Junghyo Ahn: Silver Stallion (1990)

It is September 1950, and General MacArthur — known throughout war-struck Korea as “General Megado” — has just landed his troops at Inchon. The soldiers establish an encampment named Texas Town, receiving local women who, as a consequence, are publicly shunned as “Yankee wives”. The devastating impact of MacArthur’s assault is seen through the eyes of local teenager Mansik, whose mother joins the prostitutes after being raped. By diverting his attention away from military battle, Junghyo re-establishes the human cost of war: in this context, the real price is demonstrated by Mansik’s accelerated adolescence and the compromised sexuality of the so-called “UN ladies”.

Richard Aldington: Death of a Hero (1929)

This deeply affecting tale depicts the short life of artist- turned-army soldier George Winterbourne, who (as we are told in the opening pages) is killed after deliberately exposing himself to machine fi re. We soon learn that it is George’s experiences of war, triggering a deep psychological decline, which draw him towards his fate. Death of a Hero perhaps lacks the relentless ferocity of its peers — details of actual physical combat account for less than half of the narrative. The real intensity of Aldington’s (partly autobiographical) novel instead lies in his savage condemnation of a society responsible for the slaughter of its own men.

Nigel Balchin: Darkness Falls from the Air (1942)

A love triangle played out against the London blitz, Darkness Falls From The Air is the tale of Bill Sarratt, an urbane civil servant whose work is hampered by needless bureaucracy. His marriage is equally wearing, with his wife Marcia openly involved in a long- running affair with dreamy writer Stephen. Infused with a deliciously dry wit, Balchin’s novel is a perfect portrayal of the stiff upper lip — with Bill appearing just as unperturbed by his wife’s infidelity as he is by falling bombs. Balchin’s experiences at the ministry of food, meanwhile, feed into his slyly satirical portrait of a complex and ineffectual civil service. 

Paul Bowles: The Sheltering Sky (1949)

A signifi cant forerunner of the Beat movement, Paul Bowles’ bestseller is the story of three jaded American travellers — Port Moresby, his wife Kit and their friend Tunner — drifting through postwar north Africa. Having rejected the comforts of civilisation in their search for identity and fulfi lment, the trio are soon under threat from the sense of alienation and hostility that surrounds them. Inspired by Bowles’ own period of exile in Morocco, this account of a difficult emotional journey made a huge impact on publication, having astutely tapped into a growing state of disaffection across America.

William Boyd: An Ice-Cream War (1982)

In the early stages of the first world war, newlywed Gabriel Cobb finds himself caught up in the fi ght for control over eastern Africa. Meanwhile, in England, Gabriel’s brother Felix and wife Charis are left alone together as a mutual attraction grows between them. Their aff air is cut short when they discover that Gabriel has been captured, prompting Felix to travel across an increasingly war-torn African landscape to fi nd him. Interspersing vivid action scenes with moments of tranquillity in Kent, Boyd’s novel is a stirring portrayal of decaying British imperialism and the ordinary lives that become shaped by conflict.

Len Deighton: Bomber (1970)

Set over the course of a single day, Bomber charts the progress of an ill-fated RAF raid on Nazi Germany. The dramatic events are seen from multiple vantage points, adopting perspectives from both sides of the conflict.
The level of detail employed in this frequently underrated novel is what makes it truly shocking: its tone of cool, clinical analysis is always the same, whether applied to death and destruction or machinery and weather conditions. An acclaimed BBC radio dramatisation, starring Tom Baker, capitalised on the novel’s potent docu-drama feel by using a highly effective real-time framework, drawing out in full the terrifying intensity of Deighton’s writing.

James Dickey: Deliverance (1970)

Four friends set out on a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee, a soon-to-be-dammed river in northern Georgia. While there, the men encounter two savage locals who quickly transform the weekend adventure into a traumatic ordeal — one that not everyone survives. Though frequently overshadowed by the success of John Boorman’s 1972 film adaptation, Dickey’s novel possesses its own strain of intoxicatingly visceral poetry. This compelling story of two cultures, brought together in a state of violent conflict, serves as a gripping examination of lost innocence and moral uncertainty in the quiet backwoods of America.

