The Book Tower

Moving On

2010-10-09T17:22:11Z

The Book Tower has now moved to thebooktower.net

The Small Hand

2010-10-02T11:24:59Z

Aren’t there always those moments, just before the blow falls that change things forever?

The latest from Susan Hill appears at an appropriate time of year. I always associate October and the creeping onset of winter with ghost stories, and so welcomed the publication of The Small Hand. This short supernatural tale isn’t quite as strong as The Woman in Black or The Man in the Picture. That’s not to say it’s unsatisfying, and I would recommend this to any follower of Hill or the ghost story genre.

Adam Snow is a dealer in rare books, travelling the world buying and selling although one location has a particular draw for him. This is the archetypal house of sinister tales; abandoned, derelict and with the accompanying overgrown wilderness of a garden. It’s here that he arrives by accident and where he first encounters The Small Hand, an invisible force that grips him with a terrifying compulsion whenever he is near to water. Hill invests her story with some genuinely scary moments. I particularly liked how Snow is drawn towards finding out more about the ghostly presence rather than being frightened of it. The scene where he meets a mysterious stranger during one of his return visits to the old house is brilliantly visualised, as are Snow’s frequent descents into vivid dreams and nightmare.

The Small Hand is set in the present day, although apart from fleeting references to email and the internet, a reader would be forgiven for thinking it was set in the immediate post war period. Snow appears to live in a world devoid of modern technology, one where he can only follow his trail with the aid of newspaper cuttings and old photographs. Perhaps this is due to a familiarity with Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger, which deals with some similar themes. The Small Hand is effectively creepy, but would suit the short story form better than the short novel, sitting comfortably in a large anthology of ghostly winter tales.

Billy Liar

2010-09-24T13:51:05Z

Today’s a day of big decisions – going to start writing me novel – 2000 words every day, going to start getting up in the morning. [Looks at his overgrown thumbnail] I’ll cut that for a start. Yes… today’s a day of big decisions.

Billy Liar came back into my orbit when the BBC screened their recent Up North season. Their excellent documentary on early 60s British cinema featured the usual, welcome, suspects of A Taste of Honey, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, A Kind of Loving and Billy Liar. The last two were directed by John Schlesinger in 1962 and 1963 respectively. A Kind of Loving is one of my favourite films, a typical kitchen sink drama of the period but elevated by the captivating lead performance of Alan Bates. Billy Liar, starring Tom Courtenay, is equally terrific but for different reasons.

Billy Liar is a film dealing with flights of fancy; the life of a young man who lets his imagination get the better of him. Cheat, fool, wastrel, or simply liar. Permanently late for work, tying everyone in knots with his perpetual fibbing (“you told that woman down the fish shop that I had me leg off”, moans his father, “do I look like I’ve had me leg off?”) and general larking about. Tom Courtenay handles a difficult role admirably. I say difficult because a lesser actor would make him irritating, and Courtenay restrains himself enough to make Billy sympathetic. The role was originally played on stage by Albert Finney and it’s difficult to imagine him in the part; Finney’s a little too thick set and tough looking, whereas Courtenay does have that juvenile look about him. That’s not to say the Finney is a lesser actor, he’s just not Billy Fisher.

There’s plenty of fine performances in this film, especially the female characters. Billy’s mother (Mona Wasbourne) and grandmother (Ethel Griffies) represent the older generation with Barbara (Helen Fraser) and Rita (Gwendolyn Watts) are permanently wet and permanently shrieking in turn as the younger. Then there’s Julie Christie, perfect in the role of Liz, who only succeeds in sparking any kind of life in him. Billy’s dreams of achieving his ambition of becoming a comedy script writer in London for the excruciating Danny Boon (Leslie Randall) are realised via Liz. Almost.

Watching Billy Liar again for the first time in two decades or so, I was struck by how the effectiveness of the film’s ending hasn’t blunted at all. This is the inevitable closing scenes, where Billy deliberately misses the train that’s about to take him and Liz away to excitement, riches and a conventional happy ending. But Billy Liar resorts to its monochrome realism; tugged by the reality of his grandmother’s death and a family crisis he falls back into the persona of the dreamer and slopes home to his bedroom.

John Schlesinger’s direction is also worthy of a mention. Watching this on wide screen (the Studio Canal DVD I own is very good quality although annoyingly there are no extra features) I was struck by how beautifully photographed it is. Schlesinger also makes wonderful use of open space, especially the scene with Billy and Barbara in the enormous graveyard, the huge Victorian crypts speaking for themselves in metaphor. Most effectively was how he films the background to 60s life, a mix of demolition sites and newly minted tower blocks. And how he lovingly films Christie, a find for him after she’d only previously appeared in a couple of minor films (things like Crooks Anonymous with Leslie Phillips and Stanley Baxter in 1962).

Although he never again reached the heights of A Kind of Loving and Billy Liar, John Schlesinger did direct several more notable films. He worked with Julie Christie again in both Darling (1965) and Far From the Madding Crowd (1967). From there he delivered a run of eclectic films until his death in 2003, the best in my opinion being Midnight Cowboy (1969) and the unjustly forgotten The Day of the Locust (1975).

Billy Liar is a classic period piece and the best film of British 60s cinema. Although so rich in acting talent (I’ve neglected to mention Rodney Bewes and George Innes as Billy’s work pals) two performances deserve an extra special highlight. Firstly Wilfred Pickles is brilliant as Billy’s permanently aggravated father, and his exasperation provides the film with its best comedy. But best of all is Leonard Rossiter as Billy’s boss Mr Shadrack, where – if you look closely – you may see the seed of the performances he gave a decade and a half later as Rigsby in Rising Damp. Sheer genius.

