Keep right on to the end of the ...

I would categorise myself as a naive reader: rather than luxuriating in the writer's exquisite prose, my main motivation when I'm reading a novel is to find out what happens next. Consequently I've never been able to understand those readers - and I've taught a few - who turn to the last page of a book before beginning to read it. I would never have bothered reading Tom Jones or Great Expectations if I'd known the identity of Tom or Estella's parents before turning the first page.

   This doesn't mean, however, that a strong plot is necessary to my enjoyment. Reading Tristram Shandy or Ulysses solely for their plots would be a disappointing exercise, yet few books have brought me greater pleasure. Nor does it mean that a good novel doesn't bear re-reading even though you now know what happens. There will always be fresh discoveries to be made - but for me that first virginal encounter is essential.

   Yesterday I finished reading Margaret Mazzantini's Venuto al mondo. It took me a long time: I guess about three weeks to read the first half, and a day and a half to read the second. The problem with the first half of the book was that I thought the whole of the plot had been revealed by the end of the first couple of chapters. The thrice-married protagonist, Gemma, is sterile. However she has a son Pietro, fathered by her deceased second husband, Diego, on a surrogate mother. End of story.

   The novel begins in medias res and much of the first half is spent recounting her abortive attempts to conceive and, subsequently, to find a surrogate. In other words to fill in the details of what the reader already knew. I only persevered with the book because it was well written, but as a naive reader my heart wasn't in it.

   What I hadn't reckoned with was la Mazzantini's masterly use of the unreliable narrator. Suddenly, in a magnificent coup de theatre, all my assumptions were turned upside down as I realised that, in reality, I'd completely misunderstood what was happening. From there on, reading the book was no longer a chore but a race to the finish.

  There is an English translation, Twice Born, and if it does justice to the original I'd strongly recommend reading it. With one proviso: you need a strong stomach. Much of the novel is set during the siege of Sarajevo and la Mazzantini doesn't spare us the details. Earlier this year I read Alone in Berlin, Hans Fallada's grim account of life in war-time Berlin. It was deeply unsettling, but in comparison to la Mazzantini's Sarajevo it was like spending the weekend in a five star health spa.

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The EU's threat to freedom.

My wife returned home yesterday from the UK. Unlike her outward journey late last month which was delayed by seven hours, the trip went smoothly. Meanwhile, the oleaginous Lawson has added his not inconsiderable weight, figuratively if no longer literally, to the chorus demanding an immediate referendum on Britain's membership of the EU. Unsurprisingly his his beef with the EU is its perceived threat to the City, that same City whose deregulation under his Chancellorship in the eighties led, after an initial boom, to inflation rising from 3% to more than 8%, and interest rates doubling to 15% in the space of eighteen months. And we're all still living with the financial misery consequent on the banking industry's further deregulation in the first decade of the twenty-first century. How dare the EU attempt to restrict the bankers' freedom to line their own pockets at the expense of the rest of us!

  It's not only the City which is under attack. I tried to claim compensation from Ryan Air for my wife's delayed flight. Searching the web for advice, I was led to a site which supplied a claim form and advice on how to proceed. Guess who was guilty of this blatant attempt to restrict O'Leary's freedom to rip off the public? None other than that self- same EU.          

   Knowing that it was likely that Ryan Air would use 'extraordinary circumstances' as an escape clause, further searches led me to discover two cases - Wallentin-Hermann and Sturgeon - where the European Court of Justice ruled that technical problems with an aircraft did not constitute 'extraordinary circumstances' and found in favour of the plaintiffs. Yet more meddling by the EU - little wonder big business is doing its best to remove the UK from its clutches, using the Mail and Sun to misdirect the public's wrath, and fear of Ukip to pressurise the government.

   Needless to say, my two faxes to Ryan Air whilst receiving fairly prompt responses didn't produce any dosh. I'm fairly sure that if I could afford to take the company to court I'd win. But I can't;  and if I could, the £250 to which I'd be entitled would be so insignificant that I wouldn't bother.

   And that's the system the Mail, the Sun and Ukip have sold to the public - it's enough to make the angels weep.

Diamond Geezers.

I was delighted to read last week that Bob Diamond agrees with my analysis of what motivates CEOs: power rather than money. However, as he has no intention of handing back his ill-gotten gains, it merely demonstrates that although we don't need to pay them silly money, the greedy swine will trouser as much of it as they can persuade their corporate shareholders to give them.

