Alvah's Books

Part 9

Part 10

Part 7

Part 8

Ferryman
By Carole Sutton
YouWriteOn.com  2008
247 pages 
$10.99 

Reviewed by Randall Radic

In the mythology of the ancient Greeks, the ferryman was known as Charon.  His job was to ferry the souls of the newly dead across the river that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead.  And in a few cases, certain heroes – Heracles, Orpheus, Aeneas, Dionysus and Psyche – crossed the river while still alive and returned.  The ferryman carried them in his boat.

Ferryman, Carole Sutton’s new and delightful novel, dances around the edges of the Greek myth.  The hero is Steven Pengelly, who is accused of murdering a young woman.  The police can’t find her body but, because of the overwhelming circumstantial evidence, Steven is tried and convicted of murder.  He is ferried to prison, essentially a dead man.  For he will never see the light of day again.           

Never say never.      

Two years later, the dead woman’s body miraculously appears.  Only she hasn’t been dead for two years.  In fact, she’s only been dead a few weeks.  Which means Steven couldn’t have killed her.  Accordingly, Steven is released and ferried back to the land of the living, where he is recruited by another young woman to help her find her missing sister, who may have had a connection to the dead woman responsible for his false imprisonment.           

So the gist of the story is this:  a former prisoner, who was as good as dead, is looking for a missing woman, who might be dead and may have known a woman who is definitely dead.  Sounds like a Michael Connelly novel, doesn’t it?          

Well, one thing is for dead certain:  Carole Sutton writes just as well as Michael Connelly.  Jumping from the past to the present and from the present back to the past, Sutton carefully erects a tantalizing who-dunnit.  The story swings about numerous axes of action and intrigue – called subplots – as it powerfully unfolds.  Sutton maintains control of all these plots within plots, leaving one to tend to another, but with a deft touch that implies mastery of her genre.  The whole thing exudes an aura of lethal expertise.           

The reviewer rarely reads mystery novels, other than those by the already mentioned Michael Connelly, because more often than not they are full of spurious histrionic devices, which are boring, to put it bluntly.  With Ferryman, though, it was quite the reverse.  There are no phony-baloney dramatic devices and, thankfully, no deus ex machina straining credulity to the breaking point.  Which means there are no “Jesus!” moments in Ferryman, where the reader wonders if he picked up the wrong book or somehow managed to skip a whole chapter.  Instead, there’s a sense of imminence on every page, an imminence that causes the reader to keep turning the pages to see what happened next.  The story moves gracefully and steadily forward, which is probably due to the fact that Ms. Sutton shows neither indecision nor diffidence in what to do next.  In other words, she doesn’t have something happen simply for the sake of procedural effect.  Rather, she knows where the story is going and knows how she wants to take the reader along for the ride.  

She’s just about right, always.  As is Ferryman.  Buy it, you’ll like it.

Part 5

Part 6

The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction
By Helen Graham
Oxford University Press, 2005
175 pages
$11.95

The Very Short Introduction series published by Oxford University Press is a wonderful way to get readers acquainted with various subjects ranging from Marx to Christianity, but be forewarned that these small tomes with their tiny print are nothing like the Dummy or Idiots books. Each of these short books pack a hell of a wallop and, hopefully, they will tempt readers to learn more about a specific subject.

In this case, it’s the Spanish Civil War written by Helen Graham, a professor of Spanish History at Royal Halloway, University of London. She is also the author of The Spanish Republic at War 1936-1939, which was published in 2002. Paul Preston, another historian on the subject, sums up Dr. Graham’s book, “This is far and away the best short introduction to the Spanish Civil War that I have read in any language.”  And there you have it. Graham takes a very complex subject whose history can turn any sane person into a raving lunatic–and that’s after finally figuring out all the acronyms for all the political parties—and puts it all into a context that everyone can understand and, hopefully transition to Preston’s or to Hugh Thomas’ much longer accounts of the war.

To fully understand the implications of the war, readers need to have a pretty solid foundation of what led to Spain becoming a Republic and Graham provides succinct historical background. A Very Short Introduction is divided into seven concise chapters. In the second chapter, “Rebellion, Revolution, and Repression” Graham provides a concise narrative of the violence on both sides, from anti-clerical to the executions of poet Garcia Lorca and Amparo Bayaron, the wife of Republican novelist Ramon Sender. Graham writes:

“Those who did the killing in rebel Spain during the first few months were mainly vigilantes. What occurred was a massacre of civilians by other civilians. Mostly this took the form of death squads abducting people from their homes or else taking them out of prison. In a majority of cases the assassins had close links rightist political organizations that had backed the coup, in particular the fascist Falnge. But the military authorities made no attempt to reign in this terror. In fact the killers were often with the connivance of the authorities, otherwise the death squads who came for Amparo Barayon and thousands of her compatriots would never have been able to take their victims out of gaol at will.”

