Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.
Well the two library books I took out about three weeks ago have now been finished. The first of which was Nye:The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan by Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds.
As I understood this book from the introduction it's mentioned to be relatively neutral from the biographies that preceded it. Well in that it succeeded.so much so that it should be subtitled Fifty Shades Of Dull.
What this is essentially is a ponced up essay with a foreword by Lord Kinnock . A man whose socialist legacy is so great his Labour MP son takes his daughter to private school.
It is too short. Two hundred and sixty pages is just not even scratching the surface of a life such as Bevan's. There were many moments in this where the phrase "in one bound he was free" came into my head as it whizzes through his political career yet in a style where you could see more emotion in a tombstone.
For example the creation of the National Health Service is given a chapter of just eighteen pages. Eighteen? Even eighty would've probably been not enough.
As for the book being "the political life" of it's subject. The author is happy to go into tittle tattle. He mentions that Bevan was not the love of his wife's Jennie Lee's life (apparently that as a man who died earlier) something I don't remember when reading her book My Life With Nye in the eighties (read in London then when moving to Wales would've never entered my head). Furthermore he says they had an "open marriage". I won't question that statement,I don't know. What I will condemn him for is immediately afterwards mentioning that Bevan got on well with Barbara Castle but saying that there was no record of an affair. Why mention it then? Is it because she was probably the most successful female British politician before Margaret Thatcher?This was just plain petty.
Speaking personally whether it is pro or anti my political beliefs I want political books to have a political belief powering them or else it's just ends up like this. The most pointless political book I've ever read.
The only good thing I will say about this books is that it inspires me to read Michael Foot's biography which I already suspect will be miles better
The other book, which of course could not be more different was My Life In Football by Trevor Brooking. I loved this book. But I think you could realise from my idolatry when borrowed that it would have taken a great deal for me to have disliked it. I am biased I admit it. The only slight minus point was that it was the second best football book I've read this year. Alan Stubbs is still so far the best.
As I wont be able to go to the library until Tuesday it means I need new non Penguin to read. Tomorrow I'm off to Epping for the weekend for reasons I'll explain on Sunday or Monday. I'm not taking the Fatima Meer autobiography of Nelson Mandela because I'll probably finish it before this trip ends and then I would probably have to watch Midsomer Murders with my mother (that is digital hell let me tell you). So the next book(s) I'll be taking there are.
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| The Helene Hanff Omnibus |
This is an omnibus of her books other than the one I bought in Bridgend a few weeks back. I've read 84 Charing Cross Road before and loved it. Will reread that again.
Until the next time.
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