Currently listening to the audio book of The Man With the Golden Typewriter, the collection of Ian Fleming's letters. Fascinating stuff - Fleming's correspondence (and the amounts of money involved) are amusingly different to my own experience as an author! Very well narrated by Julian Rhind-Tutt.
This is a documentary about two teenage girls of Somali decent who ran away from Norway in 2013 to join IS in Syria. They didn't live in a ghetto, they weren't poor, they were doing really well at school and their parents are moderate muslims. The method used by the writer is called "litterally journalism". She interviews sources and gathers facts, then she writes in a style close to a novel. This makes the book engaging and easy to read. Åsne Seierstad is a leading writer internationally in this genere and has recieved very good reviews. Her brakethrough book, "The bookseller of Kabul" was translated into 40 languages and remained on New York Times bestselger list a whole year. Her next book ("One of us", about the Utøya terrorist) was ranked as one of the ten most important books in 2015 by NYT. The core question in "Two sisters" is how they became radicalized. The book also gives a quick overview of how ISIS grew and life inside IS. Highly reccomend!
This time it's more a case of "book I will read as soon as it gets published", really.
Jo Nesbø is already writing the next Harry Hole novel. It's a direct sequel to "Thirst" and the title is "Kniv" (meaning "knife").
millennium II & millennium III (the Girl who Played with Fire/the Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest) - Stieg Larsson.
Finally finished the trilogy after reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Fantastic books (all three of them). Very long but well worth it and a whole range of characters who you like/dislike. The tension does build nicely and are fast page turners - that's how I saw them anyway. Watched the mini-series from Sweden as soon as I finished the books - also excellent but in my opinion the books are better than the films. Then again with me that is 95% the case with every book/film comparison.
Yes - definitely a high recommendation for both. -{
"Everyone knows rock n' roll attained perfection in 1974; It's a scientific fact". - Homer J Simpson
I started reading "Underground railway" by Colson Whitehead. As the title suggest, the novel is set in the south of the US before the civil war. A young female slave runs away to find freedom in the north using the smugling network called the underground railroad. Idealist called Station Masters used cellars etc as Station for runaway slaves to hide and rest. Then they sent the refugees walking to the next Station.The book seemed promising until she reaches the network - that turns out to be an ACTUAL underground railroad! )
You know, a full-size train on tracks running underground. The tunnels were dug out by escaped slaves, running under several states, even with side track branching out to neighbouring states. "The steam was problematic for a while, but we found a solution!"
In one chapter the story goes from horrowing historical drama to a steampunk adventure in the style of Jules Verne. Sigh.....
Currently reading "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why" by Laurence Gonzales
"After her plane crashes, a seventeen-year-old girl spends eleven days walking through the Peruvian jungle. Against all odds, with no food, shelter, or equipment, she gets out. A better-equipped group of adult survivors of the same crash sits down and dies. What makes the difference?"
A very compelling read, I recommend it highly!
"I mean, she almost kills bond...with her ass."
-Mr Arlington Beech
"Prisoners of geography: Ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics" by Tim Marshall
This is a book that takes the long view on world history and conflict and how geography influences different regions and nations. Geography can (up to point) explain things like why China and India hardly ever goes to war against each other and why Africa remains economically underdeveloped. If you want to get a better understanding of the world in under 300 pages you should read this book.
"Prisoners of geography: Ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics" by Tim Marshall
This is a book that takes the long view on world history and conflict and how geography influences different regions and nations. Geography can (up to point) explain things like why China and India hardly ever goes to war against each other and why Africa remains economically underdeveloped. If you want to get a better understanding of the world in under 300 pages you should read this book.
this sounds like the sort of non-fiction I like, I shall look out for it.
Have you read Jared Diamond, who explains the rise and fall of civilizations as a function of the limiting factors off geography? Guns Germs and Steel, and Collapse are the two I've read, and I think he's written a couple since. He's a biogeographer, so there's a lot about epidemiology, genetics, biodiversity and climate change in his books.
I liked the suggested Bond-plot based on this book you suggested elsewhere.
The book reminded me too of Jarod Diamond, who I have read. Thank you for your kind words about my plot idea, I think it would offer something origional and very Bondian at the same time.
