example22

Book Review: Angelmaker, by Nick Harkaway
I came across Nick Harkaway in the endnote to Silverview, John Le Carré's final novel. As a result, I was tempted to give this one a go - an apparent combination of espionage and fantasy. One quickly observes that Harkaway is fond of words - lots of them - but that they all seem to have a use.

Joe Spork repairs clockwork machinery of all sorts. Despite being the son of the criminal Mathew Spork, he seeks a quiet life, although he maintains connections with the underworld. He is given the task of repairing some device he can't quite fathom, when his world is turned upside down. It seems there are several competing interests in this device, which also seems to have released swarms of clockwork bees across the globe. From there... well, pretty much anything can and does happen.

Things I enjoyed about this novel: for the most part, it doesn't take itself too seriously, but there's also some deep metaphysics about time and perception in there. If we knew the future and the past, would time exist at all? I liked the steampunk aspects of the clockwork-based machinery; the Lovelace and the links to Bletchley Park; the irrepressible lawyer Mercer Cradle; the way by which a regeneration is effected; and the general Ealing Comedy feel of Spork organising his criminal gang.

I wasn't so keen on reading about Spork's incarceration and torture. The Ruskinites are an odd bunch, but they seem to become very dark indeed when taken under evil influence. For a while the book loses its way and I'm not sure much is served by it.

Most curious of all, I found the way some aspects of the novel almost replay Harkaway's father's book A Perfect Spy despite the generational leap. Mathew Spork's lifestyle resonates with a more successful version of Pym's father. And just what to make of the Order of John The Maker?

Thursday's Prom was titled "Classic Thriller Soundtracks" - which was true up to a point, but had a pretty loose interpretation. The BBC Concert Orchestra was conducted by Edwin Outwater, joined at various points in the evening by presenter Edith Bowman, singers Lance Ellington and Ashton Jones, with backing vocals from Sumudu Jayatilaka, Louise Marshall, Melanie Marshall and Andrew Playfoot. I enjoyed the music I had come to hear - exceprts of Bernard Herrmann's music for the Hitchcock films North by Northwest, Psycho and Vertigo. I also enjoyed some new pieces - Korngold's Cello Concerto with soloist Sterling Elliott, Herrmann's Twisted Nerve with whistler Jona Pap, Lalo Schifrin's Bullitt and Quincy Jones' The Italian Job. Some of the other Quincy Jones pieces I wasn't so taken by; in some cases I think the front of the arena may not have had the best sound experience for the more Big Band numbers. The concert concluded with an encore from John Williams' Jaws.

The journey home was a horror story all of its own. I'd noticed in the morning that many of the GWR trains seemed to be half-length and this persisted into the evening; it was a struggle to get onto the train. With hindsight it might have been better to take a later train, but it was already late in the evening by the time we got to Paddington.