MORE GREAT READS FOR FEBRUARY, 2017
Don’t Tell Me You’re Afraid, by Giuseppe Catozzella
So
she did, and she died, like countless others who fled their war-torn countries
of birth looking for a better life, never reaching the peaceful shores they
sought – in Samia’s case, she was to join her older sister Hodan and her family
who had made it to Finland, had made ‘the Journey’ and survived to live a
normal life in Europe – the dream of every refugee, but Samia had another, more
urgent dream: to run for her country in
the London 2012 Olympics. Time was
running out!
In
Giuseppe Catozzella’s novel based on the true story of Samia’s short life, he
has Samia tell her own story; how at the
age of eight, she and her best friend Ali who lived across the courtyard, would
run like the wind through all the narrow winding streets and alleys of
Mogadishu – oh, there was never a feeling like it! To power along a straight stretch at top
speed (beating Ali every time), to revel in the freedom that her fast limbs
gave her: she would do this all the time
if she could. Until tribal wars, always
hovering in the background meant that Ali and his family (an inferior tribe)
were forced away from Mogadishu and an even worse alternative introduced
itself: El Shabaab, fundamentalist
moslems of the worst kind.
Samia
is forced to run in a Burka; even so, she is actually starting to be noticed by
the Olympic Committee; in 2008 the
Olympic Games will be held in China, and Samia has outrun everyone in the
country, despite the efforts of El Shabaab.
Her times are good enough for her to compete against the rest of the
world – despite terrible family tragedy and ensuing hardship, her dream of
representing her country is realised: in
2008 Samia Jusuf Omar represents Somalia in the 200m heat – coming last, but
undaunted; she won’t give up, she’ll
never give up. If she can get out of
Mogadishu and away from Al Shabaab, if she can travel to Europe and join Hodan
and her family, her dreams are all possible.
Samia’s
Journey takes five months from the start to the finish in the leaky boat. I have to say that before this point, I was
not overly impressed with Mr Catozzella’s writing – until we journeyed together
on her last attempt to be free: then he
had me in a grip of iron, each page horrifying me with prose so vivid and cruel
it left me breathless.
The
Journey begins, that nightmare Journey that no-one speaks of if they are lucky
enough to complete the distance, littered as it is by corpses along the diverse
routes the traffickers take. The
conditions the refugees endure are brutalising and unspeakable, and more money
is demanded at every drop-off point.
Families are allowed a minute on a mobile phone to contact their loved
ones to wire more money, always more than anyone can raise. Those who can’t find the money are left behind
in the wilderness. Life is reduced to
its most elemental. Survival is paramount.
There
are many lessons to be learnt from this important story, not least our
ignorance of the struggles to the death (more often than not) that people will
undergo to have a life that we take for granted. Samia died, but her determination and drive
lives on in this book. FOUR STARS.
The
Pigeon Tunnel, by John le Carré
His long and illustrious
literary career has been shaped by many diverse people and experiences: he confesses that his mastery of the perfect
sentence came not at Oxford, (where, upon graduating with a degree in languages
he was recruited into MI5 as the most junior of intelligence agents) but from
his new bosses, all classically trained, who tore apart with derisory skill his
first efforts at information-gathering.
No paragraph was left without a scathing comment in the margin: ‘redundant – omit – justify – sloppy – do you
really mean this?’
‘No editor I have since encountered
was so exacting, or so right.’
What a grounding for a
future novelist, and what a time (the fifties and sixties) to be a diplomat/spy
for the British Government. Based in
Bonn, Mr Le Carré practised his tradecraft, but learned to write his fiction
based on his previous experiences only after he left the Service, signing an
oath never to reveal State Secrets. His
fame as a writer blossomed with the publication of ‘The Spy Who Came in From
the Cold’, then increased a hundredfold with the introduction of George Smiley
& Co. in ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’.
A Star was Born! Much to the
displeasure of his former masters, who felt that they, and the Service as a
whole, had been rather unfairly portrayed, old chap.
They all must have
breathed a collective and gusty sigh of relief when the Berlin wall came down,
the Cold War ended, and Mr Le Carré chose other subjects to write about, i.e.
Middle-Eastern terrorism, gunrunning, money-laundering – you name it, there was
still plenty of world corruption and scandal for an enterprising writer to
expose, particularly someone with his talent and growing fame.
A particularly
fascinating aspect of these memoirs is the author’s meticulous research into
the characters and settings of each book:
he has travelled all over the world (and endured some very hairy
situations) to give authenticity to his plots, and I was amazed to read of the
number of characters who are based (to a greater or lesser degree) on people he
has met, who have made an impression on him for good or ill. Mr Le Carré’s memory for appearances, accents
and gesture is prodigious, and to be with him as he picks each character apart
is akin to going backstage at the Ballet:
magic is created on the stage, but without the unseen mechanics it would
not exist.