William Eastlake: The Bamboo Bed (1969)

Captain Clancy is leading his men across the Vietnam hills when he is mortally wounded. As he lies dying on his bamboo bed, search-and-rescue pilot Captain Knightsbridge makes love to the beautiful nurse Jane in his helicopter (which, in poignant synchronicity, is itself dubbed the “Bamboo Bed”). Meanwhile two hippies, Peter and Bethany, are attempting to resolve the conflict with flowers and a guitar. Eastlake, a former war correspondent, redraws the Vietnam war as a surrealist fantasy, filled with grotesque comedy and philosophical deliberation. His irreverent approach conveys, with startling eff ectiveness, the true absurdity of war.

Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong (1993)

Novels depicting the horrors of war are seldom more moving than Sebastian Faulks’ 1993 bestseller. After embarking on a doomed love affair with the unhappily married Madame Azaire, Stephen Wraysford becomes an army officer fighting in the first world war. The novel traces Stephen’s harrowing experiences in the blood-soaked trenches of northern France, and his growing determination to survive the conflict. Almost universally considered Faulks’ finest moment to date, Birdsong hauntingly captures the essence of war in all its terrible brutality.

Alex Garland: The Beach (1996)

This, more than any other, was the novel that launched a thousand gap years. For a short time in the late 1990s, a copy of Alex Garland’s huge bestseller was as much a staple of the travel kit as spare socks and a toothbrush. The story of Richard, roaming Asia in search of a secret Thai island, inspired an entire generation of backpackers. Its star might have waned in recent years — thanks in part to Danny Boyle’s disappointing film adaptation — but as a cautionary tale of paradise gone wrong, it still packs a mighty punch.
 

Robert Harris: Enigma (1995)

In March 1943, a group of codebreakers are attempting to break the German U-boat Enigma cipher from their secret Buckinghamshire base. Among them is Tom Jericho, who is in love with the beautiful but mysterious Claire Romilly. Her sudden disappearance, amidst suspicion that the team has been infiltrated by a spy, propels Tom on to a desperate mission to uncover the truth. This twist-laden thriller, later adapted into a screenplay by Tom Stoppard, popularised the previously little-known story of Bletchley Park. That the site’s imminent closure is currently the subject public campaign is a strong testament to the power of Harris’s story.

Elsa Morante: History (1974)

Ida, a widowed schoolteacher, is living in 1940s Rome with her two sons: Nino, a reckless and angry teenager, and baby Giuseppe, conceived when Ida is raped by a German soldier. She (like Morante herself) is half-Jewish, and lives in a permanent state of fear that her forbidden faith will be discovered. Morante’s eight-part epic closely examines Jewish identity in a context of Aryan domination. The contrast between Nino’s involvement in the war and Giuseppe’s unsullied innocence further demonstrates the corrupting effect of war on its victims’ sense of self. 

First published in the Guardian, 23rd January 2009 

Salman Rushdie: Shame (1983)

Set in Peccavistan, a country that “is and is not Pakistan”, Shame describes the conflict between two families, the Harrapas and the Hyders. They are at once united and divided — the book is a thinly-veiled study of the relationship between Zia ul-Haq, president of Pakistan, and his overthrown predecessor, Zulkifar Ali Bhutto. Connected is the story of Suiya Zenobia, whose failure to be born a boy instils within her a limitless capacity for shame. Suiya’s sense of degradation illustrates, with candour, the impossibility of female dignity in the society in which she finds herself.

Rabindranath Tagore: The Home and the World (1916)

On a prosperous Bengali estate in 1908, housewife Bimala enjoys a life of contentment with her wealthy husband, Nikhil. But her happiness is endangered when she meets Sandip, the charismatic leader of the Swadeshi movement, which aims to end colonial rule in India. His persuasive rhetoric encourages Bimala to get involved in a cause that proved to be rooted in violence and corruption. Sandip’s exploitation of Bimala sums up the immorality Tagore saw in Swadeshi activists; his intense distrust of the movement is woven into the fabric of this novel.

John Updike: Couples (1968)

Updike’s infamous portrayal of sexual promiscuity among the surburban middle classes remains one of his most controversial novels. Set in the fictional Boston town of Tarbox, it focuses on a small circle of friends, sexually permissive in the “post-pill paradise” of 1960s America. A huge commercial success, Couples also caused outrage among commentators who attacked its unashamed fascination with adultery and sexual hedonism. The furore led to Updike’s instant notoriety and his face on the cover of Time magazine. Forty years on, the novel is often credited with revolutionising the depiction of sex in literary fiction.