I am back on Flashman, this time it's Flashman in the Great Game.
This one is based around the 1856 Indian Mutiny.
I went off Flashman because I chose to read the books not in the order of publication, but chronological order - the author George Macdonald Fraser later jumped back in time to fill us in on some other Flashy exploits, sort of a bit like Bond author Anthony Horovitz. This was a mistake because a) Flashman and the Redskins - while excellent for a while - has our 'hero' carry out a really quite nasty misdeed that alienates any kind of sneaking sympathy for him, it's sociopathic really, so I totally went off him and b) The narrative then flashes forwards a few decades to a point one supposes where he gets his later comeuppance from earlier incident, but I felt I was bypassing all the other adventures. So the book was chronological at the start, but not later on if you see what I mean.
Great Game reads very well and is a great romp, though it helps to read it but a few months after the previous one.
The Silent Corner. Dean Koontz. Masterful writer of conspiracy suspense. Top marks. Excellent world jeopardy plot/cabal threat with FBI agent burrowing her way into the hidden lair. Koontz would write an excellent Bond novel.
I am back on Flashman, this time it's Flashman in the Great Game.
by coincidence I'm in the middle of a Flashman adventure too, Flashman and the Mountain of Light.
I finally found the last two, Flashman and the Tiger and Flashman on the March. I'm disappointed because they are both larger trade paperbacks, inconsistent with the fat pocketbook format of all the earlier ones. Were these two not published in the earlier, once standard paperback dimensions? I know they are relatively recent, so maybe the old format hasn't been used by any publisher in years?
I went off Flashman because I chose to read the books not in the order of publication, but chronological order - the author George Macdonald Fraser later jumped back in time to fill us in on some other Flashy exploits, sort of a bit like Bond author Anthony Horovitz. This was a mistake because a) Flashman and the Redskins - while excellent for a while - has our 'hero' carry out a really quite nasty misdeed that alienates any kind of sneaking sympathy for him, it's sociopathic really, so I totally went off him
I'm always disappointed when hundreds of pages go by and he doesn't do anything nasty. He's supposed to be the school bully grown up, a coward and a liar and a scoundrel and a rogue and a bounder and a cad, yet in the later books Fraser seems to forget Flashman's true character in favour of telling an exciting adventure. So for me, the deal Flashy makes to escape his American marriage and hopefully begin his return to England elicited a cheer: "hooray, Flashman is once again despicable!"
otherwise, I start thinking he is not really any more cowardly than any other sensible soldier … part of his schtick is that he hides his fear and his peers mistake that for bravery and reward him, but doesn't everybody do that, except maybe the truly psychopathic? so we need those truly despicable deeds at least once every book to prove his cowardice is something beyond common sense reaction to circumstances.
Ever read Catch-22? that's the catch: you can only be excused from duty if you're insane, but if you're too scared to fly any more missions that proves you are in fact perfectly sane and therefor must keep flying.
...and b) The narrative then flashes forwards a few decades to a point one supposes where he gets his later comeuppance from earlier incident, but I felt I was bypassing all the other adventures. So the book was chronological at the start, but not later on if you see what I mean.
Great Game reads very well and is a great romp, though it helps to read it but a few months after the previous one.
In the case of that book you should have put it down at the halfway mark and returned to where you've left off once you'd finished all the others that happen in between.
If I read this table in Wikipedia correctly, the 2nd half of Flashman and the Redskins takes place in between the final two books.
As the table gives the page counts, I notice ...Redskins is almost twice as long as any of the others, so maybe its best to think of it as two separate adventures published as one volume (or "packet" as the "editor" keeps referring to them).
For me, I quite enjoyed the surprise return of a certain character from the first half. I literally did not recognise said character until the big reveal, yup, so it was an effective whallop from the storyteller, and Flashy did get what was coming to him as consequence of his earlier misdeed.
A lot of the best plot twists come from some character recognising Flashy for some insult years earlier, and humiliating him in front of all his high-ranking admirers. So he has to have committed some truly unforgivable misdeeds in his past for that trick to work.
