‘Hm,’ says Jasper Fforde, ‘I’ve set my world up, I’ve introduced my main characters, I’ve got my themes… I know, let’s have some fun.’
And my goodness me, fun he has – as do we, the readers. This is quite, quite wonderful – reaching a crescendo of comic invention allied to an excellent crime fiction plot: it’s no use going all metafiction if you ignore the basics (Stephen King, I’m looking at you and the end of the Dark Tower series).
Jack Spratt, Mary Mary, Ashley the Alien are all back and facing the psychopathic Gingerbreadman (‘Is he a biscuit or a cake?’ On this question rides all). It’s wonderful seeing an author at the height of his powers really letting rip – my only question is when is the third volume going to come out?
It’s not easy being an egg – particularly one that’s nearly five foot tall, with arms, legs, a predilection for sitting on walls and a fondness for alcohol. So, it’s not so surprising when Humpty Dumpty has his great fall – case closed, you’d have thought, for Inspector Jack Spratt of Berkshire’s crack (because that’s about all the space they have) Nursery Crime Division. But Inspector Spratt – who definitely doesn’t eat any fat – smells something rotten, something eggy, and it’s not Humpty…
Quite wonderful. I’ve been reading Jasper Fforde since the first of his Thursday Next novels came out and find him, along with Philip Reeve, the most consistently enjoyable and inventive writer working today, but I think he outdoes himself with the Nursery Crime books. If there’s any criticism I have of the Thursday Next books it is that I find Thursday herself a slightly bland heroine, but the characterisation of Jack Spratt works really well here and, if anything, improves in the next book in the series.
So, if you haven’t already, visit Reading and spend some time with nursery rhymes.
This is a delicious book – in the same manner that taking tea with an extremely well-read, gossipy and slightly camp vicar would be. In fact, it’s not hard to imagine sipping at the cup, with a slice of cake on the table, as Bishop Moorman (he was bishop of Ripon) holds forth on the failings and foibles of his predecessors in ecclesiastical office.
In fact, this might be the best one-volume history of England I’ve read. By using the church as the lens, it magnifies and illuminates history in all sorts of interesting ways; something comparable (although over two much longer volumes) was done by NAM Rodger in his Naval History of Britain, with similarly fascinating results. The history of a country is so multi-faceted that a single volume work can easily either lose itself in distinctions or fall into triviality – Moorman, and notwithstanding his occasionally waspish tone, does neither. The only regret is that the history stops just after the Second World War (although checking the records, there was a revised 1973 edition which would be worth reading – I read the original ’53 printing) and it would be fascinating to know his assessment of the last half century. As it is, Bishop Moorman must be looking at all our goings on with the wry amusement of the dead at the antics of the living.
Give him something else to be amused at: seek out and read his book.
Have you ever seen, while walking at dusk or dawn through a wood, a shape looming from the shadows, irregular, tall, monstrous – reaching high but not a tree? I have, and it’s made me stop and step back, suddenly nervous, until I realise it for what it is: ivy, growing up and round its host, swamping it so much that the original tree is all but lost to view, a few branches and leaves poking out at the top but otherwise smothered in the ivy’s deep green.
Atheism is like that. Essentially, it is parasitic; it requires the support of a religious culture to hold it up – take that away and, like ivy, it will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
In this excellent book, Nick Spencer is much politer in his assessments. What he does do is cover, in clear, craftsman prose, the intellectual history of the last five hundred years of Western thought, showing in particular how atheism, as a recognisable school of thought, has arisen in reaction to distortions in theology and, particularly, overwheening religious power when associated with the dominant polity of the time. The greater the identification between religion and repressive state, the greater the fury against God and his ministers – and really, not surprisingly.
The boiled down summaries of complex philosophical and political debates are excellent, and come leavened with an entertaining slice of anecdotes. The philosopher, AJ Ayer, comes out particularly well: a fascinating character, with the chutzpah to run a string of mistresses (he accidentally sent identical love letters to two of them, who compared the missives to check), he once faced down a raging Mike Tyson by answering, when Tyson inquired if he knew who he was – ‘the heavyweight champion of the world’ – with the wonderful reply, ‘And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field; I suggest that we talk about this like rational men.’ Who couldn’t warm to a man with such courage – and I hope and expect that God will show him similar respect. Spencer does an excellent job of keeping his own biases from his writing, dealing fairly with all concerned and showing a particular, and justified, admiration for the working-class atheists who founded the Chartist movement.