   And he's not the only diamond-geezer to have made the headlines last week. I was astonished to read that Marina Hyde would happily have a pint with Nigel Farage because the other party leaders are 'pompous arses' whilst he doesn't take himself 'too seriously'. Personally, I find his perpetual smirk - the visual equivalent of William Haig's voice - merely makes me want to punch him.

  And silly people aren't harmless. I was told by a German colleague that Hitler had a rather comic accent. Since then I've imagined him announcing in a Brummy voice: "Roight, wheam gowin' to invoid Powland." Somehow, though, that doesn't make the consequent slaughter and mass-murder any less sickening.

  I doubt that Marina would want to have a drink with Nigel's Italian equivalent, the potty-mouthed Beppe Grillo:

if she dared to disagree with him he'd probably bite her. Or with many of the other rather unsavoury types who lead the anti-EU movements in their respective countries. Unlike Ukip voters, in Greece, Holland and Hungary the racists have come out of the closet.

   Meanwhile jolly Nigel, in Cameron's apt definition the leader of the 'fruit cakes and closet racists' - how surprising, incidentally, that the product of an ancient boarding school, where he was made to dress up in silly clothes every day, should have said something sensible for once - has declared that his movement will allow Britain to control its own destiny again.

  I'm not too sure how seceding from the EU will loosen Murdoch's, or globalised finance's grip on the politicians, but perhaps that's not what Nigel meant. Not having a nigger or a pollack as a neighbour's probably nearer the mark. I just hope the deluded souls who voted for him in probable ignorance of Ukip's economic policies will be happy to pay for their hospital treatment once it's been franchised to private companies. Nigel's Britain will certainly be a more equal society with everyone paying the same flat rate of tax - 31%. Great news if you're a millionaire, not quite such fun for the average earner.

  But, hey, don't get sucked in by the politics of envy; join jolly Nigel for a refreshing pint and a fag and face up to the fact that if you'd only aspired a little harder you too could have been a rich man. At least you can draw comfort from your white skin and, if you're one of the two million public sector workers whose jobs have just been scrapped, apply to join the armed forces. With a budget which has been increased by 40% they've probably got room for you. And if they haven't, the thought of their three new aircraft carriers, fifty additional Lightning jets, and four new subs armed with American nuclear missiles will help stiffen Nigel's ability to entertain Marina once he's walked her home!

Update 9th May.

The link in the penultimate paragraph no longer takes you to Ukip's site. Maybe too many people were discovering just how dangerously naive their policies were.  However, clicking here will provide you with a summary of the policies I alluded to in the previous two paragraphs.

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Reflections.

Swift famously remarked: "Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." On Thursday morning the Today programme held up a mirror in which, I confess with shame, I saw my pedantic self reflected.

    Sarah Montague was interviewing Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler magazine, about The Bad Grammar Awards hosted by the The Idler Academy, a ceremony aiming, as its name suggests, to highlight examples of bad grammar. If you wish, you can listen to the interview though I wouldn't advise it: Hodgkinson has one of those whiney voices the Monty Python team was so fond of mimicking. As the following sentence taken from the transcript indicates, his own use of language left something to be desired: "It's a very good idea to train people into understanding their own language." "Train people into" - from which semi-literate Yankee-loving management consultant did he pick up that expression? Not having his notes with him, he had difficulty identifying the error in one of the examples of bad grammar he had brought with him - a London Underground announcement which made perfect sense, but which he castigated for 'mixing up a gerund and an infinitive.'

   As the interview progressed he found it increasingly difficult to string a coherent sentence together, thereby demonstrating his fundamental misunderstanding of what grammar is about - communication. Someone's grammar is only bad when it obscures his meaning. In my experience this rarely occurs in spoken English, non-verbal clues usually help to convey our message. Written English is a different kettle of fish, though even here any difficulty we find in understanding a writer's meaning is hardly ever the result of incorrect spelling or using an adjective where standard English requires an adverb. It comes from muddled syntax, and the muddled syntax is produced by muddled thought. When we're clear about what we want to say, we have no difficulty in writing it down. It's when the idea we want to express is complex, and we're not altogether sure that we've fully understood it, that we run into problems.

    All the same, the fact that Today interviewed a self-evident twerp to attack poor grammar is a pity. As readers of this blog will know, I think there is a case to be made for sharpening people's awareness of their use of language. The media's fondness for using idiots to defend or advocate unpopular causes would almost lead one to suppose that the unhinged Melanie Phillips had a point when she claimed on yesterday's Today programme that a successful left-wing conspiracy had marginalised any voices which ran counter to the 'prevailing liberal orthodoxy'. Only joking: just read the book she was promoting on the programme - the woman's clearly bonkers.

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