Joseph O'Connor's 'The Ghosts of Rome' 2025

 

Harvill Secker first paperback edition - 2025

This is the second novel in Joseph O'Connor's trilogy about Rome during the Nazi Occupation (I0th September 1943 to 4th June 1944). I read the first book - My Father's House - only five months' ago (see my Blog of 14th January 2026) and found it gripping and atmospheric in its intensity. The follow-up is in a very similar vein - after all it describes comparable situations involving the same cast of characters, Hence, I suppose inevitably, it doesn't pack quite the same 'punch'. This time the central figure is the fictitious Contessa Giovanna  ('Jo') Landini, rather than the Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty. Widowed, Jo volunteered as a Red Cross motorcycle courier on the outbreak of war. Although she has inherited the splendid Palazzo Landini on her husband's death, she - like the rest of the 'Choir' - has based herself in the Vatican City.

I found I had to get used to the author's grammatical style again, which tended to jar, particularly in the first chapters. Short, verbless sentences occurring rather too often and which gave a staccato effect to the narrative. It works with dialogue, but not so well with prose paragraphs. O'Connor also retained the device, used in his first book, of interspersing 1960s radio transcripts and written memoires with the wartime events. It meant the reader had a more rounded view of what took place, from the several viewpoints of the members of the 'Choir'. Notwithstanding the (personal) irritant I felt from the grammar, I found the story had more of a structure running through it this time.

A Polish airman, Bruno, is shot down over the city. He bales out: soon, he knows, the dizziness will put him to merciful sleep, for he is falling too fast, the chute opened late, and his heart starts to sputter, and the words of the Act of Contrition will not be squeezed from his tongue as he turns in the air, feet up, head down, wrestling with the ropes that try to tighten around his torso. Falling past the terrified seabirds. In fact, he survives, but, badly wounded, he has to flee from two German soldiers. Bullets pit at his back...he jinks, ducks, like a dribbling footballer, past the wall-high mural of a scowling, arms-folded Mussolini spattered with slops of red paint. A magenta-haired, high-cheekbone woman smoking at the door-way of a bridal shop sees him coming and mashes her cigarette out with her shoe. Large-eyed. Purple-lipped. She might be thirty. She beckons. He is saved - for the time being. His injured left thumb turns septic and worsens. There is also a serious infection developing from another wound to his neck

Thus, the major story in the novel is - once the Choir hear about Bruno - how to get him treatment and, if necessary a safe transit to the Vatican. O'Connor clearly knows his Rome, its byways, conduits, catacombs, deserted buildings. The other overall surveyor is Commander Paul Hauptmann, the Nazi Gestapo Chief, charged with tracking down the hundreds of Allied servicemen, escaped PoWs and others, and who is constantly being upbraided by Himmler for his failures.  He moves into Jo Landini's Palazzo and develops a sort of perverse 'crush' on her. The author has more than one chapter which portrays a fine and believably psychology relating to the Nazi chief. O'Connor is also good at charting the increasing tension within the 'Choir'; in some instances, almost character disintegrations. There are fall-outs between the acknowledged leader, Major Sam Derry, who borders on martinet behaviour, and the volatile Jo Landini and the teenage daughter of Delia Murphy-Kiernan, Blon. Hugh O'Flaherty is also showing signs of exhaustion; Sir Francis (Frank) D'Arcy Osborne, urbane as ever is often at the end of his tether.

Two other, well-drawn characters are both American - Robert Weldrick, one of a tank crew captured in North Africa and who has escaped from the prisoner-of-war camp at Passo Corese; and 'Moon' Moody, who must have been a problem to his parents and anyone who met him from then on. Both successfully  hide from the German patrols and, eventually, look after the increasingly, and dangerously, ill Bruno. How the latter is successfully brought to the Vatican City and to proper medical care, finishes off the main story.

