The Next Shelf

Tag: Recommendation

  • The Will of the Many – James Islington

    The Will of the Many – James Islington

    headphones, denoting audiobook

    Hierarchy Book 1

    Audiobook narrated by Euan Morton

    ‘“We are what they make us, Diago.

    Silence is a statement, inaction picks a side. And when those lead to personal benefit, they are complicity.”

    Hail Islington, master storyteller, recreator of ancient worlds, weaver of woeful tales!

    In my youth, I sought out gripping fantasy adventure novels and devoured them with a fervour that was not altogether nourishing. It could be said that the hunger has never died, but over the years I have tempered it somewhat, balanced the emotional investment in make-believe worlds with the more mundane joys and frustrations of the earthly realm.

    But they do say once an addict, always an addict, and there’s still nothing quite like the pleasure of sinking deep into a story that completely sucks you out of reality and makes you wonder if it would really be so impossible to perform your job with optimal efficiency while staring blankly at the computer screen completely transfixed by an audiobook.

    The Will of the Many is the first book in Melbourne author James Islington’s Hierarchy trilogy and possibly my first unqualified book recommendation of the year.

    Vis is the orphaned prince of a royal family slaughtered in a military takeover, trying to hold onto both his life and his values in a world controlled by his family’s killers. The Hierarchy is a civilisation built on the ceding of magical power (Will) up through an eight-tiered pyramidal structure so that the members of each tier are enriched by the power fed from below – like a pyramid scheme where instead of being bled for money, those on the bottom rungs are leached of their physical and mental power.

    The world is loosely based on ancient Rome – everyone gets about in togas and greets each other with ‘hail’ and watches fighting matches in a giant circular auditorium – with influences from other ancient civilisations, including cursed pyramids with strangely preserved bodies adorning the walls. It’s an inspired premise – Islington has blended elements of these inherently wondrous ancient civilisations and imbued them with just a little bit more magic.

    If the premise of orphaned royalty with a chip on his shoulder sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a trope as old as Hamlet – and also oddly similar to the setup for Dragonflight, even up to the point of Vis being ‘rescued’ from his dire existence in an orphanage when he’s adopted by the wealthy and powerful Quintus Telimus, a high-ranking Hierarchy official. But this is most definitely where any similarities with that other dreadful book end.

    Vis’s adoption has less to do with his new father’s desire for a son and heir than it has to do with the secret mission the Quintus has in mind and his need for a smart, capable, manipulable young person with no better options to carry it out. Vis is catapulted from rags to riches, from the orphanage to magic school where he must excel at the Academy in order to fulfil his adopted father’s plan and save himself from dear Papa’s threat to send him to the Sappers – to be shackled and robbed of his Will, his life force, to feed the machine of the Hierarchy.

    I’m a firm believer that tropes in genre fiction are to be embraced rather than feared. The Will of the Many is not short on tropes, and nor, I will argue, should it be. It is, after all, hard for our young protagonists to have great adventures if they have doting parents calling them home for supper each night, and hard to summon the courage and commitment to risk skin and sanity rebelling against an oppressive power without a solid revenge plot to fuel the fire. Of course, though, nothing is quite what it initially seems in Vis’s world, which is where the fun begins.

    When I say fun, it’s not to imply that our hero is having a great time. In fact, one of the things I most admire about Islington as a storyteller is that he’s not afraid to put his characters through the wringer – squeeze them, mince them up, spit them out and piece them back together again, only to find another slicer-dicer around the next corner. It’s harder than you’d think. Over the course of writing a novel you become so attached to your protagonist, it’s hard to bring yourself to cause any great harm to come to him – which is of course the exact source of the story’s emotional core. And poor Vis is certainly no stranger to the mincer. He initially finds himself embroiled in a mystery surrounding Telimus’s lost brother, and by the end finds that things are in fact much more complicated than anyone could have imagined.

    There is so much to commend this book. The world is fresh and original, the characters are well drawn and through all the misery of the situations they have to sort through, the friendships Vis forms are a warm, beating heart through which the narrative blood pumps. Mystery unravels at just the right pace and in unexpected ways. The troubles of the Hierarchy feel relevant enough to be thought-provoking and relatable, while not being so closely modelled off reality as to intrude on the story-world with heavy-handed metaphors.

    There are strong echoes of Patrick Rothfuss, whom Islington cites as a major influence and even an early mentor. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, this was my favourite fantasy read since The Name of the Wind, which I discovered a few years ago. Both books have immediately gone into my ‘to be re-consumed’ pile. The boy-prodigies, and the cast of lovable friends they amass at their respective magic academies, bear many resemblances, yet the styles are very different. Where Rothfuss is renowned for his poetic prose, Islington’s style is more direct. He is a plot-forward writer, yet his prose, dialogue and characterisation are all strong and assured. Having now finished the sequel, The Strength of the Few, with the third instalment likely a few years off, I can only hope and pray that Islington doesn’t take too many leaves out of the Rothfuss book.

