The Vesuvius Club

By Mark Gatiss
Well, I really quite enjoyed that. Mind you, I passed this book onto a friend straight after I’d finished, and she didn’t go for it at all – not gritty enough, apparently. So be warned.

This book is written by one of the people behind “The League of Gentlemen”, which was that simultaneously macabre, wicked, camp and occasionally disturbing show that was on the ABC a few years ago. So that should give you a bit of an idea about the style of this novel, although disappointingly there was no local store for local people featured in the book.

The Vesuvius Club introduces us to Lucifer Box, by day merely a devilishly handsome, charming and stylish painter and by night (and often also by day) a secret agent for Her Majesty’s government. (Or is that His Majesty’s government? It’s set in Edwardian times). Oh, and he’s also extremely vain, selfish and a general rake, not fussy about the gender of his conquests. (To quote Living Colour, everybody loves you when you’re bi). Box must investigate the mysterious deaths of some high-profile scientists, which lead him through the houses of fashionable London, some graveyards, some naughty clubs and eventually to the tunnels of Naples, nestled beneath Mount Vesuvius.

There were maybe a few too many unbelievable cliff hangers at the end (this isn’t a Beethoven symphony, after all!), but by and large quite an enjoyable novel. Cads make such attractive heroes. Isn’t that terrible?? Excellent holiday reading.

Rating: 8 out of 10

The Master and Margarita (2006)

By Mikhail Bulgakov
I wanted this book to be one of my favourite books of all time, but it isn’t – which isn’t to say I didn’t like it; it was enormous fun!! Just look at the rating I gave it!! I did enjoy it, but it didn’t move me, I guess. (So eat a prune…).

The Devil arrives in Moscow (during Stalin’s era) in the guise of a Mr Woland, professor of black magic, with an entourage that includes a kind of rubbery-looking man named Koroviev, a man with a fang named Azazello, a nude witch called Hella (her character is not terribly developed, unfortunately) and a large walking talking living cat, Behemoth. (I became quite fond of Behemoth, but it might have just been because he was a cat). They proceed to cause havoc, especially amongst the local literary elite, many of whom are of course athiests, and pompous to boot, and could be said to get their just desserts.

It’s all a bit like a “Carry on Satan” film until the character of Margarita appears, who decides to see if she can use Woland to find her lost lover, an unnamed man (the “Master”) who has checked himself into the local asylum without telling her. He has written a novel about Pontius Pilate, known of course for having Jesus executed, which Margarita thinks is a work of genious (she might be biased, of course) and Woland finds it of interest because of course he was there at the time. The story of Pontius Pilate is woven throughout the whole story, I think with the aim of showing him redeemed at the end of the novel, but I’m not quite sure about that. I confess I was a bit mystified by the whole Pontius bit, which is perhaps another reasons why this book wasn’t a fave.

Rating: 8 out of 10

The Picture of Dorian Gray (2005)

By Oscar Wilde
Amongst other things, this novel was accused by contemporary critics of being effeminate – and it really is quite startlingly so, in places, especially at the beginning. I did catch myself thinking at the start, oh for goodness sakes stop poncing around (oh look at the pretty flowers ooh ahh), but then thought I was being mean and that I may as well say something like “this is so gay”, in the unfortunate terminology of today’s yoof – today’s yoof! Don’t get me started – and after all, Wilde does write about those flowers so prettily. (An interesting aside – The Picture of Dorian Gray started life as a short story, and Wilde consciously made the longer version much less “effeminate” than the original).

However, I did find myself agreeing a bit with the critic in the June 1980 St James’s Gazette, who found Dorian’s petulant behaviour near the start of the novel a bit silly: “…when he is rebuked for being a naughty, wilful boy, he makes a pretty moue – this man of twenty!”. I mean really. In my defence I will say that I find moues unbecoming in women also; if you’re going to be sulky you should at least stomp around a bit and maybe throw something and stop trying to be sexy at the same time. (I tell you what, though, they knew how to write a totally decimating review back in the 1890s).

The book does get going a bit after the moue incident, when Dorian starts to dabble in doubtful activities, all the while staying youthful and unblemished while his portrait becomes steadily more ugly and decrepit. His friend Lord Henry, who really should cop more flak than he does for his part in the whole sorry story, really started to tick me off during his long speeches on how nothing is important except for pleasure and the senses and enjoying yourself. Oh yes, you’re so clever, Lord Henry, now shut up will you? Perhaps I inherited more of the Scottish Protestant Work Ethic than I thought. This all makes it sound like I didn’t like the book, which is not true; I enjoyed it very much. It is a strange mix of philosophy and horror; lovely writing; a good book for a cold rainy winter’s night with the fire going and a bottle of vintage port nearby.

Rating: 8 out of 10
One point deducted for the bit about the moue.