If you read a lot of naval history (fiction included), you are familiar with stories in which sailors from one vessel board and captureThe U-505 story
If you read a lot of naval history (fiction included), you are familiar with stories in which sailors from one vessel board and capture another in battle. That happened a lot in the days of the tall ships, but fell out of fashion when ships were able to fire at each other from miles apart. The publisher's blurb claims that before 1944 the last "seizure of an enemy ship in battle" occurred during the War of 1812. (I don't vouch for the accuracy of this claim, which, frankly, I doubt.) I say "before 1944" because on 4-June-1944 American sailors boarded and captured the German submarine U-505. The same blurb implies that Charles Lachman's Codename Nemo is the story of that capture. It would be more accurate, however, to say that Codename Nemo CONTAINS the story of the capture of U-505.
In fact, Codename Nemo is a longitudinal history of U-505, extending from its launch 24-May-1941 to its current display in the Chicago Museum of Science and industry. It also tells the personal stories of many of the sailors whose careers involved U-505, both the Germans who fought in it from 1941-1944, and the US sailors who captured it and brought to port.
This is a great story, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I have two complaints, one minor and the other more important. I have already hinted at the first. Codename Nemo felt padded to me with a lot of history not strictly relevant to the capture. That is, we read of U-505's missions from 1941-1944. These are not uninteresting, but they are not really very different from the missions of other World War II U-boats. The unique interest of U-505 is its capture, and much in Codename Nemo seemed unnecessary to that story.
My other, more important complaint, was the failure of Codename Nemo to place the operation in the context of English code-breaking operations. Capturing a submarine is a difficult and dangerous operation -- why go to that trouble? The reason is hinted at in the subtitle, The Hunt for a Nazi U-Boat and The Elusive Enigma Machine. The value of a captured sub is intelligence. With a captured submarine you can study how a German submarine and torpedoes work. But more important than that is to get hands on German codebooks and cryptographic equipment. That is the Enigma machine mentioned in the subtitle. English mathematicians led by Alan Turing at the famous Bletchley Park operation broke the Enigma code and were reading German radio messages from fairly early in the war. (This is an utterly fascinating story told in Andrew Hodges' biography of Turing, Alan Turing: The Enigma.) There were several different versions of the Enigma. By far the most sophisticated was the naval Enigma, which German vessels of war, submarines included, carried. Bletchley Park could not crack the naval Enigma until they managed to capture one.
(In fact, the English captured thousands of Enigma machines. After the war they distributed them to their allies suggesting they could be used for secure communications. Without, of course, telling those allies that England had broken the code and could read any such communications. If you ever wonder how England got the nickname "Perfidious Albion", here's a hint.)
That is the most important reason why a captured German submarine was such a prize. The English were, of course, entirely aware of this. What's more, they had already mounted successful operations to capture naval enigmas. The first was U-110 in May 1941, before the USA had even entered the war. However, the English were acutely aware that this intelligence was valuable only if the Germans didn't know their opponents had an Enigma. Keeping the secret of captured Enigmas was so important that the English destroyed and sank the captured vessels.
In fact, the only appearance of the English in Codename Nemo is when, after hearing of the capture of U-505, the First Lord of the Admiralty sent a message to Commander in Chief, United States Fleet Earnest King, urging him to keep the capture of U-505 strictly secret. This can fairly be described as a freak-out by the English navy over what those meddling Americans had done. The capture of U-505 was a historic feat and makes a great story. But its importance cannot really be understood without the English context.
Codename Nemo is a story of one of the most unusual and harrowing naval operations World War II. It is not perfect, but the imperfections don't detract much from its value as entertainment.
I was born in 1955 and grew up a nice White Anglo-Saxon Protestant kid in a nice White Anglo-Saxon Protestant family in a small Dispatches from aliens
I was born in 1955 and grew up a nice White Anglo-Saxon Protestant kid in a nice White Anglo-Saxon Protestant family in a small town in New Hampshire. The Usual Gang of Idiots who produced MAD magazine were a bunch of scruffy New York Jews who had heard Yiddish all their lives. I could not have been less aware of that environment if MAD had been coming from a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy.
