Joining the dots

Pirate Latitudes

By Michael Crichton

Death is never fair. And so, the sickle-wielding spectre grabbed Michael Crichton early, leaving him time to drop only Pirate Latitudes on to his editor’s desk. My hopes of a return to a thinking man’s science thriller for Crichton were dashed. He tried it with Next, but that book is not really worthy of categorisation as a ‘novel’. It is a hole in literature.

Just before Crichton died, he turned his attention to pirates. And he’s written what can be described as a competent pirate adventure book. There’s wenches, swashbuckling, treasure, sea monsters, cannon – everything a book in this genre needs. Crichton must have written a big list of all these things and ticked them off as he happily worked his way through this manuscript. In so doing, he’s forgotten about character. I don’t mean to be so naïve as to hope that Crichton would craft a literary novel. But spending some more time developing characters that one cares about is important in any book, no matter what genre. And I don’t just mean characters that I would be happy to know in real life – I can care about the baddies too. The important thing is to make them human, so that when the giant squid attacks their sloop, I feel their anguish.

Pirate Latitudes is, unlike its author, instantly forgettable. It merges with every other genre-based pirate story with nothing to set it apart. It is pirates-by-numbers. A pirate dot-to-dot. Where Pirates of the Caribbean brought us the entertaining Jack Sparrow, Latitudes offers us nothing. Not even a decent title. Quite what those latitudes are remains a mystery. As will Crichton’s thoughts on why he decided to write such a middle-of-the-road adventure book.

Sweeping up after the crash

A Week in December

By Sebastian Faulks

Inspired by the great, sweeping Victorian social commentators, Faulks has written a sweeping Victorian social commentary. A Week in December contains a rich cast from several social strata in London. We follow each in their daily lives at a time of great change for them and their society. Faulks is skilled enough to ensure that the centre of his novel holds, and that each individual character has enough intrigue about them to spur the reader on. There are even many fine moments of humour, when the satire bites. That said, one shouldn’t call this a satirical novel. It contains moments of satire, but it appears that Faulks has not made up his mind to plunge into a sustained, sardonic spoof of modern London life. He has opted for the gentler approach. He has blended classic literary themes with edgy social commentary and pricked them every so often with satire.

I therefore doubt this novel’s effectiveness and its longevity. We may still be reading Dickens and Trollope (or still adapting them for television, at any rate), but in 150 years’ time, I doubt that our descendents will read this Faulks novel in the same way. If anything, they are likely to read it as one of the Victorian imitator novels. That’s not to say it is a bad novel, but it does lack originality. There is no distinctive voice here: most novelists writing about bankers post-2007 will portray hedge fund managers as abominable, albeit enticing, or prospective British suicide bombers as having a moral dilemma, or book reviewers as cartoonish critics who fail to enjoy much of life anymore. Faulks has used his cookie cutter on London because it feels realistic (and it probably is), but it doesn’t shed much light on the real issues here.

This novel points out the flaws in the way we live now; it does not inspire us to think about how to change this. A Week in December is a sweeping Victorian social commentary, but not a great one.