Human Croquet

Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson

After reading my third Kate Atkinson book (her second), it’s now official – Kate Atkinson is my new favorite author.  These stories are so rich, so bizarre, so unique, so sad, and yet so hilarious.  I found myself wanting to have a pencil and paper handy to jot down many of the humorous quips that seem to flow so effortlessly from her pen.  Maybe next time.

There are many similar elements between this book and her first, Scenes From a Museum.  The story is undoubtedly “British”, features a multitude of characters, is told across multiple generations, and is not a particularly happy read.  Actually, the story is a joy, it’s just the predicaments the characters are in are less than ideal. 

The story revolves around Isobel.  She’s about seventeen, rather unattractive, and living sometime in the late 1950s.  She lives with her brother Charles and her father Gordon in a house owned by Gordon’s mom, known mainly as “the widow”.  Of course, by the time we’re introduced to these characters, “the widow” as already died.  But, there are couple of other relatives in the house along with a border who is some sort of traveling salesman.  Note there is no Mom.  It seems Mom left the family many years ago when Isobel and Charles were very young.  There is a step mother, however.  Not that this really matters to the kids

Isobel doesn’t have too happy of an existence.  The bulk of this story revolves around Isobel’s yearning for her mother.  Who was she?  Where is she now?  Why did she leave us?  Most of the grownups don’t care to talk about her mother.  Her name is/was Eliza.

What author Kate Atkinson does so well in her books, is she moves around in time so we know more of the “whole story”.  We’re taken back to when Eliza and Gordon were married and “the widow” was still alive.  It is often said that young marrieds shouldn’t live in their mother/mother-in-law’s house.  This story is a perfect illustration as to why.  So we see the young family along with all the trials and tribulations.  We see how/why Eliza left.  We’re not surprised.  After Eliza leaves, Gordon (the dad) leaves as well.  I won’t go into why, nor how, but it seems he might be gone for good as well.  So young Isobel and Charles now live with “the widow” and their morbid Aunt Ginny.  Talk about a miserable existence.   This was the one area of the book where the humor, unfortunately, didn’t quite cover the sadness I was feeling for the children.  “The widow” and Aunt Ginny aren’t fun people to be around.  I remember one exchange:

Eliza: Why don’t we ever have fun in this family?
Ginny: “Fun” don’t get the wash done!

The family in this story are actual descendants from a clan known as “The Fairfax” family.  Author Kate Atkinson begins the book telling the long, sordid history of this clan from centuries ago.  It seems as though this family is rather cursed.  Not surprisingly, by the time we meet the modern day characters, the curse has not been lifted by any means.

I only mention this because there are parts of the book where Isobel experiences strange, out-of-body, and time-travel episodes.  They’re small, brief interludes, and we’re inclined to ask “Were these real? Or is Isobel losing her marbles?”  There are even episodes where Isobel lives the same day over and over again a few times – each radically different, but each with less than desirable outcomes.  Ultimately, the story is so well told that you don’t really care whether these events are real (i.e. existing in some parallel universe) or the result of a bizarre hallucination.  I can see where many authors might seriously bumble episodes such as this, yet with Atkinson, everything runs very smoothly, and the fact that these events may or may not have happened is mostly irrelevant.

On a final note, there actually is a game called Human Croquet.  It’s mostly played like the standard game, only using humans instead of balls that are whacked through hoops, run into each other, and cause destinies to be unfurled in ways unexpected.  This book, nor this author, is for everyone, but I imagine many, like myself, would simply love this story.

To End All Wars

To End All Wars by Adam Hochschild

First thing’s first:  This is NOT a retrospective of the entire first World War.  If you’re looking for a detailed account of the major battles, key turning points, and figures that shaped this horrible conflict, look elsewhere.  What this book IS, is a snapshot of the reason for the conflict, how ridiculous it was in retrospect, and most importantly, how ridiculous it was to a few brave men and women who risked their entire livelihood making bold statements denouncing this “patriotic” war.

To understand the time and places a bit better, we must remember that war was not necessarily looked at with the same degree of horror that it now is a century later.  Up until this “war to end all wars”, it was expected amongst most civilized society that, in all probability, there would be an instance where one’s country would engage with another “enemy” country, lives would be lost, civilians would be tortured, and innocent weaker countries would be bloodily dominated by barbaric bullies of stronger nations.   Seems pretty catastrophic in hindsight as it should, yet…well, this is just how things were.

Take, for instance, how this war started.  Essentially, an anarchistic individual from a country most have never heard of assassinated an arch duke of a rival country (that again, most had never heard of).  The victimized country declares war on the anarchist’s country because of this one incident, and the allies of each of the two countries line up against one another for total domination.  Silly, stupid, and sad.

Initially when the war begins, most are excited.  A war!  We’ll show them who’s boss!  Sadly, reality seeps in quickly.  For various reasons, this war is essentially a stalemate for four years, with no progress being made, yet the dead bodies atrociously pile up in the millions.