The Blockhouse

2010-08-27T10:25:22Z

In 1974 Peter Sellers revived his flagging film career by agreeing to resume the role of Inspector Clouseau. The Pink Panther franchise produced a run of successful films up until his death in 1980. It’s an odd coincidence that in the year before his “comeback” Sellers played another Frenchman in possibly the most obscure film he ever appeared in. The Blockhouse is not a starring vehicle for him, but rather an ensemble piece where he plays one of seven men trapped in an underground bunker during World War II. The unusual cast also includes Charles Aznavore, Leon Lissek, Jeremy Kemp and Peter Vaughan. It’s a rare straight role for Peter Sellers.

The Blockhouse is directed by Clive Rees and based on a novel by Jean Paul Clebert, which in turn is supposedly based on real life events. If this is true then it is an extraordinary story. The seven men, all prisoners of war, are trapped underground during the D-Day raids. They find themselves in a German “blockhouse”, an underground shelter with food, drink and – equally importantly – candles to keep them alive for years. And it turns into years. In 1951, so the story goes, two men were rescued from a blockhouse after surviving for seven years, four of them in total darkness.

Thus The Blockhouse is fairly depressing subject matter, although it is compelling viewing due to the excellent performances. Especially Sellers. Despite the megalomaniac he is often portrayed of in biographies, he does not attempt to steal the limelight in this film any way. A truly brilliant performer, who sadly squandered his talent on often substandard material. Peter Vaughan, another actor better known for comedy, is also very impressive as the first to crack under the strain (a piece of trivia: Vaughan also played Sellers’ father in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers). Unfortunately the film quality of The Blockhouse is poor, with the direction uneven. It’s no surprise that Rees did little else. But there are several memorable sequences. Sellers attempting to teach his fellow captives dominoes, an ill-advised bicycle race, and Sellers (again) resolved to his final moments under the earth. This, together with the final scene when the supply of candles comes to an end, is very moving.

It’s strange that The Blockhouse fell into obscurity for so long, and there’s probably a metaphor there somewhere to compare the film with the plight of the seven forgotten men. I’m not aware of it ever being on UK television. Stranger still, it is now available as part of The Peter Sellers Collection on DVD together with Where Does it Hurt? and Orders are Orders, arguably his two other least known films. I would think any Pink Panther fans buying this will be in for a shock.

Poolside Reading

2010-08-25T12:16:55Z

It’s easy to succumb to the holiday reading obsession. Choosing the most appropriate books for your summer break and making sure things won’t be tarnished by bad choices. Has a holiday ever been ruined by a bad book? I’m not sure, but I think I probably would have enjoyed the South of France more five years ago without a copy of The Line of Beauty. And I may have brought back better memories of Cyprus without Brick Lane. This year I holidayed in Turkey for the first time since 2004 where I enjoyed Birds Without Wings by Louis Louis de Bernières. Would this year’s choices be as good at that, or would I succumb to another dose of the Hollinghursts?

So perhaps best to get Turkey’s turkeys out of the way. After deciding to give Orhan Pamuk’s Snow another chance I confess to abandoning the book for a second time. I’d fancied an appropriate read for Turkey, but confess that this is a writer I cannot contend with. The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw looked like an intriguing read but rapidly turned into a tedious and far from involving novel.

As for the two books I picked up second hand before departing, I didn’t touch them at all. Don’t Tell Me the Truth About Love by Dan Rhodes was left in a villa somewhere near Fethiye whilst I donated David Nicholls’ The Understudy to family members. Two of them read it and enjoyed it thoroughly, so it was good to pass on a good read.

Falling into the middle category was The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene. I enjoy Greene, but somehow this didn’t suit poolside reading at all. This faintly depressing novel didn’t fit the air of frivolity, and Greene’s gloom would be far suited to the current wet climate as I peer through the office window.

There were only two winning books for this summer holiday.

C is Tom McCarthy’s follow up to Remainder, my holiday best for 2008. Remainder was a real literary treat, a book that managed to be refreshingly original, clever and compelling. C is also very good, although I found that McCarthy was moving into the David Mitchell territory of cleverness. It attempts to tackle very big issues; the nature of communication, real and artificial networks, Man’s misalignment with nature until it’s far too late. The book has some excellent passages that make it a must, the best being the chapters set during the First World War that portrays the conflict from the unusual angle of a plane. Highly recommended, although McCarthy appears to have lost the sense of humour that make Remainder so addictive.

My best holiday read is also likely to be my novel of the year and comes from an unusual source. Thomas Pynchon doesn’t usually suggest light summer reading. However his most recent book, Inherent Vice is possibly his most accessible novel to date. Set in California at the end of the 60s this is a mix of detective fiction, brilliant comedy and a wry observation of the era. It centres around a hippy private eye known as “Doc” and his investigation into a missing property magnate, although his movements take increasingly weird and wild twists and turns.

What’s so good about Inherent Vice is that the elements are all strong enough to work independently; remove the trademark Pynchon humour and there is still an intriguing and well executed crime story beneath. And whilst the book is full of crazy yet well observed characterisations (rarely for me I regularly laughed out loud when reading this) it is canny enough to hold California circa 1969 (let us not forget that this was the awful Manson era) at arm’s length. My book of the year. An absolute must.

Books in the family circle that I couldn’t get my hands on included Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd, Fool’s Alphabet by Sebastian Faulks and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, although my good lady informs me that this was a disappointing read. So I might save them for next year.