Saul Bellow: Henderson the Rain King, p/b, London, Pan Books Ltd.,1959 (1962)  

Jewish author Saul Bellow sits high on the list of America’s finest writers.  Henderson the Rain King is an extraordinary roller coaster of a novel based around a wealthy Middle West playboy, highly decorated for his achievements in World War 11. Henderson is a man of unusual physical strength and heir to a very substantial income thanks to his hard working and highly sucessful father.  Henderson knows he should be doing better with his wealth and also knows he should be more faithful to his wife and children but struggles to succeed in either case.  On a whim he ends up in Africa and fortunately teams up with a faithful and honest African sidekick called Romilayu. 

Any attempt to summarise Henderson’s activities in remote parts of the African continent would defy any serious attempt. As usual with Bellow’s novels the heroes antics and activities are interlaced with philosophical thoughts and quotations from both well known and obscure philosophers and writers. I have to admit that there were times in this demanding novel that I was severely tempted to throw the novel away as a load of rubbish but being a determined novel finisher I stayed with it and have to admit that the clever finale made the book impossible to put down. 

I have the greatest respect for Saul Bellow’s writing. I would, however, put this novel further down the list than most of his novels.  4 stars.

Paul Lynch: Beyond the Sea: London, One World, 2019.  

Challenging story by well regarded Irish author Paul Lynch about two men, one an experienced fisherman and the other a volunteer, who venture out to sea against the advice of other fishermen due to the promise of very heavy seas. Inevitably their small craft is embroiled in a storm of fearful dimensions which drags them far away from land in any direction after their motor seizes. 

The remainder of the story describes their horrific battle with life and death as they drift mercilessly at the hands of a vast ocean with minimal food and water and with virtually no hope of rescue. The centre of the novel hinges on the relationship between Bolivar the experienced fisherman and Hector his untried assistant. 

This short novel keeps the reader alert with the very different character of the two protagonists creating an unstable and difficult relationship between the two men. Paul Lynch retains the reader’s interest with this tension between the two men and the reader becomes persuaded that no-one will survive this adventure.

One piece of philosophy stands out in the novel on page 163.  Bolivar remarks Man gives birth to his own problems. I see this now. The world has always been silent.

Although my wife found this narrative repetitive and boring I personally enjoyed the tension between the two men in their attempts to stay alive. I have to say this story did nothing to change my long held view that sailing around in the ocean is a very dangerous pastime indeed and one that in 75 years I have never tried! I am less persuaded that the world has always been silent.

4 stars.

Amor Towles: A Gentleman in Moscow: p/b, London, Windmill Books, 2016.  

Outstanding second novel from Towles who for over twenty years was an investment professional but now devotes himself entirely to writing. In a remarkable tour de force Towles tells the ‘history of  Moscow’ from pre-Revolutionary days to the elevation of Khrushchev in 1958. He has achieved this with an extraordinarily light touch because the central interest in the story is not the history of Russia but rather the invented complex life of Count Alexander Rostov, born in St Petersburg in 1889 and at the start of this novel narrowly escaping death by firing squad for the poetry he wrote. Instead Rostov is condemned to live permanently in a small apartment in the famous Metropol Hotel. 

Also living at the hotel at that time was an adventurous young child named Nina who has studied and flitted around every inch of the hotel and who became a partner in crime with Rostov as they formed an unlikely friendship and spying partnership. Eventually Nina goes off to school, grows up and marries and has a child  but the two meet again at the Metropol briefly because Nina’s husband has been condemned to five years hard labour in Eastern Russia. Nina appeals to Rostov to take care of five year old Sofia until she can find a place to live and support herself somewhere near her husband’s imprisonment. 

The second half of the narrative describes the challenges Rostov faces in supporting Sofia as she grows up at the same time as he has a significant role to play as chief of staff of the restaurant at the hotel, responsible for all major events. Towles weaves a magical story of the Count’s upbringing skills and his organisational skills whilst at the same time coping with the constantly changing and highly dangerous ever present enemies of his wealth and power. 

This is an exceptional novel in many ways. There is humour, sadness, danger and complexity of every sort in this narrative which runs at a pace impossible to put down, as one critic styled it “utterly mesmerising”.  I entirely agree.   5 stars and rising.