Material Witness

REVIEW: The Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor

Andrew Taylor's fine historical fiction has been a favourite of this blog over a number of years. Taylor has always been capable of delivering the critical detail and atmosphere to wrap around his strong narratives and memorable characters. His writing is evocative, thoughtful and exciting.

In recent years Taylor has taken us back to the Restoration with his Marwood and Lovett (lately Hakesby) series that takes place after the Great Fire of 1666 and in a terrific series - this is the sixth and apparently final installment in the series - he has done for the Restoration what CJ Sansom did for the Tudors, bringing finely-tuned mystery into the heart of the court, and over-layering it with political and personal drama.

The Restoration is a time pregnant with possibility for historical fiction as social upheaval, foreign subterfuge and scientific advancement gripped. As the monarchy reasserts its power, led by a popular and charismatic King - last seen up close in The Royal Secret - there is plenty of scope for high court intrigue and low behaviour. Marwood, as an administrator to Secretary of State Lord Arlington, whose responsibilities were said to include management of royal mistresses, has ample opportunity to find trouble, and it's never far away. Like Shardlake, he becomes a reluctant investigator and often unwilling tool of the state. 

In The Shadows of London, Marwood is drawn into another investigation when a corpse is discovered on the site of an alms house construction being managed by Cat Hakesby. The lack of face on the cadaver hinders the intitial investigation, but eventually and inevitably, it points towards the royal court. 

Marwood, despite his position in the employ of one of England's most powerful men, remains vulnerable to the machinations of other important courtiers and it isn't long before he is drawn back into the orbit of his implacable enemy the Duke of Buckingham and his attack dog, Roger Durrell. 

Bubbling away in the background as ever, is the "will they won't they" tension between the two main characters, a storyline that provides an anchor to the series but it never overdone. 

One of the joys of historical fiction is being brought face to face with the notable characters of the day. In the past we have been introduced to Sir Christopher Wren and King Charles himself, and here the celebrated diarist and courtier John Evelyn makes a cameo appearance.

I'm sorry to see this series go, but Taylor leaves it on fine form with a pacy and absorbing story full of drama and incident. Surely this most prolific of writers will be back soon with something different and I look forward to the next turn. Books such as Bleeding Heart Square, a personal favourite, and  The Anatomy of Ghosts, has shown that no era is safe from his formidable imagination and impeccable research. 

REVIEW: The Close by Jane Casey

Will they or won't they? That's the question, the golden thread of tension that's been keeping Jane Casey's reader guessing since she first introduced the fatal attraction between DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent.

The relationship has played out over the course of nine police procedural novels where it has acted as an emotional mooring for the series, never too far from the surface but never dominant. 

In this tenth instlament, however, Casey blows the format sky high moving Kerrigan and Derwent out of London and into the highly fertile territory of the domestic thriller. The two Met detectives are sent undercover at the behest of a senior aide to the London Mayor to try to discover how her brother-in-law ended up dead. They leave London for the deceptive tranquility of semi rural England where, posing as a couple, they spy on their new neighbours in a Ramsey Streetesque cul de sac.

Never mind that the set up is more than a little contrived, it doesn't matter a bit as it allows Casey's talent free reign to deliver a tense and intriguing thriller and put the "question" front and centre. It works an absolute treat. Forced to play the happy couple to, the detectives test their commitment to their professionalism to destruction as their circumstances force them closer together than ever.

And the rest of the story roars along too. Casey populates The Close with an entertaining and disturbing cast of busybodies, gossips, loners, narcissistic lycra-clad bike bros and yummy mummies. Kerrigan and Derwent have been  sent to observe just one house, but after a couple of weeks see threats and potential murderers behind every closed door and net curtained window.

Casey's just very very good at this. Besides the question and the primary investigation, she keeps several threads alive, including an ongoing investigation back in London that Kerrigan is managing through Zoom calls. She explores important difficult issues such as domestic abuse and the exploitation of vulnerable adults. And it's all done at a pace that never feels hurried but keeps a good momentum up towards a dramatic conclusion. It's another fine episode in the series, which I reviewed here a couple of years ago. 