One way in which The Usual Gang was alien to me was that they read comic books and pulp magazines regularly. You've read the stories from Famous Creative People about how they used to wait outside the convenience store with lolling tongues waiting for the next issue of Marvel comics or MAD or Astounding, which they snapped up immediately. That was not me, because (1) I am not a Famous Creative People, and (2) I didn't have any cash. Paying 40 cents eight times a year for the latest issue of MAD was as far beyond my fiscal powers as buying a new yacht eight times a year.
And yet, I read comics, and MAD. Like many of the contributors to this collection of essays, I just found issues of MAD lying around -- in places my family stayed, in the homes of my friends (even though they were as impecunious as me).
They were... WEIRD ... They were really, really funny, except when they were entirely incomprehensible. Even with my very limited exposure, and even though I stopped encountering MAD in the wild at the age of 11, when my family moved to a new state, MAD left a mark on me.
Although I knew nothing of The Usual Gang, they knew me. They knew I watched I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, and My Three Sons, along with all their slick commercials. (The Madison Avenue Suits who made those commercials were a culture as unknown to eleven-year-old me as The Usual Gang, but they also knew me and talked to me.) MAD existed to skewer me and my world.
It didn't quite work -- It's hard to write or draw a take-down of water that a fish can get. But I got enough of it to be broadened (the way a loaf of bread is broadened by a streamroller) and amused.
I mostly enjoyed this. Occasional essays veered toward the snootily academic, but most were loving portraits of the extraordinary artists who made MAD and the extraordinary art they produced. Also, it stimulated me to dig up some collections of old MADs that are listed in a brief bibliography, e.g. MAD About the 50's. I will see whether they still take 68-year-old me anything like they did 11-year-old me.
Although I referred to Eddie as a young man, it is not clear to me what the people of the Collective are. I think they are more-or-less human. ... However, in some ways they behave like automata. These are puzzles that I hope Jasper Fforde will clear up in subsequent novels in the Shades of Grey series.
Now I'm patting myself on the back, because that is indeed what Red Side Story is about. Or so say I. You might think it is about other things -- a love story, a fight to survive, a battle for justice, a cycle race -- and you would not be wrong. Red Side Story contains multitudes.
Shades of Grey ended in a flurry of revelations about the Collective. Eddie, Jane and Courtland Gamboge visited the abandoned town of High Saffron, where Jane revealed that all the people supposedly sent to Reboot were in fact sent here to die. Eddie and Jane vowed to work for the overthrow of the Collective. Courtland did not survive the trip, and Jane and Eddie stand accused of his murder. So, that's where we start.
Will Eddie and Jane survive? Well, OK, let's be honest -- that is never really in doubt. That's not really a spoiler, because Eddie begins the book with a brief précis of what's to come. Although cryptic, it leaves no doubt that Eddie and Jane will still be alive when we get to the end. HOW will they survive? That's a real question, and I will, of course, not give you an answer.
The good news is that we do eventually get a complete answer to the puzzles I asked about in my review of Shades of Grey. And it's a great story. Aside from learning the nature of the people of Chromatacia, we have drones and robots and a reenactment of a famous scene from Star Wars -- you will recognize it immediately. And the big reveal at the end is entirely satisfying.
I am left wondering whether there will be a third Shades of Grey. Red Side Story ends in a good place. I didn't feel that there were any major loose ends. However, on his Next Book page, Fforde suggests that after wrapping up Thurday Next he may write "SofG III".
I liked Red Side Story a lot. I enjoyed it more than Shades of Grey, because, now that we know all we need to about the dreary Chromatacian dystopia, there is room for action and fun. You do, however, need to read Shades of Grey -- Red Side Story won't make much sense without.