The final Coda, when Jo Landini, Delia Kiernan and Bruno Wiśniewski (and his wife) meet up in County Kerry for a commemoration Mass for the late Monsignor O'Flaherty, is especially poignant. Taking a golf ball from his pocket, [Bruno] places it on the grave...on the street, he notices in the distance an older man. Dark-suited, homburg-hatted, now leaning through the passenger window. I can't be, Bruno thinks. Not after all this time. Weldrick comes towards him, arms outstretched in silent embrace. For a long time, nothing is said.

In 1962, Marianna De Vries, one of the Choir, writes a statement in lieu of an interview. The story of our Roman Escape Line has been characterised as a tale of courage. But it was always a story of friendship, first and last. The friends we knew and those we did not, some fleetingly encountered, others never at all. I am no sentimentalist, but I call it a love story... And the way O'Connor tells it, that affection - even during the moments of angry and exhausting arguments - shines through. 

J.G. Lockhart's 'Valerius. A Roman Story' 1821

William Blackwood first edition - 1821

I have now read all four J.G. Lockhart's novels, Valerius (1821) being the first to be written. The others I read five years ago and produced a Blog on each - Adam Blair (1822) (Blog 8 May 2021), Reginald Dalton (1823) (Blog 25 July 2021), The History of Matthew Wald (1824) (Blog  26 September 2021). Much has been made of Lockhart's precocious learning. Born in 1794, he attended Glasgow High School and then the University of Glasgow. He fared so well, particularly in Greek studies, that he was offered a Snell Exhibition (available to those with a degree from Glasgow University) to study at Balliol College, Oxford. He was not yet 14! He read not only the Classics, but German, French, Italian and Spanish. Inevitably, he took a First Class Honours degree in Classics. In these days of hyper-inflation of degree success, this would probably be a Triple First class. His four novels, all produced in the early 1820s were dutifully received, but his 'name' was made by his brilliant (and often coruscating) journalism in Blackwood's Magazine; his editorship from 1826 to 1853 of the Quarterly Review; and, in particular, the seminal seven-volume biography of his father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott.

The novel tells the story of a young Roman-British noble, Caius Valerius, who, after the death of his father, sets out from Britain to Rome to claim his inheritance. Accompanied by his loyal slave, Boto,  they journey across the Bay of Biscay and through the Mediterranean, to arrive in the Empire's capital by barge up the Tiber. Another voyager, Sabinus, a Captain of the Praetorian Bands, who had served in all the wars of Agricola, is to prove a solid friend and an integral part of the tale. Valerius is awe-struck by Rome's grandeur - its forums, baths, marble temples - but quickly settles in with his elderly kinsman, a successful orator/lawyer Licinius. Guided by the latter, Valerius learns how to navigate political intrigues and alliances, and listens to philosophical debates between Stoics and Epicureans. He also falls in love with Athanasia, an orphan residing with her cousin Sempronia's wealthy family, the Sempronii. Valerius mixes with the elite of these suburban villas, observing the decadent entertainments there. A major scene is set in the Colosseum, where he witnesses not only gladiatorial combats but the execution of an old Christian man. Gradually, it becomes clear to him that Athanasia is also a member of the clandestine Christian community and he is caught up, by chance, in a meeting where - through treachery - they are all caught by the authorities. He manages to extricate himself, through his friend Sabinus' aid, and, in turn, effects the delivery of Anthanasia, which includes an atmospheric description of time spent hiding in the catacombs. Finally, Valerius, Athanasia and Boto escape to the coast and thence to Britain. The whole story is, in fact, a reminiscence of Valerius, now in his mid-sixties and living in that remote province of an empire, happy, for the most part, in the protection of enlightened, just and benevolent princes.

