November 2019 book review

LITTLE SIBERIA, by Antti Tuomainen.
A meteorite falls in a remote Finnish village, Turns out it’s a very rare kind, and maybe worth as much as a million euros. Greed breaks out in the village as its inhabitants argue over ownership. The heavenly body attracts interest from outside too: the Russian mob reckons they can just take it for themselves.
          It is placed in the local museum while its fate is decided, and on the rota of people assigned to guard it is our hero, a pastor who has served in the armed forces in Afghanistan, so he can take care of himself. Which he will need to do, as one attempt after another is made to purloin the hot rock.
          A very different tale from Palm Beach, Finland; nonetheless Mr. Tuomainen has created another quirky, violent little tale of nastiness in the Arctic. And although I like to read important, significant books even, I also like a cracking good read. Which this very much is.

FEED THE RAT, by Al Alvarez
The ‘rat’ of the title being the itch to take risks and push the envelope that is within some people, which must be ‘fed’ if boredom is to kept from the door. Some ‘feed their rat’ by mountain climbing, and this skilfully crafted book is about these men, and one man in particular: Mo Antoine, a Brit despite his exotic name, who constantly seeks greater challenges on peaks throughout the world.
          Alvarez, an experienced climber himself, accompanies Mo on some of these ventures, though must bow out when the technical challenges become too great for him, and he is forced to sit and watch his illustrious friend negotiate vertical pitches that seem to lack any discernible hand or footholds.
          Alvarez has established a glowing reputation for his writing, especially in America where he regularly contributes to The New Yorker. And this is as good an introduction into his oeuvre as you might wish for.

MEMOIRS OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER, by Siegfried Sasoon
This achingly beautiful yet at times horrific account of life in the trenches of the Great War follows on from his book Memoirs of a Fox hunting Man and covers the period 1916-1917, as the British and French throw themselves continually against the German defenses, usually to little avail and at terrible loss of life.
           Sasoon himself, who calls himself Sherston in this book, has already distinguished himself in battle more than once and has won the Military Cross as a result. But soon he begins to realize the awful futility of war in general and this conflict in particular. Knowing that as a ‘war hero’ his voice will carry considerable weight, he hatches a plan to denounce the generals and political leaders who have chosen to continue the war for no readily discernible reason. But will anybody listen, even to him? Or will he simply be labelled a man driven mad by shell-shock and dispatched to a psychiatric institution? Read on, if you like crisp, exquisite prose telling a story of death and inglory.