Review: My Boy Jack

My Boy Jack by David Haig

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Haig's drama succeeds by avoiding the clichéd and simplistic narrative so common in World War I literature. Yes, Kipling is vain, pompous, blindly patriotic and emotionally distant, but he still comes across as likeable, with a boyish enthusiasm for life and a genuine affection for his family. Jack, his doomed son, is a rounded and complex character, desperate to escape the suffocating atmosphere at home, while the daughter Elsie ("Bird") is a vigorous and strong-willed force in the family, rivalling her mother.

The story focuses on Rudyard Kipling's efforts to get his teenage son into the army, even before the war has begun. He has already been turned down by the Navy because of his appallingly bad eyesight. We see Jack enthusiastically following his father's efforts, but for his own reasons. We then see him with his men before going over the top at Loos and being reported "missing believed wounded" to his family. Apart from a tender flashback in which Rudyard shows his favouritism to his son above his daughter, this is the last we see of Jack.

The rest of the play focuses on the quest to find out JAck's fate, including a harrowing scene with a shell-shocked veteran who saw Jack's final moments.

The play's only weakness is the ending, where Haig sees Bird married off and then reacts to Hitler's rise to power, persuading him that his son's sacrifice was wasted. Finally, he reads his own poem 'My Boy Jack'. This feels like three different endings when only one was necessary.



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Review: The Last Days of Socrates

The Last Days of Socrates by Plato

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Tredennick's translation is getting a little old-fashioned now (it was published in 1954 and last revised in 1969), but this remains one of the more accessible of Plato's works for the non-academic reader. It comprises four short works: Socrates' discussion with a friend before his trial; his speeches at the trial itself; a conversation after his conviction; and his last conversation and death.

What surprises the modern reader is the depth of humour and humanity on show. We expect classical texts to be dry, complicated and formal, but Socrates comes across as a real human being, mixing razor-sharp logic with gentle humour and even teasing. This is largely because his talent was not thinking but forcing others to think. He can also be frustratingly tactless, especially in the Apology (his speeches at the trial), almost goading the jury to condemn him.

After his death sentence, he spurns the chance to escape, arguing with infuriating logic that he is innocent because he has always been a loyal subject of Athens. If he ran away he would become guilty of subverting the laws of Athens and would thereby earn the death sentence he has already been given. His argument falls somewhere between Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative.

Phaedo: the final piece and longer than all the others combined; is the report of his final conversations with his followers and ends with him taking the prescribed poison and dying.

It's also the least satisfactory. Partly this is because Socrates' arguments seem too formally structured, giving the impression that this is really Plato's philosophy, and partly because the 'unassailable' logic about the soul and the afterlife is so obviously flawed. Several times he asks his audience whether they have any objections to his reasoning. "None, Socrates," they reply, while I'm jumping up and down saying, "Me, me! I've got one! Your theory is based on a huge assumption that you've said nothing to justify."

Still, if Socrates had all the answers then the next 2,500 years of philosophy would have been pointless. But the genesis of Western thought and critical reasoning is here.



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Review: Coram Boy: The Play

Coram Boy: The Play by Helen Edmundson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Admittedly, this review is based on seeing the National Theatre's film of its own 2005 production, so not all points hold.

The story plots the 18th Century lives of two boys and their obsession with one girl. One is the heir to a country estate who wants to devote his life to music instead; the other is the son of a thoroughly nasty character who takes money from unmarried mothers to send their babies to the Coram foundlings institution but then murders the children and pockets the cash. Not a nice man.

It's a compelling story, let down slightly by the failure of the two storylines to weave together. The National's production was let down by the intrusiveness of the music, which often drowned out the dialogue and is so prevalent that the show was practically an opera. It's other main failing was the cast, or possibly the director, who seemed to confuse running around, shrieking constantly and falling over with the more subtle art known as 'acting'.



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Review: Wintersmith

Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I'm not sure Terry Pratchett can write a bad book, but Wintersmith is unlikely to be many people's favourite Discworld novel. The plot is hardly gripping and old favourites Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg seem to have been brought in to support a fairly weak cast. These include the Feegles: probably the most irritating characters in the whole Discworld series. If I were Scottish, I would probably find their stereotyped speech and behaviour offensive, but since I'm English it's merely irritating.

The plot concerns likeable teen witch Tiffany, who inadvertently becomes the love interest of the Wintersmith, the god of winter. She ambles around the rural areas of the disc, learning and dispensing witchy wisdom while trying to fend off the attentions of the Wintersmith and rescue summer. Some of the plot seems forced, with characters such as Roland being given a role simply because they were in earlier books and readers would wonder why they had disappeared. Horace the cheese seems to be there for no reason whatsoever.

As an opponent, the Wintersmith seems more of an annoyance than a menace, but the old witch Miss Treason is a lot of fun, keeping Tiffany on her toes while revealing the wicked and funny tricks of the real trade: helping people not through magic but by exploiting their credulity.

Yes, there's some trademark humour and clever philosophical musings that make Wintersmith a fun read, but Pratchett isn't really on top form here.

Note: The publisher deserves some criticism here. The book is labelled "A Story of Discworld". This, apparently, means that it's for young adults, which explains why it sometimes seems simplistic and shallow. But there's nothing to warn the uninitiated that this is YA.



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Review: Fifty Sheds of Grey

Fifty Sheds of Grey by C.T. Grey

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



The only joke in this book is in the title. How far can you go with shed-based puns mimicking mild erotica? Not far, it seems. This isn't a book: it's a novelty gift item and you can read it in ten minutes, but the joke wears thin after five. I only read it because a friend left it at a party. I'm a bit embarrassed to have read it at all.



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