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hawkwing_lbBooks 2010: 48
48. Anthony Price, War Games.
The past is a different country, and they do things differently there.
It's 1975 or so, roughly the same time the novel was written. David Audley is dragged away from a holiday to sort out the problem of a communist ideologue and newspaper publisher who may have murdered his brother to come into an inheritance of lost Civil War gold. Reenactors, Soviets, real history and false: one of the things that struck me very much in this book is conservative Home-Office-man Audley's - and by extension, I suppose, the author - real apprehension of violent political revolution on a scale comparable to the Civil War, if the homegrown Left is not kept in check.
It's an assumption - an element of the zeitgeist - that I find very foreign, especially as a moderate socialist-y type myself. (I don't vote for anyone to the right of Labour, except for the very rare moderate centrist woman on the ballot paper.)
Some of the writing is very elegant, and the element of suspense is well handled. I'm not entirely satisfied by the denouement, which feels somewhat rushed, but overall, a very decent book.
No doubt, O internets, you are wondering what I've been doing since last we spoke.
...Yeah, I didn't really think so, either.
The onset of summer appears to have driven me to exercise madness. I have not had a day off since last Thursday, and today -
Today I was crazy enough to climb in the afternoon, and go back, for the first time in a long while, to Shotokan training this evening.
I'd forgotten how much I enjoy karate. I'm rusty as hell, of course, but there are things the body remembers. Basic tai sabaki at least, and how to move from the hip. There's more that I've lost, in four-five years away, and certainty is one of those things. Maybe one day I'll have it again.
(I was a year and a half from a black belt when I stopped. I'd like to be there again.)
48. Anthony Price, War Games.
The past is a different country, and they do things differently there.
It's 1975 or so, roughly the same time the novel was written. David Audley is dragged away from a holiday to sort out the problem of a communist ideologue and newspaper publisher who may have murdered his brother to come into an inheritance of lost Civil War gold. Reenactors, Soviets, real history and false: one of the things that struck me very much in this book is conservative Home-Office-man Audley's - and by extension, I suppose, the author - real apprehension of violent political revolution on a scale comparable to the Civil War, if the homegrown Left is not kept in check.
It's an assumption - an element of the zeitgeist - that I find very foreign, especially as a moderate socialist-y type myself. (I don't vote for anyone to the right of Labour, except for the very rare moderate centrist woman on the ballot paper.)
Some of the writing is very elegant, and the element of suspense is well handled. I'm not entirely satisfied by the denouement, which feels somewhat rushed, but overall, a very decent book.
No doubt, O internets, you are wondering what I've been doing since last we spoke.
...Yeah, I didn't really think so, either.
The onset of summer appears to have driven me to exercise madness. I have not had a day off since last Thursday, and today -
Today I was crazy enough to climb in the afternoon, and go back, for the first time in a long while, to Shotokan training this evening.
I'd forgotten how much I enjoy karate. I'm rusty as hell, of course, but there are things the body remembers. Basic tai sabaki at least, and how to move from the hip. There's more that I've lost, in four-five years away, and certainty is one of those things. Maybe one day I'll have it again.
(I was a year and a half from a black belt when I stopped. I'd like to be there again.)
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 11:04 pm (UTC)(It still gives me a heartened glow every time you post about enjoying one of these, and that's something I appreciate right now for a number of reasons, so thank you.)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 11:14 pm (UTC)It'll be The '44 Vintage tomorrow. Copyright libraries, never leave me!
(I think of you very warmly every time I open one of these. I was half planning to send you an email mentioning that, eventually, but I'm eminently distractible.)