    The audiobook, narrated by Euan Morton, is well performed with a hard-to-place accent that made me wonder if it was an Australian narrator performing a miscellaneous British accent or a British narrator performing a miscellaneous almost-Australian accent (apparently the latter). While the audiobook was a great way to immerse myself in this story and rush through it apace, I did end up feeling that there was enough meat in this book to warrant reading in its physical form, which allows for slowing down, taking in details and ensuring no small piece of information is missed. When I inevitably revisit this book, it will most likely be in hard copy format. If you’re wondering why the cover photo shows a hard copy book, it’s because I rushed to buy a copy as a birthday gift ‘for my husband.’

    I sometimes worry that I’ve destroyed my reading-for-pleasure ability by over-developing my critical reading faculty, so I couldn’t be more pleased to be struggling to find fault with this book.

    Yes, our hero boy-prodigy is uncommonly heroic: some readers take issue with his exceptional academic, athletic and problem-solving abilities, combined with his unerringly noble and courageous deeds. This is probably the biggest nod to The Name of the Wind , but in both books I’m inclined to forgive this slightly tongue-in-cheek protagonistic infallibility, self-reported (both stories are told in first-person) with perhaps an extra seasoning of young male egotism. It’s just a little more disbelief to suspend, and, with neither trilogy yet complete, pride may be a good setup for an interesting fall.

    The book is long, which is often a sign of fat that should have been trimmed. I have become much more suspicious over the years of the ‘longer the better’ mantra I once held, but in this case I chewed every chapter with relish. So often lately, even with books I’m largely enjoying, I find myself racing towards the end as they start to sag or stale and wear out their welcome.

    The Will of the Many was a beautiful nostalgic trip back to simpler times when my biggest existential worry was that at some point the book would be over and I’d have to close the covers and return to real life, feeling desolate.

  • The Places In Between – Rory Stewart

    The Places In Between – Rory Stewart

    Audiobook narrated by the author

    ‘In many houses, the only piece of modern technology was a Kalashnikov, and the only global brand was Islam.‘

    Every now and then you come across a book that makes you want to run down the streets, waving it in the face of everyone you pass.

    It’s not that this is the most incredible book ever written in terms of its craft or the sublime beauty of its prose, although it’s certainly impressive. But I’m a sucker for a great story, potentially especially so for a great true story. Rory Stewart is a former British diplomat and politician and now co-host of The Rest Is Politics podcast. Something about the idea of an upper-class politician completing a journey worthy of the explorers of old, and actually writing a good book about it, is so unlikely that it makes this work even more intriguing.

    I’m not generally a big reader of memoir or travel writing or narrative non-fiction—in fact, this might have been the first travel memoir I’ve ever read, and possibly my lack of familiarity with the genre contributed to my unexpected pleasure in devouring this book. My father-in-law, who has read many more intrepid travel stories, described it just as ‘okay’. He had better recommendations, which have been already lost to memory, though I’m sure I’ll find them in his bookshelf eventually (my ‘next shelf’ is now apparently extending into other people’s houses). In the meantime, I’m allowing myself to call this a must-read.

    When I’ve occasionally tried my hand at keeping a travel journal, all I learned from the experience was how dull an amazing trip full of wonder and beauty can become when written down after the fact. Your holidays are kind of like your kids: not that interesting to other people. This is not that kind of travel memoir.

    In The Places In Between, Rory Stewart narrates his solo trek through Afghanistan in 2002, during the war which his country was playing its part in waging within its borders. He sets off from Herat just weeks after the Taliban’s departure.

    Following in the footsteps of Babur, the first emperor of Mughal India, Stewart seeks to re-tread this ancient path, walking every step of the way from Herat to Kabul in a straight line through the central mountains. No cheats: no car trips, no donkey rides, no camels, horses, planes or piggy backs. This takes him through perilous snow-covered mountains and remote villages completely disconnected from the outside world, even from the cities of Afghanistan itself—a route thought to be impossibly dangerous for anyone to attempt, let alone a Brit in wartime. Each night he finds a local family to stay with, relying on the region’s ancient tradition of hospitality.

    Before arriving in Afghanistan, Stewart had walked in this style through much of Iran, India, Nepal and Pakistan, but that leg of the journey is only vaguely alluded to in this book. When and if he finally gets around to writing about it, I’ll be first in line at the bookshop.

    Even a badly written book about this epic journey might be worth reading for its insights on the history of this place and the people who live lives completely unrecognisable to us in our globalised, internet-dominated world. Luckily for us, this is not a badly written book.

    The prose is spare but neat, only on the odd occasion indulging in the luxury of a prosaic description of sunset over a mountain valley. For the most part, the author observes the people and cultural quirks he encounters without comment, judgement or reflection. He simply gives us a lens to look through, to observe this alien society and draw our own conclusions about the similarities and differences of people around the world, their values and assumptions, and some of the nuances our politicians may have been missing in their efforts to exterminate the Taliban. He observes societal norms and values vastly different from his own, but his role is that of a documentarian. He narrates as a fly on a wall that could turn sticky any moment.