 

 

 

REVIEW: The Motive and the Cue at the National Theatre

Sir John Gielgud played Hamlet for the first time in 1929. There can surely be nobody left alive who saw it. Gielgud directed Richard Burton as Hamlet in 1964. There should be a few folk around who saw that, but not too many, and not for long. There is a grainy film of that Broadway performance available on YouTube. It is not quite the same as being there... 

Theatre is transitory. Each performance is unique, 'writ in water', preserved temporarily in the memory of those who were there, and imperfectly in the handful of reviews published. To me this makes every performance precious, every moment in the theatre a small part of a shared history and breeds a sense of community and belonging it's difficult to find elsewhere. You can feel it in the buzz of anticipation in the lobby and bars before a show starts and in the whispered critiques during the interval and as the audience filters out into the street afterwards.

 

This love, respect and reverence of the medium is just one of the multitude of things to enjoy and admire about The Motive and The Cue, the National Theatre's triumphant production of Jack Thorne's new play that explores Gielgud and Burton's troubled cooperation. Burton, the global silver screen superstar, is desperate to leave his mark on the history of the most challenging and mythical role of them all, under the eye of perhaps the greatest to play the role. Gielgud's proprietorial love of the role clashes dramatically with Burton's hotheaded, whisky-fuelled insecurity.

 

In this transitory world, we are lucky to have so much of Burton's Hamlet left. Not only the movie, but also the memoirs of Richard Sterne and William Redfield, who left detailed behind-the-scenes exposés. Sterne even hid under a table to record a private rehearsal between Burton and Gielgud. Thorne's golden pen turns this material into an intimate and captivating journey through an artistic process featuring two very different men at odds with each other, themselves and the world.  

 

The drama takes place over 25 days leading up to the production in the rehearsal room and in the honeymoon suite Burton shares with his new wife, Elizabeth Taylor. As the clock ticks down and the differences between the two men emerge the tension and drama rises. In the room with them is Hamlet, over-bearing in his complexity and elusiveness. Thorne cleverly weaves the Prince of Denmark into the play, his own indecision and doubt mirroring Burton's and mocking Gielgud. 

 

An ensemble cast is fabulous throughout, polished and composed on just their second preview night. There are performances of note from Allan Corduner as Hume Cronyn, Janie Dee as Eileen Herlie and Aysha Kala as Gielgud's young and inisghtful assistant. 

 

And then there are the three leads: Mark Gatiss as Sir John Gielgud, Johnny Flynn as Richard Burton and Tuppence Middleton as Elizabeth Taylor. 

 

Middleton spends relatively little time on stage but illuminates every scene, imbuing Taylor not just with a powerful and ravenous sexuality but also an unexpected gravity and wisdom as she emerges as peacemaker, helping the two men to understand each other and edge towards an accommodation. In other hands the role could be overpowered by the Burton and Gielgud, but this is a star turn, memorable and entirely compelling. 

 

Flynn has the toughest challenge of the three, as Burton himself seems unsure why he is there and presents all his doubt and uncertainty. He is, by turns, charming and loquacious and then drunk, angry and lost. As anyone who's watched his silver screen turns will know, Flynn has something of Burton's raffish charm about him and physically he was a good fit for the role. So early in what will certainly be a successful run, it felt somewhat like he was still finding his way into a complex and difficult character, but as the night wore on I became more and more intrigued and impressed by his performance and how well he captured Burton.

 

Finally, Mark Gatiss, who delivered a bravura performance as Sir John Gielgud at a low ebb in his career, and stole the night. He delivered all of Gielgud's fierce theatre intelligence, his love of "Uncle Will" Shakespeare and Hamlet as well as his charm, vulnerability and occasional venomous bite. He was spell-binding from start to finish, utterly convincing. 

 

The key to unlocking Thorne's great script is taking the audience to the heart of the fractious dynamic between the two men as they tried to find Burton's Hamlet. And in this they - and director Sam Mendes - are very successful. The night I attended, you could hear how engaged the audience was: a sharp intake of breath here, a collective gasp there... The tension was palpable. And so too was the history. It took me all the way back to 1989 when my love affair with Shakespeare began with another troubled Hamlet, that of Daniel Day-Lewis that I saw in the same auditorium, the Olivier.

