Book Report: The Secret Hours

8. Mick Herron, The Secret Hours (2023) (5/28/24)

I suppose I should have read the eight "Slow Horses" books before I read this one, but it was billed as a stand-alone, and I wasn't feeling like getting bogged down in yet another series (the first volume of which I've read, and I've seen the three TV seasons based on the series). As it turns out—and I suppose this is a spoiler, but I can't imagine anyone who cares actually reading this report—this book provides something of a backstory to a key Slow Horses character. Which one might pick up on early on if one is paying attention to all the cigarette smoking, or at least, as I did, later (on the last page), when this character mentions a certain murder. 

But no matter: one does not need to have read the Slow Horses for this book to be enjoyable. It provides a deliciously cynical view of British intelligence, as a go-nowhere investigative panel is convened and proceeds to hear utterly worthless testimony—until one day a provocative file mysteriously appears in a panel member's shopping cart, and suddenly they do have something to investigate. 

The book's action begins with a man being chased in the dead of night through country lanes in Devon, then shifts to present-day London, and finally to "Berlin, Then"—"then" being shortly after the Wall fell, and a young woman arrives to keep an eye on a house of "spooks" and report back to HQ in London. That becomes the real story, told in alternating fashion: the London hearing room, and then live action in Berlin. It's a pleasing device. And a lively story (because of course that chased man never entirely disappears).

Here's a passage I flagged, as our witness is given her brief by a higher-up in MI5:

     "Miles isn't in charge of the whole shebang [in Berlin], however much he likes to act like he is, but he's the one who knows the streets, and he's done the hard time staring at the Wall from the opposite side. So he should know what's what."
     "And you want me to observe him."
     "Observe . . . Yes. I want you to observe him."
     "You think he's . . . turned?"
     Turned was the word you heard, in the movies, on TV. "Turned" was when you stopped being whoever you were and started being someone else, unless it was when you stopped pretending to be someone else, and went back to being who you were. It occurred to her even as she was saying the word that they could have been discussing Miles's sexuality as much as his loyalty. If you were going to be turned, Berlin was very much the place where this might happen. She'd read enough about the city, and heard from friends for whom it was a clubbers' paradise, to know that much.
     But Cartwright said, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
     "No, I understand."
     "You're there to observe," he repeated.

And although I enjoyed the writing and the pacing and the general high energy, I think now it's time for something quieter. Or at least a little less cynical.

Coast to Coast Path, May 1–16

Earlier this month, my wilderness ranger friend Lynn and I walked across England—that's right, straight across, from coast to coast (as the trail is known). Though the route was anything but a straight line, curling and curving as it did around this lake or over that ridgeline—or charging right up a hill, if that was its mood. It was a path pieced together in the 1970s by fellwalker Alfred Wainwright, who coined the phrase "There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing." Fortunately, we didn't have to seriously test that adage.

Wainwright wanted people to explore, to follow their own inclinations, to be able to continue walking even if the weather was poor, so his route includes various alternative stretches—which makes the distance difficult to pin down: 190 miles? 197? 215? It traverses three national parks—the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, and the North York Moors—and incorporates stretches of existing paths, including some of England's second officially named "national trail," the Cleveland Way (1969). In 2025, the Coast to Coast Walk will become the 17th such path with heightened status.

Wainwright divided his trail into twelve sections, but Lynn and I did it in sixteen. We just weren't up for 20-mile days. We stayed in inns and B&Bs and had our luggage transported each day, which allowed us to carry only what we'd need: water, lunch (a hunk of cheese, rye crisps, and Mars bars), and rain gear. We had maps, but relied heavily on GPS tracks our outfitter provided us. 

It was a great walk, with so much diversity. I'm super glad we did it. It truly felt like an accomplishment! Here we are at the end-sign:

As I've done before, I'm going to post here the links to my daily Facebook travelogue, to keep them all in one place. The photos include explanatory captions.

