“The Sherlockian”, by Graham Moore

 

368 pages, Twelve, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0446572583

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore revolves around two independent-but-connected mysteries involving the McGuffin that is a missing volume of Arthur Conan Doyle’s voluminous diary. The Modern-day mystery involves one Harold White, newly-minted member of the Baker Street Irregulars, the übergeek organization that all proper Sherlockians aspire to join. The mystery truly begins after Alex Cale, the world’s foremost Sherlockian, is found strangled in his room at the Algonquin Hotel the day he was supposed to reveal his discovery, the aforementioned McGuffin that was written from the time right before Doyle resurrected Holmes. Thus, the game is afoot (to borrow a phrase) as White – along with Sarah Lindsay, a reporter and his modern-day Watson – seek out Cale’s murderer and, perhaps more importantly, the missing McGuffin.

The Victorian-era mystery, which is written concurrently with White’s tale, involves Conan Doyle himself and his dear friend, Bram Stoker (yes, the Dracula guy) in pursuit of, at first, the culprits who sent Conan Doyle a mail bomb that nearly killed him and about whom New Scotland Yard hasn’t a clue (naturally). However, his search for personal justice devolves into an unplanned pursuit if a vicious serial killer who, apparently, targets vulnerable young women, the violence of which sets it apart from many of the original Holmes stories to Conan Doyle’s consternation (to say nothing of horror). And it is this constant back-and-forth between present sleuths versus past that drives the story along, as we watch Harold and Sarah search in one chapter for that which Conan Doyle is busily creating in another.

What to make of all this? Well, I think that fans of Conan Doyle and his creation may find this a truly interesting book, filled as it is with reams of Doyle/Holmes trivia and commentary: chapters begin with quotations from Holmes’ mysteries, while the dedication and scholarship of Holmes modern followers is part and parcel of the plot. As a kinda-Sherlockian and later-day Victorian wannabe myself, I expected to be equally riveted by The Sherlockian – alas, I was not. Despite Moore’s best attempts, there is no real sense of danger, intrigue or risk involving any of the characters: I just knew that Harold and Sarah were gonna be alright (as, of course, were Conan Doyle and Stoker). And after having reading the Author’s Note at the end of the book – wherein Moore divulges what is fact and fiction regarding this novel – I was struck by the fact that the inspiration for this tale is actually more engaging and exciting than what Moore created.

While not a bad book, The Sherlockian just felt flat, like a decarbonated Coke after its been left overnight: I’d still drink it, but while it may quench my thirst a little bit, I would still want something more refreshing.

“Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America”, by Michael Hiltzik

 

448 pages, Mariner Books, ISBN-13: 978-0358567127

In Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America, author Michael Hiltzik has written a dense, narrative-driven account of the consolidation of American railroads into the archetypal mega-corporations that have defined the 20^th and 21^st Centuries, for good and ill. I found it interesting that Hiltzik chose to take the (rather discredited) “Great Man” approach in his book, following the paths of such titans of industry as Jay Gould, Ed Harriman, Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan and Theodore Roosevelt, each of whom financed, maintained, consolidated and ultimately regulated America’s railroad conglomerates of the late 19^th Century. While the abuses of these railroad builders has been documented before – the blatant bribery, the overwhelming greed and at times the painful incompetence – railroads were still pivotal in opening the American West to settlement and development, and to the growth of the United States as a nation and its commanding place in the world.

But what I found interesting in this book is the follow through, as the 19^th Century ended and the 20^th Century began; many histories behave as if the railroads ended with the death of Victoria when, in fact, they were just hitting their stride. Hiltzik covers the history of the railroads well, warts and all, especially as to their seemingly hopelessly entwined financial dealings with the barons at their core. However, perhaps because Hiltzik intended to keep this a factual history of the corporations that crisscrossed the continent with their belts of steel, he does not go into actual character studies of these (it must be said) colorful, bigger than life robber barons, even though his chapters seemed organized by the different individuals and/or pivotal events. As such, it did not engage me as much as I expected, even though the promise at the beginning of the book was to use these men as guideposts, as it were, in the history of this subject; why this original plan was ultimately abandoned I cannot fathom; I can only regret.

Iron Empires shows that, of all the pivotal technologies of the last two centuries – the automobile, telephones, television, computers, and even the internet – it was the railroads that, arguably, had the most profound impact on shaping America. Starting from the 1840s, railroads took the country from the horse-and-buggy to the industrial age and made possible all the others. Railroads not only revolutionized travel, they settled the western frontier; absorbed waves of immigrants; created the modern finance, steel and banking industries; made possible mighty cities; created the labor and women’s movements; integrated agriculture and coal mining; and so much more. But railroads weren’t impersonal forces of nature that did as they pleased and couldn’t be stopped by human agency; rather, they were built, funded, directed and abused by human beings, with all their virtues and faults, for purposes good, evil and pedestrian. The modern-day equivalence are the tech giants who, like the robber-barons of old, must needs be reined in for the good of all.