 

The last play I saw twice was Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem, but that was over a period of more than a decade. I would go back and see The Motive and the Cue next week if I could, as there's just so much to unpick and enjoy and I suspect it would be even better on second viewing.

 

The National Theatre has another massive hit on its hands, on a par with The Lehman Trilogy. It runs until July and is going to play to packed houses. Beg, borrow or steal a ticket. Just don't miss it. 

 

Karen Joy Fowler's Booth and the cruel tension of inevitability

Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth in the Ford Theatre in Washington DC on April 15th 1865. It’s a racing certainty that everyone embarking on Booth, Karen Joy Fowler’s brilliant historical novel recounting the history of the assassin's Maryland family knows this fact. I certainly did.

And yet, as the narrative drove inexorably towards the fatal encounter, a small part of this reader’s consciousness simply couldn’t help but hope for an alternative outcome. Perhaps that President Lincoln, like Ulysses S Grant, pulled out of his theatre visit at the last moment. Or that John Wilkes, the most beloved of Mary Booth’s six surviving children, dropped his fatal assassination plan at the last moment to spare his mother the inevitable anguish of his actions.

It’s impossible, of course. The history books are clear on the outcome.

But still, the desire for a happy ending is so strong it can transcend reality, and the momentum towards the event is hugely affecting, almost painful. I’d be interested to know if other readers ~ or indeed viewers ~ share this experience of impossible denial?

It takes some doing for the writer of course. The last thing a reader expects for a tale with a 150-year-old spoiler is this kind of dramatic tension, but here we are are. Done as skillfully as this, it is the very inevitability of the assassination that creates the atmosphere of impending doom and nervous energy that increases the nearer the event gets.

In Booth it comes from the lavishly intimate portrait of the family of Shakesepearean actor Junius Brutus Booth that Fowler paints, from John’s days in his mother’s womb, through every trial and tribulation they suffer - and there are many - on to the fateful day in DC. They survive their father's neglect, poverty, plague, famine, death, the grief of lost children and the humiliation of the discovery that Junius has another family, to reach 1865 almost in tact before John brings disaster down on their own heads as well as their war-shattered country.

My faint and ridiculous hope of a reprieve for Lincoln is as much born of a desire for a better ending for Asia, Rosalie and Edwin Booth as for the President. Fowler has made them real: flawed but sympathetic human beings who inhabit the story with power and purpose.

Like all great historical fiction, the central story is only a part of the show. There is huge detail in this canvas on issues as diverse as the evil cruelty of slavery and the vibrancy of 19th Century theatre - Edwin played Iago in Californian mining camps, almost losing his life when a much moved patron took violently against the character's scheming! We learn about violent city life and rural destitution, about the 49er gold rush and crossing the isthmus of Panama before the canal.

It’s a marvelous book, despite its harrowing ending, with the power of haunting that extends long beyond the turning of the final page.

REVIEW: The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths

So farewell then, Dr Ruth Galloway - archeologist, teacher, single mother, investigator and much admired companion through 16 novels. 

When I picked the first of these 16 books up in the summer of 2019, I'm not sure I'd have been prepared to bet much on Elly Griffiths being able to sustain the adventures of a North Norfolk archeology lecturer through another 15 titles. Not only has she done this, but she has retired Ruth Galloway at a time when much of her audience would surely have continued to want more. And surely it's best to bow out on top with the audience wanting more, rather than allow the series to go stale. 

Much of the charm of these books is tied up in Ruth's everywoman character. She comes with the same hopes, fears, problems and triumphs as the rest of us - bar the frequent run ins with corpses - and confronts most of it with resolution, cheerful good humour, and a glass of wine. It's impossible not to like and root for her. I wrote previously about what I love about the series in this review of the 12th novel, The Lantern Men.

In The Last Remains, Ruth's corpse is the body of a young Cambridge student found behind a false wall in an abandoned building having been missing for more than two decades. She, Emily Pickering, disappearing following an archeology trip in Norfolk.

