartbreaking clusters of identical surnames where brothers, sons or cousins all fell together, shattering families and communities. Travel through Northern France and the sheer scale of the military cemeteries, accentuated by their stark grandeur, is overwhelming. The Great War, as it was known, is a traumatic background in many a novel written in the decades following, even those that have nothing whatever to do with the war – aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey was traumatised from serving in the trenches, and the Dead Marshes of Lord of the Rings are another incarnation of the flooded shell-holes of the Western Front. And then there are the war poets, whose lines echo down the years to touch the soul.

So I approached Birdsong with some trepidation, hoping it would do justice to such a convulsive event. One reason why it has taken me so long to get around to reading it; I finally thought I should give it a try, since everyone else has. The war sections were the strongest aspect of the novel for me, especially the description of the first day of the Battle of the Somme and the account of the tunnellers, who fought their own private war deep beneath no-man’s land, attempting to drive mines and counter-mines under the opposing trenches. Occasional glimpses of civilian life back in England when the soldiers go home on leave make a powerful contrast with the appalling conditions at the front. Birdsong also gives a strong sense of the ghastly combination of terror and boredom in trench warfare. The book is well worth reading for the war sections alone.

I found the other two strands of the narrative - Stephen’s affair with Isabelle and his grand-daughter Elizabeth searching for information about the war and conducting her own love affair with a married man - less compelling. There are a great many references to ‘flesh and blood’ throughout the novel (it feels like every page), and perhaps these two strands are supposed to form some sort of symbolic parallel between sex (Stephen’s affair), death (the war scenes) and childbirth (Elizabeth’s baby). If so, it seems rather laboured, and may explain why neither of these two plotlines really came alive for me. Another reason may be the characterisation. Stephen is emotionally stunted, having never had anyone to love him as a child, and this gives him a cold, remote quality (even in the middle of a torrid sex scene). His relationship with Isabelle seems to be based on lust rather than love, and Isabelle’s side of the affair is not really explored. Stephen’s later relationship with Isabelle’s sister Jeanne, which is potentially much more interesting, is hardly touched on at all.

Elizabeth is a warmer character than Stephen, although still emotionally detached – she reflects at one point that she may have chosen a married man to fall in love with because she will not be expected to settle down with him and lose her independence. She is so far removed from the other two strands of the novel that it’s difficult to relate her to them, other than perhaps to provide some near-contemporary ‘relevance’ for readers to identify with. (As if readers cannot be expected to be interested in the experience of another time and place for its own sake?).

The writing style reinforces the impression of emotional detachment. It seems consciously ‘literary’, with lots of incidental detail and some nice turns of phrase. The sheer amount of detail makes the book very long; each detail may be telling in itself, but collectively I found they tended to act as a barrier. I always felt I was watching the characters, rather than being drawn into their experiences. This distant style is effective in the war scenes, where the events are moving in their own right. I found it less effective in the love scenes, where it made all the relationships seem distant. Possibly this is another reason why I found the two love narratives less compelling than the war sections.

Powerful description of the human cost of trench and tunnel warfare in the First World War, mixed with two rather less powerful love stories.

The Dig, by John Preston. Book review

Penguin, 2008, ISBN 978-0-141-01638-2. 230 pages

The Dig is set in the summer of 1939 during the discovery and excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship burial. All the main characters are historical figures. Note that the author’s note says that “Certain changes have been made for dramatic effect”, but no further detail is given about what has been changed. Readers looking for an account of the actual excavation should consider themselves warned that they should not treat the novel as fact.

In April 1939, as clouds of imminent war gather over Europe, Mrs Edith Pretty of Sutton Hoo House, Suffolk, asks local archaeologist Basil Brown to excavate the ancient mounds on her land. When Basil unearths the ship-rivets of a magnificent early medieval ship, apparently undisturbed, academics from London and Cambridge promptly descend on the site, all eager to be involved in what promises to be a major discovery. When young Peggy Piggott, newly married to her former professor, discovers the first items of exquisite gold jewellery in the remains of the burial chamber, it becomes clear that this dig will exceed anything that had previously been imagined.

This is a slim volume, more of a novella than a novel, beautifully written in precise, literary prose. Sections are narrated in turn by Edith Pretty, Basil Brown and Peggy Piggott, each with their own distinctive tone. Peggy’s narrative in particular captures some of the wonder and awe inspired by the discovery of the burial; however, for the most part the ship burial is a backdrop for the characters’ emotions and relationships. Each character has their own concerns and preoccupations, and these form the main focus of the novel. Edith Pretty, widowed, lonely, in failing health and seeking solace in spiritualism, is increasingly anxious about her young son Robert and her ability to be a satisfactory mother to him. Peggy Piggott is intelligent and sensitive, and already uncomfortably aware that her marriage to her former university professor is in trouble, even though they are still on their honeymoon. She is at a loss as to why, or what to do about it, and even more uncertain about how she should react to Mrs Pretty’s nephew Rory, who is turning out to be something of a kindred spirit. Basil Brown, despite being “a tough old bird” for whom “it takes a lot to ruffle my feathers”, resents the high-handed manner in which he is pushed aside by the bombastic academic who muscles in on the excavation. All these contrasting people are brought together by the discovery of the ship, which holds its own significance and resonance for each of them.