“The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History”, by Linda Colley

 

416 pages, Anchor Books, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0385721493

I thought that The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History was the first book by Linda Colley that I had read – until I remembered that I had read Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850 (reviewed on July 13^th, 2022). And I should’ve realized, for the theme, as well as the pacing, of Ordeal closely matches that of Captives. And just who was Elizabeth Marsh? Well, she was an Englishwoman who lived from 1735 to 1785; when she was but 21 years old, the ship she was traveling on from Gibraltar to England to unite with her fiancé was intercepted by a Moroccan corsair and overtaken by its crew; she and a number of the other passengers onboard where thence held captive in Morocco by the Sultan, Sidi Mohammed ben Abdellah al-Khatib, for a brief period (You see? Sometimes white Europeans were the victims).

From there, Colley traces Marsh’s life and travels (and travails), from her birth in Jamaica in the 18^th Century (and her, possible, biracial background) to her return to England, her marriage and domestic life with James Crisp and her journeys by ship through Asia – even including a pirate adventure. Thus, Ordeal records a great deal of interesting and obscure parts of history that you might not get out of a typical history textbook, due mostly to Elizabeth Marsh’s rather atypical life, but also to the Colley’s very detailed and comprehensive descriptions of this unknown woman. While there are whole stretches of Marsh’s life that were as ordinary as ordinary can be – marriage, children, meddlesome in-laws – there were others that were as different as one could imagine.

Don’t be misled, though, as Colley hasn’t written an adventure tale by any means; indeed, whole stretches of the book drag on and on, and one can’t help but feel that some parts, at least, were inserted in the interest of stretching the thing out to 400+ pages (reminds me of my college days, inserting every 10¢ word I could think of to reach the minimum word count). Oh, to be sure, in order to develop this unfamiliar tale, Colley had to dig deep and unearth any number of fascinating (and less-than-fascinating) details about Marsh, but the problem is that her protagonist’s life was not all that interesting for whole stretches – decades, even – and that Colley, by necessity, had to produce quite a bit of filler in order to keep her reader’s interest.

Ultimately, the focus of Ordeal is not on developing a true to historical narrative of Marsh’s life, boring warts and all, which again presents problems. Regarding Marsh’s unique life trajectory and the reasoning behind her sometimes unknowable motivations, there are many areas where Colley makes educated guesses as to why her protagonist did what, guesses which I found to be without any satisfying evidence. It must be said, however, that Colley does attempt to stick with what she has evidence for, and when she dives into conjecture she acknowledges that she is doing so. I imagine that is was difficult to develop this account because, while Colley was able to unearth a surprising amount of material about (and by) a rather obscure woman, it is still largely incomplete.

“Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe”, by Sarah Gristwood

 

400 pages, Basic Books, ISBN-13: 978-1541697225

Chess is a game of strategy and forward thinking: anyone even a little familiar with the game knows that the best players always try to think several moves ahead – but it is also a game in which the Queen is the most powerful playing piece whose job it is to protect the King, who is one of the weakest pieces. This is a more than appropriate analogy for Sarah Gristwood to use in Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe, an excellent history of these amazing women who ruled rather than just reigned, usually in support of their young sons until they could reach their majority – Queens protecting Kings on the gameboard of European politics.

The author could just as easily had written sixteen separate biographies, but by combining all of their lives into a single book, Gristwood shows just how each country and each woman truly depended on one another for power and prestige, even if (as they usually were) at odds with one another. I found this to be most interesting, for while there may have been mutual respect and/or even admiration between these women, there was no love lost: they were patriots to their respective nations first, or fierce defenders of their sons and their interests – in this, they indeed fulfilled the stereotypical role held out for mothers.

In a world where male heirs were few or died young, it was women who had to step in and make Europe ready for the future. The 16^th Century was the changing point for European history, and it was women, more often than not, who had to navigate this complex field to keep Europe from completely falling apart, and Game of Queens vividly tells the stories behind the unprecedented emergence of these powerful women in the games countries played in the 1500s, a masterful account of these individuals and of many more ambitious, often public-spirited women of royal blood in 16^th Century Europe.