There are those on the fringe who realize this is ridiculous, and they make their voice known.  I was not very (and in some cases, not at all) familiar with names such as Keir Hardie, Emiline and Sylvia Pankhurst, Stephen and Emily Hobhouse, and Charlotte Despard.  These figures are not only opposed to the war, but opposed to the many social injustices across Europe in most major countries that essentially caused this travesty to occur.  There is a lot of focus in this book on the protests, hunger strikes, and revolutionary activities to change things.  These individuals have always had pacifist and socialist tendencies, and this awful war culminates their anger, yet most of their angry sentiments are wasted on a blindly faithful public, even as the body count piles up and the general public become enraged and sickened as well.

There are those who might be put off by this book’s obvious “left” political leanings, but we must remember the times that the majority of the people were living in more than 100 years ago.  Life was only good for a very privileged few, and for the majority of the poor and underprivileged, there was, literarily, no escape from a life of poverty and subjugation.  The author gives one humorous (I use that term loosely) example of how the aristocracy in England tried to “help” the poor: At times, the privileged few in the upper realms of royalty would travel to the poorest of the poor in London and distribute flowers to the poor and down trodden.  Flowers.  It kind of reminds of the Monty Python sketch of the famous Robin Hood-like character who would steal from the rich and give to the poor, only instead of stealing money, he stole lupids (a kind of flower).

This book is mainly focused on the comings and goings in England (the author even says so at one point during this narrative), and even though England were the “good guys” during this war, the author reminds us that England was just as guilty as Germany when it came to barbaric acts of subjugation.  He uses the Boer war in South Africa, concluded only a few years before this war starts, as an example, detailing not only the actual conflict, yet the horrid way the women, children and non-soldiers were treated.  So, true, acts such as the German army butchering the country of Belgium during the opening months of the war is basically ignored within these pages, but the author is reminding us that such acts were common everywhere, and the distinction between the “good guys” and the “bad guys” wasn’t as black and white as one would like to think.  He also places strong emphasis on some of the war’s most inept, bungled commanders as they sacrifice hundreds of thousands of young soldiers in battles that never seem to accomplish much of everything.  So, yes, this is definitely an “anti-war” book.

So when the dust finally settles and peace is finally declared in 1918, we can all finally see how bloody a mistake this war actually was, and that the few, brave, outspoken were actually on to something with their observations.  Sadly, like a lot of history, it’s too little and too late.  With out going into too much detail (and the author really doesn’t here, either), the peace treaty that ended this conflict was so inadequate, that it actually was a major factor in the causes of the second world war.

There’s an overall good balance between the war on the actual battlefields and the war that the protest movement was wagering as well.  Personally, I would have preferred more emphasis on the actual battles, yet the author is very convincing in his point that it was the actions of these radicals back “home” that helped educate and shape the attitudes of many, and helped convince those everywhere, that although this conflict sadly did not “end all wars”, it at least educated the planet of the ridiculousness and butchery of such a conflict.  The world would never be the same.

Divine Justice

Divine Justice by David Baldacci

Another David Baldacci Camel Club book.  The Camel Club series is probably my favorite “series” of David Baldacci, yet I thought this one to be a bit unsatisfying, even if it was strong overall.

Without giving away much of the plot, this book picks up where the last Camel Club adventure “left off” at the end.  Let’s just say that Camel Club leader Oliver Stone is now “on the run”.  No great revelation there.  Because of Oliver Stone’s secret spy background, he must be stopped.  Even though he was a great asset for the government, he eventually wanted “out” - which apparently isn’t an option for such a profession.  So the government needs to reel him in.  Another agent is hired to lead the hunt named Agent Knox (don’t remember his first name).  Since Knox will be hunting Stone, we’re not supposed to cheer for him.  Yet Baldacci spends a lot of time educating us to Knox’s character and background, that we end up liking him.  This is necessary since as Knox learns more and more about his target, he discovers that Stone is/was actually a good guy, and he starts to seriously question his directives from his superiors.  I was reminded a bit of the Tommy Lee Jones character in the movie “The Fugitive”, and how his feels toward Harrison Ford were slowly changing throughout the picture.

Well, a series of bizarre events leads Oliver Stone to a small town in the middle of nowhere.  A great place to hide, yet this town as some secrets that Stone is unwillingly thrown.  The whole setup here is a bit strange, and it almost seems as though Baldacci is taking his character completely out of one book and haphazardly throwing him into an entirely different story.  Still, though, Knox remains steadfast in his pursuit.  When the surviving members of the Camel Club (including some others of the supporting cast) discover Stone is being chased, they enter into the action as well.  After all, they need to help their fearless leader who has stuck his own neck on the line for all of them oh-so-many times.

I enjoyed the book, but I still have some problems with how this author handles things at times.  He seems to still find too many “easy way outs” when his characters are in trouble.  Imagine if you will, a person being thrown into an unguarded jail cell.  The person starts to dig through the dirt in the cell and says “look, here are the keys to the cell door!”.  Now, that didn’t actually happen in this book, but there seems to be a lot of situations where events like this occur.  Then, there’s the “randomness” factor.  Imagine being invited to dinner with the President of the United States.  Then, on the way home, you find out you’ve won the lottery.  Right after that, you spot the Loch Ness Monster.  Unbelievable?  Yes, I would say so as well.  You must, however, suspend believability in many of Baldacci’s books, including this one.  It is, after all, just a story.  Surely people like this don’t really exist in the government.  Do they??