Vassilis Vassilikos: Z (1967)

A study of the military dictatorship which ruled Greece in the 1960s, Z revolves around the assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis, a democratic politician killed by right-wing extremists in 1963. Vassilikos’s close examination of political corruption had a strong impact, and as a direct result of it the letter “Z” — from the Greek word zei, meaning “he is alive” — became a slogan for political activists. The letter, as well as the book, was banned by the junta. Z’s influence was amplified by Costa Gavras’s Oscar-winning film adaptation, which was released two years after the book was published.

First published in the Guardian, 21st January 2009 

JL Carr: A Season in Sinji (1967)

An RAF base in West Africa is the meeting point for cricket, conflict and romance in this semi-autobiographical novel. Flanders, stationed in the fictionalised city of Sinji, is waging his own war against the loathsome Officer Turton. Battle is done over a bizarre game of cricket, which serves not only as the novel’s comic counterpoint but also a poignant symbol of the world around them. Published 22 years after the war ended, A Season in Sinji draws heavily on Carr’s own experiences with the RAF — and his lifelong passion for cricket, of course.

Mike Stocks: White Man Falling (2006)

Former sub-Inspector RM Swaminathan — known to everybody as Swami — is a suicidal paralytic, confined to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke while beating a police suspect. When the novel’s titular white man jumps from the window of a South Indian hotel, before dying at Swami’s feet, the ex-policeman is drawn into a theatre of the absurd in which he cannot physically perform. Stocks’s rollicking debut novel, published in 2006, can be seen to capitalise fully on the contemporary trend for comedy of the blackest kind. Deliberately using provocative themes as key targets of humour, White Man Falling is a skilful blend of farce and satire.

Booth Tarkington: Penrod (1914)

Penrod Schofield is an eleven year-old schoolboy, growing up in the American midwest with friends Sam Williams and Maurice Levy. Typically boyish adventures — from copied homework assignments to the infamous Great Tar Fight — may have secured Penrod a reputation as “the Worst Boy in Town”, but they have also endeared him to generations of readers. For many, Tarkington’s sketches completely reinvented a strand of juvenile fiction that had previously peaked with Huckleberry Finn. As Princeton professor Dean West put it, upon handing the Pulitzer-prizewinning author his second honorary degree in 1918, “Tarkington rediscovered the American boy and wrote the idyll of his life.”

Angela Thirkell: Before Lunch (1939)

Town planning might seem an unlikely target for comedy, but there is no shortage of wit and charm in this tale of a small village threatened by the arrival of a teashop. While urban developments are being fought, happily married Catherine Middleton tries to unravel the tangled love affairs and broken engagements that connect her friends. Published in 1939, Thirkell’s irresistible comedy of manners is the most well-known of her Barsetshire series – set in the same fictional cathedral town as Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire Chronicles, and adopting a similarly affectionate satirical voice.

First published in the Guardian, 19th January 2009 

In the opening pages of ‘The First Person’, Ali Smith’s latest collection of tales, the narrator overhears a debate on the nature of short stories.

The discussion eventually concludes: ‘The short story was a nimble goddess… because so few people had mastered [her], she was still in very good shape.’ At first glance, this seems nothing more than a coyly ironic – and audacious – move from Smith. However, it doesn’t take long to realise that this entire volume is a set of questions challenging the very idea of the short story. Though all the narrators are female, and all speak in the present tense, any stability one might expect is unashamedly absent as the role of storyteller shifts playfully throughout.

‘The First Person’ is largely peopled by anonymous, indistinct characters whom we may vaguely recognise from our own lives. However, it is precisely the use of such shadowy identities which makes them so utterly fascinating; there are no certainties here, and only the most unimaginative readers will resist being swept away by the sheer sense of possibility in Smith’s writing. This lingering, thought-provoking style is principally employed to explore human relationships – collectively, perhaps, the most inexplicable phenomenon of all. Though romance, or the lack of it, makes many an appearance, the most fascinating theme drawn on by Smith is that of maternity. A supermarket shopper inherits a foul-mouthed baby; a desperate mother enlists the help of psychic healers to cure her son’s illness. Even Smith herself turns up, tenderly nursing her 14-year-old self with tea and sympathy.