It is clear that Lockhart had conducted extensive research into the times and mores of the Emperor Trajan's Rome. The novel is set c.100 AD, following the deaths of Domitian and Nerva and charts the recovery from tyranny but also evoking the era's blend of order and underlying friction.  Behind the seemingly rigid hierarchies, class tensions simmer; the lower strata are still exploited; marriages are based on wealth; litigation reigns at the capitol; bloody combats take place in the Colosseum. And, in the novel at least, a major cause of tension is the developing, yet mainly clandestine, spread of that new Jewish faith, Christianity.  Christians are not actively sought out (unlike during the time of Domitian) but are severely punished if accused and unyielding. Lockhart is very much of his own time, and the philosophical debates - featuring Stoicism and its self-reliance contrasting with the Christian call to communal faith and forgiveness - are somewhat heavy-going for this 21st century reader.  The influence of Epictetus' teaching on inner freedom (I do concur with, perhaps, his most famous saying: We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak) amid external tyranny; Stoic resignation to fate; and Christian hope in divine intervention; are all thrown into the mix.  Athanasia's and Valerius' conversions are through intimate enlightenments - the latter convinced that darkness has passed from before his eyes. The author is introducing such categories as the meaning of life and death, time and place, and the role of man in the narrative through the form of philosophical dialogue. As one Reviewer has written: The novel's themes highlight the clash between simplicity and sophistication, loyalty and ambition, and the allure and dangers of empire, making it a notable contribution to the historical fiction genre popular in the early 1800s. Valerius can be viewed as a pioneering example in the classical-historical genre such as the later Bulwer-Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), as well as Victorian historical fiction in general. Sir Walter Scott himself endorsed the novel in private correspondence.

Scott Mariani's 'Die for a King' 2026

 

Hodder & Stoughton first paperback edition - 2026

This, the third, in the Will Bowman series looks like it will be the penultimate one. The Black Eagle, due out on 3rd December is apparently to be the final tale. What is even less surprising is the fact that Ben Hope will be back, in his 31st outing on 6th May 2027 - in The Jericho Road. In the early publicity blurb, it states that Ex-SAS soldier Ben Hope has tried to leave his past behind him - both in the forces and the dangerous choices he has made since. But for some people, a quiet life is no life at all. We left Hope and Roberta Ryder strolling barefoot on the sands of Jamaica's north coast, with the latter exclaiming,  "'What's happening with us, Ben? Where do things go from here? Will it work out between us?" The reader will have to wait nearly a year to find out exactly what happened to lure Hope and Mariani back to another adventure. My guess is that the author may have found the historical constraints of the Third Crusade period too tight, whereas Hope can go and do wherever and whatever he likes. Equally, if not more, important is the likelihood that Hope's adventures sell better than Bowman's. I only hope Roberta's okay.

What of Die for a King?  Although the author, in his Historical Note at the end says it is a novel of two distinct halves, in some ways it can be split into three. The first twelve chapters (pp.1-138) charts Bowman's continued service to King Richard I. Once more, it is a tale of fights against the Saracen, or building/rebuilding forts, castles and walled towns. It sees Richard relying more and more on Bowman, who is given command of the household guard, to act as my right hand man in this campaign and from now on answer only to me personally. Thus, Bowman finds himself yet again in the midst of hand-to-hand conflict. One of Mariani's strengths is his ability to take the reader with any protagonist (be it Bowman or Hope) into such a terrifying maelstrom: ...then the opposing charges slammed into one another with a stunningly violent crash and clash of iron and steel, bodies ramming into bodies, metal pierced flesh and organs, shields splintered and lances shattered, saddles twisted round unseating their riders, swords rang off helmets and struck sparks against other blades, blood flew in the sunlight. Broken horses lay pitifully thrashing on the ground with men crushed under them...

Meanwhile, news comes from England that brother John  - Jean sans Terre - is running amok, whilst    the perfidious Philip of France is threatening Richard's French lands of Aquitaine, Normandy and Gascony. It was to be the beginning of the end for Richard and his 'pilgrim' armies' hope of conquering Outremer. Bowman is with the King when they finally sight the Holy City of Jerusalem, still far away, a miraculous apparition bathed in gold by the rising sun. The king weeps, covering his face with his tabard and, bowing his head, his broad, powerful shoulders quaked with emotion. "Fair Lord God, " he wept, "I pray thee to shield the Holy City from my sight. For if I cannot deliver it out of the hand of thy enemies, I do not wish to see it". Richard has decided to return to England to sort out his brother.

