Friday Five: Books Read in May

1. Home Fire by Kamila Shamshie (Riverhead Books) -This modern retelling of Antigone was described by one reviewer as ‘A Greek tragedy for the age of ISIS’. It is formulaic in structure, as befits a Greek tragedy, and each of the five sections highlights a different character who represents one of the figures from the drama. The world of contemporary British politics and the Islamist caliphate stand in for the democracy of Ancient Greece. Readers unfamiliar with Antigone may struggle with the apparently forced milieu and one-dimensional characters.
2. How the Dog Became the Dog by Mark Derr (Scribe) - Subtitled From Wolves to Our Best Friends, this is a very scholarly and academic text that tries to trace the history and links beween the wild animal and the domestic pet. Full of analysis of archaeological fossil details regarding physiological changes to head shape, shortening and broadening of the muzzle, shortening of the nose and jaws, and teeth crowding in the mouth, as well as an overall reduction in size and robustness, it concludes that wolves and dogs share a common ancestor but are different species. Clearly a dog lover, Derr debunks the theory about humans having to be the alpha to control the dog, pointing out that wolves chose to be with humans as part of their evolution perceived mutual benefits rather than being forced into experiments. He also clarifies the distinction between attentive and intelligent compared with biddable and obedient, and contends that the problems many people have with their understanding of dog behaviour is the challenge to their assumption of human exceptionalism. He also has some harsh words to say about breeders, showdogs, and people who limit their dog's natural dog behaviour. 
3. The Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor (Harper Collins) - This is the first book in what will become a series of historical detective fiction (there are currently six) featuring James Marwood and Cat Lovett. The setting is 1666, as the Great Fire of London rages through the city. The crime is the body of a man found in the ruins of St Paul's Cathedral stabbed in the neck with his thumbs tied behind his back. Marwood is the son of a traitor ordered by the government to hunt down the killer. Lovett is a determined and (of course) beautiful young woman fighting for her freedom from the many relatives between whom she was passed around after her mother died and her father disappeared. As these characters are clearly going to be revisited, Taylor spends considerable time in setting them up although he doesn't seem to flesh them out and the mystery falls a little flat, sacrificied to the wealth of historical detail. Further installments appear popular so perhaps after all the exposition is out of the way, the pace might pick up in future.  
4. Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley (Hodder & Stoughton) - Agatha Christie wrote her own biography, but there are lots of bits missing, which Lucy Worsley attempts to fill in here. She is helped by the work of Mary Westmacott, Christie's alias, who wrote many novels of a fairly autobiographical nature. The childhood years are a bit bland - probably because nothing was really written about them - but in adulthood the interest increases. Agatha Christie thought of her writing as a profession and a way to make money and so was excluded from her upper-class contemporaries from the Bloomsbury Group. Lucy Worsley has a strong sense of narrative, using clear, defined sentences and injecting just right the amount of context. She explores the years of Christie's disappearance from multiple angles including those that both support and decry her, as well as her archeological pursuits and love of family. Along with the life, Worsley examines the literature, including some of the 'Christie tricks' which flout the agreed set of rules for detective stories, such as hiding an object in plain sight, the 'hidden couple', recycling plots, and the unreliable narrator or witness. Neither does Worsley flinch from addressing the perceived racism and anti-Semitism, while maintaining the greatness of the writer. “In 1959, UNESCO announced that the Bible had been translated into 171 languages, Shakespeare into 90, and Agatha Christie into 103.”
5. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (William Heineman) - Published in 2015, this was actually written before the famous To Kill A Mockingbird, and there was much controversy over its publication due to allegations that 89-year old Lee was taken advantage of by her publishers and pressured into allowing publication against her previously stated intentions. It is not a great novel, containing questionable views and underdeveloped writing. Scout (Jean Louise) returns to Maycombe from New York as an adult to question her father on his racist attitudes and his paternalistic white saviour opposition to the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - a civil rights organisation formed in 1909). Atticus Finch, whom we all know as the heroic progressive father and lawyer, is uncomfortable when Black people want self-determinism and stop acting grateful. The novel appears to preach tolerance but it does so in a pedestrian and didactic manner, with many sexist, violent and misogynistic allusions, which may have been accepted in 1960 but are certainly not now. Although originally published as a recently discovered sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird, it makes much more sense when read in its true context as a first draft of the much greater work, which grew out of the flashbacks to Scout's youth contained in this one.