I thank Edelweiss and Soho Press for an advance reader copy of Red Side Story. This review expresses my honest opinions.
Nazneen Ahmed Pathak's City of Stolen Magic begins in a small village in what was then India and is now (I believe) Bangladesh. Chompa and her mother Amina live there. They are witches, and that, Amina knows, is a dangerous thing to be. Chompa, a rebellious kid, is difficult to convince, but learns the hard way when her Ammi is kidnapped. Her mother's old friend Mohsin shows up to take Chompa away to the city of Dacca (modern Dhaka). Chompa and Mohsin hear rumors that Ammi is being held in London, and make arrangements to travel there. London is the City of Stolen Magic named in the title.
As explained in an extensive Author's Note, City of Stolen Magic, although a fantasy, is firmly rooted in the real history of India and Britain. The main villain is The Company, instantly recognizable as the East India Company, whose business was the economic exploitation of India by Britain. In City of Stolen Magic exploitation takes a magical twist -- the Company intends to steal magic from Indians, there being none native to England itself (which felt implausible to me). The magic system is also historically based -- it is founded on djinn, magical spirits that, in one form or another, appear in the folklore of many nations.
It's a good, exciting story. Chompa is a good heroine, active and intelligent. If I have one criticism, it is that the story is heavy-handed. The bad guys are very bad, all dark with little or no hint of light in them. They are also personally repulsive in their treatment of others. I suspect that Pathak might argue that historical accuracy demands that the personnel of the East India Company be presented so. I cannot say that she is wrong. But, purely from an entertainment perspective, it felt overdone to me.
I loved both of those books -- they were as fascinating as novels. I am sorry to say, though, that Silk was less gripping. By the time I reached the end, I was eager to get there. There was one specific problem and some more general ones.
Cochineal is a very specific thing -- it comes from the cochineal bug and no other source. That made Greenfield's job in A Perfect Red circumscribed. Coe likewise had a well-defined job in describing the history of chocolate -- it's a product of the cocoa tree Theobroma cacao.
Silk is NOT just one thing. Most of the silk you have ever seen is the product of the silkworm moth Bombyx mori. However, other moths and butterflies make silk for their cocoons. For instance, there are wild moths in India whose silk has been collected and woven into fabric by Indian women, including members of Prasad's own family. Thus we hear a lot about these wild silks. Spiders also spin fibers that are called silk, several different kinds, for egg cases and webs. Prasad even claims that the fan mussel Pinna nobilis makes silk. Other animals make fibers, too -- everyone knows about hair, which we call wool when it's woven into fabric. But no one on Earth thinks that wool is a form of silk.
Nowhere in Silk will you find a definition of the word "silk". At about 50% of Silk I looked at the Wikipedia page for silk, hoping to find a definition. I found nothing very useful down that rabbit hole. Silk fibers are made of a protein called fibroin (spidroins in the case of spider silks), but as far as I can figure "fibroin" is basically just defined as the protein of which silk fibers are made. Prasad makes it clear that there is no single chemical description of silk, nor a single evolutionary origin. I'm not saying I doubt that the fibers of the fan mussel are silk, but I do wish that Prasad had clarified her reasons for including it.
Besides this Prasad writes in a flowery style that sacrifices brevity and sometimes clarity. And she often digresses to tell stories about the personal lives of men and women who investigated silk, and about their political environments. Some readers will undoubtedly find all this as fascinating as Prasad herself does.
I know a great deal more about silk now than I did before I read Silk, and that is a good thing. I do not, however, know what exactly silk is, or what Prasad uses the word to mean.
I thank Edelweiss and HarperCollins for an advance reader copy of Silk: A World History. This review expresses my honest opinion.
