Ben Elton -- The first causalty
Oct. 4th, 2006 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI've read a few Ben Elton books. Some have been enjoyable, and some haven't grabbed me -- like many authors I feel they orbit one book which shows off all the best aspects and is a classic, which may or may not have been or ever be written.
The First Casualty is about inspector Kingsley of the metropolitan police, who refuses to fight in WWI, but is then chosen to investigate the murder of an officer in Ypres.
I love Kingsley, he has the arrogant intellectualism and bastardry that appeals to me. Of course I like a book about someone being arrested for a point of logic, who is later shown to be as brave and effective and patriotic as anyone who wasn't when he ends up in the war anyway, and just happens to save two attacks.
However, the morality of things, and Kingsley's opinions, all seem to be dispensed with an exceptionally heavy hand. Be it his thoughts, or his defense at trial, whatever he's thinking is belaboured. That the average German soldier hasn't done anything worth being killed for (other than, perhaps, killing average British soldiers) is a reaosnable position, but "it isn't logical" is repeated over and over, as if this will make it into some sort of insight.
The plot is decent, enjoyable, but nothing special. The ending is fairly sweet.
The First Casualty is about inspector Kingsley of the metropolitan police, who refuses to fight in WWI, but is then chosen to investigate the murder of an officer in Ypres.
I love Kingsley, he has the arrogant intellectualism and bastardry that appeals to me. Of course I like a book about someone being arrested for a point of logic, who is later shown to be as brave and effective and patriotic as anyone who wasn't when he ends up in the war anyway, and just happens to save two attacks.
However, the morality of things, and Kingsley's opinions, all seem to be dispensed with an exceptionally heavy hand. Be it his thoughts, or his defense at trial, whatever he's thinking is belaboured. That the average German soldier hasn't done anything worth being killed for (other than, perhaps, killing average British soldiers) is a reaosnable position, but "it isn't logical" is repeated over and over, as if this will make it into some sort of insight.
The plot is decent, enjoyable, but nothing special. The ending is fairly sweet.
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Date: 2006-10-04 10:56 pm (UTC)now I'm trying to remember when I read it. I started it on the loo - I remember that. I finished it curled in my bed - I don't think it was a train book in between...
I found the picture he tried to paint of the trenches quite evocative, and it reminded me of Noel Streatfeilds autobiography, A vicarage family, and her cousin coming back from WW1 on leave and throwing up horribly -
- and then I was just reading Goodnight Mr Tom about evacuees in WW2, just now - and before that a little evangelical thing also set during WW2 in a village with evacuees, and thinking how mad and strange the war was and how - how astonishing it must have been to live through, and how there are people there who /did/ that, and they're around now, and it must make them different somehow, and yet we don't really know that - get that.
maybe. but then you talk to all kinds of people and find they've done all kinds of astonishing things or been to astonishing places, and they just looked like people.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-09 12:29 am (UTC)you talk to all kinds of people and find they've done all kinds of astonishing things or been to astonishing places, and they just looked like people.
Oh yes! It's always so weird, in a great way, iyswim. Yay for people.