The style is understated, and much is hinted at and left to the reader’s imagination. Expect to have to read between the lines and to be alert for small clues. In particular, the conflict between the academics, the Ipswich Museum staff and Mrs Pretty over who gets to run the excavation almost all happens off-stage. There are a few hints in Basil Brown’s narrative, but surprisingly little sense of the professional rivalries and passions that must surely have run high over such an important discovery.

An epilogue, narrated by Edith Pretty’s son Robert, gives the endings to most of the characters’ stories, although questions still remain.

Short, light, literary interpretation of some of the people involved in the discovery of the Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939.

East of the Sun, by Julia Gregson. Book review

Edition reviewed: Touchstone 2008, ISBN 978-1-4391-0112-4. 587 pages. Review copy kindly provided by publisher.

East of the Sun is set in British India in 1928-1930. All the main characters are fictional.

In 1928, three contrasting young women board the Kaisar-i-Hind steamer, travelling from England to Bombay. Rose, aged 19, is going out to marry her fiancee, an army officer she has met only a few times. Her friend Victoria (Tor), about the same age, is ostensibly going as Rose’s bridesmaid but really with the firm intention of finding a husband in India and never, ever going back to her fussy and restrictive mother. Tor is part of the “Fishing Fleet”, the slightly disparaging contemporary slang term for the young upper-class women who go to India to look for a husband after having failed to land one during the London Season. Viva, aged 25, is theoretically chaperoning Rose and Tor, together with a disturbed teenage boy, Guy Glover, who has been expelled from his boarding school in England and is returning to his parents in India. Viva herself lived in India as a child, and is returning for the first time since her parents’ death to collect a trunk of their belongings and – hopefully – to make a new life for herself there after a disastrous love affair in England. All three women will find that India changes their lives for ever, although not always in the ways they expect.

East of the Sun is essentially three interlocking romantic storylines, one for each of the three female leads. Rose already has a husband lined up; Tor is desperately looking for one; Viva thinks she doesn’t want or need one. Their romantic adventures and misadventures, and the developing bond of friendship between them, form the core of the novel. A rather half-hearted political sub-plot pops up out of almost nowhere and vanishes again without being fully resolved, and there are occasional mentions of Gandhi, the independence movement, riots and demonstrations, but the tremendous political and social forces changing India are essentially a backdrop to the girls and their relationships. If you want to understand the political changes that ended the Raj in India, Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet is among the best I’ve read. If you want to imagine what it might have been like to be an upper-class girl with a restricted education trying to make a life in an exotic country halfway across the world from home, East of the Sun gives you three to choose from.

Rose, a soldier’s daughter marrying a soldier, shows the British military perspective, struggling to keep the lid on random violence along the wild and dangerous North-West Frontier. Tor, staying with the glamorous and malicious socialite Ci Ci Mallinson, shows us the brittle luxury of Bombay high society. Viva, working in a children’s home in a poor suburb of Bombay to earn money after Guy Glover has cheated her out of her chaperone’s salary, shows the perspective of the independent working woman and gives a glimpse into the poverty of the Bombay slums. All three women have their own challenges to overcome. Rose has to find out if she can build a successful relationship with a man she barely knows. Tor, eager and naïve, is like a hopeful puppy gambolling after new experiences and opportunities, but her openness leaves her vulnerable to hurt. Viva, the opposite of Tor in many ways, is detached and self-contained, emotionally traumatised by the deaths of her parents and sister when she was a child and on the run from an exploitative love affair. She has to find the courage to confront and come to terms with her past before she can build a future. Their contrasting experiences, the interactions between the three girls and the characters around them, and their developing friendship for each other, form the main strengths of the novel.

One interesting feature is the contrast between the three girls’ hopes and ambitions. Viva and some of the secondary characters, such as Daisy Barker, are trying to make independent lives and to earn their own livings within the limited opportunities open to women. Rose and Tor, by contrast, would not be out of place in Jane Austen’s world; their lives will be shaped entirely by the marriages they will make or fail to make.

East of the Sun is lavish on descriptive detail and rather chattery conversations, especially in the first half of the book while the main characters are on the ship to India. As a result, the book is long - very long – and slow-paced. I often felt that it had taken pages and pages to get nowhere very much. Readers who love detailed descriptions of exotic places and customs will find much to enjoy; others may find the novel too slow and drawn-out. The author says in the question-and-answer interview at the back of the book that she found it frustrating to be unable to include the political turmoil of the time because her three heroines wouldn’t have had much knowledge or understanding of it; no doubt this is true, though it could surely have been solved if desired by introducing another viewpoint character who did.