So, Bowman feels he has had enough of the endless campaigning and (in my second of the three parts) joins the Knights Hospitallers, thanks to his friendship with one of their Brother Knights, Matthew of Hereford. Chapters 13 to 17 (pp. 139-196) chart a relatively brief period describing Bowman's admission to the Hospitallers (it includes an atmospheric account of his interview with its Grand Master), and his time at the famous Krak des Chevaliers - a breathtaking spectacle... dominating the landscape all around and visible from miles away. Bathed in the fiery colours of the sunset its lofty ramparts appeared to shine like burnished bronze...  It is while managing a Hospitaller estate, that no less than Richard's mother, the famous Eleanor of Aquitaine (radiating dignified authority from every pore of her being), and wife, Berengaria (the black-haired young beauty) turn up and persuade Bowman to undertake a rescue mission.

It is here that Mariani commences his second 'half'; as he says in his endnote, this is where we largely break away from the documented historical record and go off on a journey...of alternative history, pure conjecture, even fantasy. Too true. Bowman's task is to rescue King Richard from a prison in the lands of Henry VI of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, viz. the Holy Roman Emperor and more specifically an area run by Duke Leopold of Austria, no friend to the English monarch. The rest of the novel (Chapter 18 to 32, pp. 197-349) details the slow and dangerous journey taken by Bowman and his little band (the same who have been with him from nearly the first - Gabriel the Irishman, Samson, Roderick and old Joe - but now augmented with five other mercenaries) across the Mediterranean to Genoa. Once again, it gives Mariani the opportunity of using his skills to describe a horrific, near fatal storm and an attack by pirates. From Genoa, it is off to Milan, the Brenner Pass and into Austria. Of course, the rescue attempt fails, but not before (for really the first time) the reader has to suspend their disbelief in yet one more fight-to-the-death with Austrian soldiers. There are shades of Ben Hope's 'Mission Impossible' exploits here and it is the only jarring section in the tale.`

Bowman and his colleagues reach Marseille, not only to find the two Queens are there but that Richard is to be ransomed anyway. The whole rescue mission had not only failed but had been pointless. Notwithstanding this, Eleanor grants Bowman a little castle in the border region of Northumberland, some miles from Berwick-upon-Tweed. It is but a plane and simple domain, but it will be a home for Bowman and his mates. It also means he will be back for one more time, before Ben Hope takes over.                                                                                                                                                                     

R.D. Blackmore's 'Cradock Nowell. A Tale of the New Forest' 1866

 

Chapman and Hall first edition - 1866

This is an early Blackmore effort - and it shows. It is often said, particularly with non-fiction books, that a first is not always the best edition to read. A bookish friend of mine, on hearing I was struggling, informed me that his Cradock Nowell is the new and cheaper edition, 'diligently revised and reshapen'. R.D.B. says in the preface, dated 1873, that the reviews of the original edition were so unanimously bad that he set to work to improve it: "a new book might have been written whilst this old one was a-mending". What had gone wrong? One reason, perhaps, was the appearance of Macmillan's Magazine (and, soon after The Cornhill and other popular magazines). Cradock Nowell was accepted for serialisation in Macmillan's between  May 1865 and August 1866. It did not inspire, mainly because the author could not and would not supply the kind of sensationalism wanted by the majority of readers.

More relevantly, the plot is clumsy (I regard it as 'wayward'). It hinges upon the fact that  the twin sons of the owner of the great New Forest estate of Nowellhurst, Sir Cradock Nowell, were confused by their nurse shortly after their birth. The younger Cradock had expected to be heir, but the doctor who delivered the twins (now returned from abroad after many years) discovers the error - by marks on their shoulders. When his brother Clayton is shot dead close by where young Cradock is hunting, suspicion naturally falls on the latter.

Although Cradock escapes conviction for the murder, his father blames him for it, and he leaves in disgrace for London, beginning a new life in the slums as Charles Newman. His health disintegrates during a long nightmare with thoughts of suicide brought on by feelings of guilt. Taking a ship for the tropics appears the only way to recover his physical and mental stability. Then he gets inadvertently stranded off the south-west African coast (the ship he was on is subsequently destroyed in a hurricane, leading his family back home to think he had been lost at sea with the rest of those on board). Finally, he returns home, health restored to find his honour has also been recovered. The actual murderer had confessed; it was his 'unacknowledged' uncle Bull Garnet, who had shot Clayton for trying to seduce his daughter, Pearl. 