The search for the truth of Emily Pickering's disappearance brings Ruth into contact with all the characters who have enriched these books including curmoudgeonly cop Nelson, his former sidekick Clough, Cathbad the druid and his wife DI Judy Johnson. That the book never feels like a farewell tour is testament to Griffiths' skill as a writer. She draws together the strands of the investigation with all the loose ends of the 14-year-old series without being sentimental or heavy handed. It is a satisfying and credible ending, if a little sad of course, because I will miss Dr Ruth and her friends and colleagues. 

The good news for the legion of fans of Griffiths is that there is plenty more from this most prolific of writers. There are the Brighton mysteries and a promising newcomer in DS Harbinber Kaur.  

 

 

REVIEW: The Vanishing Man by Laura Cumming

We live in an age of wonders. This afternoon, if I so chose, I could get on the bus and the Metro and within an hour be standing in front of Las Meninas, the masterpiece of the transcendent Spanish painter Diego Velázquez. 

I don't have time though as I'm writing this so instead I typed Las Meninas into Chrome, and looked at a digital representation of the canvass. If I wanted to look at it more often I can install it on my television screen for when I need relief from Babylon Berlin.

We, with our internet and our Ryanairs and Metros, take these things for granted, but they are modern miracles. From 1656 when it was painted until 1819 when the Prado opened, viewing Las Meninas was essentially restricted to the Princes and flunkeys of the Spanish court.

Even in the nineteenth century, you still needed to be able to get to Madrid to see the painting and you really had to want to come. Edouard Manet, the French modernist, did and in 1865 braved a cholera outbreak and a 36 hour train journey to make a pilgrimage to see the work of Velázquez. He didn’t much like Madrid, finding the food bad and life uncomfortable. But he loved the work of Velázquez, telling Baudelaire he was ‘the greatest painter there ever was’.

This story is just one of many in The Vanishing Man – In Pursuit of Velázquez, Laura Cumming’s thrilling book which tells the story of Velázquez himself and the tale of a 19^th Century Reading shopkeeper and his fight to prove he owned a lost work of the great master.

The Vanishing Man is an incredible feat of story-telling. It is entertaining, compelling and rich in detail, and Cumming writes beautifully about a subject that feels intensely personal to her. What is extraordinary, however, is the research and how the author has been able to do so much with so little. Hardly anything is known about the life of Velázquez. Contemporary accounts of his life are few, short and frustratingly lacking in detail, particularly around his motivations and views. Historical record is largely related to his role as courtesan rather than painter.

And so Cumming painstakingly pieces together an impression of him through the interpretation of his art and the information that does exist. Her frustration at this lack of knowledge screams from every page. There´s a sense that she would give a great deal for just an hour in his company.

More is known of John Snare, the Reading stationer, who bought a portrait of Prince Charles from a country house sale in Radley in 1845 believing it was by the Spanish master when everyone else thought it was a Van Dyck. Snare’s story is quite something also, his obsession with the painting taking him from Reading to Edinburgh and then New York and all but breaking him.

I can’t recommend the book highly enough, for its passion and emotion, for its insight into the world of art, for the mystery of the Reading portrait and most of all for bringing us just that little bit closer to Velázquez and helping me to understand better his genius.

And so finally, I urge you to seek him out. Through this marvellous book, of course, but also here in Madrid at the Prado, where Las Meninas awaits along with so many other works. It was love at first sight when I saw it, and each visit only deepens my attachment. Or if the Prado is too far the Rokeby Venus is at the National Gallery and Juan de Pareja at the Met. We’re in age where these treasures are more accessible than they have ever been and each canvas is worth the time and the energy.   

Mobile World Congress, West Ham Losing and Giving Up Running - These are the things I think about when running...

On Sunday I ran the Barcelona half marathon with my daughter, Tilly for whom it´s part of the training for the London marathon at the end of April. It’s always an interesting experience, and this time I recorded my wildly varying thought process as the race progressed.

The Start Line

I am in the green “cajon” or pen. This is a mistake. For some reason when I signed up for the this race last year I thought I could run the 21.1km in less than an hour and 50 minutes. No chance. The Spanish 3 Rs  - Rioja, Ribera and Ribeira Sacra - have taken their toll. As usual everyone in the pen looks a lot younger and fitter than I am. And they all have better shoes. I should be further back with the people dressed as bananas.