In fact, the only group who might be miffed about his assessment is the vocal band of New Atheists but then, once you’ve written about Nietzche, Feuerbach and Marx, the posturings of the new boys become all too clear: they really are not in the same league.
Overall, an excellent survey and highly recommended.
For lovers I’ve short fiction, I have a new story out, published in Page & Spine magazine, called Birthday Boy. (A little secret: Page & Spine, published by the lovely Nancy Wagner, is one of my, if not my absolute favourite, markets: Nancy is a writer as well as a publisher and understands the process from both ends, which shows up clearly when she deals with submissions.)
Here’s an extract from the story:
Martin came in, limping a little, and stopped. He glanced at the table, saw Chrissy looking at him, and nodded.
“Today?”
“I told you this morning.”
“Yes, sorry, I forgot. Bad day.”
“It’s his birthday.”
“Of course. Which is it again?”
“Fifteen,” said Chrissy.
“Fifteen? Already? So long.”
“Yes, you’d never believe it, would you?”
Martin paused. “I would,” he said, quietly.
Just back from an almost rain-free week in the Lake District (it poured on the day we arrived and again when we left, but was dry in between [for my friends abroad, just take it as read that this is the single most important news I can relate when talking about a holiday in Briain]). Here are a few photos to give a taste of what we saw and did. Walney Island turned out a little different to what I had expected (this was the edge of the Island of Sodor in the Rev. W. Awdry’s imagination). Still, we thought it would make a moody shot for our proposed boy band (plus one) album cover.
Call us the the Fab Four. Er, the Fantastic Four. The Famous Four…
The next is Isaac investigating for himself the ancient conundrum of the chicken and the egg.
Now, which came first?
Matthew, the lord of Piel Island…
Lord of the Island
…and Theo, leaping up the Old Man of Coniston like a mountain goat.
King of the Mountain
And, finally, me setting off with Isaac on my back to climb the Old Man of Coniston.
All set…
And me, a few hours later, questioning my earlier decision.
The best sort of review is short, to the point and gives the clear impression that the reader’s life has been fulfilled from reading your book. An example: this reaction to Oswald: Return of the King, on Amazon.
It could be. And I’m not saying it shouldn’t be. Hegarty is a fine writer and the story is engaging, the (reluctant) hero a winning mix of moral courage and physical awkwardness, and my 11-year-old son absolutely loved it and is waiting eagerly for the next instalment, so it has all the necessary ingredients (and a really good cover). But (you knew there was a ‘but’ coming, didn’t you?), but, for myself, I am getting a little bored with this style of comic fantasy, where monsters turn out to be misunderstood outsiders, a quip is never more than a paragraph away and each chapter is really short. Like the sentences. If you like this sort of writing, then Darkmouth is as good an example as you’ll find; buy it, read it, and help a writer support his family. As for me, I’m beginning to long for discursive sentences, complex sentence structures, replete with sub clauses and diversions, and less than fifteen paragraphs on a page. Time I read some Dickens, I suppose.
Which was the worst century in Britain’s history? The absolute worst to have to live through? There are plenty of candidates. The 14th century, when the Black Death arrived on these shores and killed a third of the population, has a pretty strong claim to the title. Then there’s the fifth century, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, when everything collapsed and the native Britons were driven, by sword and spear, into the margins of west and north by bands of marauding Anglo-Saxons. Mind you, having done that to the Britons, and become the English, the ninth century has strong title to the worst century, as the Vikings returned the favour and destroyed three quarters of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
Or what about after the Norman Conquest? Pretty much the entire local aristocracy either killed or displaced by the Normans and, according to Paul Kingsnorth, the biggest land grab in history, as everything became the property of the king. Then there’s the sixteenth century: Reformation, revolt, Henry executing people left right and centre, and the ever present terror of the Tudor spy network, informing and betraying. A single sentence spoken out of place and heard by the wrong ear could be enough to have you executed.
Then there’s the destruction of the Wars of the Roses, the poverty of 19th-century industrial slums, or not one but two World Wars and a Depression packed into the first half of the 20th century. All good candidates for worst time to be born. But, having read Ackroyd’s Civil War, I will now plump for the 17th century: of all the ills that can befall a country, none exceeds civil war, and, although exact death tolls are hard to come by, the casualty rate likely exceeded that of the Great War. Even when the war was over, political uncertainty persisted, plus this was the century of enclosures, when the poor were forced from the land. So, come on down, 17th century! You have taken the prize: the worst century in British history!
