Nicholas Mosley - Time at War

Nicholas Mosley is most famous for being the son of Oswald Mosley. This was true in 1939, and, despite his best efforts, and a distinguished career as a novelist, it remains true now he's 84. He gave up the struggle to get out of his father's shadow when he wrote his biography, having been handed the task by Oswald himself, despite their political opposition and occasional estrangement.

Mosley junior had a brief but distinguished war experience, earning an MC in a skirmish in Italy, and always planned to write an epic novel or memoir about it. Now, 60 years later, he's got round to it with this slim volume.

Too young at 16 to join up at the start of the war, Mosley volunteered upon leaving Eton before he was conscripted, and was trained in a rifle regiment. He was worried that his stammer might preclude him getting a commission - the prospect of an officer being unable to get his words out under fire being a serious consideration - but a string pull saw him through (not his last)

His memoir has been reconstructed from letters he wrote and received at the time, many to his father - debating Nietszche, mostly - and convey not just his physical experience of war, but his spiritual debates at the time, and mostly his desire for knowledge, in that hungry gap between school and university. Occasionally he comes across as a prig, but the old Mosley is well aware of it and punctures his youthful pretentions as a philosopher or literary critic.

Mosley is certainly a good writer, and witty, and in this brief memoir you see the genesis of some of his ideas - his opposition to war, and to fascism, and attitude to religion and sexuality. I've only read one of his novels, his most notable one, which has themes of war and sexuality, and am encouraged to read some of the others I have.

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Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss

The Desais, mother and daughter, have much in common - both were educated and have worked in both India and America, both have written novels about the contrast between the two countries, and both have been recognised by the Booker committee, mother nominated three times, daughter winning with this, her second novel. And on the basis of the last two books I've read, the daughter is a superior writer.

This book has much more depth than Fasting, Feasting, more detail and humour, and is more politically engaged. The structure is balanced, alternating between the story of a family unit - grandfather, a retired judge, granddaughter, cook - in North Eastern India in the mid 80s during political unrest, and the cook's son, scrabbling to survive in New York's restaurant kitchens as an illegal worker. The judge recalls his experience in going to England to study, and the effect it had on him, turning him into a not-quite-Indian, not-quite-English member of the Indian Civil Service, with arrogance and affectations, and a fear of women.

Desai is strongest in the emotional detail, of the granddaughter's budding romance, the cook's son's frustration, the judge's distance. Where Anita Desai uses a broad brush, Kiran has a fine one, and pinpoints attitudes and feelings expertly. This is likely to be a bestselling Booker, deservedly, rather than a forgotten one.

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Anita Desai - Fasting, Feasting

This novel had some reasonable acclaim when it was published in 1999, and a Booker shortlist nomination, but I didn't find it very satisfying. Neither as funny nor as moving as claimed, it has mostly plastic characters, and a relentless, downbeat tone of rejection and isolation.

The life of Uma, a plain woman dominated by her parents, tricked out of marriage 3 times and prevented from gaining either education or self-respect, is contrasted with that of Arun, her brother who is given every opportunity, goes to university in America, but finds himself alienated and unhappy. There is some wit, and a little substance to the social comment, but it's pretty light stuff.

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Martin Gardner - Did Adam and Eve have navels?

Martin Gardner is a veteran American science writer - very veteran, as he's 93 this year, and this book was published only 7 years ago. He's notable for popularising mathematics, and also for 'debunking pseudoscience', which is the subtitle of this book. In addition he's published The Annotated Alice, so has a wide range of interests and competence.

This book also has a wide range, being articles written for Skeptical Enquirer, the magazine of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), co-founded by Gardner and the magician and fraud-buster James Randi, among others. Targets include Creationism, Intelligent Design, UFOs, Urine Therapy, Homeopathy and other pseudo-medicines, Freud and numerology. I say 'targets', but Gardner is actually remarkably soft, and makes few strikes.

His style is to list the attributes of each 'pseudoscience', the practitioners, and some history, to use a few quotes and then leave it, as if just presenting the facts on the page condemns them. Occasionally he'll say that a theory is preposterous, but he almost never says why. This is very frustrating, given so many of his subjects are open goals for a knowledgeable scientist who knows about empirical methods. I'd hoped that the book would be more like the excellent Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, but too often it disappointed. Perhaps Gardner was always like this, or perhaps, like Alistair Cooke, he's lost his bite in his dotage. Never mind, there are tips in here towards further reading, such as Stephen Jay Gould, who I've neglected until now (but then, I haven't even read any Dawkins yet)

Bad Science

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Michael Chabon - The Final Solution

Arthur Conan-Doyle is held in genuine respect and affection by 'serious' modern writers, less so for his style, which is limited and functional, than for being the creator (or major developer) of a genre, and for inspiring them to read as young boys. Recently a couple of the stars of modern fiction, Julian Barnes and Michael Chabon, have paid homage to ACD, Barnes by novelising a true incident in his life, and Chabon by writing a new Holmes story.

Neither, wisely, attempts to imitate ACD's style. Barnes's spare, emotionally precise prose is well-suited to portraying Doyle's inner-life and its repressions. Chabon's novella , while initially structured like a Holmes story, is written with an inward gaze that Doyle would not have considered. It's very much a Chabon story.

Sherlock Holmes (never named in the book) is now 89 and living out his long retirement keeping bees down in Sussex. He is called upon to help in a murder in the neighbouring vicarage (so far so cliched), and the disappearance of a parrot - animals are a classic Holmes story essential. With typical insight he dismisses the police's first suspect, and eventually tracks down the murderer, via a misdirection or two.

As a Holmes story, it isn't particularly satisfying. The slight twist at the end is neat and resonant, but doesn't really impact on the story in retrospect as it might. Chabon's strengths, of characterisation, emotional description and insight, work to make this a fun modern novella, but not a Doyle story.The no-nonsense Doyle approach - description and analysis, with a touch of wry humour, then into the action - loved by young boys precisely because of its emotional shallowness, is the style most suited to the genre. Chabon's ventriloquism overreaches when he has one chapter in the mind of the parrot. But I've no doubt though that Chabon's newest novel, The Yiddish Policeman's Union, will succeed as his previous ones have.

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