There’s a good buzz though as if everyone is trying to pretend this isn't all going to hurt. I love this part of the race when, you know, there’s no running going on. This is the best I’ll feel until the third glass of Ribeira Sacra.

 

 

Km 1 to 3

What a lovely day for a little run around Barcelona. The sun is coming up and everything is absolutely marvellous. It’s bloody crowded. Don’t want to trip anyone up. I should have stayed in Madrid where the roads are wider. Ooh, there’s Cristóbal Colón, up on his column facing out to sea. Why do we call him Columbus? And there’s the cruise ship terminal where Nokia used to host legendary parties during Mobile World Congress. I miss the parties, but not Mobile World Congress which was two intense days of pressure about speeches and press releases followed by four days of no sleep and very bad hangovers.  

Km 3

We are somewhere near La Rambla. It is Europe’s most disappointing high profile tourist attraction. Don’t bother.

Km 3.5

There’s the street the Airbnb is on. I have definitely left the stove on after making coffee this morning. I should go and check. Will the insurance cover burning down an entire block in Eixample?

Km 4

Is that a niggle? It feels like a little niggle in the left calf. There’s a café over there in the sun. Perhaps I shouldn’t risk any further injury. I can support Tilly just as well from over there. There’s a man wearing a West Ham shirt! If I can catch him I will say hello. But it might be a Burnley or Villa shirt.  

Km 5 – First water station

They’re giving out the water in paper cups. FFS. It is almost impossible to drink out of a paper cup while running. And now the bloody things are all over the road like wet leaves and I’m almost certainly going to slip over on one, be very badly injured and have to be air lifted back to Madrid. I should probably stop to avoid this.

Km 7

It is a West Ham shirt. “Irons”, I say, trying to sound all Canning Town and he says it back. We’re both worried about the Spurs match later, but he’s going to miss it as he’s flying back to London. Lucky bastard.

Km 8

I’ve come all the way to Barcelona and the race doesn’t even go past La Sagrada Familia. Crap.

Km 9

The 1hr50m pacing balloon goes past. I momentarily think about going with it but discover I can't be arsed. Normally I have a target in mind running these races, but not today and I’m happy just to settle into a rhythm and put one foot after the other. Today this has settled down at about 5 minutes and 20 seconds per kilometre, and a finishing time in the range of 1.55. My fastest half marathon was in October 2017 when I ran 1.39, and it seems like it's something that happened to someone else at the moment. I can’t even imagine it. I am probably 7kg heavier and am now Very Old. 

Km 10 to 12

Ugh. Dreary industrial neighbourhoods and endless massive blocks of flats. We're in Barcelona but it could be Blackburn, apart from the sun obviously.

Km 11

I hope the dogs are OK. They probably think I’ve abandoned them forever.

Km 12 to 16

I’m giving up running. There are so many better places to be on a Sunday morning than trudging through some non-descript suburb of Anytown.

Km 13

I hope Jane is OK and doesn’t think I’ve abandoned her forever.

Km 14

I hope Tilly’s OK. She had a sore foot coming into the race. That’s a lot of anxiety when you’re doing the endless training to run a marathon. It’s a massive commitment, and after running three, I’m never running another one.

Km 15

“Keep going! There’s a cold beer waiting at the end,” yells a woman with an American accent. As if everyone hasn’t been thinking about that since they ran past Colón.

Km 16

There’s the Med! In all its sparkly blue glory. How marvellous everything is! Running is the best way to see a City and it’s a massive privilege to be here. I’m going to sign up for a half in Madrid next month and it would be great do one in Bilbao, San Sebastián and Sevilla. And I’m definitely going to apply for the Valencia marathon in December. One last marathon before third retirement from marathon running.

Km 17

Will this bloody race never end?

Km 18

There’s a group of guys pushing people in wheelchairs and everyone is having a great time. They have music and are playing Flo Rida’s Good Feeling. For about 400m it is the best song I've ever heard. "Yes I can, doubt better leave, I'm running with this plan." What great people they are, to give up their Sunday mornings to do something so good for other people. Feeling good about humanity.

