The Twelve, July 2024

 

Another six books have been completed since I last posted.

Two by Tana French, The Secret Place and The Likeness. They were enjoyable although both were far too clever for their own good. As crime fiction should be. I think that itch has been dealt with for a while although I do have a Denise Mina waiting in the wings.

And speaking of crime - I'll Be Gone  In The Dark by Michelle McNamara, a true account of the search for a serial rapist and killer in California. I liked it. Very well written. McNamara died before it was published and I found myself more interested in her than the killer who, like most of his ilk, was mediocre and underwhelming.

I raced through Pet. Five stars. I want to read everything Catherine Chidgey has written and I am grateful to my Irish/Kiwi cousin for the recommendation.

Then I completed reading According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge. It didn't grip me as much as some of Bainbridge's other books. Still a decent read. And, at times, bloody comical. I shall read it again when I'm eighty.

I picked up a copy of The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks somewhere last week. Tesco charity bookshelves, Oxfam? Cannot remember. Read it in four days. (Remember I'm also reading eleven other books concurrently.) Could not put it down. There were some of the same themes as Human Traces but it was much more accessible. An exhilarating and enjoyable read that left me thinking about what it is to be a human being. I loved it.

Not reading but I did start listening to All Quiet On The Western Front. I will never be able to gather strawberries again without recalling the suffering of horses on the battlefield. I know the men suffered too but there must be something less harrowing to listen to whilst gardening. 

The Sweet Waters of Europe and Some Other Places

 

The Sweet Waters of Europe

Just as Bert finished reading Dutch Interior I'd completed Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge. I handed it over,

I think you'll like this. It's about a surgeon in the Crimean War, and it's written by a woman. 

These days Bert seems to prefer female novelists, his current faves being Hilary Mantel and Pat Barker. Sure enough he came downstairs next day saying,

That's more like it. Says what she means, no shilly-shallying around.

In the novel Master Georgie and his camp followers take a leisurely route to the battlefield. They set sail from Liverpool to Constantinople and on arrival spend some time taking in the sights including a trip to the Sweet Waters of Europe, which was a fashionable resort at that time. The area, now known as Kâğıthane, is urbanised and the wealthy must have found new playgrounds.

Now I know very little of the Crimean War for it never came up in my school history lessons. That was all Plantagenets, Tudors, The Flight of the Earls and the English Civil War. There was Florence Nightingale of course and references to limbless soldiers in Victorian novels. Yet when George and his camp followers get to where the action is I realised that many of the geographical place names were already familiar. Belfast, like hundreds of other towns and cities in these islands, had streets named Crimea, Inkerman, Alma, Sevastapol, Plevna and Varna. Most of these are part of old Belfast and no longer exist. However, Sevastapol Street, off the Falls Road still stands and that is where the famous mural of Bobby Sands is situated. Balaclava Street, also on the Falls Road, has disappeared. Its claim to fame was being named 'Balaclava' at one end and 'Balaklava' on the other. 

Nor was Lord Raglan, of Peninsular and Crimean War fame, been forgotten when it comes to Irish roads and pubs. Belfast had its Raglan Street, Dublin still has its Raglan Road made famous by Patrick Kavanagh and Luke Kelly. And Ballymena? We had the Raglan Bar in Harryville which I entered on one occasion for about five minutes. Strong Straw Dogs vibe. It's a Credit Union now.