'The Last Battle' is the final volume in CS Lewis's well-known 'Narnia' series for children. It opens by introducing a disagreeable and manipulative ape called Shift, and a rather timid, self-deprecating donkey called Puzzle. Poor Puzzle is treated as Shift's servant, and spends time fetching and carrying for him. On the day when the story starts, Shift has seen something moving in a deep and rather chilly pool, and tells Puzzle to go and get it.
The item turns out to be a lion-skin, and Shift has the sneaky idea of dressing Puzzle up in this skin, then telling everyone that Aslan has returned. Aslan the Lion is the absolute King - the God figure - of all Narnia, although it's been a long time since he's appeared to anyone. Puzzle is sure it would not be right to pretend to be Aslan, but is over-ruled by the quick-thinking Shift.
The scene changes to King Tirian, who we are told is the last king of Narnia. He's peacefully chatting with his closest friend, the unicorn Jewel, a few weeks after the events of the first chapter, when bad news arrives: the talking trees are being cut down, animals are being enslaved, disaster has come to Narnia.
Worse still, this is not due to an invasion from enemies, but is apparently happening because Aslan has commanded it. Tirian and Jewel hurry away to find out what's going on, and find themselves caught in the middle of lies, treachery, and deceit. Each person involved has to decide who or what he (or she) stands for as lines are drawn between the forces of good and the forces of evil.
Narnia is another world, a mixture of realism and fantasy, which is visited by children from our world when it's in desperate need. In Narnia there are dwarfs, centaurs, and many other mythical creatures as well as humans. More significantly, there are races of intelligent talking beasts (such as Shift and Puzzle) as well as wilder 'dumb' animals. In the earlier Narnia books, the talking beasts were mostly those who knew and loved Aslan, but in this book many of them have become corrupt, and care nothing for the traditions and beliefs of loyal Narnians.
Like all the Narnia series, there is clear Christian symbolism underlying this book. CS Lewis claimed once that 'a children's story is the best art form for something you have to say.' And so he puts across his beliefs in a low-key way, creating an exciting book that can be enjoyed at many levels. Puzzle the donkey dressing up in a lion skin can symbolise the false messiahs who - according to the Bible - will come into the world in the last days. But someone who knows nothing about this can see Puzzle simply as a rather pathetic figure, wanting to do what he believes to be right, yet convinced that his clever friend the ape knows best.
I first read the Narnia books when I was about nine or ten, and at the time I wasn't very keen on 'The Last Battle', although I liked the way that it brought closure to the series. Perhaps I was put off by my general dislike of fighting; as the title suggests, there are some serious battles in this book, although none of them go on for too long. However when I re-read the book in my teens, I found I enjoyed it more. The ending made sense to me, and I could see some of the Christian analogies clearly.
This isn't a long novel - it's intended for children, after all, and the paperback edition runs to only 164 pages. I've read it several times over the years, and recently re-read it in a couple of hours. It would be ideal for a child of about eight or older to read alone, or for a parent to read aloud; it's equally suitable for teenagers and adults. I wouldn't really recommend it for a child younger than about eight since the subject matter is fairly complex; a small child might get confused by the deceit and treachery, and also might find the exciting climax a bit disturbing.
As an adult, I find this book surprisingly moving; I empathise with the unfortunate Puzzle, and root for King Tirian as he worries about - and fights for - his country. The characters are not described in much detail, but they're well-rounded and believable in the context; even the talking animals manage to retain traits of their species as well as having the intelligence and speech of humans.
Although 'The Last Battle' could be read as a stand-alone book, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who has not read any of the other Narnia books. I think it would be confusing to anyone who had not read at least 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and 'The Magician's Nephew'. Ideally it should be read as the last in the series, since it ties together some of the events in other books, re-introduces much-loved characters from those books, and brings Narnia as it was to a thrilling end.
Highly recommended to anyone who has read others in the series.
The prologue to Rosamunde Pilcher's novel 'The Shell Seekers' introduces us to Penelope. She is a woman in her sixties who is returning home in a taxi after discharging herself from hospital. The first time I read it, I had an immediate image of a strong independent lady, and it was a little worrying to learn that she had been in hospital due to a suspected heart attack.
Penelope, we learn, has three grown-up children. As she ponders which one to phone, there is a brief word picture of each from her perspective. Nancy, the eldest, is a worrier. Noel, the youngest, is self-centred. So it's Olivia, the middle one, who Penelope rings to let her know that she's home.
The first proper chapter switches to Penelope's eldest daughter Nancy. We see her trying to deal with her pompous husband and two argumentative, demanding teenagers. Poor Nancy spends her life trying to keep up with the neighbours, sending her children to expensive private schools, mixing with the 'right' people - and yet becoming vastly overweight, struggling to keep out of debt, and complaining about all the things she has to do.
