[books 2013] Peter Ackroyd

48. Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem by Peter Ackroyd

This month's Bibliogoths selection, though I won't now be able to make the meeting.

Anyway, I've read this one before. I've read a few of Ackroyd's novels, and found them all frustrating. They're well written, and there's the kernel of a good plot, but there's always something major that jars or just doesn't work for me. As opposed to his London: The Biography, which is just a wonderful masterwork.

I remembered this as being the least frustrating of the lot, and indeed it is, but I liked it less this time round. There's still something missing from it, and I remembered it as being a lot more suspenseful than it actually is. Which begs the question, what novel is it that has a lot of chasing around backstage at music halls to find a killer in a really scary way? Or is that just in my head?

I do love his playing with the fact that so many influential characters (to us, and at the time who are now forgotten) were hanging around the Reading Room of the British Museum in the 1880s. Somewhere in there is a wonderful quote about the museum/library environment attracting occultists.

Worth it, as there is really not much to it.

[books 2013] The War on Heresy

49. The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe by RI Moore

Or, why everything that's been written about heresy in the high middle ages for the last century is Not Quite Right as a result of too much taking the sources at face value without questioning ulterior motives.

A really good examination of how secular and church institutions were taking a lot more control of people's lives in the 11th and 12th centuries, the insecurities and anxieties these created in the institutions and the people, and how this led to accusations of heresy.

I wasn't sure I was going to agree with this, so I got it from the library, but a couple of chapters in it was clear that this book is spot on, so I bought my own copy. I have made notes but will want to re-read and refer to bits of it.

When I was a medievalist I did some work on the Cathar heresy, and I've spent a fair amount of time in its supposed heartland, the Languedoc. I liked the idea of heresy because I liked the idea of there being an alternative to what is often presented (wrongly) at undergrad level as a monolithic "medieval mindset". At the same time, a lot of it struck me as so obviously the precursor of the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries (a period when the Church, Catholic or Protestant, was sticking its nose even more firmly in everyone's business, but there's a whole essay in that) and very dubious in that the Church seemed to need heresy to promote itself and create an enemy.

Keeping people scared and compliant - the Powers That Be have been doing it for a very, very long time.

This book was a somewhat harder going than I expected (they sell it in Waterstones, I was expecting more popular history than academic history and I was wrong), but entirely worth it. The author has written a few books on the development of medieval society and I definitely want to read them now.

[books 2013] Kim Newman

50 Jago and other Stories by Kim Newman

Massively long novel that Newman first published in 1991, repackaged together with three short stories he's since written using characters from the novel.

There setting is a village called Alder in Somerset, where the old Manor House is now inhabited by a wingnut cult led by an ex priest called Anthony Jago. Except that its leader has major psychic powers. And even before he came along, Weird Shit happened in the area regularly.

The cult host a big festival on their land every summer. This summer it's the middle of a drought and heat wave, and weird and unpleasant things start to happen as soon as the outsiders start to gather for the festival.

While I enjoyed the novel quite a lot, I liked the last two short stories even better - they feature characters from Jago but are set in an alternate England where serfdom persisted up till the 20th century and there has been a recent civil war, Somerset is the Wild West and puritans are in charge. The second, The Man on the Clapham Omnibus also features The Diogenes Club, which is a regular feature in Newman's work. This is an entirely unpleasant alternate reality, but extremely interesting.