One of the strongest chapter, “The Making of Rebel Spain” Graham provides tight summary of how Franco came to power through skill, but also with some luck thanks to a few “fortuitous deaths” of some serious rivals—either by accident as in the case of General Sanjurjo or through Republican execution. However, Graham points out that Franco’s great advantage at war’s start was his command over the Army of Africa, and aid from Hitler and Mussolini.

The only drawback to Graham’s tight presentation of the Spanish Civil is that her subject–which rouses strong opinions from both sides of the political spectrum—is written a fairly dry manner and rarely interjects any of the passions of the war. However, for readers who want a short  overview on a vast and difficult war, The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction is a good place to start.

Part 3

Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, and Revenge
By Paul Preston
W. W. Norton and Company, 2007
432 pages.
$16.95

 Reviewed by Randall Radic

 In The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler wrote:  “With this enters the age of gigantic conflicts, in which we find ourselves today.  It is the transition from Napoleonism to Caesarism….  The Chinese call it Shan-Kwo, the period of the contending states.”  Spengler was not writing about the Spanish Civil War, of course.  His perspective was purely historical and not specific to one event.  Nevertheless, his statement provides an explanation for the Spanish Civil War.

Jesus took the long view, too, when he said, “There will be wars and rumors of wars until I come again.”  Indirectly, his words provide another explanation for the Spanish Civil War.  Something along the lines of “that’s just the way people are.” 

Paul Preston, the author of The Spanish Civil War, wanted a more specific answer, so he wrote a book in which he examined the causes and effects of the Spanish Civil War (SCW).  A war, according to Preston, that set the stage for World War II.  In the first chapter of his book, Preston implies that – generally speaking – the SCW was the result of growing pains – “the struggles of a society in the throes of modernization.”  The SCW was “the culmination of a series of uneven struggles between the forces of reform and reaction which had dominated Spanish history since 1808.”

In other words, there were two groups of people in Spain.  Those that wanted to change things and those that wanted things to stay the same.  The reformers wanted to modernize Spain, pushing it out of the past into the 20^th century.  Like most people who are afraid of change, the reactionaries liked things the way they were.  And they liked it even more if they got to be in power.  That way they could make sure the status quo was preserved.

In chapter two, Preston begins breaking his general explanation for the SCW down into specific factors.  The reformers, called the Second Republic, were liberals with wonderful ideas that they couldn’t implement effectively.  Their failure caused them to revert to “revolutionary solutions.”  And that’s when everything went to hell in a hand cart.  Preston details the conflict and its aftermath in the succeeding chapters.           

Before reading Preston’s book, the reviewer’s knowledge of the SCW was scanty to almost non-existent.  After finishing the book, the reviewer would like to know more, especially about General Franco, who led the Nationalist forces to victory – if one wants to call it that – and set himself up as dictator for life.  The reviewer would also like to read more about the 3000 Americans who took up arms and fought against Franco.  What motivated men whom, for the most part, had no military experience, to take part in the civil war of a foreign country?  Preston merely writes, “the volunteers went to Spain to fight Hitlerism.”  The reviewer suspects there’s more to it.  He also admits that the subject probably commands a separate book, dedicated to the topic.  

Preston does a remarkable job in relating the story of the SCW.  His presentation and knowledge of General Franco is stunning.  To the reviewer, it appeared that without Franco the outcome of the civil war might have been different.  For Franco did whatever needed to be done to win.  He was ruthless, driven by an inner energy, which the Republicans could not muster.  Franco’s mantra seemed to be “kill, kill, kill.”  And although a little simplistic, his willingness to kill provided the crucial advantage to the Nationalists.         

Previous reviewers have accused Preston of “leftist bias.”  In the book’s preface, Preston himself acknowledges that he has no sympathy for the Nationalists.  He writes, “it is not a book which sets out to find a perfect balance between both sides.”  He then explains that he lived in Spain during Franco’s domination.  In other words, Preston is not writing history from his penthouse suite at the Ivory Tower Hotel.  To this reviewer, that means he knows what he’s talking about, because he actually experienced it.  And that means his book tells what really happened.  Which is called “the truth.”

Truth is a bias only to those who want to believe a lie.

All in all, The Spanish Civil War is essential reading for a better understanding of the dynamics of history as it occurred in Spain just prior to World War II.

Frank McCourt, Author of ‘Angela’s Ashes,’ Dies at 78