Arrival in St. Bees

Day 1: St. Bees–Ennerdale Bridge (o/n Cleator Moor)

Day 2: Ennerdale Bridge–Seatoller

Day 3: Seatoller–Grasmere

Day 4: Grasmere–Patterdale

Day 5: Patterdale–Bampton

Day 6: Bampton–Tebay

Day 7: Tebay–Kirkby Stephen

Day 8: Kirkby Stephen–Keld

Day 9: Keld–Reeth

Day 10: Reeth–Richmond

Day 11: Richmond–Danby Wiske

Day 12: Danby Wiske–Osmotherley

Day 13: Osmotherley–Clay Bank Top (o/n Great Broughton)

Day 14: Clay Bank Top–Blakey Ridge

Day 15: Blakey Ridge–Egton

Day 16: Egton–Robin Hoods Bay

Our final day: Robin Hoods Bay and back to Heathrow

On the way home

 

David Bowie

So I'm surfing FB a bit, and there's a post from my high school alumni group (SAMOHI CLASS of 1972), with a meme: *You can only purchase 1 ticket!* And 9 images—a few of whom I'm so dorky, I don't even know... but the ones I do know are Bob Marley, Prince, David Bowie, X, Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, X, Freddie Mercury, X (this last X being the only female in the lineup, go figure).

Most of the responses are for Jimi. Also Freddie, Marley. Me: David Bowie all the way. In part because I completely missed him back in the day. But the more I've encountered him over the years, the more impressive I find him. 

So yeah, I'd have loved to have seen him perform. Boy and how.

So here are a few performances I've conjured up on YouTube. Just for fun. Or remembrance. 

"Spiders from Mars":

"Heroes" (he gets started around 1:45):
 

"Rebel Rebel":

 "Young Americans":

Oh, okay, here he is with Freddie Mercury, "Under Pressure." Amazing vocalists, both.

 And finally, here he is chatting with Conan O'Brien. He just seemed so likable.

David Bowie has been gone eight years now. He died at 69—my age now. He'd be 77 now. He did so much. 

Keith Brymer Jones and Paul Cummins, potters

I've been watching The Great Pottery Throwdown, and each week I am captivated by the technical challenge—which might be a set of three different-sized flower pots or a perfect globe or six identical plates, etc. It's always demonstrated by one of the two main hosts/judges, Keith Brymer Jones. So I thought I'd search him out on YouTube, see if there are any representative features on him. And yes! Of course. But it turns out, he's more than just a potter. He seems to be a British sensation.

Here are a couple of the more pottery-focused features I enjoyed:

And then there's this: 

On the episode I watched this evening, the special challenge was a dozen (ceramic) roses, and the special judge was Paul Cummins, who in 2014, together with Tom Piper and 300 ceramicists, created an installation at the Tower of London commemorating the start of WWI called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, featuring a bazillion ceramic poppies—or to be exact, 888,246, each representing a British fatality in that war. Here are some photos:

It's always so thrilling to see passion in action. No mattter what the medium.

Curiosity 100: Rhiannon Giddens, musician

Yay, 100! But that's irrelevant, compared to the artist I'm featuring here: Rhiannon Giddens, banjo player, fiddler, and wonderful vocalist. I don't have much to say, except that I learned about her about 20 years ago, via the Carolina Chocolate Drops. And then last night we saw and listened to her perform at our Golden State Theater, and it was amazing. Rhiannon and five others, sometimes six or seven. Roots music, with her minstrel banjo or a Cajun tune or two; music evoking the 1920s; and lots of love (or almost-love) songs.

This song about the experience of being a slave, "Come Love Come," is nicely done in this recorded version, but her performance last night was more powerful, a searing lament. 

Here's her Tiny Desk Concert from three years ago. (She's chatty; keep scrolling if you lose interest. She won't know.)

I felt enriched by Rhiannon's (and the others') passion and talent, and by the American nature of the music. I keep feeling so conflicted over the course this country seems to be taking, which seems so idiotic to me—but then I'm reminded of the many treasures this culture, this diverse culture, has to offer. And I'm glad it's mine. (Then again, talk to me again in November...)

For now, I am so glad we went to hear and see Rhiannon Giddens perform. She's one of those treasures, for sure.

Book Report: Erasure

7. Percival Everett, Erasure (2001)

According to Wikipedia, Percival Everett has written 22 novels, many books of short stories and poetry, and a children's book. Why hadn't I heard of him before American Fiction—the movie on which Erasure is based?

