book review

Life After Life is a Book That Will Make You Think

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“‘There are some Buddhist philosophers (a branch referred to as Zen) who say that sometimes a bad thing happens to prevent a worse thing happening,’ Dr Kellet said. ‘But, of course, there are some situations where it’s impossible to imagine anything worse.’” ~ Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson is one of those books that will make you question the nature of reality. It is certainly thought provoking and provides some historical learning, it will also make you laugh and cry, as well as entertain you. In short it is a literary masterpiece!

Do you believe in reincarnation?

I am coming round to the idea more and more these days. One life just isn’t long enough to experience and learn everything an immortal soul would strive to achieve.

I’ve often pondered about when people die young, the tragedy of a life cut short: the pain of their loss on loved ones, missing their presence and wondering what they might have done had they survived.  So much unfinished business. And then there is how their death impacts other lives to the extent of what they do going forward.

A few days before my 20th birthday, unexpectedly my first love perished in a motorcycle accident. He was 22 years old. I had been on the back of his motorcycle many times before, (I still am something of a speed freak), but I never got on a motorbike again after his untimely and tragic death.

I couldn’t accept that he had just disappeared; here one minute, gone the next. I was in a dreadful state and moped around the house for many weeks. I couldn’t stop myself thinking about having seen him lying at the undertakers. It was the first and only time I have seen a dead body. It didn’t look like him. His life force was not animating his body. I began think about where his spirit or soul energy had gone.

Did it exist outside of time and space?

I had the sensation that his spirit was near and around me in those early days, a feeling that’s hard to describe.

It was at that time I started to believe in the divine nature of the soul.  It comforted me to think of him as an immortal soul occupying a temporary body, having a human experience; as opposed to a mere body that originates in oblivion and returns there.

When we do have spiritual experiences it is like returning to our natural state. What Deepak Chopra terms as ‘lightness of being’. He asserts that we are light beings in essence.

I feel like I am the watcher, the sentient being, the spark of consciousness that pervades the universe, just as every human is; aware of being alive, able to use sensory outlets and emotions to heighten experiences.  According to Chopra we are the infinite creators, conscious agents in the matrix of the microbiome of life!

It’s an intriguing idea that every sentient being is an aspect of infinite consciousness experiencing the finite, entangled into a genetic uniform and personality.

How can we explain why we are drawn to certain people, places or careers, why we enjoy certain activities or the talents we have, why we make the choices we do?

Perhaps our choices reflect our level of consciousness or soul wisdom in any given moment…

“Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realised their significance.” ~ Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

There are particular phenomena I’ve gone through, such as having an out of body experience and various moments of déjà vu, the feeling of having lived in a particular place,  (such as Paris), meeting some individuals you feel like you’ve known your whole life after only a few minutes.

Then there are some people you just resonate with.

I suppose that’s why this book’s premise drew me in; I needed a profound read as I set aside moments to rest over the last few weeks.  I’ve experienced a litany of unpleasant after effects recovering from the coronavirus, and I knew that reading a good book would hook me, forcing me to spend some quiet time.

Life After Life did not disappoint…

“What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact, an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

The baby in question is Ursula Todd, and her stories also revolve around her family: mother Sylvie, father Hugh, siblings Maurice, Pamela, Teddy and Jimmy and her wayward aunty Izzie. Not forgetting the acerbic cook, Mrs Glover, and the scullery maid, Bridget who live at the idyllic ‘Fox Corner’ in rural Beaconsfield (not far from me).

The novel’s time span runs from 1910 to just after the Second World War.  There are plenty of opportunities to die between two world wars…

“At times life seems to be a cruel game. The only justification for it is that in reality it is only a dream. That is why there are so many differences in the world. Some people are poor, some are rich, some healthy, some sick, and so on. You have had many experiences through many incarnations and you will have others in future incarnations, but they should not frighten you. You must play all parts in the motion picture of life, inwardly saying: ‘I am Spirit.’ This is the great consolation that wisdom gives us.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda

If I could get to the crux of the genius of this book, it is how the author creates such lifelike, vivid characters, building on and altering their circumstances during each of Ursula’s lives in a way that is not repetitive or dull.

Their characters don’t change through each incarnation, but their life paths are modified depending on the choices that Ursula makes.

There are quite a few childhood deaths, handled with sensitivity by the author, but nonetheless still sad. Then there are the incarnations that Ursula has where she has made it to and sometimes through World War 2, and the amazing descriptions of her lives in London during the horror of the blitz.

“We cannot turn away,” Miss Woolf told her, “we must get on with our job and we must bear witness.” What did that mean, Ursula wondered. “It means,” Miss Woolf said, “that we must remember these people when we are safely in the future.”
“And if we are killed?”
“Then others must remember us.”

Even the people she meets in that phase of her blitz lives are memorable, like Mrs Appleyard and her infant Emil, the Nesbit sisters, her senior warden at the ARP, Miss Woolf, Mr Durkin, the violinist Mr Zimmerman and Mr Bullock.

September 1940 is revisited a couple of times in Life After Life:

The multiple deaths that occur around Armistice due to the Spanish Flu are poignant, especially given our current Covid-19 situation, and how Atkinson weaves slightly different scenarios each time, all leading to the same inevitable fate – except one.

Two of the saddest lives Ursula has are when she is raped by a friend of her older brother on her sixteenth birthday and becomes pregnant and that lifetime ultimately ends in tragedy. In another life she meets him again on the same birthday, but handles the situation differently and so does not end up being violated.

11 November 1918
“Everything familiar somehow. It’s called déjà vu, Sylvie said. “It’s a trick of the mind. The mind is a fathomless mystery. ‘ Ursula was sure she could recall lying in the baby carriage beneath the tree. ‘No,’ Sylvie said, ‘no one can remember being so small,’ yet Ursula remembered the leaves, like great green hands, waving in the breeze and the silver hare that hung from the carriage hood, turning and twisting in front of her face. Sylvie sighed. ‘You do have a very vivid imagination, Ursula.’ Ursula didn’t know whether this was a compliment or not but it was certainly true that she often felt confused between what was real and what was not. And the terrible fear – fearful terror – that she carried around inside her. The dark landscape within. ‘Don’t dwell on such things,’ Sylvie said sharply when Ursula tried to explain.  ‘Think sunny thoughts.’”

The other life is when she first has an ominous encounter with her future husband, Derek Oliphant while studying at secretarial school. I wept through that chapter (Like a Fox in a Hole), as anyone likely would who has been in an abusive relationship. It touched a raw nerve that I didn’t even realise was exposed.

Then there are the lives where she spends her mature years in Germany, where she becomes friends with Eva Braun…

Life After Life is not just clever but totally absorbing. After a certain amount of lives Ursula’s feelings of déjà vu begin to surface during her childhood and into adulthood, as her various realities are lived out, with her subtly making different choices that impact her outcomes and those of her friends and family.

She develops a kind of inexplicable intuition, an instinctual, emotional palimpsest of past realities that influence her thoughts and feelings.

Whilst I don’t personally believe in reincarnation into the same body and life, (I lean towards the school of thought that we take different forms with each go around the mortal block over aeons of time), it did not stop me from immensely enjoying Life After Life. It is utterly brilliant.

Reading Life After Life also made me feel that as difficult as things are at the moment for all of us, it does not compare to the hardships earlier generations went through for many years during these conflicts.

I think I need to leave some time for this book to fully settle in my psyche before I read her highly acclaimed follow-on novel, A God in Ruins (focusing on Ursula’s younger brother Teddy’s time in the RAF).

“Become such as you are, having learned what that is.” ~ Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

Book Review: Once Upon a River – by Diane Setterfield

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It was the longest night of the year, when the strangest thing happened…

I hope you’ve had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year to you!

I tend to lose track of time between Christmas and New Year, and this year was no different. I found myself in a kind of soporific stupor; my limbs were leaden after weeks of shopping, lifting, housework, wrapping, preparing and cooking. My mind seemed suitably blank – it needed to empty its contents after the craziness of the preceding weeks, aided by a stomach laden with comfort food: sweet and juicy clementines, chocolates, soups, mince-pies, cheese and biscuits and cold turkey.

I can relate to Michael Macintyre on this!

I wandered aimlessly around the house in my PJs lamenting at the mess left behind from the festive celebrations of a large family. I decided to indulge in a novel I had purchased before Christmas alongside other gifts, just the excuse I needed to rest-up after a crazy few weeks and recharge my batteries.

Once Upon a River was the perfect antidote to my post-Christmas malaise. Setterfield’s amazing tale transported me to a different time and place – albeit only just up the Thames in the neighbouring county – but one I knew little of until now.