Km 19

There’s the Hotel Arts! It’s among the most expensive hotels I’ve ever stayed in and was responsible for the biggest expenses bollocking I ever got. 100% justified.

Km 19.5

The first smug bastards who already finished and have their medals appear by the road side, patronisingly encouraging the laggards to keep going. Fuck off. 

Km 20

The race turns away from the beach, and there’s La Sagrada Familia! What an amazing way to end the race running towards such an iconic landmark. Think about getting phone out to take selfie. Will wait until end.

Km 20.7

Race turns away from La Sagrada Familia. FFS. This is the most stupidly designed race in the entire history of races.

Km 20.8

There’s the finish line! Thank fuck for that.

The Finish Line / 21.1km

Cross finish line and try to smile for camera I know is there. Later I will be sent a link to an exciting opportunity to buy a photograph of myself grimacing as if having finger nails removed in the Lubyanka, except sweatier. All muscles instanteously seize up as one, as if they couldn’t have gone another yard. Limp to get paper cup of water, banana from Las Canarias and medal that will go in draw with all the other medals.

And that’s it, that cold beer now beckons, but first I might wonder back down the course to offer some encouragment to those still running. 

A time of 1.54, and I have finished about 10,000th out of 21,000.. A long way from my best but also from worst. It’s my 14^th organized half marathon, I think, and I don’t feel any particular sense of achievement, just immense gratitude that I’m fit and healthy enough to have run it and particularly to have been able to run it with Tilly. Although not with Tilly exactly as she’s run 1.50 despite having to stop for a couple of minutes for running repairs on treacherous feet.

She’s well on pace to run a good marathon in London in April. And I’m really looking forward to supporting her then. From the sidelines. And if you've come this far in the piece, you should support her too, she's running for Water Aid, which is a jolly good thing: Just Giving - Tilly's marathon

Why Babylon Berlin should be your next binge

If it hasn’t grabbed you already by this point, there is a scene in episode 2 of the first season of Babylon Berlin that will destroy any residual doubt that you are watching television drama of the very highest calibre.

In a night club in Berlin in 1929, drunken revellers are dancing with reckless abandon to exuberant music while downstairs a scene of betrayal and police corruption plays out. Woven into this sequence, whose soundtrack is only with the music from the club, is a machine massacre taking place in another building across the city.

 

The scene is utterly spell-binding. It draws together many of Babylon Berlin’s multiple and complex threads into one violent, raucous, sleazy pastiche.

This is Weimar Germany at the bedraggled tail end of the roaring twenties. Reds are on the streets, with the Soviets pulling strings. Ordinary Germans are broken and battered by the poverty brought about by the desperate economic situation. A whole generation is still shell-shocked by the horrors of the trenches. Those who can afford to crush their fears and misery with wine, song and dance in a setting that evokes the last days of Rome.

And so it is, with much of the ruling class still smarting from the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles and plotting to make the Fatherland great again.

In the background, barely mentioned but with ghostly and insidious presence, is the shadow of Hitler and the ghost of  massacres yet to come.

It is heady, intoxicating stuff, shot beautifully with no detail spared or overlooked and directed with a verve and fearlessness that surprises over and over again. The plot is rich and complex, never taking the easy or clichéd turn, but instead opening up the twisted, dark and bloody insides of a fascinating and pivotal moment in modern history.

At the heart of the story are Gereon Rath, a police detective from Cologne assigned to the capital and Lotte Ritter, police assistant by day and hostess by night. Each is seeking to overcome their own demons while also solving a cryptic puzzle in front of them: why is there a train from Russia full of phosgene and lost aristocratic gold in Berlin? Who appears in the lost pornographic film that Rath is sent to find? And how does all this tie in to the battle on the streets between communists and a police force using all measures to subdue them?

The leads, Volker Bruch and Liv Lisa Fries are magnetic and it’s impossible to look away whenever they are on screen. They carry a magnificent cast that delivers beauty, menace, hope and despair in equal measure.

Babylon Berlin is adapted from the eponymous book series by Volker Kutsch (with thanks to my former colleague Marco Lange for the introduction) and it is as good as any historical or police drama I can recall watching.