Do you find reading them according to internal chronology that Fraser keeps all the details straight? Flashman in his trains of thought keeps reminiscing about lists of names and events in his life, some of which we have already seen, some of which presumably are to come, and Fraser must make it more complicated for himself by skipping back and forth in time to insert previously untold tales.
I've read pretty much everything Beevor has written and I'll read this one too. Arne reminds me of a story my platoon commander told us:
When he was at the officer school ("Krigsskolen") they went to the Netherlands to do the Nimjegen march. One time Krigsskolen marched past a delegation from the US Marines. My platoon commander shouted to them: "Do you wanna hear the American national anthem?!"
They did.
He started signing the theme tune from the Coka Cola commercials.
"Do you wanna hear the NEW American national anthem?!"
They didn't.
He started signing the song from the Diet Coke commercials.
Then he ran )
I've read pretty much everything Beevor has written and I'll read this one too. Arne reminds me of a story my platoon commander told us:
When he was at the officer school ("Krigsskolen") they went to the Netherlands to do the Nimjegen march. One time Krigsskolen marched past a delegation from the US Marines. My platoon commander shouted to them: "Do you wanna hear the American national anthem?!"
They did.
He started signing the theme tune from the Coka Cola commercials.
"Do you wanna hear the NEW American national anthem?!"
They didn't.
He started signing the song from the Diet Coke commercials.
Then he ran )
)
The only work of Beevor's I struggled with, and didn't finish, was his book about the Spanish Civil War although I believe it's been updated and might be worth another go.
Hi Mr Potts, your post is very much what I was going to say in my update upon finishing Flashman and the Great Game.
It's a great read, Fraser went on to help pen Octopussy and one set piece action scene and the dynamic of the villainy put one in mind of the film too. Jordan of course would have been a great Count Ignieoff or whatever his name is, okay, not really but it seems his character was modelled on him. There's the Russian involvement in the background with both Great Game and OP.
But yes, Flashman is close to a conventional hero in this. It may be that Fraser wanted to do the horror of the Indian mutiny justice and not have Flashy unaffected by it, but yes, despite the author's best efforts to emphasise how cowardly and reluctant his anti-hero is when pressed into battle, the fact that he does it anyway crafts him into a hero nonetheless, he certainly has capability, luck and derring do, all heroic attributes. As you say Potts, much of it is what any soldier in the field would feel, it is argued that to feel cowardice and go ahead and do it anyway is the definition of bravery. Of course to be fair all this was at odds with the myth of imperialistic gung-ho antics of the time.
You almost wonder if Flashy isn't playing up to his myth as he writes it, emphasising his reluctance. It could be that his conventional heroics build us up to the last-page reveal where it all comes crashing down, but I'm not sure that's deliberate.
Flashy even seems to fall for the lady in this, but for much of this book I was expecting something to pan out that never did, a final confrontation. He does a very decent thing at the end.
Generally I enjoy Flashy's wickedness, it is only in that particular book Redskins that I took exception to what he did to somebody, because it seemed a) calculated and b) a massive betrayal and c) liable to completely wreck their life rather than be brushed off.
West is too old surely. An Errol Flynn type would be good.
But budget would be a problem with such a series.
And a lot of the enjoyment comes from Fraser's footnotes, making it clear (sometimes with a tad too much self regard perhaps) just how closely the events described matches the historical record. That is lost when you film the books as one romp after another.
He's the right age for some of the Flashman. I agree that the footnotes is an important part of the novels and the level of historical accuracy is impressive. This can't be included in a mini-series, but the boks a re so colourful, funny and action-packed they will be good TV without them. The budget will be high, but series like Vikings, GoT and The Crown cost 5-15 millions for each episode. That's enough to make a Flashman series, especially because of CGI.
I've been reading the astonishingly prescient A Very British Coup by Chris Mullen.
Published in 1983, it basically anticipates the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, even the method by which he is made Labour leader. The 'what if' story documents what might happen if a Labour 'extremist' (though he actually seems a pretty basic, decent bloke) were to actually win power and become Prime Minister, and how the Establishment would react and secretly pull strings to bring him down.
