Flashman And The Tiger - George MacDonald Fraser

Now you either enjoy this kind of book - or you don't! Now I do - but with long intervals between volumes. This whole series (and did George MacDonald Fraser ever write any other books than the Flashman series?) is about the ant-hero of 'Tom Brown's Schooldays'. Flashman is a bully, a coward, a bounder and cad, a womaniser and a surprising sexual athlete. He's also remarkably lucky - and sees the easy way out of every situation. This has the result of him turning into the most decorated military hero of the Victorian age - completely mistakenly and by pure luck. Every volume sees him turn up at the worst military disasters of the nineteenth century and he alone survives and emerges smelling of roses - The Little Big Horn with Custer, the Retreat from Kabul, with Gordon at Khartoum, Rourke's Drift, the Charge of the Light Brigade with Cardigan - Sir Harry Flashman VC is there at them all. Everywhere he goes women of all classes fall at his feet, into his arms and into his bed. This is the Boy's Own Paper 'with one bound he was free' school of writing. You have to suspend your disbelief, because the situations are ludicrous, totally fanciful and generally physically impossible. In this book there are three episodes - Flashman becomes embroiled in an assassination plot to kill the Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and acts (unwillingly) as the agent of Bismark in order to foil the plot; he then uncovers the truth about the scandal at Tanby Croft (the Prince of Wales was called as a witness in a libel case involving an allegation of cheating at baccarat); finally he seeks revenge against Capt Jack 'Tiger' Moran - who accuses him of cowardice in the face of the enemy (irony there of course) during the Zulu Wars - and Flashman meets up with the other fictional giant of the late Victorian era - Sherlock Holmes.

All totally ludicrous - but a ripping yarn and I rate this book 7/10.

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

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Digging for America - Anne Tyler

I haven't read an Anne Tyler book for a long time. About twenty years ago I read 'An Accidental Tourist' (probably her best known book) and then went on to read several other of her books.

Then I became irritated with her work - maybe I'd read too much too quickly. Now I've, after all this time, read another. Very soon I remembered what I'd enjoyed about her writing, and what I disliked, and what put me off her books.

First of all her books have an air of gloominess about them. Even if there is a happy ending the lead up to it has a sense of impending doom and gloom. Secondly nothing ever happens in her books. Well, nothing major happens. There is incident and a story, but never a drama or terrible tragedy. People die, of course, but somehow cleanly and without obvious grief or wailing.

In 'Digging For America' there are two families. They have both adopted a Korean child, and meet each other for the first time at Baltimore Airport where they meet their new child. One family is American the other is Iranian. The American family keep the baby's Korean name, the Iranian change the name to Susan. Here is the first of the books themes. The American family want the child to remain in touch with her ethnic roots, the Iranians wish her to be American. There is so much lack of understanding between the two families whose lives become intertwined, and much of the book centres on the perspectives of grandmother Maryam on life in America. She feels the Americans cannot comprehend of a different view of the world. Bitzy (the American mother) spends a great deal of time telling the Iranians how they should bring their child up. Maryam feels that they just want everyone to be assimilated and their customs food and habits must fit into their view of how things are. So the American family will urge them to have 'traditional parties and then criticise when things aren't done how they imagine a genuine Iranian celebration should be.

Although there are some interesting ideas here - nothing really happens and there is no proper plot, and the book just peters out with no real conclusion. Rating? An unsatisfying 6/10

Queen Camilla - Sue Townsend

Sue Townsend gave us one of the best characters of modern times - Adrian Mole a monitor of the twists and turns of Thatcher and Blair's Britain. This book is the second in a series imagining a Republican Britain. The first was 'The Queen and I'. The Royal Family have been coralled into a special compound full of the waifs and strays of society - ASBOs, morbidly obese, alleged paedophiles, professional fraudsters, etc. All supervised by the inevitable private security company. This is typical Sue Townsend satire. Clever enough, but not really as biting and funny as the Adrian Mole. Ms Townsend begins to sound bitter and slightly wayward in her barbs, and although the notion is clever it begins to tire, and as the Republican Prime Minister becomes more desperate to find ways of ensuring his election defeat after 13 years of government the ideas become less satirical than ludicrous. An easy read though, and there are one or two well aimed barbs that deserve a rating of 7/10