LUIGI'S FREEDOM RIDE by Alan Murray

 LUIGI'S FREEDOM RIDE by Alan Murray

Having noticed that I had been reading far too many  books about WWII and the awful horrifying things that occurred, I needed something light, uplifting and human to read . And wouldn't you know it. I find it, in a book set in... WWII!

 But what a contrast. In the words of the author that he sprinkles numerous times through this lovely book,  it is a story 'of the very first order', a wonderful story, brimming over with optimisim, charming, rich in characters, plot and just simply everything. I loved it.  But of course being about the war, there is plenty of sadness and pain. But for once,  somehow it doesn't leave the reader feeling sad, despondent, and downright glum about the moral compass of the human race.

With a title and book cover like this, somewhere bicycles have to feature and they do - symbols of freedom, the journey that is a life, that you have to turn the pedals to make that life happen, and you have to maintain the machine in good order to keep it going. Every chapter is headed by words of wisdom invoking the bicycle in some way. For example: "There is no space for the freestyle cyclist in our Movement. Ours is the business of acting in concert as one. Each is a spoke in the bigger wheel, a tyre on the track of profound change - Randall Ochiltree, Convener, Glasgow Socialist Cycling Club, 1938, Letter to the Glasgow Herald". Or how about this one - "War is a bit like those silly cycling races where you pedal at about zero miles an hour, and then you go like the clappers for half a minute. Either dead stop or flat out - Jeremy Forsythe, Memoirs of a Partisan, 1961". You could do what I did, and google all these quotes to find out a bit more about some of the writers....

The story opens with Luigi Ferraro, now an elderly man living in a small beachside settlement in Australia. How does he get here you wonder?  The life story begins in 1931 when Luigi is ten years old and receives his first bicycle. He comes from the small mountainous village of Tescano in Italy. He lives with his mother Franca, and his Uncle Cesare who is the black smith. His best friend is Leonardo whose parents have the local bakery. His passion in life is bicycles, rebuilding, repairing, maintaining and riding them around the local area. Such a simple life, in a village where everyone knows you, and life continues as it has done for hundreds of years. Until Mussolini and his fascists come onto the scene. Luigi and Leonardo both find themselves in the Italian Army Cycling Corps, and yes it was a real organisation, and then in a rather strange turn of events fighting with the partisans in the mountains around Tescano that he knows like the back of his hand. Love is found, love is lost, friendships found and lost, there is danger, loss, renewal, reconciliation and reunion.

This book is a joy to read, narrated with a sense of wonder and optimism, as if Luigi is an innocent abroad and his very survival to an advanced age is more a matter of good luck than good management. A fabulous read, ideal for the upcoming summer holidays.

SKELETONS AT THE FEAST by Chris Bohjalian

SKELETONS AT THE FEAST by Chris Bohjalian

There seems to be no end to new books, both fiction and non-fiction about the Second World War, and I seem to be reading a lot of them. Almost without exception, they are very powerful, well written, and good reads, and mostly from the point of view of Germany and Germans being the enemy. This novel, written by an American, focuses on the disaster the war brought to the people of Germany. Not the SS or the prison guards or Hitler and his entourage. But the average German man, woman and child, whose lives were destroyed. Millions of people throughout Europe were forced to fleel their homes with few belongings and no one to help them. We don't seem to have much writing from the average German person's point of view, having been conditioned to collectively seem them all as the enemy, and all complicit in Hitler's vision and its enactment. It is refreshing to read another side of the terrible story of this war.

This novel tells the story of a wealthy farming family in the part of Germany that bordered with Poland - East Prussia. The advance of the vengeful Russians in 1944 into Germany, with all their brutality and thirst for revenge, led to a mass exodus west from this area in an attempt to reach the Allied lines before the Russians caught up with them. The author has taken the diary of an East Prussian woman who kept a diary from 1920 to 1945, parts of which documented her family's fleeing and turned it into this story.

Eighteen year old Anna is the story's narrator. With her mother, her younger brother Theo, and a Scottish POW, they flee with as much of their belongings, and food for themselves and their four horses. It is winter, the journey is long, cold, dangerous and terrifying. Parallel to this story is that of a young Jewish man, Uri Singer, who managed to escape from a train taking him and his family to Auschwitz. His story of survival may or may not be true, but what he goes through says a lot for the power of the human spirit. A third story line centers on a group of women who are in a labour camp, and the forced march they undertake across Germany to escape the Russians. An equally horrible story of cruelty, hunger, cold and what it takes to keep on living.

It's a great story, well written, brutal in parts, and heartbreaking. In places not nice to read - the author doesn't beat around the bush with the horrors facing the refugees, the terrible winter cold, the daily fight for survival. But maybe I will leave WWII stories alone for a while, and read more uplifting stuff.

THE REHEARSAL by Eleanor Catton

THE REHEARSAL by Eleanor Catton

Before The Luminaries, there was this novel. A fraction of the size thank goodness, as I actually found it considerably more difficult to read than The Luminaries. Ms Catton was only 23 when this was published, and it is extraordinary writing for one so young. Not only in her plot and its development but in the depth and complexity of her characters. I can't say I enjoyed reading this, there is so much going on, her characters are more complex than most people I know, I am not even really entirely sure what it is all about! But being  Eleanor Catton writing, out of sheer respect for her I did read it to the end. None the wiser really I am afraid. However I can very clearly see where the magic that is The Luminaries has come from. There are plenty of sections of writing in the book that are stunning and beautiful, the joy of writing and the joy of words are everywhere. From reading on-line reviews there are plenty of people out there who really like this earlier novel of hers.

The story centres on two groups of young people - girls at a girls' school, where an older teacher and a 17 year old student have been found out. There is plenty of angst, hand wringing and teenage girls trying to find their own sexual selves in the emotionally ridden atmosphere that results. And a second group of older teenagers - 1st year drama students who are competing with each other for attention from the instructors in voice, movement, mime. The two groups do come together, but it is all really quite strange. I venture to suggest that perhaps this book is about teenagers finding themselves, the search for identity, what fitting in really means, first love, first sexual experience. 

But really to be truly honest, I don't think I got it! It is confusing, I am not sure where it was supposed to be going to, and despite my perserverance it just did not come together for me.  Glad I read The Luminaries before this.

SPARKLING CYANIDE by Agatha Christie

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SPARKLING CYANIDE by Agatha Christie

Isn't she wonderful, the most widely published author in the English language after the Bible and Shakespeare! She isn't called the Queen of Mystery for nothing. Imagine having this fantastic storyteller as your grandmother. Bedtime stories sure would be something else! I haven't read Agatha Chrisite for years and years, and ambling through the library one day recently, waiting for something to pop out at me, this did! Like so many of her stories, this murder involves just a small group of people, intimately linked to the deceased, with more than likely one of the remainings to no longer alive at the end of it all. So as well as pondering over who did it, you are also left pondering who isn't going to make it.

The title refers to the means of death - cyanide in a glass of French champagne. Rosemary Barton is the first deceased, whose death at the dinner table, with previously mentioned small group of people, opens the story. The remaining characters are her older husband George, her younger sister Iris, her husband's personal assistant Ruth, her lover Stephen Farraday, another male 'friend' Anthony Browne and lastly Sandra, the wife of Stephen Farraday. All with their intriguing back stories, and their motives, but do they have the means? And who else won't be left standing by the end?

Brilliant stuff, such insight and understanding into the human condition, what motivates us, and why we behave in certain ways. And she writes so easily, making her novels very readable and compelling. With the last of the Hercule Poirot TV movies starring David Suchet being made this year, hopefully interest will be revived in the marvellous and timeless books written by Agatha Christie.