Waiting for Columbus - Thomas Trofimuk

The year?  Well, hard to say but somewhere a few years before Christopher Columbus set sail across the Atlantic, funded by Spain.  That is what the patient in the mental asylum in Seville, Spain, says.  He was found washed up on the coast of Spain in dreadful shape, lucky to be alive, but  mentally damaged.  He begins to tell his story and he is Columbus, he has the ear of Queen Isobella, eventually he will get ships.  He will sail across the Atlantic.  He knows this, and yet it cannot be.  The first doctor who sees him is not long for his job, when it is found that has sexual enounters in his office with the nursing staff.  So it is only Consuela, a nurse, who at first listens, taking notes and falling in love with the romance of the tales he tells, and of course with the patient himself.

Later, a new doctor takes over the case.  He is more diligent and he knows that Columbus is only Columbus because his mind has completely obliterated something else, and work has to be done to get that memory back, hopefully get the patient to forget Columbus, and get him back to sanity.

I was irritated at first, because Columbus mentions mobile phones, televisions and all those things that we know and love now, but that for the fourteenth century would have been witchcraft and heresy, and a visit from the Inquisition.  But once I took stock, knowing that the patient in question was not actually Columbus, but just a deeply disturbed man who had put himself in the shoes of the man, I began to understand more how a damaged brain might  work, and was filled with dread for him and what his mind had covered up.

Despite some of the reviews on Amazon (and this will always be a true Marmite book), I liked it very much.  I understood that we were inside the mind of a man who had re-invented himself so as to cover some deep hurt or shock, and after the first mentions of items out of place in Columbus' time, I just rolled with it.  The final chapters and the epilogue reveal all, and were shocking, but expected.  Just as a novel it was a great read for me,  but as an example of a particular mental condition, it was an eye-opener.

The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton - Elizabeth Speller

Speller's first book, The Return of Captain John Emmett, had at it's centre a widowed ex-soldier, returned from WW1 with  pain in his heart  and a mystery to solve on behalf of a friend's wife.  I really enjoyed that, and her second book has the same ex-soldier at it's heart.

 He is Laurence Bartram, who is asked to help his wheelbound chum William Bollitho with a job he is doing at a country house.  A country house with a dark secret at it's heart - the disappearance of a five year old girl, some fifteen years previously. He knows nothing of this mystery until he arrives, and even then it is not really spoken about.  This book, and it's predecessor, both have a background of WW1, and the flashbacks to the war itself are important to the characters and to the reader also.

The family at the house have spent years not really talking about the important things in life, and it seems as though they will continue to do so, particularly in the case of the missing child.  Laurence gets to know the family but is increasingly convinced that there is more than one secret to be uncovered.  And then a body of a woman is found in the small family church.

I like the character of Bartram.  A flawed hero, a wee bit po-faced, but dogged, and therefore right for the job of unearthing several truths.  The book has that "just one more chapter" quality, and indeed around half way through there is a bit of a shock that makes the need to get to the end even more urgent. 

Describing WW1 veterans  and their coping mechanisms after the Great War has been well handled, and this a well researched book, certainly one worth reading.  Recommended.

Dog On It - Spencer Quinn

Spencer Quinn - now here's a guy who observes dogs closely!  I just couldn't resist the thought of a dog telling me a story and Chet (the Jet) is such a lovely dog I wouldn't mind meeting him myself.  This is the first in a series of mysteries, where Chet tells the tales of Bernie's adventures as a private eye;  although of course whilst he knows he's Bernie's partner, we see him as a faithful companion who can only bark.  However, there is much more to Chet than barking - he has a delicious sense of humour and a sort of a "Sam Spade" voice too.

The mystery starts when a mother pays Bernie in cash to find her daughter who has disappeared from home, aged 15.  Strangely, the father of the girl insists that she has just gone off somewhere to "find herself".  Making a few mistakes, Chet is soon on the trail, and in fact finds the girl before anyone else does - but he's just a dog, right?  And so he cannot tell anyone where she is and in fact cannot find the place he saw her.  But of course, he's telling the tale, and so we all know where she is and why, and it's for Bernie to struggle on and try to find her.

Better than any cozy - a strong storyline, and told with humour, this is a light read for a cold afternoon in front of the woodburner - add a cup of tea and you'll soon be in there, in Chet's wonderful, smelly, food orientated life.

A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson

Today is Armistice Day, when at the 11th day of the 11th month we remember those whose lives were cut short in WW1 (and  also now WW2).  Every year, a group of bookie friends and I choose to read a "Remembrance Read" in November.  A book either set just before, during, or just after either of those two wars.  I lost no-one at all in either war, but my father lost his only cousin and best friend, a pilot in the first world war.  It doesn't mean that I don't think about all losses of wars - losses on both sides, whatever the cause and the uniform. For whoever they were, they were someones.  A son, a wife, a father, an uncle, a lover, a daughter.

This year I have just finished a book which I was recommended by a friend.  It is A God in Ruins and the title comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson -  A man is a god in ruins.  When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.  
 