Throughout the book, each subsequent chapter concentrates primarily on a different character who is in some way connected with Penelope. While this could lead to confusion, Rosamunde Pilcher's skill at characterisation means that what actually happens is we gradually learn more and more about the family and their closest friends. Each different window on a character provides a new viewpoint, and frequently some surprises.
Several of the chapters are lengthy flashbacks starting with Penelope's teenage years. She lived in a rather bohemian household in Cornwall with an elderly artist father, and a young French mother. She grew up in the prelude to World War II, which plays an important part in her early adulthood. Whereas lengthy changes of time can be confusing or irritating in some novels, they fit so well into this one that I didn't find them at all intrusive - indeed, quite the reverse. It's during one of these sections that the title of the book is explained: 'The Shell Seekers' is the name of a painting by Penelope's father, which takes pride of place in her living room since he gave it to her for a wedding present.
Although technically this is a family saga, the way it's told makes it feel like a series of ever-expanding circles. We meet Penelope, her three children, her husband, her parents, her experiences in the war, her friends. Mid-way through the book other people are introduced - an art dealer, a gardener, an 18-year-old girl. All take their places in this beautifully choreographed book at exactly the right time.
'The Shell Seekers' was a ground-breaking book in more ways than one. For one thing, it was the book which lifted Rosamunde Pilcher from a little-known writer of short-stories to a best-selling novelist. For another, it broke just about every 'rule' of novel-writing and yet was a resounding success. Prior to this I had never read a novel that revolved around a grandmother, but despite being younger myself I could relate to Penelope strongly. Perhaps this is because the author was herself in her sixties when she wrote it.
The first time I read this book, I rushed through it, eager to find out what happened - as much as I could rush through a book of over 650 pages, anyway. There were parts which saddened me; inevitably with such a time-span there are a significant number of deaths, some of them a little shocking, although all foreshadowed in some way. There were places where I had tears in my eyes, and I'm not generally someone who experiences high emotion.
There were even places where I felt mild suspense - was Penelope right to trust certain people? What dark secret does her gardener have, meaning that he neither drinks nor drives? But overwhelmingly I was left with the impression of warmth, of hope for the future, and a deep reluctance to say goodbye to these people whose lives I had become part of for a few days.
I've re-read it twice in the past ten years or so, and enjoyed it more each time. The characters are so realistic that I feel almost a start of recognition now as I meet them afresh. At the same time, I find I've forgotten specific details, and am still eager to find out what happens, while being well aware of the overlying story and the main plot.
'The Shell Seekers' was the first Rosamunde Pilcher book I read, but it certainly wasn't the last. I now have copies of all her novels and short stories on my bookshelves, and re-read each one every few years. After reading 'The Shell Seekers', I could fully appreciate the blurb on the back of one of her novels quoting the New York Times saying, 'I don't know where Rosamunde Pilcher has been all my life - but now that I've found her, I'm not going to let her go'.
If you like saga novels, you'll probably love this book. If you don't - give it a try anyway when you have a few days to relax. It has depth and feeling, authentic backgrounds in London and Cornwall, delightful people, intriguing relationships, and a rather unusual climax.
'
Faro's Daughter' is a historical novel by Georgette Heyer.
London, around 1815. An impoverished lady who has turned her home into a gambling den, but is going ever further into debt. A lecherous lord making indecent proposals to a young and attractive woman. Rigid class divisions, leading to an upper class family doing all they can to stop one of their number marrying beneath him.
These are the underlying themes of the book. In the hands of many authors it could have been a depressing, hard-hitting and probably sordid account of life in Regency England. As such, being a squeamish kind of reader, I would never have read beyond the first chapter.
However Georgette Heyer has managed to write a satisfying romance amongst these unprepossessing surroundings, while not at all playing down the unpleasantness that abounded. She fleshes out her main characters and endues the minor ones with humorous or otherwise quirky traits, yet still leaves me with a sense of the unpleasant reality of the times.
Max Ravenscar, a bachelor from the wealthy upper classes, learns that his young cousin Adrian has fallen in love with the beautiful Deborah Grantham, a girl who works in her aunt's gaming house. These pseudo-respectable private homes ran gambling evenings, attended mainly by men who could afford to lose vast amounts of money in games of luck. Faro is one such gambling game, in which players bet on which card the dealer will turn up.
Although only men were able to visit such gaming houses, they were often presided over by women; in this particular case the house is owned by Lady Bellingham, who has lost all her money and is determined to survive by the profits of the games. Deborah, her niece, was raised in 'good' society, but the fact of her working on the gambling tables immediately precludes her from polite society, or from marrying into the upper classes.