Curiously, despite its length, the novel skips over some major events in the characters’ lives and some of the plot threads are never resolved. Tor’s whirlwind romance (so unlikely that I wonder if it is based on a real event, truth being stranger than fiction) is disposed of in a page or two with hardly anything to show her feelings. We never see the point of view of the handsome and intelligent young doctor Frank, though I found him an interesting character and would have liked to see more of him. Tor’s story and Viva’s are completed by the end of the book, but Rose is left with a lot of rather unsatisfactory unanswered questions. Guy Glover’s role in the novel is the most unsatisfying. He exhibits symptoms that would now be considered suggestive of schizophrenia (a new concept at the time, according to the novel), and pops in and out of the narrative at intervals to wreck Viva’s plans. His malevolent actions do act as a plot catalyst forcing Viva into important decisions, but his story just stops without being properly resolved, which I found disappointing.

An interesting question-and-answer interview at the back of the book discusses some of the influences and sources for the novel, and a helpful map at the front is invaluable for following the geography. A glossary of Hindi terms might have been handy, but they are almost always clear from the context so its absence is no great problem.

Lavish, detailed and very long romantic story about the developing friendship between three young English women in British India.

The Crooked Cross, by Michael Dean. Book review

Disclaimer: The Crooked Cross is published by Quaestor2000 who have also published my novel Paths of Exile, although I don’t think that has influenced my opinion.

Edition reviewed: Quaestor2000, 2009, ISBN 978-1-906836-13-9. 191 pages.

Set in Munich in 1933, The Crooked Cross tells the story of a disparate group of people attempting to resist Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. Senior figures in the Nazi hierarchy, such as Heydrich, Hess and of course Hitler himself, appear as secondary characters. Two of the main characters, the lawyer Glaser and the police superintendent Forster, are historical figures about whom little detail is known. The other main characters are fictional.

Adolf Hitler has just become Chancellor of Germany, and his National Socialist (Nazi) party is steadily increasing its control over all aspects of life. Disagreement is already becoming dangerous, liable to result in punishment beatings, destruction or appropriation of property, imprisonment without trial, or worse. Gerhard Glaser, a lawyer and Public Prosecutor, views the ever-increasing power of the party with concern. Two years previously his attempt to investigate the death of Hitler’s niece, Geli Raubal, was frustrated by an obvious cover-up, and Glaser believes that Hitler was responsible for her death. His failure to obtain justice in that case still haunts him, and when a Jewish art dealer is murdered and the contents of his safe stolen Glaser finds himself embroiled in another unsavoury political cover-up that reaches to the top of the Nazi hierarchy. As his attempts to investigate get him into deeper and deeper trouble, Glaser comes into contact with a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. Now he is faced with a terrible choice – accept that the rule of law no longer runs in Germany, or try to take matters into his own hands….

The Crooked Cross provides an excellent – and disturbing – portrait of a society’s slide into totalitarian rule. As democratic and judicial institutions are systematically undermined, to be replaced by an arbitrary and increasingly brutal autocracy, ordinary people find their lives progressively constrained. Rival political parties are banned. Journalists who ask too many awkward questions are thrown out of a job, exiled or simply disappear. Even art is controlled, with art forms such as Expressionism condemned as “degenerate” or “un-German” and their practitioners persecuted. Individuals or groups (including, but not only, Jews) who meet with the capricious disfavour of the authorities may find their property confiscated and their livelihoods destroyed. The law becomes gradually demoted to a tool of oppression, to be used as suits the whim of the new tyrants, large and small. Having done nothing wrong is no defence.

Against this background, Glaser’s journey takes on a there-but-for-the-grace-of-god poignancy. Glaser is no political fanatic, but a decent and honest man who believes in the rule of law. Many readers may well find themselves wondering how they would have acted in his situation. The choices he is faced with – in particular, whether to risk his family’s safety for his principles – make him a compelling character. Glaser contrasts well with the other members of the conspiracy, such as the committed communist Sepp Kunde and the aristocratic socialites Ello von Hessert and her unstable brother Rudiger. The von Hesserts move in exalted circles (Ello is effectively Hitler’s girlfriend for most of the book), with all the privilege that implies. Whereas for Glaser and his family the potential danger is all too real.

The novel isn’t a thriller as such, but nevertheless the plot manages to maintain a high degree of tension. Rather like The Day of the Jackal, the reader may know the outcome perfectly well, but the characters don’t. While immersed in the world of the novel, I found myself suspending disbelief and hoping that the conspiracy would succeed and events would somehow all turn out differently. It’s a considerable skill in historical fiction to make known events – especially events as well known as Hitler’s career – seem open to possibility, and The Crooked Cross succeeds admirably.

All the plot threads are resolved either by the end of the novel or in the Epilogue, including the solution to the art dealer’s murder and the fates of the central characters. A helpful Historical Note explains the underlying history and the liberties taken, and sets out which characters are fictional and which based on real figures. A map would have been useful, but it’s not difficult to consult a modern atlas to find out where the various towns and cities are.

Thought-provoking novel charting a disturbing period in recent history.


More information on the novel and the historical background on the author’s website.