The Old Man and the Spy

It's taken a while, but I have finally finished the AudioGo recording of Ian Fleming's 'From Russia with Love'.  This version was read by Toby Stephens, who fans will recognise as the villain Gustav Graves from 'Die Another Day'.

'From Russia with Love' by Ian Fleming
Read by Toby Stephens
(AudioGo, 2012)

James Bond is a marked man.  The Russian spy-killers SMERSH have decided they need to bag a big name and none come bigger than Bond.  Orchestrated by Colonel Rosa Klebb and chess master Kronsteen, SMERSH set a trap with the twin temptations of the beautiful Corporal Tatiana Romanova and a top secret Spektor coding machine.  Although suspicious, M and Bond decide it is a prize worth making a play for and before long the famous secret agent is on his way to Istanbul, unaware that Russia's top assassin, Donovan Grant, is on his tail...

Unfortunately, I found this story hard work.  It starts well enough, with a focus on Grant and his origins, but once the story moved to the boardrooms of the Russian military, my mind began to wander.  In the paperback, it's more than 90 pages before Bond makes an appearance, but it's hard to believe that it's purely his absence that stopped it holding my attention.  I usually like it when Fleming tries something different, but I think this time it fell a bit flat and led to a lack of tension early on, for me anyway.

Whether I enjoy each Bond novel often seems to hinge on how much I like the female lead.  Romanova seemed a bit too much of a push-over, little more than a pair of blue eyes and some fluttering lashes.  That may appeal to a certain male audience, but I'm afraid I need a brain too please.  I know that the girls can't outshine Bond and that these books represent the values of a different era, but it's always more fun when the ladies get a look in on the action rather than just being damsels in distress.

I think my love of the film version was also a big problem here.  'From Russia with Love' is one of

'From Russia with Love'
by Ian Fleming
(Penguin Modern Classics, 2004)

my favourites, so I had high hopes that the book would exceed the movie and flesh out the key characters, particularly Kerim and Klebb.  To a degree it did, but unfortunately I didn't really like what I found out, especially about the apparently lovable Kerim.  I'm very glad that the sexual politics of today don't accept 'taming' women the same way they did in 1957.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed by the book.  Perhaps people who haven't seen the film will get more out of it because they don't know the basic plot, but I doubt there are many people who haven't watched it already and that doesn't make up for the dodgy way the female characters are portrayed and treated.  On the whole, like Grant and Klebb, it's a bit odd, but that won't stop me pushing on with the rest of Fleming's novels.

I will return.... with the rather different 'The Victorian Chaise-Longue' by Marghanita Laski!

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The End is just the Beginning

Oh dear.  Not a great start to the year then,  Six weeks in and only two books down.  Will have to try harder.  Or just read shorter books...

I've just finished 'So, Anyway...', John Cleese's bestselling autobiography.  Beginning with his early life in Weston-super-Mare, Cleese charts his growth as a person, writer and comedy performer, describing the many people who influenced him.  Fondly remembered teachers, intimidating family members and supportive friends and colleagues are all woven into the story of how Cleese went from Somerset boy to Cambridge law student to BBC comedy legend.

Unusually for an autobiography, this book manages to end on a cliffhanger!  It probably annoyed a

'So, Anyway...' by
John Cleese
(Random House Books, 2014)

lot of readers, but Cleese ends his narrative just as the Monty Python team begin working together for the first time, so doesn't actually cover a lot of his most famous work in detail, such as 'Fawlty Towers' or 'A Fish Called Wanda'.  A lot of people may find this annoying, but I actually enjoyed the earlier parts of the book most and got the feeling that the author might've done too.

One thing that did annoy me a bit, however, was something Cleese said about two thirds of the way through.  Justifying his decision to include some brilliant extracts from his early TV and other work, he declares it a fact that most readers "don't give a tinker's cuss for me as a human being or feel for the many different forms of suffering that make me so special".  How wrong you are, Mr Cleese!  I found the earlier chapters much more interesting and enjoyed learning more about your background and what made you into the iconic comedy writer you are now.

The later chapters include a number of sketches from various broadcasts, but, while illuminating for someone like me who is too young to remember them, they felt like something for the author to hide behind.  I felt the book was actually at its most interesting when Cleese offered his thoughts on psychology and the thought process that goes on behind writing or performing.  The very best at anything always make it look easy, so it's good to hear more about the intelligence and work behind it rather than just the Hollywood-dream-celebrity-culture-anyone-can-do-it-if-they-want-it-enough scenario that we're all force-fed nowadays.

Overall, I enjoyed this book very much and think fans of John Cleese and the 1960s' satire boom will do too.  I'm not sure whether I'd read a second autobiography, but then I got the feeling the author felt that such a book would be unnecessary. perhaps because so much has been written about the Python team already.  If he skipped that era entirely and began again with his post-Python work, I think I would be tempted.  But in the meantime, I think I have quite a lot to keep me busy already!

Leave 'Em Wanting More

So, my first book of 2015 was 'The Empty Throne' by Bernard Cornwell, the latest novel in the bloody marvellous Saxon Stories series.

'The Empty Throne'
by Bernard Cornwell
(HarperCollins, 2014)

The future looks bleak for Mercia.  Its ruler, Aethelred, is dying without a male heir and too many people want to fill the soon-to-be-empty throne.  Nobles at home and abroad are manoeuvring themselves and a coup seems inevitable.  Yet the candidates are all politicians, not the warlords Mercia needs to defeat its Danish invaders and prevent them taking over the whole country.  Although Aethelred's wife, the formidable Aethelflaed, is a proven warrior and inspirational leader, no woman has ever ruled and her greatest supporter, Uhtred of Bebbanburg is wounded.  So is this the end for Mercia?

There's little I can say here that I haven't said before about other Bernard Cornwell books.  That sounds like a bad thing, but it's actually a compliment.  His work is consistently absorbing, energetic, interesting and enjoyable, so that really only the action and locations change.  It's like reading one book in instalments rather than a series of books over a number of years.

In a way, the fact that this book is part of a series is its weak spot.  The story, while gripping and eventful, feels like a bridge between one plot point and another rather than a destination in itself.  Even so, it still gives Uhtred fans all the things we've come to expect - treachery, battles, political machinations, sea voyages, a quest and a wonderful sense of time and place.

But because it feels like a stepping stone, it really leaves you wanting more.  Not just more from different characters, but literally what happens next because it feels half done.  I'm like an excitable youngster in a shieldwall, held back by a more experienced commander who knows when it's best to strike.  I'm sure Mr Cornwell knows what he's doing, but, goodness, the next couple of years will feel a long wait!  Just as well I have plenty of other things to read in the mean time!

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