To society of the time, it was important that people married within their 'class', and the thought of allying the titled Adrian with someone who has had to work for her living - particularly in such 'low' employment - is considered unthinkable by his relatives.
So Max goes to meet Deborah, thinking he can probably bribe her with money to leave Adrian alone, only to find that she has far more character than he imagined. Thus ensues something of a battle of wills between two rather stubborn people, made all the more amusing by the fact (revealed early in the book) that Deborah never had any intention of marrying Adrian anyway. But she takes deep offence at Max's offering to buy her off, and lets him assume that she really is interested in his cousin.
As always with Georgette Heyer's books, there's a realistic background, with just the right amount of dialect and description to seem believable without overwhelming me with historical fact. I first read this book when I was in my twenties, and have re-read it every six or seven years as an enjoyable light read - even knowing what's coming does not spoil the book or the satire on Regency society.
One of Heyer's gifts is that of bringing all her people to life, not merely the two main protagonists. Inevitably there are some caricatures: the first one we find is in Adrian's mother, deeply distressed at the thought of her only son allying himself with someone from a gaming house, yet unable to think beyond the complexities of who is 'received' and who is not in the society in which she mixes.
Deborah's aunt, who could be a tragic figure, is equally amusing: despite owning the gaming house, she goes ever deeper into debt due to her extravagant lifestyle. She pays £400 per year (an enormous sum in those days!) for a box in the opera, despite rarely attending the opera. She cannot possibly do without it since her late husband enjoyed the opera so much.
She keeps bemoaning the vast cost of green peas, yet believes them essential to the suppers she gives to her guests. However she tries to persuade her kitchen staff to re-use candles to save pennies, and is convinced that if only they would be a little more thrifty her problems would be solved!
Adrian himself is a rather naive, but charming young man. In professing his undying adoration for Deborah, he is convinced that he has fallen deeply in love. While young men of his class were expected (even encouraged) to have a series of mistresses before getting married, Adrian is very honourable, and believes his passion to be lasting and pure. He is particularly angered by the elderly Lord Ormskirk who has made less honourable proposals to Deborah, and who holds some mortgages on her aunt's house.
But it's the strong-minded, controlling Max and the stubborn, angry Deborah who make this book the enjoyable fast-paced novel that it is. Both of them are proud in their respective ways. Max is casually so - although he believes he is respectful to those of a lower social status than he is. Deborah is fiercely proud of her independence. Inevitably the sparks fly, and equally inevitably they both find themselves enjoying the challenge of someone who can stand up to them.
It wasn't until I started reading Georgette Heyer's books, in my late teens, that I discovered the fascination of history. Rather than presenting facts, figures and politics, she writes about believable people, surrounding them almost incidentally with the society and attitudes of the times. She writes with humour and irony, often letting the reader see what the characters themselves cannot. In 'Faro's Daughter' the characters end up with a multitude of misunderstandings and confusion, almost worthy of PG Wodehouse, before a single event draws them back together leading to a satisfactory conclusion.
I also like the fact that the author does not herself agree with the prejudices of the time. Initially we hear about Adrian and Deborah from Adrian's biassed mother, caught up in society's expectations. Max is more broadminded, yet he too is horrified at the proposed alliance: not because he is so rigid, but because he assumes that a girl who works in a gaming house must be a schemer who is simply after his cousin's money. Through the book we see Max continuing in his mistaken assumptions, yet increasingly puzzled as he discovers what we, the readers, knew all along: that Deborah is an intelligent and principled young lady who is working for her aunt because she cares for her, not because she likes what she is doing, or is a gambler herself.
This isn't my favourite of Georgette Heyer's books, but I still count it as an excellent read, and would recommend it to anyone - teenagers or adults - for an enjoyable light read.
You can also read a different review of 'Faro's Daughter' which I wrote after re-reading the book six years later.
'Mother Country' is the most recent novel by Libby Purves, and while I enjoyed it, it's probably my least favourite. Whereas her earlier books were character-based light romantic novels, this one is somewhat harder-hitting, set in modern times but almost reminding me of Catherine Cookson in style.
It opens with a harsh prologue set in 1974. A young American bursts down the door of a dirty squat in London, and rescues a crying baby - his son - from a house of drugs and squalor. Shortly afterwards he wins a court battle to gain custody of the child, without any difficulty, then takes him back to the USA.
The rest of the book takes place 27 years later. Alex, the baby of the first chapter, has been raised by his grandparents. His mother, we're told, died of a drugs overdose shortly after the events of the prologue, and his father died in strange circumstances a couple of years later.