    Though Stewart’s plan was to undertake the entire journey alone, this immediately proves to be more difficult than he anticipated. On arrival, he is hauled before the Iranian security service and interrogated. He emerges with a mandatory escort of three Iranian guards, who make for interesting if not always likeable company. They lead the way nonchalantly through minefields, having forgotten where they put the mines; they can’t keep up with the pace and complain of blisters and brandish their guns at village children.

    Eventually the author succeeds in paying them off, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. He goes on alone until he picks up a loyal canine companion: a village dog who’s had his ears cut off and his teeth knocked out. He adopts the dog as a travelling companion, though when they start out poor Babur (named after the emperor) can barely manage the first few of the many kilometres his new drill sergeant has planned for the day. Use this resource at your discretion.

    Stewart’s passion for the history and archaeology of the region make this a journey of discovery and enlightenment as well as a thrilling travel story. We get to see Afghanistan not just as it is today, but in an imagined ancient past as the narrator considers the movement of travellers along the Silk Road and other ancient trade routes and goes in search of lost wonders.

    He discovers the Minaret of Jam, an ancient marvel in an area so remote that, at the time of his discovery, no one knew if it was still standing or had been blown up by the Taliban. He finds the Turquoise Mountain, the ancient city destroyed in the thirteenth century by the son of Gengis Khan, being plundered by locals for trinkets to sell on the road, in spite of its UNESCO status.

    Having formerly served as a diplomat in Iraq, Stewart offers the occasional insight into the wars in the Middle East and we get a deeper understanding—too late, of course—of just how little anyone knew about what they were doing there. His telling of George Bush ‘dragging the Quran across the table with his unclean left hand as the Imam tries to force a smile’ is an image that pretty well sums this up.

    For someone like me with very limited understanding of all the different incarnations of Islamic culture (as noted in The Satanic Verses) this was a fascinating portrait of a people completely unknown and perhaps unknowable to the liberal Western world.

    Key among these differences is the willingness of so many poor, uneducated, disconnected rural villagers to take in, feed and shelter a foreigner and total stranger for the night. Can you imagine someone turning up at your house one night with a backpack and demanding hospitality? There’s a morally ambiguous dimension at work here, too, in that even by British standards, Stewart comes from money. As he notes, he is walking alone across the country carrying what for these villagers would be a life-altering sum of money, yet he’s asking them for food and board. And, as he also notes, he is never mugged or kidnapped or killed for his cash or possessions.

    I feel I haven’t done justice to just how intrepid this journey was. Everybody knows, courtesy of The Lord of The Rings, that the mountain pass in winter is the worst possible route (in that case, apart from all the others; in Stewart’s case, just a plain stupid idea).

    He is told over and again by people who should know that between snow, the Taliban, unpredictable and possibly violent locals, and wolves, he is unlikely to survive to tell the tale.

    Over his journey he is offered help many times, offered lifts and assistance in ways that must have felt impossibly tempting. There’s something almost biblical about these temptations and refusals. Along his path he is threatened by the Taliban, attacked by villagers and stray dogs, suffers malnutrition and illness and nearly succumbs to the snow as he walks 35 kilometres per day through rugged mountain terrain. Still he walks on until, impossibly, he takes the final step into Kabul and completes his quest.

    The Places In Between has everything a good story needs: adventure, danger, impossible obstacles overcome, a worthy protagonist and a loyal sidekick, and some fascinating side characters. Stewart does an excellent job narrating the audiobook in a voice whose poshness belies the harsh extremes of his journey.

    Between his familiarity with the local languages, history and culture, his experience as a diplomat, his desire to attempt such an insane venture and his sheer determination and lack of self-preservation, Stewart is one of very few people who could have completed this journey at all, let alone written about it so eloquently—which makes this book all the more precious.

    Most of all, I found it a fascinating portrait of how the other half lives. It’s easy to forget that the world is not solely composed of the liberal democratic globalised secular society we know. There is another world, where people spend their entire lives two days’ walk from anywhere else, where women are not seen in public, where people open their homes to strangers and throw rocks at dogs. Where society is driven not by the vain pursuit of equality, but by the preservation of hierarchy: where you have to know your place in the pecking order before you sit down to dinner. And it’s not by any means one unified society depicted here; at one point the author is warned of the ‘savages’ in the Hazara villages, only to find that the main point of difference seems to be that women are allowed in the presence of strange men.

    I was reminded strongly of Wittgenstein’s lion, who, even if he could speak, we still would not understand. We live in a world now where we carry translators in our pockets. We can touch and influence and speak to people in distant lands. But for all our constant march toward connectedness, there are people pushing just as hard in the other direction—perhaps recognising that the power to drop bombs on another civilisation may long precede the power to comprehend it.