‘The First Person’ is an unsettling read, but it’s a deeply pleasurable one too. Smith is a brilliant storyteller who is able to blend fine detail with provocative ambiguity.

First published in Time Out, 30th October 2008

Xavier is a political prisoner, given two life sentences for an unnamed crime in an unnamed prison. His lover Aida, a pharmacist, writes him a series of letters, some of which she does not send. This is ‘From A to X’, and in plot terms, at least, it doesn’t get much more complicated.

There is no denying that John Berger’s latest novel is, in many respects, a deeply unsatisfying work. There is no real narrative, it is filled with unanswered questions, and it often leaves the reader feeling that they are missing out on something crucial. But while true, these observations fail to highlight the romantic power of ‘From A to X’.

In particular, Aida’s ruminations on science are wonderfully profound, containing the same kind of poetry as Primo Levi’s ‘The Periodic Table’. There is the suggestion, in Berger’s prologue, that Aida is herself involved in a dangerous strand of political activism and her apparently banal references to playing canasta are supposedly a coded indication of this. But it is precisely this banality which makes the novel so heartbreaking. Without Xavier,
Aida has nothing to detract from the mundane quality of life around her: she writes about shelling beans with her friend, doling out medication, washing her feet. In between these sombre portraits of her everyday existence, Aida remembers life with Xavier before his imprisonment, and dares to hope for their future together.

‘From A to X’ is perhaps not as timely as it might be. It would be reasonable to expect the issue of imprisonment for a political crime, and subsequent questions of human liberty, to be further exploited to match the shape of current debate. Wisely, however, Berger resists engaging in any specific political discourse, instead adopting a deliberately vague and ambiguous tone. As a result, ‘From A to X’ reveals far more about the human condition than it does about political injustice or totalitarian regimes.

First published in Time Out, 25th September 2008

This fiction debut from long-time Guardian correspondent Campbell recreates the era impressively – both the ferocity of its conflict and the drug-induced languor of its hippies. Given Campbell’s journalistic background, its no surprise that the historical and political aspects of the book are much stronger than the murder-mystery element, which is rather weakly executed. He conveys with some affection the down-at-heel lifestyle of the travellers – the cheap restaurants, the showerless hostels, the long nights soundtracked by abstract music and profound conversation – but the hippies are, by and large, rather uninspiring, charmless individuals in whom it is difficult to become interested.

The war correspondents are more convincing and engaging, particularly ambitious but socially awkward Hugh Dunn. His ill-fated attempts to catch the eye of Californian photographer Britt, herself intent on taking the photograph of her career, provide and amusing interlude to more harrowing proceedings.

First published in Time Out, 7th August 2008

Musicians have long held that the true worth of an album is to be found at track seven. Marshall McLuhan recommends trying the same trick at page 69

In his excellent 2006 book, How to Read A Novel: A User’s Guide, John Sutherland calculates that, in order to work one’s way through Amazon.com’s entire collection of half a million novels, one would need 163 lifetimes. That’s right – 162 more than any of us will ever get. Clearly, when it comes to reading books, we need to be pretty choosy. But where do we even begin? There is an answer, by the way – and it’s 69.

A lot of things happen at the point of 69. (Some of them aren’t suitable for inclusion in this blog). Man walked on the moon. Bryan Adams had a summer. Evel Knievel died at the age of 69. And so, ironically enough, did Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian academic to whom we owe a (strictly innocent) relationship to the number 69. His theory of how to choose a book goes like this: first of all, read page 69. If you like it, then chances are you’ll like the rest of it too.

It’s a simple enough concept, but does it actually work? With that in mind, I vowed to put his theory to the test: five books, my opinion of which is to be formed entirely from page 69 of each. There are problems, however – the main one being that, from one edition to another, the content of a book’s page 69 will be entirely different. But the way I see it, if McLuhan’s theory is to be trusted at all, it really ought to be strong enough to withstand a few variations here and there. Whether this really is the case, however, remains to be seen…

Dan Brown – The Da Vinci Code (Corgi)

Robert Langdon discovers Sauniere’s cryptic message in the Church of Saint Sulpice.