I've got hold of a library copy and at the end of it someone (not me) has scrawled in red biro "Good luck Corbyn, you're going to need it."
First a thank you to the local library
When I asked for this book they didn't have it, so they got me the only copy available in libraries nationally. When I was finished reading Red Sparrow I asked for the other books in the trillogy, "Palace of trason" and "Kremlin's Canidate". The library decided that since the trillogy had such good reviews, it's rarity in the library system and since I wanted it they would buy the books. How nice of them!
The novels are written by a former CIA agent, Jason Matthews. The novel was reviewed in the CIA's website and the discriptions of the tradecraft and the invirorment was compared to le Carre. The main character is Dominika Egorova, an elite ballet dancer who also has the abilty to see people's nature and feelings in colours. This is a form of synesthesia and it's aparently a real thing. An injury cuts her dancing career short and her FSB uncle recruits her as an agent and (this is creepy for an uncle) as a 'sparrow', an agent who uses sex and seduction in her work. The Americans have a highly placed source codenamed 'Marble' in the FSB. Marble's handler is the CIA officer Nate Nash.
While there is more descriptions of sex than in many espionage novels, this is a complex thriller with a very good plot. Dominika is an interesting hero and worth following.
I nice detail is that a a type of food is mentioned in every chapter and the the recipe is printed at the end of the chapter.
The novel is filmed with Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika. I liked the movie. The moviemakers wisely dropped the synesthesia and Dominika's way into the FSB and Sparrow School is actually more convincing in the movie. The novel has other qualities and I look very much forward to reading the copy of "Palace of treason" sitting on my desk.
Interesting, Number 24. . .just tonight I saw the movie and I was wondering what the novel is like. I didn't realize it was the start of a trilogy. I'll keep an eye out, but my time to read for pleasure is scant indeed. . .
First a thank you to the local library
When I asked for this book they didn't have it, so they got me the only copy available in libraries nationally. When I was finished reading Red Sparrow I asked for the other books in the trillogy, "Palace of trason" and "Kremlin's Canidate". The library decided that since the trillogy had such good reviews, it's rarity in the library system and since I wanted it they would buy the books. How nice of them!
The novels are written by a former CIA agent, Jason Matthews. The novel was reviewed in the CIA's website and the discriptions of the tradecraft and the invirorment was compared to le Carre. The main character is Dominika Egorova, an elite ballet dancer who also has the abilty to see people's nature and feelings in colours. This is a form of synesthesia and it's aparently a real thing. An injury cuts her dancing career short and her FSB uncle recruits her as an agent and (this is creepy for an uncle) as a 'sparrow', an agent who uses sex and seduction in her work. The Americans have a highly placed source codenamed 'Marble' in the FSB. Marble's handler is the CIA officer Nate Nash.
While there is more descriptions of sex than in many espionage novels, this is a complex thriller with a very good plot. Dominika is an interesting hero and worth following.
I nice detail is that a a type of food is mentioned in every chapter and the the recipe is printed at the end of the chapter.
The novel is filmed with Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika. I liked the movie. The moviemakers wisely dropped the synesthesia and Dominika's way into the FSB and Sparrow School is actually more convincing in the movie. The novel has other qualities and I look very much forward to reading the copy of "Palace of treason" sitting on my desk.
For me one of the greatest espionage books I've ever read, whilst the film was ok I felt the book was far superior.
...a lot of the enjoyment comes from Fraser's footnotes, making it clear (sometimes with a tad too much self regard perhaps) just how closely the events described matches the historical record. That is lost when you film the books as one romp after another.
I've been thinking Flashman is probably a very unreliable narrator, and Fraser's tone in those footnotes is a bit of a gag as well.
Flashman tells us right off he is a liar as well as a coward, and in his interactions with other characters is perpetually misrepresenting himself. That's how he got to be a decorated hero in the fist place, and he is continuously building on those lies all through his adventures, enjoying the undeserved rewards and evading the consequent responsibilities. I don't think it would ever occur to him to tell the truth.
