well, what can i say. hopefully something, look you see, otherwise it would be a trifle pointless sitting down to write something. and i do indeed take a seat to compose, so as to dispel any rumours circulating of me typing in a standing position.
so, to get on with my usual, standard, off the shelf 'joke' with which i start these posts, since the last time (or if you will previous) i did a bit of writing on reading some books, i have read further. not just one book, or as many as three, and not five, but just another two. and here they are.
to give the usual, as spoiler free as possible review, here we go. indeed, The Binding by Bridget Collins is perhaps not the usual sort of novel i would read, but i was intrigued. perhaps more of the magical conjuring sort of stuff than, well, that which i would usually read, but in fairness a truly excellent novel. back on substantially more solid, normal type of reading for me is House Of War, which was the most recent of 'Ben Hope' novels by Scott Mariani, but my understanding is that the next, or newest, should be in the shops around now. how is it? well, it is a Ben Hope adventure. not so bad, and it even has one or two plausible elements in it.
righty-ho, for those of you in some sort of rush (and we do live in busy times), the above will no doubt have let you know all that you would wish. further thoughts are ones which i shall consider and dwell upon below, but kindly note one of them *** SPOILER WARNINGS *** is in place. although i will take all necessary care to avoid them. in particular with the first one, but the second one, well, that's like saying "i do not want spoilers for a James Bond film, thanks". you kind of know what's going to happen, that's why you want to see (or in this case read) it. the "how" is the fun.
to this end, i did not purchase it. instead i waited for my friend to recommend it, and then i would buy it. but, the clock ticked, and no such advice came. when it came to the day that i was fairly sure would be the last (it was) that it would be possible to get it for south of their standard £4.50, i elected to purchase. and then i left it to one side.
eventually i selected it from my pile of books to read. i sent a gentle nudge to my friend, mentioning the title. yes, indeed, it was so that they totes said that this is the sort of novel which they would read, and thus would have little in the way of hesitation or concern about recommending. so, as the novel came, even if in something akin to a tacit way, with a recommendation that i could trust, it came to be that i read it.
but, with the provenance of my copy (more or less) thoroughly established, what of the plot of the novel? this is tricky. i would not wish to give too much away, although having read the novel the bit on the back of it, the "blurb" i think they call it, gives rather too much information for my liking. let me, though, try and use that as a sort of 'blueprint' for what i write.
the novel appears to be set at an unspecified time in the past, with a decidedly but never declared impression of it being merry England. it is a time when books are frowned upon, for when they are not "false lies" (novels), they are "bindings". just what are bindings? somewhat strange mystical types are able to take away any memories you care not to have, making you forget them all, so long as they are bound in a book they create of them. a young chap, ostensibly the protagonist of the piece, is called upon to be an apprentice binder, but this may not be the first time he has experienced the art....
it is so that "memory erasing" is not a new concept, far from it. off the top of my head it was a key component of the film Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and on more than one occasion it has been the go-to plot device for the gay tinman character in that Star Wars stuff. but, happily, The Binding takes a somewhat different approach. if, again, not entirely a new one.
conceptually what i liked about it was the dilemma faced by those who had been to a binder. one or two characters (maybe more, maybe less) become aware of the fact that they have been bound, and had some memory removed. whilst they are in no doubt that it was done with good reason, either they experienced something terrible or did such, there is that nagging frustration of wanting to know what it was that they sought to forget, if in nature rather than entire. also, with their (presumably) dark secret stored in a book, there is always the danger of someone else finding it out.
my main issue, or quarrel, with "fantasy magical" novels is how easy it is for a writer to "cheat". whereas all novels need some suspension of disbelief, to be good they have to create a plausible environment in which things can happen. when you have magic mixed in, well, you can just conjure up something or other out of the blue to patch up any plot holes or narrative gaps. happily, merrily even, The Binding does not do such things, as the lovely written novel stays well within its own peculiar rules as it goes.
as i approached the latter stages of reading this novel it was so that one afternoon i happened to have the wireless on. it was Radio 2 i was listening to, and the apparently always bubbly Sara Cox was encouraging listeners to message in with books they had read. one did so about The Binding, and said that it was so good their instinct when they finished reading it was to start reading it again. well, that is not something i have done often, and to be honest i am not inclined to read this one again. but, yes, it was absolutely well worth reading the once. now, at some stage, i hope, i shall be passing it along to the good friend who, in a roundabout way, recommended it to me.
the provenance of my copy should be fairly clear on the cover. it was indeed part of the 2 for £8 deal what Tesco does on paperbacks, but i was in a rush and did not spot anything else i fancied. so, it was £4.50 that i paid for it alone.
i wasn't prepared to take a chance on "missing" this novel, as was so nearly the case with the one before. that one, whatever the name of it was, appeared either never to be on the shelf at Tesco, or came and went so fast i did not catch it. eventually i got it off of an internet thing. all too often in my time i have seen things that i fully intended to "go back and get" later, only to return and find it is not there any more. yes, that does relate to things far, above and beyond books, with other examples being people, places, emotions, concepts, opportunities, regret and so on. but, none of them tell you much about the book.
plot? well, perennial protagonist Ben Hope has just returned home off of his most recent adventure, wherever it was again. i am pretty sure India. anyway, when heading for coffee, a lady bumps into him. she appears distressed, but he thinks not too much of it. except he has her phone by accident, and the matter troubles him. after breakfast he goes to return it to her, only to find her dead, and also dead at the hands of a deadly terrorist he remembers well from his military days. a wonky video on the phone tells Ben, instinctively, that he must avenge the slaying of the lady, kill a deadly terrorist that he had assumed dead and also thwart a massive terrorist attack.
mostly business as usual for a Ben Hope novel, then. the only real surprises are, and you were warned long ago of spoilers, that he doesn't seem to drink or smoke as much as would be usual in these tales. also, he willingly takes on a partner in this adventure, where normally the dark brooding hero insists on "working alone".
a rather disconcerting element of this particular novel is the introduction of a seemingly innocuous playfriend for Ben Hope. this would be the character of Tyler Roth, effortlessly combining in name two of the greatest of Americans; Tyler Durden out of Fight Club and of course David Lee Roth. i am unable to ascertain if when this character goes very Turner Diaries in his assertion that all who follow Islam are apparently engaged on the jihad against the West is an ill-advised attempt at exaggerated humour or a statement we should pay attention to. hey ho, i would imagine anyone "influenced" by this in either direction would be well on their way to such anyhow, and just need something on which to attribute reasons to believe.
joy be, for it is one of the Ben Hope novels which is just, mostly, sheer fun to read and indulge. there are one or two elements of the novel which are plausible. largely, though, it is all ridiculous, impossible adventure stuff, with things happening through rather amazing, if not remarkable, contrived co-incidences at crucial moments. but at the least it is not as silly as some of the novels, like for instance the one where the bloke was going to cut our planet in half with a massive laser.
whereas i have no problem sharing my views on any given Ben Hope novel, or for that matter with admitting that i rather like reading them, giving a recommendation is tricky and maybe pointless. to say "read this one" kind of requires anyone listening to that advice to have read somewhere north of 50% of the previous 20 or so books. and it must surely be so that anyone who has indeed done hat will have determined whether they wish to read this or not, without wondering what my view was.
phew, well, right, then, there you go. i have little grasp of an idea of any of this being interesting or useful to anyone. i can only kind of have the wild hope that this is so, and it if it has been, well then so much the better for me doing it.
thank you for reading, as ever. and, well, that's that for this, so until the next time.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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