If its language were English you’d have seen it, read about it and watched it picking up awards by the wagon load. Don’t let the language put you off. The German actually helps because it makes you focus on the screen and the nuance and detail of the story playing out. This is five star television and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Babylon Berlin is on Sky / Now in the UK, Movistar in Spain and Netflix in the US.

Great Expectations - and a beautiful but controversial ending

Only after finishing Great Expectations, did I learn that Dickens had written two quite different endings to his epic story of ambition, love and loss.

(163-year-old Spoilers ahead.) In the version I read, Pip returns from Cairo to his village in Kent and pays a nostalgic visit to the estate of the late Miss Havisham. There he finds Estella, long the object of his affections, now widowed and somewhat softened.

Their youthful follies long buried by the cold, hard experience of life, Pip and Estella make their peace, and leave the garden together:

‘I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.’

It’s not exactly wedding bells and ‘happily ever after’, as you might expect of Dickens, who had a tendency to end his novels on an optimistic note. But there is, finally, the promise of a life together and of the happiness that has eluded them both.

In the original version, Pip ran into the widowed Estella on a London street, finding her to have remarried. It is said that friends of the author, among them Wilkie Collins, urged Dickens to rewrite a more conventional finale.  

And so he did, telling friends that he had, “put in as pretty a little piece of writing as I could”, adding that it would like be more acceptable. In the former he is absolutely right: the writing is beautiful. Astonishingly so.

Since then, literary argument has raged about whether he was right to do so. Fighting the corner for the original ending were no lesser figures than George Orwell and George Bernard Shaw. The latter called the happy ending, of a book he revered, an ‘outrage’. ”[It] is too serious a book to be a trivially happy one. Its beginning is unhappy; its middle is unhappy; and the conventional happy ending is an outrage on it.”

The counter argument is that this the novel has come full circle to reconciliation and redemption and that both Pip and Estella have emerged much changed from their suffering and deserve their own happiness.

From a literary perspective I would tend to side with those advocating the original ending. I found Great Expectations unsettling, dark and often difficult, and Pip suffering one last disappointment seemed in keeping with its tone and themes.

That said, I am pleased Dickens was prevailed upon to deliver his last, joyful line. There’s quite enough suffering in the world, and indeed in the hundreds of pages that preceded it. At heart, I’m a romantic, and I left the story with that heart just a little lighter, imagining a happier future for Pip and Estella.

And it says so much about Dickens and the incredible power of his work, and the hold it has over us, that 163 years on, his choice divides opinion.

A love letter to Spain - cada día te quiero más

A decade in Spain. Well, where did that go? It only seems like yesterday that I was nervously giving the airport taxi driver my new address in Madrid, using French pronunciation that stumped us both for a short while. 

In the 10 years since I’ve managed to move on from “una cerveza por favor” all the way through to swearing at footballers and (nearly) mastering the subjunctive. It’s been quite the journey. And I’ve learned much more besides about this wonderful country and its people.

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that when I first came to Madrid – for an interview in July 2012 – I didn’t really have much of an idea of where it was. In Spain, and not on the coast, but not a lot more than that. (I did know where Spain was.)

We had made a decision to move overseas – somewhere, almost anywhere – as a cultural and educational experience for the family. Among those cities previously considered, but that didn’t come off, were Munich, Helsinki and Delhi. We weren’t really that fussy.

But we got super lucky, as a Spaniard speaking English might say. Madrid, about which more another time, was the perfect destination for us for many reasons. Happily it turned out the capital was right in the middle of the country!! And that gave us the opportunity to explore all four points of the compass.

It takes a bit of work to discover Spain. It is not to be found on a sun lounger on the Costa Brava or wondering the Barrío Gotíco – although, Lord knows both are reason enough for visiting. When we arrived, we didn’t even know what we didn’t know.

 

The north looks like New Zealand or Cornwall or Brittany, and has the country's best beaches in Galicia, and so what if the water's a little colder than it is in Alicante. The south east looks  enough like the old west that the spaghetti westerns were made there. The Basques speak a language that looks like it belongs in a fantasy novel. Beautiful, wild Teruel is so remote and unknown that its tourist board once marketed it with the slogan Teruel Existe. And on the southern coast the shadow of Africa looms as a reminder of a rich and diverse history fashioned by geography. 