The novel was cruelly 'whiplashed' by the critics. They found the author guilty of obscurity, want of proportion, crudeness, imperfect development, pedantry, involution of diction, and prolixity. Kenneth Budd, in his slim biography of Blackmore - The Last Victorian (1960) - commiserates with the reader who persevered through the novel, stating that the long sentences, the many digressions, the scores of classical allusions and quotations, must render the book unreadable today by any except those who can endure such things for the sake of the occasional felicities of description of field and forest. Ironically, it was the repetition of yet another digression on stately oaks and all sorts of fauna and flora that got me skim-reading sections. But, I do agree that the classical allusions were, after a time, irritating - they were never translated for the ignorant reader such as myself. But, I did read all three volumes, even if I did occasionally struggle to keep going. 

There are, however, some strong positives to take away from the reading. Two of the most powerfully written chapters in the novel are V and VI in volume II, dealing with the real-life, devastating storm of October 1859. Officially known as the Royal Charter Storm (named after the steam clipper which went down off the coast of Anglesey where 459 lives were lost, with only 40 survivors), it struck the English Channel on 25th October, producing ferocious winds. The Solent took a direct hit, wreaking havoc on shipping, coastal defences and seaside properties across Hampshire and Dorset. Over 800 lives were lost in total, with more than 200 ships sunk or severely damaged.  Blackmore's long description is brilliant: beginning with the blobs of cloud which threw feelers out, and strung themselves together, until a broad serried and serrate bar went boldly across the heavens, he paints a vivid picture of the violence of nature which smashed and wrecked and killed. Crusted with hunks of froth and foam-drift, drenched by pelting sheets of spray, deafened by the thundering surf...they battled for that scoop of the bay where the ship must be flung by the indraught.

The description of Cradock junior's first day as a shipping clerk in the railway yard of the Grand Junction Wasting and Screwing Line is compelling: the maelstrom of steam engines and lurching wagons, where danger ran in converging lines, where a man must stand sideways, like a duellist, and with his arms like a drill-sergeant's, and not shrink an inch from the driving wheels evokes the hellish life endured by so many engaged by rail companies in the 1860s.

There are some fine, compellingly drawn characters, such as the Rev. John Rosedew, Rector of the New Forest parish of Nowellhurst, and Bull Garnet. In the first, the beloved friend of old Sir Cradock and respected pastor of the small New Forest community, the author has created a country parson of the finest type - a man with a good taste in wines, a man who can fish and swim and shoot. In all the parish of Nowellhurst there was scarcely a man or a woman who did not rejoice to see the rector pacing his leisurely rounds, carrying his elbows a little out...and smiling gently upon the children who tugged his coat-tails for an orange or a halfpenny. It is a pity that Rosedew, who always thought in Greek, except when Latin hindered him, is made the mouthpiece for the author's interminable classical allusions. In the second, the proud man of power is one of near tragic stature - stubborn, violent and repressed. His almost permanent anger comes from knowledge of his base birth (his mother was wronged by Sir Cradock's father) and his crime is due to his love and protection of his daughter's purity. But he is not a villain in the author's eyes (he dies in bed surrounded by his two children, with young Cradock's forgiveness echoing in his ears).    

++++++++++++++++++++++

Some extracts from the text:

The varieties of canine are as manifold and distinct as those of human nature. But the dog, be he saturnine or facetious, sociable or contemplative, mercurial or melancholic, is quite sure to be one thing - true and loyal ever.

Of a larger-than-life wife: she turned round suddenly on little Rufus (her husband), and standing head and shoulders above him, she opened her great eyes down upon him, like the port-holes of a frigate.

Of Bull Garnet: whoever saw him once was sure to know him again. If you met him in a rush to save the train, your eyes would turn and follow him. "There goes a man remarkable, whether for good or evil."