My experiment is thrown into doubt at the first hurdle – page 69 turns out to be the start of Chapter 8. The first thing I notice, therefore, is a lot of empty space around the chapter heading. Without much actual text, I feel like I’ve drawn the short straw. Still, rules are rules. And anyway, it seems quite an exciting page: there’s been a murder, and they think it might be something to do with devil worship. On the other hand: “Langdon looked again at the digits, sensing it would take him hours to extract any symbolic meaning. If Sauniere had even intended any.” As a forecast of the book, it sounds suspiciously like a whole load of blustering after nothing.

Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote (Vintage Classics)

Don Quixote and a Basque engage in a swordfight, overseen by two travelling ladies.

My next book takes me from one extreme to another. For starters, this looks like some kind of super-size edition of the book. (I’m quite relieved my wrists only have to take the strain of one page.) Furthermore, the print is small, the blocks of text are huge and there’s no dialogue. Which is probably, on reflection, a good thing – for I’ve stumbled on a fantastically graphic page that is soaked in blood, gore, and testosterone. When one man is bleeding from every facial orifice available, what is there to be said? I’m instantly gratified; I did, if I’m honest, feel entirely cheated out of a murder in The Da Vinci Code.

Margaret Atwood - Moral Disorder (Virago)

Our narrator discusses the disposal of her last boyfriend, and the acquisition of a new one.

My decision to include this anthology in my test was a particularly difficult one. On the one hand, what with short stories having a concentrated content, I thought I might end up with a really interesting and eventful page. Ultimately, though, I am running the risk of having an ending spoiled. Luckily, however, page 69 only falls about a third of the way through “My Last Duchess”. It’s sweet, and it’s charming, and it reminds me a bit of myself when I was younger – but not much happens. Mind you, it’s about being in a relationship when you’re a teenager, and not much happens there either. My hope that a short story might yield an action-packed page 69 has proved fruitless. From this I draw my first conclusion: when testing someone else’s theory, I shouldn’t introduce my own into the mix.

Salman Rushdie – Midnight’s Children (Vintage)

Naseem Aziz – The Reverend Mother – infiltrates the dreams of her daughters.

I am sure I’m on to a winner here. After all, this has just been named the best Booker winner ever, and although the prize isn’t rewarding page 69 exclusively, I’m sure the judges took it into account. However, the whole thing is all a bit surreal – fine when you’re fully engaged in a 650-page narrative, but for the purposes of this experiment leave me feeling a bit alienated. Which is a shame, because the dreams described on this page all sound as if they are quite revealing. As character-developing exercises go, this one is probably quite effective. If you don’t know who the characters are in the first place, however, it doesn’t really work.

Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights (Wordsworth)

Heathcliff, returning after three years’ absence, visits Catherine and Edgar.

There’s no doubt about it: the cracks in the page 69 theory are definitely beginning to show. It’s partly down to my own lack of foresight – by choosing a Wordsworth edition (known for cramming as many words as possible on to a page, thus keeping the whole thing short and, more importantly, cheap to produce), I’ve actually opened the book at what appears to be quite a crucial point in the story. My earlier – slightly rash – assertion that this wouldn’t matter seems to have been rather premature. Still, without actually having read the novel, it’s amazing how closely I can detect the sexual tension between Cathy and Heathcliff. Edgar, clearly a particularly unwelcome third wheel, makes the whole thing even more compellingly unbearable. All in all I’m feeling quite privileged to be present at such an important moment, although a small part of me does wish I’d turned up a bit earlier.

I can’t deny having detected a couple of major holes in McLuhan’s hypothesis. For one thing, it seems that choosing the right edition does, after all, make a difference – sometimes. Furthermore, it’s not always easy to feel an instant connection with a book if you weren’t around for the first 68 pages. But despite these flaws, I’ve decided to stick with my page 69s; as tasters of things to come, I think they’ve served their purpose pretty well.

Of course, if you’re still not convinced, I suggest you carry out a similar experiment. In fact, I’d like to throw this open to the floor: I want everyone reading this to go away, examine a page 69, and come back to report your findings…

First published in the Guardian arts blog, 23rd July 2008

There’s no rule saying you have to love a writer ’til death do you part. If a book’s worse rather than better, show it the door