Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation Read-a-Long

I was so excited when I stumbled across this book in a charity shop recently. I'd been desperate to read ever since read-a-longing The Moonstone a few years ago, but I think it was listed on Amazon at a ridiculously extortionate price. Imagine my subsequent excitement then, when I found that Reading Rambo is hosting another read-a-long for this biography!

The timing is perfect - I've only had the book a few weeks and I was starting wonder when I was going to realistically read this hefty hardback on my own. Thanks Alice!

As this classes as my introductory post, let's answer some questions!

1) Where are you located?

The North of England. I live near Haworth, where the Brontes grew up and where Heathcliff spent far too much time sulking on the moor.

2) What do you know about Wilkie Collins already?

Not that much. I know he was a friend of Charles Dickens (or at least, I think I know that?) and that he had an interesting life, which is why I picked the book up in the first place. I recall some tidbits from the last read-a-long, but nothing concrete.

3) What have you read of his?

My first was The Moonstone, as part of the read-a-long. I've just checked and that was November 2013, good Lord. Oh, I remember now! I got all excited because it took place sort of near my house. I made a map and everything :)   

I also read The Woman in White the year before last.

4) How much do you love the cover of this book?

I have the somewhat more genteel gold shiny version, not the funky pink one, but I like them both!

I can't wait to get started on this. Click here to sign up.     

Review: Houdini and Conan Doyle by Christopher Sandford

I do seem to be doing through a bit of a Houdini and Conan Doyle kick lately, don't I? First there was The Secret Life of Houdini, which also had a large section on Sir Arthur, and then the last book I reviewed was The Coming of the Fairies, Sir ACD's explanation of why the Cottingley Fairies must be real. I think it must be fascination of the awful, like when you can't take your eyes off a car crash, because he was a strange man.

Summary: In the early twentieth century, Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini were two of the most famous men alive, and their relationship was extraordinary:

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the ultra-rational detective Sherlock Holmes, nonetheless believed in the supernatural. After eleven family members, including his son and brother, were killed in the First World War, he searched tirelessly for word from the dead.

Harry Houdini, the great magician, was a friend of Conan Doyle's but a skeptic when it came to the supernatural. As a master of illusion, he used his knowledge to expose psychics who he believed exploited people's insecurity and grief.

Drawing on previously unpublished archive material, this sensational story of two popular geniuses conjures up the early twentieth century and the fame, personalities and beliefs that would eventually pull them apart. 

Houdini and Conan Doyle is a more than readable joint-biography of two of the strangest most interesting men from the last century. There's a good mix of facts/academia and storytelling that works quite well. Respectable but accessible. The problem is, I think I expected an in-depth look purely on their relationship, considering the title and the reasonably short length of the book. It's actually an alternating biography of them both that doesn't always work.

I'm not sure it was entirely necessary to start from birth with both of them. Considering they don't meet until they're middle aged, roughly half of the book discusses their completely separate lives with desperately and dubiously trying to link them together. It's very disjointed as it alternates between the two as it never quite manages a seamless switch.

After they do eventually meet and inevitably fall out, it gets quite repetitive. It feels like this book lists every damn time one of them was recorded saying something about the other. I understand the thoroughness but it doesn't make for interesting reading.

It seems like the focus is primarily on Sir ACD, who I actually find the less interesting of the two. Houdini-wise, I didn't learn anything that wasn't mentioned in The Secret Life of Houdini, which was referenced several times in this book. The author is clearly a bigger fan of Arthur Conan Doyle, evidenced by the amount of space given over to him and phrases like he 'consistently always thought the best of people' and that he was 'the more obviously couth of the two.' Only Houdini's arrogance is ever really discussed, while his accomplishments are skimmed over.