Indeed, there are so many significant players pacing regally through Gristwood’s saga that the reader might anticipate some narrative confusion. Gristwood chronicles the roles of many other women rulers and powerful influencers during the period. They include Isabella of Castile, Christina of Denmark, Marguerite of Navarre, Margaret of Austria, Louise of Savoy, Anne of Bohemia and Hungary, Margaret Tudor, Mary Tudor, Marie de Guise, Jeanne d’Albret and Anne de Beaujeu, along with the usual suspects of Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, Catherine de Medici and Elizabeth I.

Game of Queens is as complete a history of the 16^th Century as one could hope for, retelling the tale through the eyes of the women who made it all happen while, thankfully, not infecting the same with any modern-day political hokum.

“The Conquering Sword of Conan”, by Robert E. Howard, illustrated by Gregory Manchess

 

 

416 pages, Del Rey, ISBN-13: 978-0345461537

 

In the early oughts, Del Rey began producing the complete works of Robert E. Howard; The Conquering Sword of Conan, illustrated by Gregory Manchess, was the fifth volume to be published and, as the stories are published in the order Howard wrote them, it stands to reason that as his skill as a writer grew over time, as did the character of Conan. Volume three contains the short stories The Servants of Bit-Yakin (also published as Jewels of Gwahlur), Beyond the Black River, The Black Stranger, Man-Eaters of Zamboula (also published as Shadows in Zamboula) and Red Nails; a bunch of notes and synopses on stores both published and not; a letter to P. Schuyler Miller (the American science fiction writer and critic) and another map of the Hyborian Age; along with appendices on the Hyborian Genesis Part III, notes on the Conan typescripts, the chronology of the tales and the original Howard texts, all by Patrice Louinet.

 

As mentioned in my review of Volume two (reviewed on _), by the time these stories were originally published, it would appear that Howard was growing tired of writing Conan stories, and while The Conquering Sword of Conan is perhaps the strongest of the three Conan-themed Del Rey volumes, one can see that Howard was yearning to expand into other genres: Beyond the Black River and Red Nails are consistently ranked amongst some of the best Conan stories that Howard ever wrote (a sentiment I agree with; I knew you’d care), but they could have just as easily been set on the dangerous frontier of the western United States in the former instance and in Aztec Mexico after the appearance of the conquistadors in latter (and, to carry this point just a little bit further, The Black Stranger could just as easily been set in the colonial America during the Golden Age of Piracy).

 

This last volume of Howard’s Conan books is an excellent send-off for this most famous of the man’s creations, and it has it all. The strength of the character is in his many contradictions: a man of brute strength and tender concerns, of savage passions and heartfelt compassion, of merciless drive and sentimental honor. The best characters have flaws and an arc in which we follow them as they grow and change. And Conan does that; he isn’t born perfect and does not become perfect, but he changes and becomes something greater at the end of his journey than he was at the beginning. THAT is proper storytelling; pity our modern-day mythmakers don’t do it better.

“Jane Austen at Home: A Biography”, by Lucy Worsley

 

400 pages, St. Martin’s Griffin, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1250799968

Jane Austen at Home: A Biography by Lucy Worsley (i.e., The Queen of PBS) is as complete a biography of the Divine Jane as one could wish for. In her opening statement Lucy describes her purpose in focusing her biography of Jane on her many abodes, for “where you were born and who you were born to for most 18^th Century people delimited where you ended up”. Geography counts, folks. And from there we have a history of Jane’s life told through the medium of her never-ending quest for a permanent home of her very own. And there were many homes, make no mistake: often inadequate, never permanent and sometimes grim, all Jane ever wanted for herself, her mother and her constant companion, elder sister Cassandra (her brothers could always, and did, take care of themselves) was a safe haven in which she could live in at least a little comfort, afford a good lamp and writing materials and spread her creative wings.

And so, throughout Jane Austen at Home, we are treated to one detail after another of the many homes the Austen women occupied, their furnishings, gardens and neighborhoods, and even some of the more memorable neighbors and relations whom Jane knew. Through it all, we see how this constant changing of address affected Jane’s novels; their subject matter, their focus, their drive. Lucy describes all of the ups and downs of Jane’s life, the family celebrations and disasters, the turns of fortunes both good and ill and, perhaps most revealingly, the everyday aspects of men and women that Jane so realistically observed and captured in her novels. And of course, seeing as this is a book written by Lucy Worsley, it is shamelessly ebullient and often breathless (I guess we shouldn’t be surprised; after all, she warns us in the forward that “[t]his is, unashamedly, the story of my Jane, every word of it written with love”).

