April 2019 book review

AGAINST NATURE (A REBOURS), by Joris-Karl Huysmans
In late 19th century Paris, a nobleman finds himself jaded by bourgeois life and retires to his country estate, where he can indulge his passions uninterrupted. These include, amongst other things, decorating his tortoise with gold and precious stones. Unfortunately this results in the death of the hapless creature, but never mind. It was worth a try.
          There is a story about Oscar Wilde where, unsatisfied with the colour of a carnation, he dipped it in green ink. One feels M des Esseintes would have approved. In this extraordinary book, which concentrates solely on this one character, there are many such excursions ‘against nature’ indulged in by our ‘hero’. Having originally approved of the naturalist movement in literature, he now rejects it, and its most illustrious protagonist, Emil Zola, and seeks solace in the poetry of Baudelaire. (This apparently happened in real life, with Huysmans breaking with his old friend Zola). It is said Huysmans based his character in part on the real-life count Robert de Montesquieu, which is interesting, because it is also believed that Proust used the same man as a model for his infamous character baron de Charlus in A La Recherche.
          What emerges is one of the strangest books ever written. It divided opinion violently at the time, but today it is accepted as a classic. Highly recommended, but be prepared for a wild and deeply disturbing ride...

ADA OR ARDOR, by Vladimir Nabokov
A young boy and girl become kissing cousins, and indeed rather more than that. And even when it later emerges they are in fact brother and sister, it does little to dampen their ardor (geddit?) for each other. And there you have it. This book, the longest Nabokov wrote, is in fact a chronicle of this love affair which extends over many decades, surviving a series of separations.
          In Lolita, Nabokov’s most famous book by far, the subject was paedophilia. Here as I have indicated, the subject is incest. Yet the moral problems with that, as in Lolita, turns out to be less important than the narrative and literary structure of what is a truly magnificent novel. Nabokov, writing in a language which was not his own, has used it more skillfully than almost anyone else of his generation, peppering his writing with puns, in-jokes and sometimes obscure literary references than can be enough to make the head spin. Read, but read carefully. You don’t want to miss a trick...

SEAN CONNERY, by Kenneth Passingham
Being the life (up till 1983, anyway, which is when this book came out) of one of Britain’s best loved actors. It’s all there, from his beginnings in a Glasgow tenement slum, through his early days as a body-builder, to his luckiest of lucky breaks when the Bond film producers took a big risk by choosing a relatively inexperienced Scot to play Ian Fleming’s suave and sophisticated English spy. Fleming himself was apparently horrified when he heard who they had chosen, until that is he saw the rushes from Dr No. From that point he underwent a conversion, in keeping with the rest of the world, who collectively decided Connery was James Bond.
           Becoming one of the world’s most famous people had its problems, however, as the book recounts. For Connery was an intensely private man, and deeply resented the press intrusions into his personal life, while conceding it was pretty much inevitable. He also gradually realised the films producers, “Cubby’ Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, were making far more money out of the movies than he was, and the book describes how, as each successive film was made, he was able to secure a better deal for himself, though not without a struggle on each occasion.
           This book is written by a tabloid journalist, though that is not necessarily a problem. When journos write books they often lose the frills and cut to the chase without delay, making, as in this case, a thoroughly absorbing read.

THE CROSSWAY, by Guy Stagg
A troubled young man with a drink problem decides, even though he is no believer, to undertake a pilgrimage from Canterbury to Jerusalem, following routes established in the Middle Ages. Perhaps he will find  himself on the way, and lose his demons.
           What follows is a fascinating account of a five thousand kilometer journey across Europe to the cradle of Christianity. His writing has been compared to some of the great travel writers, including Patrick Leigh-Fermor, but I’m here to tell you that is hyperbole. Yes, the writing is interesting and highly informative at times, but it is sometimes guilty of the  cardinal sin of over-writing, and, I’m sorry Guy, you are no Paddy Leigh-Fermor, with the best will in the world. You are no Gavin Maxwell either, as we shall see in his wonderful book A Reed Shaken by the Wind, which I shall review next month. Now that’s what I call travel writing...