Personnes d’un certain âge had an experience that I think most of you young folks now manage to avoid: starting a smOnce the engine starts, it's great
Personnes d’un certain âge had an experience that I think most of you young folks now manage to avoid: starting a small gasoline engine with a pull cord. Here's what that's like. You always start by flooding the carburetor. Then you pull the cord, the engine turns over, and stops. You do it again and again. Finally, maybe on the fourth pull the cylinder fires once -- "putt". Then, on the next pull, you hear it fire three times -- "Putt, putt, putt," and stall again. At last, you pull once more time, the engine catches, you open the throttle a bit -- "Roar!", and you're off.
I mention this, because that's what reading A.G. Slatter's The Briar Book of the Dead was like. At the beginning I could feel Slatter trying to start this plot. She'd pull the cord, it turned over and failed to catch. Finally, about a third of the way into the book, I felt the engine fire. The next chapter after that it sputtered a bit and stalled. Finally, at about 50% the engine caught and the story took off with a roar. I was interested in reading the Acknowledgements to learn that my experience in reading was paralleled by hers in writing it. She started it in 2015, then it stalled. It lay fallow for years before she took it up again.
Now, the most important thing I have to tell you is that once the engine catches, it's a great ride.
This is a story of a family of witches -- the Briar family. They are all women -- Briar women have daughters only, no sons. It is told from the point of view of Ellie Briar, who is not a witch -- she has no magic. Her grandmother and all her sisters have magic. The Briars live in the isolated mountain town of Silverton, and they run the place, benevolently, with the cooperation of the townspeople. One of them is The Briar Witch, who is by way of ruling the town. That is not Ellie -- since she has no magic. Ellie is the Steward -- her sisters are the chief Healer, the chief Vigilant (think Chief of Police), and so on.
The ordinary magic of the Briar family is less important to the story than you might expect. It is really the story of a family -- a more dysfunctional family than it first appears to be -- but no spoilers! Ellie gradually discovers and reveals the forgotten history of her family. Things get exciting at the end.
The Briar Book of the Dead is a good ride. Even though it's slow to start, you will feel, when you reach the end that you've had a lot of fun.
I thank Edelweiss and Titan Books for an advance reader copy of The Briar Book of the Dead. This review expresses my honest opinion.
At his best, Dave Barry is one of the funniest authors you will ever read. I am a long-timeP.G. Wodehouse meets Carl Hiaasen, in a good way, mostly...
At his best, Dave Barry is one of the funniest authors you will ever read. I am a long-time fan, dating from his days as a Miami Herald columnist. (Indeed, I still have a postcard from him certifying my status as an "alert reader, who should seek some sort of help immediately".) I remember lying on the floor, literally gasping in pain because I was laughing so hard at one of his books (Dave Barry Turns Forty).
Swamp Story was funny, but it did not have me rolling on the floor laughing. I venture to predict that you, too, will be able to remain upright in your seat while reading it. It's a perfectly serviceable Florida Farce, in which a bunch of recognizable Florida types become tangled in a complicated imbroglio, in which many recognizably funny things happen. Many of these things actually made me laugh, too! So, it's LOL funny, but not ROFL funny.
The master of the Florida Farce is of course Carl Hiaasen. Swamp Story feels very much like a Hiaasen novel. That is a compliment. I'm a Hiaasen fan. I think the world would be a better place if Carl Hiaasen could be cloned. Two of him would not be too many. But, on the other hand, I feel the world is a richer place with both Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry in it than it would be with two copies of Carl Hiaasen and no Dave Barry. Thus I am not overjoyed at the prospect of Dave Barry turning into Carl Hiaasen.
Swamp Story is not indistinguishable from a Hiaasen novel. It has all-too-rare moments of character idiosyncrasy that remind me not only of Dave Barry, but also of P.G. Wodehouse.
Now, let us be clear --if the worst one can say about a novel is "It is not better than P.G. Wodehouse and Carl Hiaasen," -- well, that's a pretty damn good novel. I'm being hard on Swamp Story because I think Barry can do better.
I thank Edelweiss and Simon and Schuster for an advance reader copy of Swamp Story. This review expresses my honest opinions.
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