De silva

The Wood for the Trees by Richard Fortey

Renowned natural historian Richard Fortey bought four acres of beech and bluebell wood and began a deep investigation into its fauna and flora. His enthusiasm for his new wonderland is infectious

From a detailed review in the Guardian: "It is hard to think of a more treasured aspect of the British landscape than woodland, which is surprising when you consider how far we seem to have wandered from the trees. We have lower levels of woodland cover (13%) than our EU neighbours yet the forest continues to thrive in the national psyche, as demonstrated by the outcry in 2011 that halted government plans to privatise England’s state-owned woods and forests.  We love the off-the-lead freedom to wander these ever-changing yet timeless spaces, to briefly decentralise ourselves from the world and experience nature’s otherness in counterpoint to day-to-day life. Public outrage at the proposed sell-off wasn’t just about the effect it would have on a favourite view or psychological retreat, however – the very character of the country seemed under threat. In its defence, protestors evoked everyone from Robin Hood to Winnie the Pooh.  

                          

So our connection to woodland is deep-rooted. It is historical, cultural and personal, ingrained from millennia of habitation, dependency and usage. The Wood for the Trees, follows Fortey as he focuses on our woodland connections and affections, using one small wood to capture a wider story of the British landscape.

 

In 2011, after retiring from his role as a senior palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, and following a windfall from presenting a TV series, Fortey purchased four acres of prime beech and bluebell wood. Located in the Chiltern Hills, a mile from his hometown of Henley-on-Thames, Grim’s Dyke Wood is the very patch that had John Stuart Mill so enraptured two centuries ago. Though it has changed in the intervening years, it is still a glorious spot – Fortey’s initial intention was to use the wood as a way to “escape into the open air”, to record a rich ecology of living wildlife following a career locked away in dusty museums studying dead things. His particular sphere of expertise whilst at the NHM was the extinct marine arthropod class of Trilobites.  He soon realised, however, that any portrait of the place would be incomplete without its human histories, too.

“I needed to explore the development of the English countryside,” he writes. “I was moved by a compulsion to understand half-forgotten crafts …plans were made to fell timber, to follow the journey from tree to furniture … in short, the wood became a project.”

What follows then is, in one sense, an expanded diary of this project over the arc of a year, except Fortey is not just any retiree keeping notes on a new hobby. His remarkable scientific knowledge, intense curiosity and love of nature mean entries erupt with the same richness and variety as the woods they describe.

Because of his scientific background he is able to draw on the full range of expertise from within the biological and archaeological disciplines.  From recipes for ground elder soup to musings on bumblebee varieties or gruesome tales of murder, Fortey’s enthusiasm for his new wonderland is infectious and illuminating. His style echoes the Selborne naturalist Gilbert White and his approach is proudly old school. He makes clear his distaste for “fuzzy” romanticism and the intruding emotions of the observer, but he too is romantic at times, not least in his resolve to collect things found in, or created from, his patch of wood. Mouse-gnawed cherry stones, glass made from flint, fallen birds’ eggs are among the things he preserves in a cabinet made from his own timber. 

Of course, collections are the trade of scientists and curators too, and it’s clear old habits die hard. With some help from colleagues at the Natural History Museum Fortey begins a deep analysis of the wood and its inhabitants – trees, insects, animals, plants and minerals. He starts with the substrate, slicing buried flint and putting it under a microscope to identify its origins, and ends up on a cherry picker in the canopy, all in the name of cataloguing the wood’s many mice, moths, bats, beetles, butterflies, crane flies, spiders, parasitic wasps, orchids, centipedes, millipedes and weird and wonderful fungi. On a personal note,  I found the section on truffles astonishingly enlightening.  He made truffle-hunting seem so straightforward and far less hitty-missy than I had come to believe.  Fortey has a talent for imagery:  Flat-backed millipedes “look as if they were assembled from some kind of kit that clicks together to make miniature armoured trains”; the Lithobius variegatus centipede’s striped legs stick out “like oars from a Viking ship, bent on pillage”.


Interwoven with these records are peripatetic investigations into human stories, from this patch’s iron age incarnation through Henley’s boom as a thriving river town supplying timber to the capital, up to the recent snapping up and fencing off of surrounding land by oligarchs and bankers. Along the way, Fortey unearths his wood’s changing fortunes and its significant ties to local estates, country houses and notable families. Taking a broader view of British history, he reveals how its survival and ecological richness have been due to its usefulness in providing the things we need – food, fuel, coppice, charcoal, chair legs, tent pegs and brushes.