 This is a book that has a certain style.  If you do not like a story that jumps about in time, you may not like this one.  I loved it.  We follow the life of Edward (Teddy) Todd, a bomber pilot in WW2, from his childhood onwards - but not in a straight line.  We read, and we wait for that life to unfold, which it does, together with revealing chapters detailing his RAF career in WW2.  His whole life, his family his successes and (mostly) failures.  Those he loves, those who love him.  We go back and fore in Teddy's life and in the lives of those he touches.  Descriptions of bombing raids  are horrific, as are those of coming home, planes on fire, wheels locked up and rear gunners trapped with no escape.  Don't be put off by this.  Life is real and so is war.

It is rare that I call a book magnificent.  This is one of them.   This is a companion to her earlier title, Life After Life - the story of Ursula, Teddy's sister.  I have not read that, and I probably won't (only because there are just too many books on my shelves), but even the author says that it is not necessary to read Ursula's story first, or at all. Whatever you decide, I can recommend this one.

Trump - thoughts from the UK

You get the Government you deserve.  That's an old quote here in the UK.  The American electoral college is so different from the way we do elections, but like the US, actually we don't vote for the person, but for the party...... The face of the party at Presidential Elections is who you see though, isn't it?   Anyway,here are my own, very personal views about the news, based on the first hour I listened to the radio.

1.  I wonder whether Trump will continue to push for building a hotel and a golf course in Scotland where one little family in a tiny home are refusing to move out and let him in?

2.  The current US Ambassador to the UK - what a diplomat.    They had a party last night at the US Embassy, and this morning he just would not be drawn about his own personal opinion.  Brilliant.

3.  Trump turned into another person when announcing to his supporters that he was the winner.  Humble, with a quiet, sensible way of telling them their party had won,  and announcing what he was going to do.  Out of character?  Will it last?

4.  Will anyone want either of the Clintons to come and speak for money now?  If they don't, what are they going to live on?

5.  Will Trump keep US protectorates?  (e.g. Guam)

6.  Finally, How much will the House of Representatives and the Senate agree with Trump?

Zoli - Colum McCann

 Let's get serious for a little while.  I had this on my  shelves, chosen, I  expect, because of the cover, although the subject  when I turned the book over was what hooked me ultimately. If you look on Amazon, you will notice that there are about 7 different covers for this book.  Perhaps the publishers just couldn't get it to sell.  Pity.  This is a story that, whilst sad, will inform, will anger, will open your eyes.

Let me first say that whilst this is a fiction, it is based on the life of a Romany/Gypsy singer and poet called Papusza.  Zoli is a real gypsy.  a girl who lives in a caravan drawn by a horse, and her country is Slovakia, her tongue Slovac.    She is orphaned as a small child, by the Hlinkas, the Slavic version of the Nazis.  Look them up.  At six, suddenly, she and her grandfather are all that are left of the family group they travel with.  Travelling at night, keeping away from the Hlinkas, they eventually find and join a group of Roma musicians. The story takes us from the 1930s up until the beginning of the 21st century.  It makes fascinating reading, albeit sometimes very grim indeed.  Because she has a beautiful voice, she falls in with the new "comrades" in Slovakia - those who want everyone to share in everything that is good and for a while she becomes famous.  Just for a while.    A friend of mine is from Roma blood, and this made the book more interesting to me  A fascinating culture, left behind by civilisation, by their own choice.  But then - the bright new comrades of Slovakia think it isn't fair for the Roma to miss out - they will want the heated homes, the proper floors and doors that everyone else is going to get - Won't they?

          

There is a Polish film (2013) called Papusza, using the Polish and the Roma languages, shot in black and white, which is Papusza's story. |If this has interested you, I suggest you read the book and then get hold of the film.  Get as much from this very small but important life - and remember though it was the Nazi party that wanted to rid the world of  Jews and Gypsies.... they were not the only group that wanted that result.

My Name is Leon - Kit de Waal

This is not a book to make the reader smile.  But it does compel the reader to turn the pages, getting

ever more angry with each of them.  If you can, imagine you are 9 years old, with a new baby brother.  You have a black father, he has a white. Your Mum is addicted to prescription drugs, alcohol and is suffering for post natal depression.  Imagine being a carer for that new brother.

 

 Leon loves that little baby very much, and he does what he can.  When his Mum will not get out of bed and the food in the cupboards is gone,  the formula milk for the baby nearly finished, Leon must tell Tina upstairs who has often cared for him.  Things do not go well when Social Services are brought onto the scene, for Leon's Mum needs hospitalisation, and there is no other family.  This is Leon's story.  This is how he learns that even people you love can let you down even when you are sure they are not going to.  This is how he learns that people are not always what they seem.  This is how he learns that loving someone may not be enough.   

 

Set in London, in the year leading up to the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer, there were dark deeds aplenty, the police were not the police we know today, and somehow, at nine years old, Leon has to find his way in life.   This is an adult read,   but I think many younger adults would get a lot from this.  This was a time I lived in London.  This was a period I remember, and yes, it was a dark time.  But not all of it.  Maybe Leon will find a home and someone he loves.  Maybe.....