The General’s Daughter is the second DeMille book I’ve read and it’s on a par with Word of Honour though somewhat different. Told in the first person it’s a military criminal thriller with some excellent dialogue. There is a film version which was enjoyable enough, but it couldn’t capture this writing style.
At it’s heart, this is a simple whodunnit. Facts are revealed in the twisty plot as the easily-read chapters go by. There’s even space in the background for a rather amusing romantic entanglement between the two lead investigators which generates some of the best snippets of writing.
It does get a little convoluted with the vast numbers of characters and suspects, but the pace doesn’t let up as a deadline is introduced to the case early on.
I think I enjoyed Word of Honour more, but the writing here did make me laugh at times. I’ve got another DeMille on my pile which I’m still looking forward to.
Five Weeks in a Balloon was in the same volume as Around The World in Eighty Days and was Verne’s first published work. You can tell that it’s by the same author due to the attention to detail, masses of geographical and scientific data and style of writing dialogue.
However, it’s obviously not as polished as his later works. It does labour quite a bit and gets buried under its own source material. Maybe it’s simply that I’ve not been to Africa (other than Nigeria) where the novel is set, or that the Africa of today bears virtually no resemblance to the one of the mid-19th Century when the novel is set. I don’t know, but it just didn’t grab me the same way that Around The World did.
The characters in it are fairly recognisable. We have a clever doctor who invents the balloon of the title and a manservant who gets them out of scrapes while being utterly devoted to him and also the the other “gentleman” aboard who is a skilled hunter. In a way it reminds me of the cast of Conan Doyle‘s The Lost World gelled with that of Verne’s own Around The World.
It’s still enjoyable, though limited in scope by the very centrpiece – the balloon in which they are carried. Of course, the randomness of air currents is a superb tool for an author. Even sticking within nature’s rules, air currents are tremendously fickle so can chop, change or disappear entirely at the writer’s will.
Oh, don’t read this if you’re American as the infamous “n” word appears multiple times to describe the inhabitants of the continent. For those of you wanting to hunt down and kill Mr Verne for his terrible racist attitute, please remember he was writing in an era when this word was utterly acceptable (or at least when everyone was racist)… and he’s been dead since 1905.
Now I’m not one to rail on about certain books, in particular anything that people call “classics”, but AtWiED is simply a joy to read. The language is very flowery in places, though that’s pretty usual for the period in which it was written, but the language used is simply fantastic.
The story’s a little weak, to be honest, though it does carry well. What is noticeable is that events which would take forty pages in a modern-day book are breezed past in two here. Verne’s way of writing is similar to a friend telling you a tale they witnessed, though where he doesn’t spare words are in the descriptive parts. And that’s where the best stuff is.
Obviously, the story is about a great journey and the means of traveling along that course – something I’m fortunate to be experiencing right now – but this book’s set well over 100 years ago and the methods of transportation are far behind what we have these days. Also, the ways of life, cultures and so forth are vastly different. Verne’s strength is a seemingly vast knowledge of what he’s writing about. Whether he traveled himself, or he just had access to a superb library I don’t know. But you just get the feeling he’s enthused about the places and peoples he writes about.
The chapters are short enough for you to sneak one in here and there so it’s a fairly quick read. Perhaps not one for people just learning English as the wordings are often very dated, though I can imagine children being enthralled up if the person reading it to them is emotive enough (and patient enough with the inevitable “what’s a….?” questions).
One thing I will say after reading it is “who the hell cast Coogan and Chan in a film version?” I can maybe, just, perhaps see Coogan in the Fogg role. But it still doesn’t seem right. Chan, however… well, he’s not actually even remotely passable as a Frenchman of the late 19th century, is he? He fits all the other characteristics for Passepartout, but is appearance doesn’t quite match up.
Rip the basic premise from Enemy of the State, shove in some lower-rate actors (and a couple of decent names that people have heard of), ramp up the action so nobody notices the gaping plot-holes and completely ludicrous excuse for a plot and you have Eagle Eye.
But, like most eye-candy no-brainers it does have its place. Sometimes you just want to switch off – and you have to if you want to overlook the multitude of problems that Eagle Eye has. As most of the film consists of things blowing up or being destroyed in some other manner, this isn’t a difficult task.
Plot in a nutshell: lead male’s twin brother (air force hot-shot) dies. Surviving twin gets home to find out he’s suddenly very rich, his apartment is full of stuff that points towards him being Bin Laden‘s best friend and the FBI want to have a very frank discussion with him. Obviously this confuses him. On the other side of town, female lead receives a phone call telling her that her son will die in a train crash if she doesn’t do as she’s told and pick up lead male after he’s made an insane escape from custody.
And so it goes on. The best lines in the film come courtesy of Billy Bob Thornton‘s sourpuss FBI agent and Michael Chiklis puts in a decent turn as the Secretary of State. Everyone else just plays it by the numbers which is fair enough – this isn’t exactly Schindler’s List.
Just make sure you don’t at any point sit back and go “but why didn’t…” a then the whole thing will unravel faster than that sweater you got for Christmas off your granny once the cat got hold of it. I would, though, like to know how whenever someone gets shot a dozen times in a film and survives, they always end up with their arm in a sling.
I only know Benchley from the likes of The Deep and Jaws, so expected a pretty taught and bloody thriller. Instead, Q Clearance is a light-hearted political farce and I thoroughly enjoyed my surprise.
It follows a scriptwriter in the White House who, pretty much by accident, gets noticed by the President… and the Russians. It’s difficult to say too much without revealing some of the plot. It is a little “by numbers” and the ending is a bit too swift, almost rushed, but other than that I found it a great books and very hard to put down.
The writing’s superb with at least a chuckle on most pages. I don’t know if there are any deliberate likenesses to any real-life characters in there, so I could be missing out on some satire.
I’m now not sure if I want to read his better-known works. After zipping through this in a couple of days because I enjoyed the humour I don’t know if I’ll enjoy something more “thriller-y” as much from the same author.
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