And therein lies the conundrum. The future of British woodlands and their wildlife is precariously balanced, threatened by everything from climate change to the consumer preference for cheap imported woods. In this deep and interesting book, Fortey warns that without a return to hands-on management, a renewed sense of value and increased human engagement, our native woods are doomed to become empty “rural decoration” left “to age to a kind of senility that would benefit only wood-eating beetles”. Young trees need to replace the old, he writes; “new light needs to flood in”. Not only do we still need the trees, but they need us, too. 

Qui filii sunt victimas

When The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini came out it received wide attention and I read it, along with my Book Group companions.  It became a bestseller after being printed in paperback and was popularized in book clubs. It was a number one New York Times bestseller for over two years,^[4] with over 7,000,000 copies being sold in the US.   Reviews were generally positive, though parts of the plot drew, understandably, significant controversy in Afghanistan. A number of adaptations were created following publication, including a 2007 feature film, several stage performances, and a graphic novel. It tells the story of Amir, a young boy from Kabul whose closest friend is Hassan, his father's young servant.

The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of Afghanistan's monarchy through Soviet military intervention, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime.  Apart from tackling a thoroughly engrossing human story, here was an opportunity to learn much about recent Afghan history

Hosseini has commented that he considers The Kite Runner to be a father–son story, emphasizing the familial aspects of the narrative, an element that he continued to use in his later works.  Themes of guilt and redemption feature prominently in the novel, with a pivotal scene depicting an act of violence against Hassan that Amir fails to prevent. The latter half of the book centres on Amir's attempts to atone for this transgression by rescuing Hassan's son over two decades later.

And the Mountains Echoed is the third novel by Khaled Hosseini.  It deviates from Hosseini's style in his first two works through his choice to avoid focusing on any one character. Rather, the book is written similarly to a collection of short stories, with each of the nine chapters being told from the perspective of a different character.

The book's foundation is built on the relationship between ten-year-old Abdullah and his three-year-old sister Pari and their father's decision to sell her to a childless couple in Kabul, an event that ties the various narratives together.

I found And the Mountains Echoed less engaging than its predecessors.  I am a fan of the short story although many people have never really taken to them.  However a classic book of short stories is often an eclectic mix of narratives and is all the more enjoyable for that.  Nevertheless Hosseini writes well and gets to the heart of human issues.   It deals with its characters movingly and is testament to the unbreakable bonds of love.

The North Water by Ian Macquire was Longlisted for the Man Booker 2016.

  In 1859 a man joins a whaling ship bound for the Arctic Circle. Having left the services, his reputation in tatters, Patrick Sumner has little option but to accept the position of ship's surgeon on this ill-fated voyage.
But when, deep into the journey, a boy is discovered brutally killed, Sumner finds himself becoming a reluctant detective. Soon he will face an evil even greater than that he had encountered at the siege of Delhi, in the shape of Henry Drax: harpooner, murderer, monster.   As the true purpose of the ship’s expedition becomes clear and despair descends upon the crew, the confrontation between Sumner and Drax will play out in the terrible darkness of the Arctic winter . . .

A theme that links The North Water and the writings of Khaled Hosseini is the way children are vulnerable and can so easily become victims to the predations of malign adults. 

De ecclesiis,

Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd and A Month in the Country by J L Carr

Two novels, each written by a Booker award-winning author.  The former title failed to receive a nomination although it seems every bit as good as Chatterton which did get picked in 1987.  Peter Ackroyd was born in London in 1949. A novelist, biographer and historian, he has been the literary editor of The Spectator and chief book reviewer for the The Times, as well as writing several highly acclaimed books including a biography of Dickens and London: The Biography. He lives in London.

'There is no Light without Darknesse
and no Substance without Shaddowe'
So proclaims the architect, Nicholas Dyer, assistant to Sir Christopher Wren and the man with a commission to build seven London churches to stand as beacons of the enlightenment.

Set in the early 18th century, Dyer is progressing work on the churches which are all set in London's East End. He is, however, involved in Satanic practices (something inculcated in him as an orphan), a fact which he must keep secret from all his associates, including his supervisor Sir Christopher Wren.  This is all the more challenging since he indulges in human sacrifice as part of the construction of the buildings. Dyer's simmering contempt for Wren is brought closest to the surface in discussions they have concerning rationalism versus Dyer's own carefully disguised brand of mysticism. 

In the 20th century, a detective,  Nicholas Hawksmoor is called in to investigate a bizarre series of murders by strangulation that have occurred in and around the churches designed by Dyer. The murders are all the more mystifying since the murderer appeared to have left no identifying traces, not even fingerprints on the victims' necks.  However the area is stalked by mysterious shadows, and it becomes clear that not only the weight of the investigation, but unseen forces from the past come to bear on Hawksmoor in a powerful, destructive manner.