Of course we can't mention Sir Arthur (it's amazing how many different variations of his name I can create) without touching on Spiritualism. This book actually manages to make him sound more crazy than the one he wrote himself, The Coming of the Fairies. It streeeeeeetches whatever it can to make him agreeable and correct and it's so non-subtle that it actually has the opposite effect:

"Personally," he wrote, "the author is of the opinion that several different forms of plasma with different activities will be discovered, the whole forming a separate science of the future which may well be called Plasmology." Although their occult qualities remain debatable, the use of plasmas today in the production of everything from sanitary gels to supersonic combustion engines goes some way to fulfilling Doyle's prediction.

Okay, no. Conan Doyle theorised that one day there would be a branch of society who researched What. Ghosts. Were. Made. Of. He didn't predict hand sanitizers, for Christ's sake. Sometimes the book goes so far out of its way to protect Sir Arthur that it just sounds silly.

It is interesting how different books on the same subject can differ in interpretation. Christopher Sandford implies here that Houdini secretly did believe in Spiritualism until close to the end and that he and Conan Doyle were only superficially friendly, where The Secret Life of Houdini states that they were genuinely close friends, at least to begin with.

I feel like I've gone off track a little, but it's difficult to review biographies without reviewing the subject a little. It's not my dislike of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that puts me off this book, it's the inordinate amount of time spent on him plus the clear bias in his favour. There's also quite a lot of padding - there are a whole four pages at the end just dedicated to what his children and siblings ended up doing.

To conclude, I think it's fairly obvious that I feel there are better biographies of both Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle than this one. It's biased and over-padded, and even the accessible tone can't overcome that.

Read my reviews of The Coming of the Fairies and The Secret Life of Harry Houdini.

Review: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Ann Fowler

This might seem like an odd read for me, considering that I didn't 'get' The Great Gatsby and I only tolerated Tender is the Night. I didn't know that much about F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, however, other than she's seen as one of the first flappers and allegedly had a few mental health issues. Plus the book is pretty. It does help.

Plot summary: When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen and he is a young army lieutenant. Before long, Zelda has fallen for him, even though Scott isn't wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. When he sells his first novel, she optimistically boards a train to New York, to marry him and take the rest as it comes. 

What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French riviera - where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein. Everything seems new and possible, but not even Jay Gatsby's parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous - sometimes infamous - husband?

This is clearly a very fictionalised account, although to be fair it never pretends to be otherwise. A large portion of the novel is dialogue which I would assume comes straight from the imagination of the author. After all, we can know dates and facts, but few private conversations are actually recorded for posterity. It's not really a problem as this is a novel, but it's something to keep in mind.

It's an odd mix of style - there are some truly wonderful literary passages, but then some very light and fluffy parts. It can be possible to mix the two, and I know that some people's lives are like that, but the two styles read like two separate books. It results in a novel that's very up-and-down - I had to be careful to put it down during a part I was enjoying or I simply wouldn't have wanted to pick it back up again!

I do like Zelda Fitzgerald - as a fictional character here, at any rate. It begins a little obviously - you're practically bashed over the head with how unique and sparkly Zelda was a girl. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, after all. The character settles down shortly afterwards and I did find myself rooting for her. She was so... naive, I suppose. So hopeful.

Parts of it, like the below passage, did affect me quite strongly. The narrative doesn't really go into Zelda's (or Scott's, actually) mental illness very thoroughly and I did notice the absence.  It seemed like such an odd aspect of her life to skip over. Her time in various hospitals is documented, but not really the reason she was there or the eventual outcome.

We drank too much after dinner, and when my parents had gone to bed, we ended up in a truly ugly fight - and I ended up with a black eye. I was of the mind that I deserved what I got; it had seemed to me a fair fight, no different than I'd have had with my brother or any of the kids I'd grown up with. When my folks saw me in the morning, though, they were horrified.

Obviously, it's very sympathetic towards Zelda and at least moderately anti-Scott. I'm aware that authors rarely write books about historical figures that they didn't like to begin with, but I was surprised how thoroughly any flaws or repurcussions from Zelda's actions were glossed over.  Again, I know it's a novel but it's not a very well-balanced one.