So why are we believing any of his memoirs? The footnotes confirm the places he claims to have been and the people he claims to have met were all there more or less at the times he describes, but they never provide any confirmation there was ever a man named Harry Flashman, despite the hundreds of historic records cited. (aside from Tom Brown's Schooldays)
So presuming some of it is "true" and some of it lies, what bits are most likely to be lies? All the stuff with the women, for starters. That's what lads always lie about when talking to other lads. Flashman claims to have slept with something like a thousand women, which even for a real lad's lad seems a bit unlikely. Every queen or empress he encounters tears his clothes off within minutes, but nobody else ever finds out? In Flashman's Lady there is a bit where he is thrown clear of a naval battle just as it gets dangerous, flies through a roof, right into the middle of a harem, where he is spontaneously molested by the ladies within even as the battle rages just inches away on the other side of the wall.
Of course we know the whole thing is a very clever lie on Fraser's part, that's why its called fiction. But assuming there is a fictional level of reality that we believe as authentic while we read, some of the things our narrator I telling us must be more or less "real" than others.
Comments
This is a documentary about two teenage girls of Somali decent who ran away from Norway in 2013 to join IS in Syria. They didn't live in a ghetto, they weren't poor, they were doing really well at school and their parents are moderate muslims. The method used by the writer is called "litterally journalism". She interviews sources and gathers facts, then she writes in a style close to a novel. This makes the book engaging and easy to read. Åsne Seierstad is a leading writer internationally in this genere and has recieved very good reviews. Her brakethrough book, "The bookseller of Kabul" was translated into 40 languages and remained on New York Times bestselger list a whole year. Her next book ("One of us", about the Utøya terrorist) was ranked as one of the ten most important books in 2015 by NYT. The core question in "Two sisters" is how they became radicalized. The book also gives a quick overview of how ISIS grew and life inside IS. Highly reccomend!
Jo Nesbø is already writing the next Harry Hole novel. It's a direct sequel to "Thirst" and the title is "Kniv" (meaning "knife").
Finally finished the trilogy after reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Fantastic books (all three of them). Very long but well worth it and a whole range of characters who you like/dislike. The tension does build nicely and are fast page turners - that's how I saw them anyway. Watched the mini-series from Sweden as soon as I finished the books - also excellent but in my opinion the books are better than the films. Then again with me that is 95% the case with every book/film comparison.
Yes - definitely a high recommendation for both. -{
You know, a full-size train on tracks running underground. The tunnels were dug out by escaped slaves, running under several states, even with side track branching out to neighbouring states. "The steam was problematic for a while, but we found a solution!"
In one chapter the story goes from horrowing historical drama to a steampunk adventure in the style of Jules Verne. Sigh.....
"After her plane crashes, a seventeen-year-old girl spends eleven days walking through the Peruvian jungle. Against all odds, with no food, shelter, or equipment, she gets out. A better-equipped group of adult survivors of the same crash sits down and dies. What makes the difference?"
A very compelling read, I recommend it highly!
-Mr Arlington Beech
This is a book that takes the long view on world history and conflict and how geography influences different regions and nations. Geography can (up to point) explain things like why China and India hardly ever goes to war against each other and why Africa remains economically underdeveloped. If you want to get a better understanding of the world in under 300 pages you should read this book.
Have you read Jared Diamond, who explains the rise and fall of civilizations as a function of the limiting factors off geography? Guns Germs and Steel, and Collapse are the two I've read, and I think he's written a couple since. He's a biogeographer, so there's a lot about epidemiology, genetics, biodiversity and climate change in his books.
I liked the suggested Bond-plot based on this book you suggested elsewhere.
This one is based around the 1856 Indian Mutiny.
I went off Flashman because I chose to read the books not in the order of publication, but chronological order - the author George Macdonald Fraser later jumped back in time to fill us in on some other Flashy exploits, sort of a bit like Bond author Anthony Horovitz. This was a mistake because a) Flashman and the Redskins - while excellent for a while - has our 'hero' carry out a really quite nasty misdeed that alienates any kind of sneaking sympathy for him, it's sociopathic really, so I totally went off him and b) The narrative then flashes forwards a few decades to a point one supposes where he gets his later comeuppance from earlier incident, but I felt I was bypassing all the other adventures. So the book was chronological at the start, but not later on if you see what I mean.