'Chillingly brilliant . . . sinister and stunningly well executed' Independent on Sunday

A Month in the Country  by J L Carr was nominated in 1980 for the Booker Prize.  The plot concerns Tom Birkin, a WWI veteran employed to uncover a mural, that was thought to exist under coats of whitewash,  in a village church. A Month in the Country is tentative, aware of its temporality. When he arrives in Oxgodby, Birkin knows very well life is not all ease and intimacy, long summer days with "winter always loitering around the corner." He has experienced emotional cruelty in his failed marriage. As a soldier, he witnessed death: destruction and unending mud.  It transpires that many of the incidents in the novel are based on real events in Carr's own life, and some of the characters are modelled on his own Methodist family

 At the same time another veteran is employed to look for a grave beyond the churchyard walls. Though Birkin is an atheist there is prevalent religious symbolism throughout the book, mainly dealing with judgment. The novel explores themes of England's loss of spirituality after the war, and of happiness, melancholy and nostalgia as Birkin recalls the summer uncovering the mural, when he healed from his wartime experiences and a broken marriage. The happiness depicted in A Month in the Country is tentative, aware of its temporality. When he arrives in Oxgodby, Birkin knows very well life is not all ease and intimacy, long summer days with "winter always loitering around the corner." He has experienced emotional cruelty in his failed marriage. As a soldier, he witnessed death: destruction and unending mud.............  Many of the incidents in the novel are based on real events in Carr's own life, and some of the characters are modelled on his own Methodist family.

Problematis matres

Recent weeks have seen me plough through a substantial number of novels.  I use the word plough advisedly because like all books some have found greater favour with me than others.  I have compiled the list of books to blog and grouped them by theme.  Often the theme is an expediently broad one but here I choose two titles where the mother figure is a principal member of the cast.

In Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, which made it to the Man Booker Short List 2016, two women arrive in a Spanish village - a dreamlike place caught between the desert and the ocean - seeking medical advice and salvation. One suffers from a mysterious illness: spontaneous paralysis confines her to a wheelchair, her legs unusable. The other, her daughter Sofia, has spent years playing the reluctant detective in this mystery, struggling to understand her mother's illness.

Surrounded by the oppressive desert heat and the mesmerising figures who move through it, Sofia waits while her mother undergoes the strange programme of treatments invented by Dr Gomez. Hot Milk is a melee of violent desires, primal impulses, and surreally persuasive internal logic. Examining female rage and sexuality, the novel explores the strange and monstrous nature of motherhood, testing the bonds of parent and child to breaking point.

Searching for a cure to a defiant and quite possibly imagined disease, ever more entangled in the seductive, mercurial games of those around her, Sofia finally comes to confront and reconcile the disparate fragments of her identity. 

"My mother is sleeping under a mosquito net in the next room. Soon she will wake up and shout, 'Sofia, get me a glass of water', and I will get her water and it will be the wrong sort of water."

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout was also a Man Booker nominee appearing on the Long List for 2016.  My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author demonstrates how a spell in hospital which provides abundant time for reflection and introspection sheds light on the universal and often complex relationship between mother and daughter.

The central character is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Her unexpected visit forces Lucy to confront the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of her life: her impoverished childhood in Amgash, Illinois, her escape to New York and her desire to become a writer, her faltering marriage, her love for her two daughters.  Knitting this narrative together is the narrative voice of Lucy herself: astutely observant, deeply human, and memorable. In My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author shows how a routine hospital visit can throw up an opportunity to shed light on the universal and often painfully complex relationship between mother and daughter.

The Paris Architect

The Paris Architect is a 2013 novel by Charles Belfoure and the author's debut in fiction writing. It follows the story of a French architect Lucien Bernard who is paid to create temporary hiding places for Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris.

Specialising in historic preservation, before writing The Paris Architect, Charles Belfoure had written several non-fiction books on architecture, including works on the history of American banks and rowhouse architecture in Baltimore. He decided to pop into fiction spontaneously, thinking it might be an exciting experience and a way of having a break from everyday work. A direct inspiration came to Belfoure after discovering the fact that during the reign of Elizabeth I in England special spaces were designed in houses as temporary hiding places for repressed Catholic priests.

Like most gentiles in Nazi-occupied Paris, architect Lucien Bernard has little empathy for the Jews.

So when a wealthy industrialist offers him a large sum of money to devise secret hiding places for Jews being hunted by the Nazis, Lucien struggles with the choice of risking his life for a cause he doesn’t really believe in. He desperately needs the money to make a living though he knows that if caught, he will be killed.

Ultimately he can’t resist the challenge and begins designing expertly concealed hiding spaces --- behind a painting, within a column or inside a drainpipe --- detecting possibilities invisible to the average eye. But when one of his clever hiding spaces fails horribly and the immense suffering of Jews becomes incredibly personal, he can no longer deny reality.  But when one of his hiding spaces fails horribly, and the problem of where to hide a Jew becomes terribly personal, Lucien can no longer ignore what's at stake. 