I did finish Z furious at F. Scott Fitzgerald and with half a mind to boycott his novels (although I admit this would hardly be an inconvenience), so it clearly did affect me. Unfortunately it's not a feeling that stuck with me and I've now sunk back into my usual Fitzgerald-related apathy.

I think that's the kicker for me with this one. I did enjoy it but it's almost instantly forgettable. I wasn't particularly desperate to finish it and it's not something I'm likely to reread, but I don't regret the time I spent with it. If I were you, I'd probably head to the library for this one.

Read Lit Nerd's review of Z here.

Review: The Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush and Larry Sloman

Why did I read a biography of Harry Houdini? Well, why not? :) Actually, a friend of mine made a passing comment about how difficult it would be to escape from a straight-jacket (as you do) and I realised how little I actually knew about the man who was renowned for that very thing, other than he was probably quite good as escaping from (previously) unescapable stuff. Turns out there's more than that, otherwise this would be a very short biography.

Summary: Since his death eighty years ago, Harry Houdini's life has been chronicled in numerous books, films and on television. Now, in this ground-breaking biography, renowned magic expert William Kalush and bestselling writer Larry Sloman find the man behind the myth.

Drawing from millions of pages of research, they describe in vivid detail the passions that drove Houdini to perform ever more dangerous feats, his secret life as a spy and a pernicious plot to subvert his legacy. It is an intimate and riveting portrayal of Houdini, the man and the legend.

This is the only biography of Harry Houdini that I have read, so I have no idea how it measures up in comparison to any others. However, I can tell you how much I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I whipped through this thick, fairly heavy non-fiction in three days and enjoyed every second. It's engrossing, accessible and just generally fascinating throughout.

To begin with, it's thorough but not to the point of boredom. I don't feel the need for biographies to tell me the minutiae of the subject's life and Mr Kalush and Mr Sloman have respected my wishes in this area. It begins with Houdini's childhood but provides only a brief summary, for which I respect the book even more. Then we're straight onto his magic and escapism, which is conversely extremely in-depth.

It covers a lot of different areas - aviation, films, the Secret Service, the army, his challenges, his fellow magicians, etc. Naturally some are more interesting than others, but I never knew he dabbled in so many different things. Did you know he was the first person to a plane in Australia? Oh, and let's not forget the 'spy' rumours. I hadn't heard these before, but on the blurb of a different edition it says 'in exchange for his cooperation, the governments of these two countries (Britain and America) facilitated his rise to the top of the world stage.' Apparently it's A Thing that Harry Houdini was a secret agent. I would have automatically disbelieved it, but there is evidence (and I'm a lawyer - I'm holding them to a high standard of proof!) that he reported back to his government on the conditions of German jail cells and trained certain agents in escaping from restraints. I'm sceptical that he was involved any more than this, but it's still amazing that he actually was part of the war effort.

That's partly the conclusion I've come to, actually. I'm not sure he was a nice man (judging by his arrogance and how aggressively he denounced his competition), but I do think he was a good one. He spent $50,000 (back then!) just on entertaining the troops during the War and funded several charities with varying objectives, not to mention his perseverance in debunking fake mediums.

Ah yes. Spiritualists. I learnt an awful lot about this particular area and it was written absolutely amazingly. I had no idea he was so politically active - he tried to push a Bill through to prohibit phony mediums completely and attending every meeting to demonstrate how fake seances could be pulled off. He became such a threat that there were several attempts on his life by the spiritualists.

Which leads me neatly to Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, that one. This part had me on the edge of my seat and opened my eyes to all sorts of new information. Did you know his wife was a medium and he was actually an active Spiritualist? He died with very little money due to opening a psychic bookstore near Westminster, just as an off-side. Anyway, apparently he and Houdini used to be good friends until this debacle exploded and well... spoilers! I didn't have a clue about any of this previously but now I think of it every time I see a Sherlock Holmes book. It just doesn't add up in my head with the methodical fictional detective!