Great Game reads very well and is a great romp, though it helps to read it but a few months after the previous one.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Phantoms is a favourite -{ ( the Film is rubbish )
I finally found the last two, Flashman and the Tiger and Flashman on the March. I'm disappointed because they are both larger trade paperbacks, inconsistent with the fat pocketbook format of all the earlier ones. Were these two not published in the earlier, once standard paperback dimensions? I know they are relatively recent, so maybe the old format hasn't been used by any publisher in years?
I'm always disappointed when hundreds of pages go by and he doesn't do anything nasty. He's supposed to be the school bully grown up, a coward and a liar and a scoundrel and a rogue and a bounder and a cad, yet in the later books Fraser seems to forget Flashman's true character in favour of telling an exciting adventure. So for me, the deal Flashy makes to escape his American marriage and hopefully begin his return to England elicited a cheer: "hooray, Flashman is once again despicable!"
otherwise, I start thinking he is not really any more cowardly than any other sensible soldier … part of his schtick is that he hides his fear and his peers mistake that for bravery and reward him, but doesn't everybody do that, except maybe the truly psychopathic? so we need those truly despicable deeds at least once every book to prove his cowardice is something beyond common sense reaction to circumstances.
Ever read Catch-22? that's the catch: you can only be excused from duty if you're insane, but if you're too scared to fly any more missions that proves you are in fact perfectly sane and therefor must keep flying.
In the case of that book you should have put it down at the halfway mark and returned to where you've left off once you'd finished all the others that happen in between.
If I read this table in Wikipedia correctly, the 2nd half of Flashman and the Redskins takes place in between the final two books.
As the table gives the page counts, I notice ...Redskins is almost twice as long as any of the others, so maybe its best to think of it as two separate adventures published as one volume (or "packet" as the "editor" keeps referring to them).
For me, I quite enjoyed the surprise return of a certain character from the first half. I literally did not recognise said character until the big reveal, yup, so it was an effective whallop from the storyteller, and Flashy did get what was coming to him as consequence of his earlier misdeed.
A lot of the best plot twists come from some character recognising Flashy for some insult years earlier, and humiliating him in front of all his high-ranking admirers. So he has to have committed some truly unforgivable misdeeds in his past for that trick to work.
Do you find reading them according to internal chronology that Fraser keeps all the details straight? Flashman in his trains of thought keeps reminiscing about lists of names and events in his life, some of which we have already seen, some of which presumably are to come, and Fraser must make it more complicated for himself by skipping back and forth in time to insert previously untold tales.
For me he's the best writer of military history and this is a fine work which expands on a subject about which I've already read a huge amount.
When he was at the officer school ("Krigsskolen") they went to the Netherlands to do the Nimjegen march. One time Krigsskolen marched past a delegation from the US Marines. My platoon commander shouted to them: "Do you wanna hear the American national anthem?!"
They did.
He started signing the theme tune from the Coka Cola commercials.
"Do you wanna hear the NEW American national anthem?!"
They didn't.
He started signing the song from the Diet Coke commercials.
Then he ran
The only work of Beevor's I struggled with, and didn't finish, was his book about the Spanish Civil War although I believe it's been updated and might be worth another go.
It's a great read, Fraser went on to help pen Octopussy and one set piece action scene and the dynamic of the villainy put one in mind of the film too. Jordan of course would have been a great Count Ignieoff or whatever his name is, okay, not really but it seems his character was modelled on him. There's the Russian involvement in the background with both Great Game and OP.
But yes, Flashman is close to a conventional hero in this. It may be that Fraser wanted to do the horror of the Indian mutiny justice and not have Flashy unaffected by it, but yes, despite the author's best efforts to emphasise how cowardly and reluctant his anti-hero is when pressed into battle, the fact that he does it anyway crafts him into a hero nonetheless, he certainly has capability, luck and derring do, all heroic attributes. As you say Potts, much of it is what any soldier in the field would feel, it is argued that to feel cowardice and go ahead and do it anyway is the definition of bravery. Of course to be fair all this was at odds with the myth of imperialistic gung-ho antics of the time.