The Paris Architect asks us to consider what we owe each other, and just how far we'll go to make things right. 

A Morality Tale in a Claustrophobic Setting

Mr. Trevor beams in his morality tale this time through a corrosive, middle-aged female photographer among some three-penny urban misfits in Dublin. Mrs. Eckdorf, divorced twice and brash as a blue-jay, explodes into the seedy confines of O'Neill's Hotel, its occupants and satellites placidly revolving around the silent world of its ninety-two-year-old owner,

the deaf-mute Mrs. Sinnott. Communicating with Mrs. Sinnott by means of school exercise books are her family, blood kin and orphans she has sheltered. Mrs. Eckdorf, at the height of creative and spiritual excitation, is increasingly convinced that the silent benison of Mrs. Sinnott's presence has united this unpleasing horde in mutual forgiveness. Madly photographing, Mrs. Eckdorf barges in on the bewildered, hostile "family." After a series of extravagant actions and confessions, Mrs. Eckdorf is holed up in a mental institution - completely potty. Only the priest, Father Hennessey, her only visitor, suspects - against his better judgment - that she may have been on to something. Not Trevor's best - there's just not enough leaven for the lunatic vision - but it's a full house of believable, likable rogues and rabble, with an unexpected joker. (Kirkus Reviews)

Dark Narratives

Nearly one month has passed since my last post and I have got through a number of books.  Most of them have been somewhat bleak.  With the prospect of three weeks on a small boat, with another couple, I chose some reading material that would not require a low threshold of concentration.  Thrillers tick that box for me.  With hindsight, given the anxious days preceding the EU referendum and the pain of the days after the result I might have chosen something lighter.......

Based on the recommendation of my friend William I had bought Philip Kerr's trilogy Berlin Noir.  I tackled the first novel, March Violets, and found it to be an engaging
thriller set in a Berlin on the threshold of World War.  Bernhard Gunther is a private eye, specializing in missing persons. And in Hitler's Berlin, he's never short of work... Winter 1936. A man and his wife shot dead in their bed. The woman's father, a millionaire industrialist, wants justice - and the priceless diamonds that disappeared along with his daughter's life.As Bernie follows the trail into the very heart of Nazi Germany, he's forced to confront a horrifying conspiracy. A trail that ends in the hell that is Dachau...  Stylishly written and powerfully evocative, Kerr's crime classic transports readers to the rotten heart of Nazi Berlin, and introduces a private eye in the great tradition of Hammett and Chandler.


I followed this with another Mo Hayder thriller, Ritual, which makes for even more grim reading than the two former titles which I have read.  Her protagonist, Detective Inspector Caffrey, is a troubled man who has never managed to get past the abduction and presumed murder of his younger brother when they were boys.  In Ritual just after lunch on a Tuesday in April, nine feet under water, police diver Flea Marley closes her gloved fingers around a human hand. The fact that there's no body attached is disturbing enough. Yet more disturbing is the discovery, a day later, of the matching hand. Both have been recently amputated, and the indications are that the victim was still alive when they were removed.
Jack Caffery has been newly seconded to the Major Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol. He and Flea soon establish that the hands belong to a boy who has recently disappeared.

Their search for him - and for his abductor - lead them into the darkest recesses of Bristol's underworld, where drug addiction is rife, where street-kids sell themselves for a hit, and where an ancient evil lurks; an evil that feeds off the blood - and flesh - of others ...


I have also chosen two more titles in the Detective Erlendur series.  Black Skies and Voices follow Arnaldur Indridason's whodunit formula of offering the solution of two crimes, in effect two stories, in between the covers of one book.   In Black Skies Detective Sigurdur Oli is in trouble.  Moving from the villas of Reykjavík's banking elite to a sordid basement flat, Black Skies is a superb story of greed, pride and murder.  After a school reunion exposes the chasm between his life and those of his much more successful contemporaries, leaving him bitter and resentful, one of his old friends asks him to pay an unofficial visit to a couple of blackmailers.

He readily agrees, only to arrive to find one of the pair lying in a pool of blood. When the victim dies in hospital, Sigurdur Oli is faced with investigating a murder without revealing his own reasons for being present at the murder scene.

In Voices it is a few days before Christmas and a Reykjavik doorman and occasional Santa Claus, Gudlauger, has been found stabbed to death in his hotel room in a sexually compromising position. It soon becomes apparent that both staff and guests have something to hide, but it is the dead man who has the most shocking secret.  Detective Erlendur soon discovers that the placidly affluent appearance of the hotel covers a multitude of sins.