Alex is now a highly successful computer guru, working in a large corporation sorting out software bugs. He sometimes hankers to know more of his English relatives, idolising what he knows of the UK; yet so far has been a bit scared of what he might find, and so has not done anything other than dream. Suddenly he's given an assignment to sort out a major system problem in the UK. So he takes a week's leave and - when he's completed the job - begins to explore his roots.
'The Times' claims that this is a 'well-paced detective story', according to one of the reviews on the back of the book. I don't quite know how they came to that conclusion. It's true that Alex is searching for his roots, and that it takes a while before anything much is discovered. It's also true that he is amazed when he discovers some of the truth about his past. However there is no detecting to speak of; he gives the job to a genealogist he meets, and by the time he receives her results, it was fairly obvious to me what he was going to discover. I think it would be difficult to miss, since the author drops plenty of hints.
My own view is that it's an issue-based book which - in a few years - will be considered an excellent historical novel, although I find it hard to consider anything as 'history' which happened since the Millennium! It gives some good insights into US/UK cross-cultural differences, and also shows the power of the Internet for those wishing to seek out long-lost friends and relatives.
While the early part of the book seems to focus on the horrors of drug addiction, with Alex born an addict, there is an implication that many of the druggies of the 1970s became the alternative therapists of the 1990s. Some of the catchphrases taught to recovering addicts are questioned, and the reasons for taking up drugs are mentioned. Alternative medicine is taken for granted, and some interludes in a 'healing centre' show this in practice, with a mixture of realism and stereotype.
There are also important cameos of problems suffered by people in this period, in particular farmers whose stock had to be slaughtered during the foot and mouth epidemic. When Alex arrives the papers are full of stories of burning livestock, and the genealogist who helps him is a farmer's wife, desperate to have a bit of income through internet-based work. Problems with the education system are mentioned too, with the farmer's son having a physical handicap and being excluded from school for safety reasons. The climax of the book involves a significant world event which helps the characters get their feelings into perspective, and leads on to a satisfactory and hopeful conclusion for Alex.
As ever, Libby Purves creates likeable and realistic characters, and I found myself caring about most of them, including Alex. He comes across as a charming young man, culturally naive but eager to learn. His dreams about the 'mother country' are soon shattered by the general gloom and critical nature of Brits, the boring food he's given, and the poor quality of some of the hotels he stays in. Yet the longer he's there and the more he explores, the more he finds to attract him. He's open-minded enough to accept that he's sometimes wrong about his preconceived ideas.
I also liked the way that the plot was carefully crafted amongst events that I remember, and set in places that can still be visited. Alex goes to see the abandoned Millennium Dome, for instance; while I'm not a Londoner I'm fairly certain the details of his journey in the Underground are accurate, and the friendly worker he meets there is probably based on somebody real.
I liked too the lack of descriptive passages. Libby Purves has a style which is light and succinct: she conveys the impressions of what people see without needing to describe everything in lengthy detail. Since Alex is new to England, she includes a little more description than she does in previous books, but I didn't feel that any of it was irrelevant or overdone.
Libby Purves has a particular gift for writing about children, and I was a little disappointed that the few children in this book only featured as extras, albeit significant ones to some of the adults. Perhaps that was inevitable, given the subject matter.
More significantly, before Alex flies to the UK there's some fairly complex business-talk, and also a fair amount of technical discussion. Neither of these particularly interested me; however despite skimming a little I found some of the computer-talk not just dull but unrealistic. I'm not technical myself, but I've been around 'techies' and 'geeks' sufficiently to know the way they talk, and some of the ways modern system problems and bugs are solved. The computer discussions in this book seemed to me to have some parts out of the 1980s, and did not ring entirely true. This was particularly noticeable as it contrasted with the way it was set amongst entirely believable places and events.
I also found the book to have rather more bad language than I like, particularly in the first chapter. It was intended to shock, to contrast the horror of Alex's early days with the reasonably happy childhood he had with his grandparents; perhaps it was realistic. But it nearly put me off reading the book altogether, although I'm glad I kept going.
There was a minor inconsistency that slightly bothered me early in the book, too. Alex, it's stated, has never before left the USA. Yet when he's given the job in the UK, he's able to fly there the following day. No mention is made of the impossibility of organising a passport at such short notice!
'Mother Country' is a very well-written book. At just over 300 pages, I read it easily in a couple of days. Despite my reservations, I was eager to know what happened, and found I could relate to Alex - and some of the minor characters - pretty well. It didn't move me emotionally as some of this author's other books do, and it wasn't the kind of character-based novel I enjoy the most, but that probably means it would appeal to a wider audience. It certainly contained some thought-provoking cultural comments, and I expect I'll read it again in a few years.