“As is well known, when the moon hours lengthen, human beings come adrift from the regularity of their mechanical clocks. They nod at noon, dream in waking hours, open their eyes wide to the pitch-black night. It is a time of magic. And as the borders between night and day stretch to their thinnest, so too do the borders between worlds. Dreams and stories merge with lived experience, the dead and the living brush against each other in their comings and goings, the past and the present touch and overlap. Unexpected things can happen.”
~ Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River

I am new to the author – Once Upon a River is actually Setterfield’s third novel, and I can honestly say it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read! I can’t heap enough praise on it. Once Upon a River is more a work of art than a mere book. I shall definitely read her other two books: The Thirteenth Tale and Bellman and Black.

The writing itself is what impressed me most. It is a pleasure to read for the fine prose as much as for the story, which is beguiling, absorbing and dark. The characterisations are off the chart brilliant!

The people who populate Once Upon a River are totally vivid and life-like.

I felt like a surreptitious local drinking at The Swan at Radcot, among the gravel-diggers, bargemen, cressmen and farmers during the winter solstice, eavesdropping on their stories and watching the dramatic opening event unfold, open mouthed at the heroics of the inn keepers Margot, Joe, their many daughters (the little Margots), young Jonathon and the competent, no-nonsense nurse Rita Sunday.

I fell in love with these characters. I wept with them, understood their bafflement, felt their hardships and injustices, their grief and joy, their hopes and dreams – all these human emotions thrown into sharp relief through the lens of the often cruel and brutal Victorian era.

Their authentic dialogue made me feel like I was part of their conversations. They were completely real to me. They don’t just come to life on the page, they leap off it!

What literary sorcery could manifest them so magically in ink? I had no answer. I could only marvel at Setterfield’s supernatural skill. A modern day Dickens removed from London to rural Oxfordshire!

Picturesque Bampton Village – also a filming location in Downton Abbey

In addition to the Swan’s inhabitants the main characters are made up of two families: the Vaughans and the Armstrongs (farmer Robert Armstrong was my favourite), long suffering Lily White, the vile and beyond redemption Victor Nash, the patient and kind Parson and Henry Daunt (based on real-life Thames photographer, Henry Taunt).

Then there are the three wee lasses around which the mystery of Once Upon a River is expertly crafted: Amelia, Alice and Ann – all thought and hoped to be the enigmatic and fair haired four year old girl saved from drowning by a badly injured Henry Daunt. The story pivots around the rescued girl’s identity, as she is beloved by everyone who comes into contact with her.

But all is not as it seems.

The minor characters were no less colourful: Ben, (the butcher’s son at Bampton) was completely endearing, the knowing and helpful Mrs Constantine, poor naïve and maligned nursemaid, Ruby and the wicked Mrs Eavis.

The river Thames is another important element, as the lives of the characters revolve around its watery banks. In fact the landscape could be considered the main character. It lies at the heart of the story. Who knew there were so many wonderful ways to describe water?

The River Thames at Kelmscott

“For one thing, the river that flows ever onwards is also seeping sideways, irrigating the fields and land to one side and the other. It finds its way into wells and is drawn up to launder petticoats and be boiled for tea. It is sucked into root membranes, travels up cell by cell to the surface, is held in the leaves of watercress”
~ Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River

After the initial flurry of the rescue of the dead girl and her miraculous return to life on the winter solstice, Setterfield slowly but surely weaves the tributaries of the river’s tale together.

And like a small, unanchored wooden vessel I was carried along the insistent current, twisting this way and that, caught in the ebb and flow of their lives, as powerless as if I was physically caught up in the relentless motion of the river Thames.

Radcot Bridge – the site of The Battle of Radcot Bridge on 19th December 1387

Once Upon a River is both poignant and riveting, heart breaking and heart-warming.

Human nature in all its eternal complexity is laid bare on every page, with the river Thames and Oxfordshire landscape burned indelibly on my mind.

I now also have a better understanding of pigs!

“Pigs were funny creatures. You could almost think they were human the way they looked at you sometimes. Or was the pig remembering something? Yes, she realized, that was it. The pig looked exactly as if she were recollecting some happiness now lost, so that joy remembered was overlaid with present sorrow.”
~ Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River

The scenes where flooding is described echoed exactly what I had seen prior to Christmas, en-route to my mum’s place in Charlton-on-Otmoor. Whole fields lining the M40 motorway glinted like giant mirrors – miles and miles of serene, shallow lakes. In some places the water had crept up to the fringes of civilisation – villages were almost submerged.

The story is told in and around the the villages of Radcot, Kelmscott, Buscot and Bampton. I discovered that Ye Old Swan Inn at Radcot actually exists, as does Brandy Island.

Ye Old Swan Inn at Radcot

“Standing at the helm as Collodion powered along, Daunt had to acknowledge that the river was too vast a thing to be contained in any book. Majestic, powerful, unknowable, it lends itself tolerantly to the doings of men until it doesn’t, and then anything can happen.  One day the river helpfully turns a wheel to grind your barley, the next it drowns your crop. He watched the water slide tantalisingly past the boat, seeming in its flashes of reflected light to contain fragments of the past and of the future.”
~ Diane Setterfield (Once Upon a River)

When I finished Once Upon a River the hairs on my arms and legs stood spontaneously on end. It literally gave me the shivers!

This novel is masterful in every respect. Especially the rich and evocative characters and descriptions, the complex plot, zigzagging like the river it centres upon; you get to one bend and can only see so far along the bank until it turns from sight.  Her employment of foreshadowing was impeccable.

Once Upon a River surprised me – this rarely happens when I read fiction. I can usually see where things are headed. I could see to a certain extent with this book, but not entirely, I was both satisfied and curious, immersed and blissfully on the edge of my seat.

As book lovers will attest to, you get sucked into a reader’s ecosystem – a kind of fictive fug where bodily functions are temporarily suspended as eyes devour word after word, hungry for more, breathing-in the same air for hours on end…

I also gained an appreciation of the sense of community that existed in rural villages a century ago – and most likely still does today. It reminded me of what it means to be part of a close knit community – a rarity in modern urban towns and cities.

Aerial view of Kelmscott Manor

The other surprising and crucial element of this novel’s superlative recipe is how it is steeped in folklore and superstition, highlighting the role of stories in an age before mass entertainment. Stories sustained these communities, as moral guidance, news, time passing and as a creative outlet.

If you found yourself in the water, the Ferryman, Mr Quietly, was either to be welcomed or feared, depending on whether your time was up or not. It had shades of Greek mythology running through it – only the transport between the worlds of the living and the dead was not the Styx but the Thames.

Alongside the myth was the burgeoning presence of the Darwinian era of science and reason – the age of discovery, and Setterfield blends facts and folklore in delightful ways.

Buscot Park – which I think may have been the inspiration for Buscot Lodge, the home of Helena and Anthony Vaughan.

Once Upon a River will stay with me for a long time. It will be reread some-time in the future, out of sheer admiration, as well as for study and pleasure. It is a work of gravitas, beauty, tragedy and love. Its gothic charm, prose and story was reminiscent of The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry, which I greatly enjoyed, but not as much as this.

While I’m at it, I should mention The Second Sleep by Robert Harris – another great read. It has a thought provoking premise and is a superbly written novel.

I finished reading Once Upon a River late on New Year’s eve – perhaps a timely metaphor for completing an eventful and amazing year with a nugget of closure, a happy ending.

I hope 2020 meets your heart’s desires and that the coming decade is full of joy, adventure, health and abundance. There are bound to be challenges and disappointments, every year has them, but they can be overcome with love and persistence.

My Latin motto for 2020 is “Aut viam inveniam aut faciam”, which translates to: “I shall either find a way or make one.”

#FindaWay will be at the forefront of my thoughts when I am vulnerable to accept excuses from myself in the coming months.

Thank you for reading whatever you have read on rhap.so.dy in words in 2019, I aim to bring you interesting, inspiring and fun content in 2020 and beyond!

“Well, then,” the cressman concluded sagely, “just ’cause a thing’s impossible don’t mean it can’t happen.”
~ Diane Setterfierld, Once Upon a River

Falling Under the Beautiful Spell of The Lost Words

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“Once upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children. They disappeared so quietly that at first almost no one noticed – fading away like water on stone.” ~ Robert Macfarlane (The Lost Words)
The Lost Words

When I purchased The Lost Words for my youngest daughter as a Christmas present I honestly didn’t expect it to be such a hit. Not just with her, but also with me and her older, harder-to-please pre-teen sister.

This book is something special, it’s absolutely magical…

In 2007 the Children’s Oxford English Dictionary removed several words pertaining to the natural world. Words like fern, kingfisher and bluebell were discarded and ditched in order to make room for technological terms like blog, chatroom and database. 