Lucy is also given to some speculative writing – there are a great many “she must have” and “I believe that” and “it is possible” peppered throughout the book – which is understandable, seeing as so much of Jane’s insightful (and acerbic) correspondence was burned by her devoted, discreet, overbearing (envious?) older sister, Cassandra, after her death (Lucy’s theory as to why Cassandra did this was to protect the rest of the Austen clan from Jane’s lashing tongue; the woman said what she thought, make no mistake). But Lucy’s speculation centers, above all, on Jane’s motives and emotions; while she was, throughout the whole of her too-brief life, wonderfully free and sharp in her opinions and observations in the letters that remain, she never said much about her feelings, except when shielded under cover of irony (many of her observations about potential mates falls under this category, the sincere wishes of Austenites to the contrary).

What about these potential mates, anyway? Did Jane really have to end life a spinster? Lucy argues that Jane chose spinsterhood to preserve her freedom as she simultaneously locates no fewer than nine – NINE! – potential husbands for Jane: Tom Lefroy (of course), Samuel Backall, William Digweed, Edward Bridges (this was the most serious after Lefroy), Harris Bigg-Wither, an unnamed seaside wooer, William Seymour (her brother Henry’s partner), William Gifford and Charles-Thomas Haden (this is one spinster who saw a whole lotta action). What to say about this? As usual, let’s turn to Jane: she wrote of her most self-effacing heroine, Anne Elliot, that “[s]he had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older – the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning”; Cassandra, reading the manuscript, underlined this passage and added: “Dear, dear Jane…this deserves to be written in letters of gold”.

Should we feel bad that Jane never married? I, for one, still do, even though, as Lucy points out, “[i]f she had married, she would doubtless have produced human rather than paper progeny”. Perhaps. Depending upon whom she managed to corral, she may have been able to hire all the help an upper-middle class matron could afford to care for the living little darlings while she continued to produce her literary little darlings. But this is all speculation, and we must cherish that which Jane gave to us: six of the most perfect books ever to grace the English language. Meanwhile, I prefer to remember Jane as Lucy would have us: “What Mrs. Luff’s grandmother clearly remembered was their description of Jane Austen in the act of ‘running across the field to call on her friends’. Let our final image of Jane be one of speed and power, not lying immovable upon her unfamiliar bed in the cramped rented upper room in Winchester, but instead running, running across the field to see her friends once again”. A better ending to an Austen novel one could hardly imagine.

“Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Life in Power”, by Christopher Clark

 

‎ 300 pages, Penguin UK, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0141039930

This is the third book by Christopher Clark that I have read: the first being Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (reviewed on July 23^rd, 2014) and the other The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (reviewed on January 7^th, 2023). And so when I saw that he had also written a biography about Kaiser Bill, I snatched it up. Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Life in Power is what you would expect from a book by Christopher Clark: well-documented, engaging and thorough – but the title should have told me that it was not what I thought it was going to be; namely, a biography of this most perplexing of modern(ish) rulers. This is because it is written from a political point of view with all the action going on in the Deutscher Reichstag, the fights occurring in the Bundesrat, relations between the Prussian political parties, the goings on between the German States and reforms (or lack thereof) over the course of the Kaiserreich.

Consequently, there is very little written about Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert – Kaiser Bill to us Yanks – concerning his private life, or his family and backgrounds, which I find very disappointing. There were, however, two revelations that were most useful. The first was that, while Wilhelm loved playing the soldier (especially dressing up in all of those uniforms) he was lousy at actual soldiering. All of those virtues one expects from a soldier – Duty, Honor, Loyalty, Competence, Selflessness, Integrity, to name a few – were not for him. It was mostly just show, and he loved playing his part. The second was that he was not a Nazi. Not that there has ever been a serious claim that the Last Kaiser sported a swastika, but Clark makes it clear that Wilhelm’s early cheerleading of the victory of German arms – especially over the French – was due to patriotism and not to championing the Little Corporal and his thugs.

There are other personal revelations, as well: his never-ending conflicts with his Anglophile parents, his envy of Bismarck and all that he accomplished, his love/hate attitude towards England and, especially, his uncle, King Edward VII, his increasing lack of any authority as the First World War progressed; all are amongst the intriguing facts that Clark brings to front. But make no mistake: this is a biography of His Imperial and Royal Majesty Wilhelm II, By the Grace of God, German Emperor and King of Prussia, Margrave of Brandenburg, Burgrave of Nuremberg, Count of Hohenzollern, Duke of Silesia and of the County of Glatz…and so on and so forth. As for Willy (as he was called in the family) there is precious little, which is a damn shame, for I would truly have loved to learn more of the private man with the shrunken arm who, while reviled as a warmonger, always sought a peaceful resolution to conflict. THAT is a man worth reading about.