Do what we will, and think as we may, enlarging the mind in each generation, growing contemptuous of contempt, casting caste to the winds of heaven, and antiquating prejudice, nevertheless we shall never outrun, or even overtake Christianity.

Mark Stote, the head-gamekeeper on the Nowellhurst estate, was a true and honest specimen of the West Saxon peasant - slow, tenacious, and dogged, faithful and affectionate, with too much deference, perhaps, to all who seemed "his betters."

Mr Jupp's face was a villainous one; as even the softest philanthropist would have been forced to acknowledge. The enormous jaws, the narrow forehead, the grisly, porkish eyebrows, the high cheek-bones, and the cunning skance gleam from the black, deep-ambushed squinters...

So, a rambling tale (Blackmore himself says at one point, But, lo! here again we are wandering), with so many asides and byways and inconsequentialities (I need a rest from yet another paeon to trees); BUT, I enjoyed the character drawing and touches of humour and will remember with some affection the following personalities that helped to overcome the weaknesses of the tale - Sir Cradock and young Cradock; Amy, her father Rev. John Rosedew and Aunt Eudoxia; Bull Garnet and his two children, Robert and Pearl; the Rev. Octavius Pell; the scheming Mrs. Georgie Corklemore and slippery lawyer Simon Chope; the flamboyant Eoa Nowell. A grand array of characters.

The Guardian Readers' 100 Greatest Novels!

The Hundred Greatest Novels

(according to The Guardian readers)

Inevitably, this caught my eye on my MSM page. Intrigued, I actually printed out the List to see if I agreed with it. To start with, I'd never heard of 30 of the 100 books detailed. That is not a criticism, just an observation that the typical Guardian reader's tastes do not usually align with mine.

What were the top ten novels?

1. Middlemarch  2. Beloved  3. Ulysses  4. To the Lighthouse  5. In Search of Lost Time  6. Anna Karenina  7.  War and Peace  8.  Jane Eyre  9. Pride and Prejudice  10. Madame Bovary

Call me an old cynic, but I wonder how many readers had actually read the two Tolstoy books - Anna Karenina and War and Peace? Was it, more likely, a response to the silver screen version or to appear 'well-read'? Would that be true about Pride and Prejudice? As for Ulysses, well good luck to them! I'd never heard of Beloved, so I looked it up. Apparently, this 1987 novel by the American Toni Morrison  is famously challenging because the fragmented, non-linear narrative forces you to experience the disorienting, paralysing nature of trauma. It isn't a traditional novel... Unsurprisingly, it is also about slavery.  Well, just up guardianistas' street, then; but not for me.

Secondly, my dear old bête noire, Virginia Woolf is number 4, with that dreadful To the Lighthouse. Moreover, her Mrs. Dalloway (No.14); Orlando (No.54); The Waves (No.55); and Jacob's Room (No.92) are also in the List. It is worth repeating Philip Hensher's strictures: the idiotic The Waves, for instance, in which six incredibly uninteresting people engage in interminable and ludicrously over-written monologues, interrupted from time to time by fey prose-poems about the sun rising over the sea, or something. Orlando, an unstoppably arch fantasy about someone living for ever...is one of very few works of literature than can actually make the reader want to vomit. (see my 17 March Blog) Not to the typical Guardian reader, apparently. Five by Woolf and only two by Hardy; and just one each by William Thackeray, Josef Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, Albert Camus and Daphne Du Maurier.

Of course, Sir Walter Scott is not there; neither is Anthony Trollope or L.P. Hartley. On a more positive note, it was comforting to see Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (No.31), di Lampedusa's The Leopard (No.46), Jean Rys's Wide Sargasso Sea (No.50), and Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas (No.80). Such lists are really only useful for provoking arguments. We are not told how many readers actually responded to the request for their choices. These lists are always highly subjective; what makes a 'great' novel anyway? What about detective and spy fiction (both of which I enjoy reading) or Science fiction (which I can't abide!). I suppose I should say "Well done, Virginia"; but it would be with gritted teeth.