The acclaimed best-selling author Robert Macfarlane teamed up with the talented illustrator and writer, Jackie Morris, to draw attention to the incomprehensible actions of the Children’s Oxford English Dictionary. They weren’t happy that these wonderful words (and the things they represent), had been marginalised in a misguided move by a mainstream publication.

The introduction page to each lost word encourages children to follow the letters and discover the erased word.

Soulless technology words, which can easily be taught in IT lessons at school, were deemed to be more relevant to young people. I was flabbergasted, disgusted and sad when I heard this.

How could the words ACORN, ADDER, BLUEBELL, BRAMBLE, CONKER, DANDELION, FERN, HEATHER, HERON, IVY, KINGFISHER, LARK, MAGPIE, NEWT, OTTER, RAVEN, STARLING, WEASEL, WILLOW and WREN be considered not worthy enough to be part of a child’s vocabulary?

“Think of the fierce energy concentrated in an acorn! You bury it in the ground, and it explodes into an oak!” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Their removal and relegation displays an attitude of sickening insouciance by the faceless powers that be, as they dispassionately move pieces of the landscape in dictionary land. But thanks to Robert and Jackie they have been gloriously restored in The Lost Words.

A ‘spellbook’

Neither of my daughters particularly enjoy reading anything resembling poetry, but they loved Robert Macfarlane’s engaging, beguiling and evocative language in each of the cleverly arranged acrostic poems, or ‘spells’.

The Lost Words is described by the author as a ‘spellbook’ and it has certainly put a spell on us!

“You hold in your hands a spellbook for conjuring  back these lost words. To read it you will need to seek, find and speak. It deals in things that are missing and things that are hidden, in absences and appearances. Its tone is gold – the gold of the goldfinches that flit through its pages in charms – and it holds not poems but spells of many kinds that might just, the old, strong magic of being spoken aloud, unfold dreams and songs, and summon lost words back into the mouth and the mind’s eye.” ~ Robert Macfarlane (The Lost Words)

It will become a modern classic I have no doubt.

I wonder how many generations of children have spent hours immersed in the joy of playing conkers every autumn?

My dad used to help me and my brother rope them up when we were young, and my own children enthusiastically sifted through scrunchy leaves to find them buried beneath the boughs of local horse chestnut trees.

Conker was one of our favourite spells!

Gently blowing on dandelion seeds and watching them float away on the breeze across a field or garden is still a fun activity for my girls, as is making daisy chains.

The natural world in decline

It’s depressing to continually learn of the many natural habitats in decline across the globe, and the animal life that depend on such areas atrophying and becoming extinct through man’s insatiable devouring of our planet’s natural resources, (in many cases without thought or care for the consequences).

Now more than ever, it’s important to teach the next generations about the natural world: to admire its beauty, respect its status and understand its importance in the bigger picture of co-existence.

Where will the future natural world icons and champions like Sir David Attenborough, Steve Irwin and Gerald Durrell emerge from, if we don’t nurture a love of nature in young people?

The natural world is our home – we may live predominantly in the urban spaces that we have built, but nature provides an essential home for the animal kingdom, an oasis for outdoor activities, fresh air, rejuvenation, inspiration, the uplifting of spirits, and peace and quiet. Nature was created by a hand far greater than ours.

Why should dictionaries have the authority to imply that nature is no longer trendy and less important than human concerns? We cannot survive without it, either physically or emotionally. We need nature more than nature needs us.

Human fate is intertwined with the environment of the planet.

The rise of technology

We live in a world where we are increasingly controlled by our technological advancements and smartphone addiction, where children are turning into couch potatoes if allowed to play on phones and gadgets for hours on end.

Is technology worth such a drastic trade off?  Not in my humble opinion.

Whilst there are benefits, it requires walking a fine line. If we lose control we are just storing up all kinds of problems for the decades ahead. Some areas of concern include: cyber bullying, child grooming, health issues, lack of hobbies and interests and reduced social skills, not to mention lack of presence or ‘being in the moment’.

We have a rule in the Burges household that no gadgets of any kind are allowed to be used during a family meal, a sacrosanct technology free zone.

Alarmingly, childhood obesity is on the rise, and the lack of outdoor activity and contact with soil, grass and plants reduces the diversity of children’s gut bacteria, which play a major role in human wellbeing, as does a lack of exercise and sedentary lifestyles.

Forest School

In an innovative move, my daughters’ primary school introduced Forest School for all their pupils a year or so ago.

From the enthusiastic feedback my daughters provided, I could tell they enjoyed it, it seemed very popular with all the kids. I very much believe that if a connection with nature is established in a child’s formative years that it stays with them to some degree into adulthood.

I’m not a complete ogre though, I do let my children use technology, probably too much. It’s an integral part of modern life and they are very adept with it, but I have to be really strict with the amount of time they spend on their devices. It’s incredibly addictive.

Every contact with nature reinforces our connection with it, our co-dependency. I’ve noticed startling changes in just a generation. Cue old crone’s voice: when I was a wee lass, (many moons ago), we didn’t have mobile phones or tablets, so we used our imaginations and spent a lot of time outdoors.

It helped that we grew up in a rural area, and I remember vividly we would go exploring and take long walks. My parents didn’t seem to mind us disappearing for hours on end. There was a deserted farm house in the valley not far from where we lived, with holes in the floor, most likely unsafe, but we found it highly exciting to sneak in and venture tentatively into the rooms, keen to discover what lay inside.

We would climb trees, make dens, have picnics and sleep under the stars. Ah, those halcyon days! It wasn’t quite Swallows and Amazons, but if we’d had a boat and an island nearby I’m sure we would have set sail.

Please excuse me, while I bask for a moment in my self-induced nostalgia…

Kids that don’t have regular outings into a park or rural space are missing out on so many benefits. This is why this Robert Macfarlane’s and Jackie Morris’s beautiful book struck such a chord in me.

Also, it’s huge! We get lost in its glossy pages and because it’s a hardback book it feels weighty and solid.

We love immersing ourselves in its awe inducing spells and stunning pictures, our wonderment in nature reinvigorated with each reading.

After a recent reading of The Lost Words with my youngest, who was quite poorly all last week, she told me very clearly and precisely (even with a blocked nose and a fraction of her voice), that she much preferred living near the countryside than in a big city. I beamed at her.

Robert Macfarlane’s superb article in The Guardian about his quest to reconnect young readers to the natural world.

If you buy the book you’ll be pleased to know that a proportion of the royalties from each copy of The Lost Words will be donated to Action for Conservation, a charity dedicated to inspiring young people take action for the natural world, and to the next generation of conservationists.

A free ‘Explorer’s Guide to The Lost Words‘, written by Eva John and intended especially (but not only) for use by teachers and educators, can be downloaded here.

Book Review of Transcription by Kate Atkinson: Fascism’s Dangerous Ideology (and a Brexit Whinge)

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“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” ~ Winston Churchill

Kate Atkinson is such an incredible storyteller. She has gripped me from the very first page to the very last in her latest novel, Transcription.

I bought Transcription in WH Smith at Gatwick Airport on my way to Turin in October. I didn’t actually start reading it in Italy, (which was a good thing), as I’m not sure I would have been able to drag myself away from it to attend a health conference or marvel at the architecture, learn the history (and taste the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had in my life) in this beautiful Piedmont city, thanks to my friend, Maestro Alessandro Fornero.

A table for four in Fiorio, laden with dark hot chocolate. A decadent sensation for those with non sweet taste buds!

Admiring the equestrian statue of Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy and the Piazza San Carlo

Guarini’s Baroque masterpiece: the dome of The Chapel of the Holy Shroud, which had only been re-opened to the public for a few weeks following its 22 year restoration project after the 1997 fire.

The Fiat test track at Lingotto, immortalised in a scene of the Michael Caine classic film, The Italian Job.

Luckily it was filmed on a sunnier day than when we visited:

Going back to topic I do seem to have a penchant for spy thrillers, but this is not your typical high octane fodder. No, Transcription is an intense and highly personal story about a young and  idealistic wanna-be spy, Juliet Armstrong, after she is recruited by the shadowy figure of Miles Merton into MI5 during the Second World War.

Recently bereaved after the loss of her mother, (she never knew her father), Juliet is alone in the world and ripe for their purposes.

Although initially slow burning, it’s intelligent and totally absorbing, with prose to die for (my writer’s radar was in admiration mode).  So much about this novel felt authentic. I couldn’t tell fact from fiction, although the author openly states that much of it is fiction, albeit fiction based on facts she accessed from the National Archives. The dialogue is totally believable and well written.

The characters are slightly stereotypical to fit the historical slant of the story, but they do seem real. Perhaps because they’re distorted reflections and constructs of actual people. The plot grabs you unawares, as you get pulled in deeper and deeper to the secretive world of MI5’s work on home soil during the war.