You almost wonder if Flashy isn't playing up to his myth as he writes it, emphasising his reluctance. It could be that his conventional heroics build us up to the last-page reveal where it all comes crashing down, but I'm not sure that's deliberate.
Flashy even seems to fall for the lady in this, but for much of this book I was expecting something to pan out that never did, a final confrontation. He does a very decent thing at the end.
Generally I enjoy Flashy's wickedness, it is only in that particular book Redskins that I took exception to what he did to somebody, because it seemed a) calculated and b) a massive betrayal and c) liable to completely wreck their life rather than be brushed off.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
But budget would be a problem with such a series.
And a lot of the enjoyment comes from Fraser's footnotes, making it clear (sometimes with a tad too much self regard perhaps) just how closely the events described matches the historical record. That is lost when you film the books as one romp after another.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Published in 1983, it basically anticipates the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, even the method by which he is made Labour leader. The 'what if' story documents what might happen if a Labour 'extremist' (though he actually seems a pretty basic, decent bloke) were to actually win power and become Prime Minister, and how the Establishment would react and secretly pull strings to bring him down.
I've got hold of a library copy and at the end of it someone (not me) has scrawled in red biro "Good luck Corbyn, you're going to need it."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
First a thank you to the local library
When I asked for this book they didn't have it, so they got me the only copy available in libraries nationally. When I was finished reading Red Sparrow I asked for the other books in the trillogy, "Palace of trason" and "Kremlin's Canidate". The library decided that since the trillogy had such good reviews, it's rarity in the library system and since I wanted it they would buy the books. How nice of them!
The novels are written by a former CIA agent, Jason Matthews. The novel was reviewed in the CIA's website and the discriptions of the tradecraft and the invirorment was compared to le Carre. The main character is Dominika Egorova, an elite ballet dancer who also has the abilty to see people's nature and feelings in colours. This is a form of synesthesia and it's aparently a real thing. An injury cuts her dancing career short and her FSB uncle recruits her as an agent and (this is creepy for an uncle) as a 'sparrow', an agent who uses sex and seduction in her work. The Americans have a highly placed source codenamed 'Marble' in the FSB. Marble's handler is the CIA officer Nate Nash.
While there is more descriptions of sex than in many espionage novels, this is a complex thriller with a very good plot. Dominika is an interesting hero and worth following.
I nice detail is that a a type of food is mentioned in every chapter and the the recipe is printed at the end of the chapter.
The novel is filmed with Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika. I liked the movie. The moviemakers wisely dropped the synesthesia and Dominika's way into the FSB and Sparrow School is actually more convincing in the movie. The novel has other qualities and I look very much forward to reading the copy of "Palace of treason" sitting on my desk.
For me one of the greatest espionage books I've ever read, whilst the film was ok I felt the book was far superior.
Flashman tells us right off he is a liar as well as a coward, and in his interactions with other characters is perpetually misrepresenting himself. That's how he got to be a decorated hero in the fist place, and he is continuously building on those lies all through his adventures, enjoying the undeserved rewards and evading the consequent responsibilities. I don't think it would ever occur to him to tell the truth.
So why are we believing any of his memoirs? The footnotes confirm the places he claims to have been and the people he claims to have met were all there more or less at the times he describes, but they never provide any confirmation there was ever a man named Harry Flashman, despite the hundreds of historic records cited. (aside from Tom Brown's Schooldays)
So presuming some of it is "true" and some of it lies, what bits are most likely to be lies? All the stuff with the women, for starters. That's what lads always lie about when talking to other lads. Flashman claims to have slept with something like a thousand women, which even for a real lad's lad seems a bit unlikely. Every queen or empress he encounters tears his clothes off within minutes, but nobody else ever finds out? In Flashman's Lady there is a bit where he is thrown clear of a naval battle just as it gets dangerous, flies through a roof, right into the middle of a harem, where he is spontaneously molested by the ladies within even as the battle rages just inches away on the other side of the wall.
Of course we know the whole thing is a very clever lie on Fraser's part, that's why its called fiction. But assuming there is a fictional level of reality that we believe as authentic while we read, some of the things our narrator I telling us must be more or less "real" than others.