Well, it doesn't matter, because now I have heard of him, and I will continue to read him. I loved Erasure: it's smart, it's funny, it's poignant, it's angry, it's fully lived. 

It's the story of Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, a Black writer and critical theorist who becomes fed up with the publishing world and the cubbyholes they'd like to shove him in, and so decides to embrace the stereotype—in full irony. Yet, the irony overtakes him, for the gangsta novella that he quickly writes as something of a sendoff joke becomes celebrated as the "real" thing.

Meanwhile, he is dealing with family issues, and money issues, and job issues. And perhaps most directly, identity issues. 

Immediately after I finished the book, we watched American Fiction. It was okay. But it missed the internal dialogue and a lot of the nuance of the novel (of course). That said, it also made for a different ending than the book did. The book was very much in Monk's head, whereas the movie needed to externalize—and it was allowed, perhaps, a looser play on "fiction" than the book. Both work. Different media.

I loved Everett's writing, and seeing the experience of being Black—by which I mean, an individual American—through his eyes. I flagged many passages. Here are the first few.

Anyone who speaks to members of his family knows that sharing a language does not mean you share the rules governing the use of that language. No matter what is said, something else is meant and I knew that for all my mother's seeming incoherence or out-of-itness, she was trying to tell me something over tea. The way she had mentioned the smoke in the living room twice. Her calling the blue box gray. Her easy and quick capitulation to what it was she and her cronies actually did at their meetings. But since I didn't know the rules, which were forever changing, I could only know that she was trying to say something not what that something was. 

There are times when fishing that I feel like a real detective. I study the water, the lay of the land, seine the streambottom and look at the larvae of aquatic insects. I watch, look for hatches and terrestrial activity. I select my fly, one I've tied at streamside, plucking a couple of fibers from my sweater to mix with the dubbing to get just the right color. I present the fly while hiding behind a rock or in tall grass and wait patiently. Then there are times when I wrap pocket lint around a hook, splash it into the water while standing on a fat boulder. Both methods have worked and failed. It's all up to the trout.

I tried to distance myself from the position where the newly sold piece-of-shit novel had placed me vis-à-vis my art. It was not exactly the case that I had sold out, but I was not, apparently, going to turn away the check. I considered my woodworking and why I did it. In my writing my instinct was to defy form, but I very much sought in defying it to affirm it, an irony that was difficult enough to articulate, much less defend. But the wood, the feel of it, the smell of it, the weight of it. It was so much more real than words. The wood was so simple. Damnit, a table was a table was a table. 

Lately, I've had trouble keeping my attention on a book. This book, though, I had no trouble sticking with. I've now got I Am Not Sidney Poiter on the Kindle. 

Curiosity 99: Washed Ashore

We spent the last couple of days in Tucson visiting a dear old friend, Trudy. Among other outings, we visited the Tucson Botanical Gardens, which is currently hosting a show of ocean trash. Well, ocean trash artfully reconfigured: as jellyfish, a humpback whale, a puffin, a mako shark, and a rockhopper penguin. Here is what the gardens' website says about the the Bandon, Oregon–based group that provided the oversized sculptures made of junk: 

Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea is a non-profit organization committed to combating plastic pollution in the ocean and waterways. In ten years, Washed Ashore has processed over 35 tons of plastic pollution from the Pacific Northwest’s ocean beaches to create over 85 works of art that are awakening the hearts and minds of viewers to the global marine debris crisis. Washed Ashore has exhibited their giant sculptures at many noteworthy venues including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

The Smithsonian exhibit is permanent; others, including, currently, venues in Galveston Island, TX; Brooklyn, NY; and Clearwater, FL, are traveling shows—bringing the message of plastic pollution far and wide. 

The signage included a scavenger hunt: find the lighters, children's toys, flipflops, tires, bottle caps, fishing line, buoys, plastic this, plastic that. There were even some Department of Fish & Wildlife marker-tags on some of the creations.

I took photos.

Trudy and David, with toothy friend

I am skeptical that such "educational" creations convince us humans that we should be more careful with our garbage. But at least the beaches of Oregon are getting cleaned up. And that's certainly a good thing.