The novel covers an aspect of the war I didn’t know anything about; the efforts of the intelligence community (itself riddled with double agents), to draw out and obfuscate the activities of home grown fascists and Nazi sympathisers.

The genius of Miss Juliet Armstrong’s character was that I could relate to her on many levels, despite her wartime era. The bulk of the action is set in 1940 and 1950, with a brief jump in the first and last chapter to 1981.

Juliet is just 18 when she is drafted into a clerical position within MI5. She proves herself capable and is soon promoted to a special operation run by Peregrine (‘call me Perry’) Gibbons.

Perry explain’s Juliet’s role in her new position; to type the transcripts of secret conversations recorded in an adjacent apartment (Dolphin House in London) between British spy Godfrey Toby and various pro Hitler fascists that pose a potential threat to the outcome of the war.

‘I presume you are familiar with the ins and outs of the fifth column, Miss Armstrong?’
‘Fascist sympathizers , supporters of the enemy sir?’
‘Exactly. Subversives. The Nordic League, the Link, the Right Club, the Imperial Fascist League, and a hundred smaller factions. The people who meet with Godfrey are mostly old British Union of Fascists members – Mosley’s lot. Our own home-grown evil, I’m sorry to say. And instead of rooting them out, the plan is to let them flourish – but within a walled garden from which they cannot escape and spread their evil seed.’

Juliet has a crush on Perry, her troubled boss, unaware that it can never be requited due to his suppressed homosexuality. He takes Juliet on various trips such as bird watching in the Chilterns and to the Roman ruins at Verulamium Park, where Juliet hopes she will be seduced, but in reality he is using her to protect his reputation.  I felt that he did genuinely care for her, (just not in the way she wanted), and was a patriot dedicated to serving his country.

“Do not equate nationalism with patriotism,” Perry warned Juliet. “Nationalism is the first step on the road to Fascism.”

Her whole life is shaped by her experience and tragic events during the war, which has unfortunate ramifications for Juliet. At first, she feels like she is embarking on a big adventure, one that grows more exciting as the war progresses and the stakes are raised. But a decade on, Juliet has secrets of her own and the establishment that she once served is ever present.

The paradoxes of her personality put plenty of flesh on her young bones. She is smart but naïve, blithe yet (at times) terrified, plucky but also vulnerable. I loved her sense of humour, which made me chuckle in places and her propensity to quote Shakespeare to her colleagues, which mostly goes over their heads.

This book also filled me with a morose melancholy, not just for the impressionable orphaned Juliet, but for the awful situations she had to navigate in order to do her duty. Transcription is an engaging story that delves into the damage done by the misguided ideology of ordinary citizens as well as the moral implications of spy craft.

The novel makes no bones about the preponderance of anti-semitic sentiment in the UK as Hitler invaded Europe. It ran like an ugly seam throughout British society and was just as prevalent in the upper echelons of the aristocracy as it was in the middle and lower classes of the time.

Her main task, he explained, was to try to infiltrate the Right Club. ‘These people are a cut above our Bettys and Dollys,’ he said. ‘The Right Club is drawn from the establishment – a membership peppered with the names of the great and the good. Brocklehurst, Redesdale, the Duke of Wellington. There’s a book, supposedly- the Red Book – that lists them all. We would very much like to get our hands on it. A lot of its members have been swept up by defence regulation 18b, of course, but there are still many left – too many.’

Further on, after a key sting operation Perry tells Juliet, ‘Mosely’s been arrested as well.’

Sir Oswald Mosely, founder and leader of the British Union of Facists (BUF) married Diana (one of the notorious Mitford sisters), after the death of his first wife, (Lady Cynthia Curzon). They were married in Goebbel’s drawing room at his home in Berlin in October 1936, with Hitler and his inner-circle cronies present.  Even more shocking was Diana’s younger sister Unity Mitford’s devotion to Hitler; she shot herself in the head in Munich on the day Britain declared war.

There is a passage in the book where Juliet goes undercover in her spy pseudonym of Iris Carter-Jenkins at an evening gathering in the Right Club, where she unexpectedly bumps into her high society friend and colleague at MI5, Clarissa. Perhaps a discreet authorial nod to the Mitford sisters, (seeing as their father Baron Redesdale had been mentioned earlier):

These men weren’t funny. They were in charge of the country, one way or another. Were they even now discussing how they would carve up power if Hitler marched along Whitehall?
‘Daddy’s ferociously right-wing, completely pro-German,’ Clarissa said. ‘We met Hitler, you know. In ’36, at the Games.’ (We?) ‘So obviously, I fit the part. You’re doing a good job of not looking shocked. Have a fag, why don’t you?’
Juliet took a cigarette from the familiar gold-crested packet. ‘But you’re not…you know, are you?’
‘One of them? Dear God no. Of course not. Don’t be silly. My sisters are, mind you. And Mummy. And poor Pammy, of course – she worships old Adolf, dreams about having his baby.’

The themes in Transcription are just as relevant today in peace time, when far right, populist politics seem to be gaining ground in the UK, Europe and the USA. It actually scares me.

The enemy may not be a messianic, narcissistic, occultist madman like Hitler, (or the megalomaniac dictators Stalin or Mao for that matter, ) for the discontent he fuelled with his charisma, passionate oratory and malevolent rhetoric enabled him, and those who did his evil bidding, to be responsible for the unimaginable cruelty of the Holocaust, as well as the millions of deaths globally of soldiers and civilians in the Second World War. So many souls that perished directly and as a result of the flawed and dangerous ideology of Fascism and race superiority.

Current political and national turmoil in the UK

The use of the word ‘sovereignty’ was bandied about by hardline Brexiteers like confetti at a wedding during the lead up to the EU referendum. Like we didn’t have it already…

To my mind ‘sovereignty’ was used as a disguised weapon, a veiled forerunner of toxic Nationalism.

The level of vitriol and hate towards migrants, the bare-faced lies and propaganda deployed from positions of power, on social media and ‘fake news’ platforms adversely influences and manipulates people’s thoughts and beliefs.

You only have to look at the chaos, fear and uncertainty that the leave campaign and Brexit has unleashed on the nation. Funnily enough, I don’t recall ever seeing the words ‘economic armageddon‘ plastered on the side of a big red Brexit bus…

We know that the EU is far from perfect, but peace prevailing in Europe for the last 73 years must surely count for something? We have become careless with our hard won freedoms.

Modern politics seems to have descended into fear fuelled extreme rhetoric, sowing division and discord. Where is the centre ground, the pragmatism, the hope, the democracy?

Okay, so the fine margin ‘will of the people’ was obtained by the manipulative and shameless silvery tongues of charlatans and liars, (who may well have believed their fantasies) and like lemmings the whole nation is careering towards an irreversible plunge off the edge of the proverbial Brexit cliff.

Theresa May’s intractable stance is: the people voted unwittingly to jump off a cliff, and I’m going to facilitate a deal to jump off the cliff, no matter what. To rethink jumping off a cliff is an affront to democracy.

Apparently, to readjust a course of action that appears to be a mistake is out of the question!

I don’t doubt the prime minister believes she is doing the right thing and has done her best under the circumstances; but she is afraid to ask the people to review their folly in the harsh light of the government’s ineptitude in negotiating Brexit – to be given a last chance to decide whether to proceed with it or not.

Tally ho, off the edge we go! Head first into a worst of all worlds, whether you voted remain or leave…

Brexit was sold to the nation as ‘taking back control’, not relinquishing it, and MPs now have a crucial vote on 11 December about the future of our country. The former governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has also entered the fray, (Bloomberg article), as contempt and disgust over May’s proposed Brexit deal mounts.

It seems I’m not the only person to think of lemmings, as Matthew Parris has in this recent article I found in The Spectator.  Nick Cohen at The Guardian also contends that politicians citing the ‘will of the people’ will be judged harshly by society in this brilliant article about post Brexit carnage.

Surely a second referendum could also open up the possibility of positive reform within the EU, as well as avoiding the inevitable hardships that this whole sorry episode in our nation’s long history will bring.

It seems we may be a step closer to this common sense vote after the government suffered three parliamentary defeats in the Commons on Wednesday.

An illuminating TED talk on why fascism is so tempting – and how your data could power it by Yuval Noah Harari:

“…in the end, democracy is not based on human rationality, it’s based on human feelings. During elections and referendums you’re not being asked, ‘What do you think?’ You’re actually being asked, ‘How do you feel?’ And if somebody can manipulate your emotions effectively, democracy will become an emotional puppet show.”~ Yuval Noah Harari

Anyhow, I digress, I just had to get that off my chest!