I've somehow ended up reviewing the man instead of the book, haven't I? Sorry. Well, it's good, anyway. It's written in a strange mix of styles that actually works really well. A chapter will begin written almost like a story, with proper dialogue, thoughts and feelings but then switches almost seamlessly into standard non-fiction. It's weird, but I liked it. It might not be for everybody though - my boyfriend started to read this book but the style annoyed him to such an extent that he got distracted by something shiny and gave up.  

Clearly Harry Houdini was the basis for books like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. He created his own magical encyclopaedia, controlled his own magazine, refused to recognise any theories but his own... Sound familiar? He does seem like he should have been a fictional character, which makes reading a biography all the more entertaining. The fun of a story, but you're learning! *shocked face*

I've done it again, haven't I? *swooshes back to discussing the actual damn book* Anyway, believe it or not, there are facts about Harry Houdini that I haven't already told you in this review, so you should go buy the book and learn them. It's well-written, entertaining and impartial (for the most part), so it's an excellent place to learn more about the legend you thought you already knew.

In Praise of Savagery by Warwick Cairns

I received this from The Friday Project, a HarperCollins imprint for review. As it's my first ever book received for review, you'd have been forgiven for thinking I'd won the lottery if you saw my reaction when it turned up.

One man's journey in the footsteps of a great explorer into the heart of Africa. As a young man, Warwick Cairns met the then elderly explorer Wilfred Thesiger and the two men struck up an unlikely friendship. Invited to visit him at his African home, Cairns decides to make a bit of an adventure of it and do some of the journey on foot. When he himself was a young man, Thesiger led an expedition to explore the course of the Awash river in Ethiopia. Every westerner that had gone before him had been killed by local tribesmen. Needless to say, he survived. Alternating chapters chart Warwick's journey with that of Thesiger creating a captivating dual narrative that is part travel book, part biography, part autobiography, part history with fair doses of philosophy and humour thrown in for good measure.

The summary above hits the nail on the head perfectly - it's hard to tell exactly what this book actually is. I'm glad I'm not the Waterstones staff member that has to decide where to put this on a shelf, because they'll have a hell of a job. I think that's part of its charm though... there's something for everyone. My book snob of a Godmother, who never ever reads fiction, picked it up while I was reading it (*sighs*) and loved it for its anthropological aspects whereas I enjoyed the story and dry humour for entertainment purposes.

The story follows both Cairns in the present and Thesiger in the past as they complete the same expedition through the heart of Africa. I occasionally found it a little difficult to tell who the story was following as it jumps around without any noticeable pattern.Thesiger's adventures interested me more than Cairns' though, as the narrative didn't seem to put as much emphasis on trying to be funny, which is a little off-putting.

Wilfred Thesiger

I enjoyed the discussion of anthropological issues, although a little less would have been appreciated. At times I found the story of the journeys were broken up to insert lectures on civilisation. While I do think I've learned quite a lot about Africa, it could easily have been inserted a little more subtely.

The casual brutality of certain aspects seems to give an other-worldly atmosphere of the book. It's quite clear at all times that we're being given an unusual and often unobtainable glimpse into the true Africa of times past. Mind, the title gives it away; certain parts of the book are certainly 'savage.' Still, it's never gruesome or violent for the sake of it - just honest.

'But in the desert, when we found a camp we'd park our car, and hide it, and we'd wait until it got dark. And then we'd watch the lights in the tents until they went out, and we'd give them time to get off to sleep properly. Then, when it was all quiet, we'd jump into the car - me in the back with the machine-gun, driver up front, and we'd drive right through the middle of their camp and I'd blast aay at the tents on both sides, and we'd be off before they knew what hit them.'

On the other hand, it can also be quite amusing. Although the one-liners can seem a little forced at times, I usally found the humour to be quite dry and sarcastic (my type of humour, it has to be said).

This isn't an easy book to get in to, and you have to be willing to sit down and give it your full attention - it's not a book you can dip in and out of. Once you put the effort in though, it's well worth it. While its not my usual type of book at all, it combines so many different elements (travelogue, biography, humour, anthropology...) that there's definitely something for everyone.