Fall asleep on a beach in Formentera and you could wake up believing you were in the Caribbean, or Italy, such is the volume of tourists seeking the western Sardinia. Take a siesta in a village in Castilla La Mancha and you're right back in the 18^th Century.  

Don Quixote’s windmills can still be seen on the plains close to Toledo, and the most wondrous Roman ruins in Merida, Segovia, Tarragona... There is skiing within an hour of Madrid, and in the south within an hour of the beach and the best and friendliest resort I’ve ever visited at Baqueira in the Pyrenees. And some of the worst football I've ever seen is played in the best atmosphere I've ever experienced just a few kilometres from here. And I wouldn't miss it for the world. 

La Rioja in the autumn, when the harvest is coming in and the vines burnished in shades of red, brown and yellow, feels like the most beautiful and bountiful place on earth. Although for drama it cannot beat Ribeira Sacra (left) where the vineyards defy gravity, clinging on to the steep canyons.

Ronda is extraordinary, Córdoba even more so and Cadíz is bursting with history and grandeur. Cáceres might be the best preserved medieval City in a country packed with them, and also a marvellous place for a sundowner in the Plaza Mayor. And Sevilla apparently might be the best of all, but I’ve not made it there yet.

The Alhambra is majestic, El Escorial imposing, La Mezquita simply spell-binding. My favourite Cathedral is in Toledo, but everybody says this is only because we didn’t have time to go into the one in León. Burgos, a place that far too many people drive by – including us for many years – also has a Cathedral worthy of the diversion. It’s almost enough to turn one to religion.   

In Bilbao the Guggenheim shines with the optimism and modernity it has brought to help renew a great City. In Madrid, a young capital by European standards, the nation’s cultural heritage and history lines the walls of the Prado, from where Las Meninas calls like a siren.  And in Barcelona, you could probably visit La Sagrada Familia weekly for years and discover a new view on each occasion.

And for me there is always joy at being on the open road. Spain is a land of vast and empty landscapes, of light and shadows and there is something new to be found at every exit. We’ve been exploring for 10 years, and need another ten at least. And more still  for Portugal. 

Exploring has been wonderful, stopping just as good. There’s nothing better than taking tapas on the Calle Laurel in Logroño, unless it’s eating oysters in Vigo, navajas in Asturias or cochinillo in Segovia. Or take a beer with the ghost of Hemingway in Pamplona's Café Iruña. 

Your jamón should be from Extremadura, cherries in season too - oh my goodness, the cherries - wonderful olive oil from Jaén and beef from Ávila and Salamanca. And calamari sandwiches in Madrid? Perhaps that is one for the locals. There are too many memorable meals to mention, but I’m not sure we’ll ever beat the time we came across two men roasting whole fish on barbecues fashioned from oil drums outside a roadside shack on the coast north of Santander. Better tasting or fresher fish, I’ve never eaten.

And of course the vineyards are not just for show. Spain produces the best value wine in the world, and there’s probably nowhere in the world you can get a better bottle for under €8, and for €30 something really outstanding. I have developed a preference for reds from Ribera del Duero and whites from Ribera Sacra, but really, you cannot go wrong. Early on in our tenure here I did an experiment to see exactly how low you could go and the wine still be drinkable. It’s about €3, although the €1.50 rosé from the corner shop in Cangas was useful for cleaning the barbecue.

And Spaniards are very gregarious so there’s always a good opportunity to take a copa or a gin and tonic (which is taken very seriously). And no better people to have it with. All we have found since we came to Spain is kindness and generosity. There’s a healthy outlook on life here. People are more relaxed than their northern neighbours, live longer and seem happier. And why not? The sun almost never stops shining, and it is the land of plenty. The “relaxedness” shouldn’t be mistaken for idleness though, as it too often is. Spaniards are as industrious and efficient as any other Europeans, in my experience, they just choose not to let it interfere with life as much as the rest of us. And more power to them for that.

So to all of them and everyone else who has made our time here so enjoyable - and in particular to the four of you who came with me: Muchísimas Gracias.

And for those of you who'd like to pay us a visit: there's plenty of room at the inn, but time may be running out...