I couldn’t help but see the parallels of Transcription with the depressing political events unfolding in the UK. This book is so brilliant it makes you think about the scourge of Fascism, and the ways it can re-emerge its foul head.

The story highlights how opinions and actions are heightened during times of war, how collective beliefs are so crucial to the well-being and prosperity of any nation.

It was unusual for Kate Atkinson to start the book describing Juliet’s demise on Wigmore Street in 1981, with the memories of her life being told in the remaining minutes of her life.

The story properly gets going when in 1950 Juliet, (now a producer for the BBC in the Schools department), sees master spy (Godfrey Tobey), from her time at MI5. The tension becomes unbearable as we learn of Juliet’s contribution to the war effort, around the time of the Dunkirk evacuation.

Whether one lived or died seemed completely arbitrary, and risk of death was ever present for spies and double agents. The untimely reappearance of Godfrey Toby sparks her paranoia, which becomes acute as she perceives her life is in danger again, a decade after her wartime efforts.

Although she survives the war, but she carries emotional scars, as do many of the characters, scars that messily heal over but still contain an element of rawness.

I’m still reeling from the twist at the end, which I did not see coming…

My only small criticism of the book is not aimed at the actual ending itself, which was clever, and entirely plausible, but for the fact that I felt short-changed by a lack of foreshadowing. I didn’t have the faintest inkling of the plot twist. In hindsight I could have made more of a leap from Juliet’s love of Shostakovich, her interaction with Flamingo and her meeting at the museum in front of Rembrandt with Miles Merton.

Before I began reading Transcription I wondered what business a flamingo had being on the front cover, as it didn’t seem to have any connection  with the premise of the book, but all that becomes clear towards the end of the novel, being tied up with the major plot twist.

In the end I was disappointed by Juliet, which, after being fully on her side for over 300 pages, felt like a kind of betrayal…

This book will stay with me for a long time, it warrants rereading at some point. It is the first novel I have read by Kate Atkinson, but it certainly won’t be the last.

I’d like to let the author have the last word from a recent interview about Transcription:

‘The mark of a good agent is when you have no idea which aside they’re on.’ It seemed to Juliet that there were some rather blurred boundaries when it came to beliefs – Perry had once been a member of the British Union of Fascists (‘It was useful,’ he said. ‘Helped me understand them’) and Hartley (Hartley, of all people!) had been a member of the Communist Party when he was at Cambridge. ‘But everyone was a Communist before the war,’ he protested.

Red Sparrow: Spookily Good Spy Fiction for a Vicarious Double Life

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“God, she’s serious, thought Nate. Typical Russian, afraid of putting a foot wrong. But he liked her reserve, her underlying sensuality, the way she looked at him with her blue eyes. He especially liked the way she pronounced his name, “Neyt.”
~ Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

As today is #WorldBookDay, I thought it timely to share my thoughts on Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews.

There are plenty of suspenseful and harrowing scenes in this book, and from page one my heart lurched from my chest to my mouth where it remained for 547 pages. It was like John le Carré on steroids, it totally gripped me!

The writing itself wasn’t quite on par with le Carré, but still a very accomplished debut novel. I thought the characters and plot were totally plausible, and that’s probably because the author was involved in CIA operations for 33 years. The intelligence community may lie and steal for a living, but they put their lives on the line regularly; all so the balance of world power can be precariously preserved…

I deliberately haven’t seen the film yet, but I doubt it can match the book, which is brilliant. However, it was knowledge of the film that put the book on my radar.

I do think that Jennifer Lawrence is a good choice for the titular character, Dominika Egorova, aka Red Sparrow. She seems to embody her character’s essence from the book.

I found myself liking and sympathising with the beautiful, spirited and feisty Dominika. Her dream was ballet, (and I love that her mother is a professional violinist), but a cruel attack resulting in a broken foot ends her promising dance career with the Bolshoi, and she is left devastated and disillusioned when she is approached by her late father’s brother, Uncle Vanya. He has a small request to ask of her.

Not so dear Uncle Vanya is the deceptive and ambitious First Deputy Director of the SVR, who times his contact with his niece when she is most vulnerable. Needless to say, he does not love and respect Dominika like a normal uncle would.

Jason Matthews paints a picture of a modern Russia whose intelligence service (now the SVR instead of the KGB), which despite new names, appearances and PR, is very much rooted in the methods and attitudes of the ‘old times’.

Dominika has a ‘prodigious memory’, is physically stunning, strong, idealistic, cultured and determined – but she has a short fuse like her mother. With Uncle Vanya threatening her mother’s welfare she has no choice but to do his bidding and join the SVR.

After her traumatic job for her uncle Dominika is thrown among the wolves, but decides to run with the pack and beat them at their own game.

Her resentment at being a pawn for her boss is perfectly understandable; she is lied to, used and hindered in her progress, and her life is considered expendable in a revolting system that does not value its operatives beyond the glory they can bestow on their political masters and the State.

She is betrayed by her uncle when early in her training he sends her against her will to Sparrow School, where she and others are subjected to the vile methods of State sponsored seduction and ‘sexpionage’.  She survives humiliation after humiliation and uses her experiences to build her inner strength and fuel her anger against ‘them’.

Dominika is the first female agent to be recruited into the SVR, but her internal struggle to be seen as anything more than a ‘Sparrow’ is a challenge she must  overcome. She clashes with Soviet era forces within the Centre on her first case involving Simon Delon, a French embassy diplomat in Moscow whose daughter in the French military is the ultimate goal for passing classified information.

The only friend she has at Yasenevo (other than her self-serving uncle), is the kind and distinguished, but ageing General Korchnoi, who is head of the Americas Department.

The sections of brutal torture are not easy to read, but it is not just physical violence that is an ever present threat for the characters, but the psychological manipulation that drives their decisions and actions.

The most chilling, blood-run-cold encounters all include Sergey Matorin, Moscow’s most efficient grim reaper from the Centre’s F Line. He is the kind of ruthless, soulless assassin you would never hope to meet, a literal killing machine, who takes great pleasure from his work.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the Cold War hasn’t really ended after reading this novel.

It seems to have morphed into something even more complicated. Whether it’s done for dramatic purposes, or whether there is any basis in reality, only those sequestered in secret government buildings know the truth.

Red Sparrow is as smart, edgy, authentic, compelling and realistic as spy fiction gets. I was transported to a clandestine world of surveillance, subterfuge, street survival, (being ‘black’), mole hunts and forbidden love; quite a literary ride…

In the course of escalating emotions and events I discovered canary traps, barium meals, spy dust, whore school, burst transmissions, spy training, torture, murder and treason.

It also seems that spies can be foodies, and in Red Sparrow they do a lot of ‘business’ over dinner or in restaurants. The author (unusually for the genre), gives a recipe from the action at the end of each chapter. Whilst I’m not against this, I probably didn’t need to know everything they consumed in every chapter, so at times it came across as contrived, and had the effect of distracting me temporarily from the story.

KADDO BOWRANI—AFGHAN PUMPKIN
Deeply brown large chunks of peeled sugar pumpkin, cover liberally with sugar, and bake covered in medium oven until tender and caramelized. Serve over thick meat sauce of sautéed ground beef, diced onions, garlic, tomato sauce, and water. Garnish with sauce of drained yogurt, dill, and puréed garlic.
~ Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

Locations include, Moscow, Washington, Helsinki, Rome and Athens. Matthews’s knowledge of these cities is impressive, as is the everyday life of the CIA Case Handler, Nathaniel (Nate) Nash. Wanting to take control of his own destiny rather than be sucked into the family business like his older brothers, Nate feels the need to prove himself in espionage rather than law.

As agent handlers go, Nate is enthusiastic and honourable, and his main concern is always to protect his agent’s life from constant danger. He is the kind of man you can trust if you are looking to spill state secrets…

After a near fatal brush with the FSB during a meeting with his Moscow agent (code name MARBLE), who happens to be the CIA’s most valuable asset, his stellar career falters. Gutsy, street savvy and fluent in Russian, Nate is now at odds with his chief of Station in Moscow. With his cover blown, he ends up in what he considers a bit of spy backwater, Helsinki.

However, his expectations change rapidly when he is tasked with making contact with Dominika. He ‘meets’ her in a public swimming pool, initially unaware that she has also been sent to ‘befriend’ him and discover the identity of his informant in Moscow.

Anatomy of a scene with film director Francis Lawrence:

From there the plot really twists and turns, and I don’t want to give too much away, other than to say that Nate cannot help falling for Dominika (code name DIVA), even though he strives to always be professional, but their passion risks the mission and their lives.

I thought it was original and a nice touch that Jason Matthews gifted Dominika’s character with Synesthesia, so when she hears music she also sees colours (Bach is red to her), and in her dealings with other operatives she can see the colours they emit, which helps her intuit their thoughts and intentions.