I have included two previous
reviews where, if the reader is enjoying
‘The Pigeon Tunnel’ they may also see that Dima in ‘Our Kind of Traitor’ is a
much kinder portrayal than the Dima that Mr Le Carré actually met in Moscow,
and diplomat Toby Bell from ‘A Delicate Truth’ has marked similarities to the
author as a young man.
What an absolute pleasure
it was to read this book. I am now
waiting impatiently for Volume Two. SIX STARS!!
A
Delicate Truth, by John le Carré
Mr Le Carré, long the
undisputed King of the Spy novel, has changed literary direction considerably
since the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, instead aiming his expository arrows
closer to home, his last novel ‘Our Kind of Traitor’
being a perfect example
(see review below). In ‘A Delicate
Truth’, the Blair New Labour government and its infamous alliance with its
American counterparts are mercilessly exposed in their relentless use of any
method to achieve victory – and profits -
in the War on Terror.
WILDLIFE is
the code name for a combined U.S./British Special Forces counter-terrorist
operation to capture a notorious jihadist arms buyer at a secret location on
Gibraltar. There is also a mysterious
private right-wing arms and security company involved: ‘War’s gone corporate, Paul!’
Fergus Quinn, a Junior minister
of the Crown fuelled more by ambition than good sense recruits a diplomatic
‘low-flyer’ (codenamed Paul) to be his token Man on the Spot, his Eyes and Ears
as the top-secret (even from his own government!) mission is carried out and – the ‘low-flyer’
expects – the wit to abort the operation if the situation warrants it. Ah, in a perfect world …..!
Things go wrong. After the collapse of radio and computer
contact Paul is literally left in the dark on a Gibraltar hillside until his
rescue and hurried evacuation back to England by a young woman constantly
exhorting him that the operation was ‘a triumph, right? No casualties. We did a great job. All of us.
You, too. Right?’
And maybe that was true,
because the low-flyer ends up with a knighthood and a very cushy diplomatic
post to the Caribbean.
Enter Toby Bell, aspiring
Foreign Office employee and soon-to-be Private Secretary (read minder) to
Junior minister Quinn just prior to the Gibraltar fiasco. Toby has been recommended by his long-time
friend and mentor Giles Oakley; this is
a plum job which could lead to even higher things and Toby is delighted by his
good fortune, for his origins are humble, his educational distinction and
linguistic qualifications gained through intelligence, hard work and
scholarships and disguising ‘the brand marks of the English tongue’ – his
Dorset burr – in favour of the ‘Middle English affected by those determined not
to have their social origins defined for them.’
Yes, Toby has ambition but
he also has morals: ‘ he wishes to make a difference, to take part in his
country’s discovery of its true identity in a post-imperial, post Cold-War
world’; he is an ethical, decent man,
and whilst he is not naïve, he is far from prepared for the corruption he is
forced to confront, or its extent. And
this is the fulcrum upon which Mr Le Carré’s fine story turns: will Toby fold under the pressure of bribes
or threats, physical and otherwise, or will he follow the maxim ‘evil triumphs
when good men do nothing,’ and act on it?
Yet again, Mr Le Carré has
constructed with trademark elegance and style a novel of honourable men - 21st century anachronisms, their
integrity derided and courage discounted -
but not content ‘to do nothing’.
And again, Mr Le Carré demonstrates effortlessly why he leads and others
follow: he still blows lesser writers
right out of the water. FIVE STARS.
Our Kind of Traitor, by John le Carré
Dima
is a Russian gangster, and proud of it.
He is also an expert money-launderer for the Russian Mafia and has
amassed huge wealth for them, and for himself – but a new young ‘Prince’ is
coming to the fore in the Mafia Hierarchy, and the Prince doesn’t like
Dima; Dima is too ‘Old-School’, he
dwells too much on the old Vor code of Honour amongst thieves (and murderers)
and after one last, biggest laundering operation – the opening of a new
‘respectable’ bank in the City of London – Dima and his family will be
eliminated, as were several of his dear friends and colleagues already: it’s time, thinks Dima, to defect with all his
secrets and sell them to his preferred country of asylum, Great Britain.
Yet
again John Le Carré has crafted an impeccable story of secret service
diplomacy, political corruption and life-and-death back-room dealings; his characters are superb, almost Dickensian in range and description
and utterly, utterly believable. Mr. Le
Carré has the best eye and ear for accents and body language in the business,
and his wit, interspersed even at times of great suspense in this beautifully
plotted story, is delicious. This is the
master at his best: FIVE STARS
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