Quite a handy skill for a spy, to almost be able to read minds, to know when you are being lied to!

“I want to feel that sometimes we leave the operation behind, that there is just you and me.” Her bossom heaved in her brassiere. He stood up and put his arms around her. His mind was a riptide of damage control battling the stirring of his passion for her. He smelled her hair, and felt her body.
“Dominika,” he said, and the rushing in his ears started, the old danger signal.
“Will you break your rules again?” she asked. She saw his purple lust, it lit up the darkened room.
“I want you to violate your rules … with me… not your agent, me” said Dominika.”
~ Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

Only three of the men in the novel (including her lover, Nate), have purple halos, deemed by Dominika to be ‘true’, the safest and most sincere, the ones she trusts the most, but even their actions cause her to question everything…

Some scenes in this novel are truly shocking and provoked a visceral reaction in me, others are thought provoking and pertinent to current affairs.

This spy thriller is not just a seat of your pants roller-coaster ride; it stimulates deeper, more meaningful questions about the nature of international politics and its impact on all of us. The human motivations are insightfully portrayed and sensitively stereotyped, as the characters move in a world which is not black and white but mostly grey, where the lines of right and wrong are blurred, even in the CIA.

“She was tired of being used like a pump handle by all of them, the vlasti, the inheritors of the former Soviet Union, General Korchnoi, the Americans, Nate, telling her what was expedient, indicating what had to be done. She needed something more from them all. She was weary of having her feelings denied to her.”
~ Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

Red Sparrow encompasses first rate storytelling that evokes the life of a spook in startling detail. It left me breathless. It’s also the first novel in a trilogy, but I need to wait a while and let my nerves settle down before embarking on part two: Palace of Treason.

I’m leaving it there, because it would be criminal to spoil this superb book for you!

“It’s quite simple,” said MARBLE. “Dominika will discover I am the spy and turn me in.” ~ Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow

Book Review: Ghost Variations – Schumann’s Spirit Communicates from Beyond the Grave 💀🎻🎼

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“My name is Jelly d’Arányi. I am the only woman who has ever had my name. I am the only woman who shall ever live my life. And live it I have, and I do, and I shall.” ~ Jessica Duchen, Ghost Variations

Ghost Variations: The Strangest Detective Story in Music is a perfect book for Halloween.

This book is not a traditional ghost story replete with creepy sounds that go bump in the night; Ghost Variations is derived from an actual occult experience in 1933, during which an important message from a genius musical spirit ‘speaks’ at a private séance conducted with a Ouija board.

An original Ouija board

As I was researching the violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, I came across Jessica Duchen’s fabulous novel, which is narrated predominantly from the point of view of the violinist Jelly d’Arányi, a siren Hungarian virtuoso, who as grand niece of Joseph Joachim, made a name for herself as a soloist based in London.

I was totally absorbed in the book from the outset. It is beautifully written,  impeccably researched, as well as being musically and historically authentic. The colourful characters (both real and fictional), come off the pages in high definition life.

It’s hard enough to write fictional characters, but to base a work of fiction on mostly real people and events must be even more so…

I read Ghost Variations in a handful of sittings; it totally drew me in to the fictional tale of this real life violinist – slightly past her prime – living an extraordinary life in the Art Deco zeitgeist.

Based on her character in the novel I would love to have met Jelly d’Arányi. I feel Jessica captured her ‘essence’ perfectly: vivacious, glamorous, gracious, kind, musically brilliant but not a diva, vulnerable, courageous, and paradoxically both naïve and worldly.

She has known love, but is dedicated to her Bergonzi violin and her art: music.

The novel is set in the late thirties; Jelly is unmarried and approaching forty with arthritic joints that hamper her playing.  She finds her own fame fading simultaneously with the rise of the young violin superstar, Yehudi Menuhin based in America.

Jelly lives with her sister Adila Fachiri, her lawyer husband Alex, daughter Adrienne and pet dog Caesar in Netherton Grove. Their home is affectionately dubbed Hurricane House, a warm and bohemian base for Jelly as she travels across the UK for her paid concerts as well as a series of cathedral charity concerts during the depression.

Portrait of Jelly d’Aranyi by Charles Geoffroy Dechaume

The story begins after a concert when Jelly, her secretary Anna and their hosts, play a glass game. Jelly, although skeptical, still takes part, but when the spirit of composer Robert Schumann mentions her sister, she gets cold feet and leaves the room. At first she cannot accept the spirit messages are real, and tries to put the episode out of her thoughts.

However, events conspire and in a glass game with her sister Adila (known for her psychic abilities), and their close family friend and spiritualist, the Swedish Ambassador, Baron Erik Palmstierna, the voice of Robert Schumann comes through to Jelly, telling her to find and play his forgotten violin concerto.  Although still troubled, this time, Jelly cannot ignore it.

The paranormal nature of its emergence adds all the more mystery and conflict to the story, an imagining of what it must have been like for the talented Hungarian sisters in a time when psychic phenomena was frowned upon.

Jelly and Adila start to research the concerto, the last significant composition by Schumann before he descended into apparent madness, written for their revered great uncle Joachim. After Schumann’s death alone in the sanatorium, Brahms, Joachim and Clara decide not to publish the work, and it is placed in the Prussian State Library in Berlin by Joachim’s heirs, with the instruction that it not be performed for at least 100 years.

1850 photograph of Robert Schumann

When Jelly tells her musical companions about the circumstances preceding its rediscovery, she is met with mixed reactions. Donald Francis Tovey decides that the music itself is the most important thing, not its method of discovery, and helps her locate the score with the help of established German publishers Schott.

Baron Palmstierna visits the Prussian State Library expecting access to the suppressed manuscript, only to be told of its strict embargo, which Schumann’s last remaining daughter, the elderly Eugenie Schumann is adamant should remain unplayed…

Meanwhile Jelly is losing another love, Tom Spring-Rice to a fatal illness (after having lost Australian Olympic athlete, pianist and composer, Sep Kelly during the First World War). She is emotionally fragile, and comes to believe that by performing the world premiere of a long lost violin concerto she can also regain her dignity and rediscover herself.

However, in the wake of the baron’s visit to Berlin, knowledge of the concerto has come to the attention of the Nazi’s, who wish to use it for their own sickening nationalistic purposes, and the world premiere of the piece is awarded by Goebbels to a state sanctioned musician, Georg Kulenkampff, after it has been extensively edited by him, and also secretly by Paul Hindemith.

“Sleeping beauty had been awoken by the wrong prince. Could the spirits not see into the future? Could they not have known, when they chose to speak through the glass game, that the first person on whose ear the concerto would fall might be Adolf Hitler?” ~ Jessica Duchen, Ghost Variations

There is a brilliant and chilling scene towards the end of the novel in which the Strecker brothers, Ludwig and Willy and their colleague Ulli Schultheiss from Schott meet with Goebbels and members of the Reich regarding its publication and performances.

They know that their competitor Breitkopf & Härtel are also angling for first publication of the concerto, and so propose that Yehudi Menuhin also play it in America. Ulli puts his neck on the line to push for Jelly d’Arányi’s moral right to play the London premiere, being the grand niece of its dedicatee.

Being the vile Nazi pig he is, Goebbels is unhappy with his suggestion and threatens Ulli with his demise; but he ultimately agrees, as the music will by then be in the public domain.

Other scenes that reduced me to jelly (if you excuse the pronunciation and pun), is when she receives a visit from Moshe Menuhin, Yehudi’s formidable father. He brusquely asks her to give up the London premiere so Yehudi can be the first to play the concerto in London instead. Jelly refuses.

“Would you save a beloved friend’s life only to see him taken prisoner? I know Yehudi will play it well, but that concerto is not home again until it is here with me.” ~ Jessica Duchen, Ghost Variations

After the publication of Horizons of Immortality by Erik Palmstierna in conjunction with Adila Fachiri in 1937, in which a whole chapter is devoted to the story behind Jelly finding the ‘lost’ Schumann concerto, there is a media frenzy and backlash against her, and Jelly’s nerves are shredded even before she is due to perform the London premiere with Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

As Hitler ramps up his anti-Jewish activities and propaganda, Jelly is subject to increasing racial animosity in London as her foreign accent is being noticed and commented on more frequently. The pre-war situation becomes more tense, but it is nothing compared to the vitriolic reaction to her revelation of ‘voices from the other side’.

The man she loves is trapped in Germany, sitting in the Charlottenburg Opera House, dreading Kulenkampff’s world premiere on 26th November 1937, at which Goebbels and the Führer are also present; knowing deep down he must somehow escape the abhorrent pall of Nazi Germany.

Opernhaus, Berlin c. 1912

Ulli’s despair is poignant, when in London he had promised Jelly that she would be the first to play the concerto, but power and politics have deemed otherwise:

“If Kulenkampff and Böhm, those most rational musicians could not make sense of the concerto, how could anybody?
And yet… within this musical jungle lay a naked beauty so exposed that it seemed almost indecent. Schumann’s soul might be damaged and suffering, but he still gave its entirety. Could it ever have been right to leave this music unheard?
And yet, and yet… there was madness here, a precipice lying ahead in the fog and snow; a spirit filled with love, but lost, unable to master itself. For the first time Ulli began to wonder what happens when insanity is unleashed through art into the soul of others. What exactly did Joachim and Clara know about this piece that made them put it to sleep?”
The transition sounded and the Polonaise emerged into the daylight. The Führer was smiling.
Ulli forced himself to listen to the detail. Kulenkampff’s version was considerably altered, wheras Yehudi had eagerly declared that he wanted to play every note exactly as Schumann had written it, without even the hushed-up Hindemith adaptations. Kulenkampff, ignoring Schumann’s funereal metronome mark, played it as a true Polonaise; yet though his delivery was graceful and elegant, its triumph felt empty. Everything would be alright, it seemed to say, when Ulli knew full well that it would not: only a few months after creating the blazing conclusion, Schumann threw himself off the Dusselforf bridge into the black Rhine.
Final chord. Kulenkampff, domed forehead shining with sweat, his bow aloft, gaze locked for an instant with Böhm’s. The orchestra standing, tired, inscrutable. The Führer, on his feet. The whole audience rising to ape him. And applause. And… Ulli sensed sensed their puzzlement. This was no triumph. That slow movement, exquisite, yet out of kilter; was this concerto after all an insane work for an insane land? What had they done, letting it out?” ~ Jessica Duchen, Ghost Variations

The Kulenkampff recording:

Sadly there was no recording of Jelly’s London performance. Menuhin’s American recording from 1938:

It is 16th February 1938, the date of Jelly’s London premiere of the concerto, described in a crescendo of emotion which has been building throughout the book; fascinating for musicians and non-musicians alike.

Ghost Variations has a strong literary and musical theme, but it is written like a psychological thriller. This is something I also tried to achieve with my novel, The Virtuoso.

I’m in awe at Jessica Duchen’s deft vocabulary and skill in layering in her protagonist’s emotional and musical challenges against the backdrop of a violent time in history: the two are clearly inseparable for Jelly. The novel leaves you rooting for victory and redemption for our gutsy heroine.

We meet Jelly’s real cohorts in music, the larger than life pianist Dame Myra Hess and the indefatigable pianist and music professor, Sir Donald Francis Tovey.

Jelly and Myra in a BBC studio on World Violin Day in 1928

There are so many wonderful touches in the story, from how the sisters talk to each other in their everyday dialogue, the affectionate terms such as ‘Sai’ and ‘Onkel Jo’, to learning about how Bartók had written his violin sonatas for the sisters, and how Jelly had been muse to French composer, Maurice Ravel, who composed Tzigane, his gypsy themed, Czardas type melodies in his virtuosic showpiece for her. Jelly was also a muse to Elgar and Holst.

Ulli’s greetings to the bust of Wagner at Schott’s headquarters in Mainz are entirely plausible, since the Strecker brothers’ father had actually been a close personal friend of the composer.

Jessica explains more about the title of the novel:

Also in 1939, another previously unknown work by Robert Schumann was finally released to the public. It was a set of solo piano variations on the theme that Brahms had adopted from his own Opus 23 Variations (as played to Jelly by Myra in chapter 5). It became known as Geistervariationen – Ghost Variations – because Schumann believed the melody had been dictated to him in his sleep by spirits. What Schumann, in his disturbed state of mind, seemed to have forgotten is that he had already written the germ of this melody himself, in the slow movement of his violin concerto. He was writing the variations when he made his suicide attempt in February 1854.  The day after his rescue from the Rhine, he gave the manuscript to Clara. She preferred to leave it unpublished.

Score of Geistervariationen.

Geistervariationen (Ghost Variations), or Theme and Variations in E-flat major for piano, WoO 24:

The suppression of the concerto after Schumann’s death was probably on balance a good thing, after all it led to a grand unveiling of a piece that may have been more maligned in the direct aftermath of Schumann’s illness, not to mention making a wonderful premise for a modern work of fiction!

It’s as though Schumann’s spirit had re-emerged triumphant after eighty years to right the musical injustice of his unheard violin concerto in D minor.

To put it using Sir Donald Francis Tovey’s vernacular from the novel: there’s no nuff and stonsense in this musical, literary gem!

“She had to be no more tonight than the active component of her violin. No extraneous emotion – and no rustling dress – must upset the flow from Schumann’s mind to the audience’s. A musician is the truest medium there is. She, her technique and the Bergonzi were his channel now from world to world.
She let her sister massage her hands, one at a time. In the hall the orchestra was warming up; some overture was opening the programme, she couldn’t remember which. She tried to blot out all that was extraneous, all that was physical. The concerto existed in sound alone, nothing that could be seen, claimed and owned. Everyone wanted to pierce it with a pin and fix it to a velvet board, but it belonged to everybody and nobody. It was the sum total of all that had passed: imagined by Schumann, nurtured by Clara, fired up by Brahms, twisted by Onkel Jo, guarded by all those gatekeepers, meddled with by Goebbels and Hindemith and even perhaps Ulli. Yehudi, she knew would play it perfectly – so perhaps she and he were allies after all, desiring the best for the work – and whenever it was played, it would be born anew.”

 

Jessica very helpfully elucidates on which characters are real and which are fictional, as well as factual information about Jelly’s life and the fate of her family, friends and colleagues, at the end of the book, plus her extensive bibliography.

It’s well worth reading, and was listed as John Suchet’s favourite read of 2016. Ghost Variations on Unbound.

The Strad 125 Years: Pioneering Female String Players

I’ll bid you a ghostly farewell with a vintage recording of Jelly and Adila playing the Bach Double Violin Concerto:

Book Review: le Carré Carried me Away With The Mission Song

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Whenever I read David Cornwell – better known by his pen name of John le Carré – I am left open-mouthed with awe at his storytelling prowess. He is the kind of writer I aspire to be; a lofty and unattainable benchmark for a newbie novelist!

The undisputed master of espionage and geopolitical thrillers, perhaps more psychological than action oriented; le Carré is gifted with a rapier sharp intellect, his characterisations are thorough and utterly believable, his plots are clever and complex but at the same time could be lifted from real life, and his use of vocabulary and descriptive powers are unmatched, in my humble opinion.

He can weave all of this together seamlessly with the knock-out punch of over-arching relevant social themes that leave you reeling with moral dilemmas and unease afterwards.

That is exactly what The Mission Song did to me. My children occasionally interrupted me as my nose was buried within its compelling pages for interminable periods over the weekend.

I became engrossed in the life of Bruno Salvador, known as Salvo, a top interpreter in the languages of Africa and the Eastern Congo.

I haven’t read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but I feel it’s highly likely that le Carré drew inspiration from his tale of Belgian exploitation of the Congo.

Conrad’s quote precedes chapter one::

“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. “ – Marlow

King Leopold is mentioned only once in The Mission Song, but it does highlight the ongoing plight of the Eastern Congo: corruption, tribal rivalries, their suspicion and hatred of Rwandans, outside interference from greedy developed nations seeking to take advantage of the local strife so they can plunder its considerable natural resources under the veiled auspices of schools, hospitals and bounty for all.

The opening few pages on audio book of The Mission Song, read by David Oyelowo:

I’ll try not to give away too many spoilers in this review, more a taste of the book’s many virtues. The beginning was a slow burn for me, but after the first couple of chapters I was completely hooked.

I empathised with and was beguiled by Salvo’s essentially ambitious but innocent nature. In the early pages he tells of his rather sad and unorthodox childhood; the son of a Northern Irish missionary and a beautiful Congolese woman, born out of wedlock and in sin, fitting in nowhere, he is brought up in various mission schools and becomes fluent in Swahili, French, Shi, Bembe, Kinyarwanda and of course his adopted nation’s tongue: English.

After the death of his father Salvo is duly shipped to Britain courtesy of the Holy See, and comes under the wing of Brother Michael at The Sanctuary, a boarding school for Catholic orphans. They grow close, and later Salvo is supported financially and lives with their wealthy Aunt Imelda in Somerset.

Salvo is impressionable, idealistic, diligent and naïve. His physical attributes are of a confident, tall, muscular, light brown skinned man eager to impress his clients, and so from humble beginnings he has found his niche as a top interpreter.

He is called a zebra later in the novel, a derogatory reference to his mixed race parentage. However, Salvo adopts the sobriquet and uses it in his own motivational way as he pits himself secretly against some Congolese delegates, and later, after his moral paradigm shift, his no-name, ruthless employers.

 

Salvo has married a smart, upper class journalist named Penelope, against the wishes of her authoritarian father. Their marriage is doomed from the start.

Lately he has been doing some under the radar translation work for Her Majesty’s Government in Mr Anderson’s Chat Room. His knowledge of African languages makes him indispensable.

Salvo doesn’t know it yet but his life is about to get a whole lot more exciting and complicated!

The night before he becomes a part-time spy, Salvo meets Hannah, a young Congolese nurse, who needs him to translate her advice to a dying African patient. They fall in love at first sight. Hannah has a young son, Noah, living back in Uganda with her aunt so that Hannah can continue to further her nursing experience and send back money.

They are perfect for each other, and in his guilty heart Salvo knows that his bourgeois life with Penelope is over. Having consummated his love and passion with Hannah, Salvo is still infused with a post coital afterglow when he is summoned to meet with his Chat Room boss, Mr Anderson, about a ‘special’ mission that requires a change of identity and complete deniability.

Given new, but somewhat shabby clothes in comparison to his usual attire, his identity is changed to Brian Sinclair. He signs the Official Secrets Act. His task: to be a top interpreter for a no-name syndicate between tribal warlords and a businessman of the Eastern Congo.

Before they leave, Bruno is taken to a large London townhouse where he meets his immediate boss, ex-special forces tough man, Maxie, who reminds him of his long-dead maths teacher from The Sanctuary. Prominent politicians and business leaders are coming and going, including a hero of his, Lord Brinkley.

Soon our boy is being whisked by helicopter from London to Luton airport where he boards a private charter with Maxie and his spy cohorts: Spider, Anton and Benny, various security detail Salvo calls ‘anoraks’ and the syndicate’s contract writer, a shady French Lawyer, Jasper Albin.

Salvo’s phone has been commandeered temporarily by British Intelligence, so he cannot call Hannah to tell her he will be away for the weekend, or his wife to apologise for leaving her party early, and also their faltering marriage.

It is during the flight to a mysterious island in the North Sea on this heightened tide of emotions that he is briefed with what he needs to know by the laconic and foul-mouthed Maxie, whom he (and everyone else on the mission), refers to as Skipper.

Salvo learns that the top secret conference has been arranged by an accomplished servant of the Crown, the silvery haired and persuasive Philip, and that in his vital role as their interpreter, Brian Sinclair, he is not to divulge that he speaks the lesser known Shi and Kinyarwanda.

The Congo – Lake Kivu

This information seems incidental at first, but as the story progresses the significance of Maxie’s explicit instructions become fundamental to the plot:

“Suppose we put it out that you speak English, French and Swahili and call it a day? That’s more than enough for anybody. And we keep your little ones to ourselves. How would that grab you? Different kind of challenge for you. New.”

Salvo is less than impressed that ‘above the waterline’ he only speaks English, French and Swahili, and ‘below the waterline’ the languages that he is most proud of such as Shi, Bembe and Kinyarwanda must be kept under wraps, unless he is specifically asked to use them. He nonetheless undertakes his ‘above the waterline’ rendering of Philip, the Mwangaza and Maxie with alacrity.

The Mwangaza is a beloved spiritual leader of the Congo’s ‘middle path’, accompanied by his henchman Felix Tabizi, (aka Tabby), a feared former warrior, and his acolyte the Dolphin.

The three delegates consist of a gnarled general of the Mai Mai and ‘former Mobotu thug’ Franco, and his natural enemy, the aid’s ridden warlord Dieudonné of the despised and persecuted Banyamulenge tribe, and thorn in the British side is the arrogant and slick Haj, son of Luc, a long-time friend of the Mwangaza based in Goma, who has sent Haj as his proxy.

In Salvo’s words: “Haj, the egregious Sorbonne-educated, uncrowned merchant prince of Bukavu: but with such disdain, such foppery, and such determined distance from his fellows, that I was tempted to wonder whether he was having second thoughts about standing in for his father.”

Bukavu – dawn on Lake Kivu

Le Carré’s genius is that I was sucked in with Salvo in his wanting to do a good job of interpreting and for their mission to be a success. In the recesses of the conference, rather than socialise and solicit with the delegates, Salvo has been instructed to go into the basement where Spider has put together a comprehensive listening station that links in to all the rooms in the house and the outdoor bugs scattered at key points throughout the grounds.

The conference organiser and boss, Philip is banking on loose tongues to wag while their unpredictable guests are out of earshot of their hosts…

The illicit listening is where Salvo hears himself being called ‘a pretty zebra’ by a recalcitrant Haj, who is doing his best to talk Franco and Dieudonné out of getting involved with the syndicate. They are speaking (and the inference is deliberately) in Kinyarwanda, not knowing their interpreter is eavesdropping on one of his ‘below the line’ languages.

 

As the syndicate’s chief ‘sound thief’, Salvo translates their conversations and reports back to the well-spoken Sam via the radio, who frequently starts her sentences with, “Brian dear…”

It is apparent to Salvo (and therefore to the reader), that Skipper wholeheartedly believes their secret conference will make them the saviours of the Eastern Congo. In his less than salubrious language Maxie explains:

“Congo’s been bleeding to death for five centuries,” he went on distractedly. “F***** by the Arab slavers, fellow Africans, the United Nations, the CIA, the Christians, the Belgians, the French, the Brits, the Rwandans, the diamond companies, the gold companies, the mineral companies, half the world’s carpetbaggers, their own government in Kinshasa, and any minute now they’re going to be f***** by the oil companies.“

As the conference unfolds, it becomes obvious that the well-meaning secret syndicate will support the three leaders to publicly support each other and the Mwangaza in a pre-arranged coup, although it’s portrayed more as a temporary disturbance by Maxie to downplay any violence, prior to the elections in Kinshasa.

Maxie takes great pains to explain that the wealth of the mines and minerals will be distributed to the well deserving people, after the syndicate and its partners take their cut.

The Congo gets its popular, altruistic leader, a newly formed peace united under the Mwangaza, and the delegates and the syndicate get rich. It’s a win-win according to Skipper.

 

Haj is the subversive element of their plan, and through Salvo’s clandestine listening in of Tabby torturing Haj with the assistance of Anton and Benny, (something his employers did not want him to know about), Salvo himself, now disillusioned and wary of the coming war that Maxie and the syndicate plan to unleash, and that Haj has protested about, secretly becomes the unlikely linchpin of the entire operation.

From one of the Mission Song’s most shocking scenes the book’s moving title then becomes clear.

Le Carré’s escalation and tension crescendos magnificently, so much so that you feel like you are a rookie spy, in the thick of it with Salvo, torn between his loyalty to Queen and country, his missionary’s conscience and his homeland, as well as his love for Hannah who he knows also adores the Eastern Congo and the Mwangaza. Their beleaguered nation, once again at the mercy of ruthless state-sponsored greed…

The twist at the end is heartbreaking and breathtaking. It’s so utterly brilliant I had a swell of emotion! I was screaming in my mind at Salvo not to be so naïve. He is a zebra surrounded by lions.

This is realistic spy fiction which makes it all the more impactful in my humble opinion. I was left with very unpatriotic thoughts and disquiet, I felt quite sullied actually. I don’t read le Carré for a light-hearted romp, because that’s not his style – it’s gritty, hard hitting, lyrical (you wouldn’t believe the man’s vocabulary), cynical and visceral.

“John Le Carré turns espionage into existentialism. His canvas is betrayal — of the realm and of the heart. His greatness comes from the personal nature of that exploration.” ~ David Farr

Endings are a tricky thing to master: to achieve a balance whereby the reader is both surprised and satisfied with an outcome that is unforeseen and yet can be the only logical conclusion to the story. Yet again The Mission Song left me breathless.

My thanks to John le Carré for inspiring me to once again get stuck in to writing my psychological thriller that has been rattling around my head for far too long.

I found this a fascinating and entertaining debate between author Anthony Horowitz and screenwriter David Farr – Ian Fleming vs John le Carré:

If you want an intelligent summer read full of authentic details in the world of espionage, covert national malfeasance, interpreting, dialogue to die for and edge-of-your-seat, emotional storytelling, The Mission Song won’t let you down!

For a deeper insight into the man and his writing this is a great interview (on le Carré’s part at least) filmed with BBC Radio 3:

For fans you may wish to know that the author will be speaking at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 7th September discussing his career and new novel, A Legacy of Spies, reprising his best loved character: George Smiley. It has been billed by The Guardian as the literary event of the year.

The kids will only just be back at school, but I must be there!!