This week's releases reviewed
How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
Sarah Bakewell
Vintage, £8.99
The title is both lofty and mischievous, but so too were Michel de Montaigne’s 107 essays, written over 20 years of introspection, on everything from drunkenness to cannibals to vanity and the imagination. This is no ordinary literary biography. Bakewell takes us through episodes from the life of the French 16th-century nobleman, wine-grower and thinker, producing a vivid and comical portrait. The prose is joyful, each chapter starting with one of Montaigne’s odd and wonderful maxims, and the ideas are as fresh and unconventional now as they were for his first readers, in 1580. Bakewell has a confident grasp of the period’s history and engages critically with western philosophy, from the ancients to Nietzsche. In the midst of all the excitement, soul-searching readers might find her chapter headings misleading and come out none the wiser about how, incidentally, to live.
Maggie Armstrong
Michelangelo’s Finger: An Exploration of Everyday Transcendence
Raymond Tallis
Atlantic. £9.99
The pointing index finger is at the centre of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adamin the Sistine Chapel, in Rome, and Raymond Tallis would claim that this is no mere coincidence. He cogently argues that the ability to point is what makes humans unique among animals. This meditation takes us from the mechanics of the body to the linguistic development of the infant and addresses the failure to point in people with autism. It asks why other animals don't point, recounts pointing by proxy and ponders why it is considered so rude to point. Drawing on a range of disciplines, from physiology to philosophy, he impresses on the reader the versatility and profundity of this seemingly insignificant gesture. One can see why, with a style that is both academic and anecdotal, Tallis is regarded as a reigning polymath.
Sarah McMonagle
Naming the Bones
Louise Welsh
Canongate, £7.99
Welsh's fourth novel takes place within Scottish academia, where Murray Watson, a professor of English literature, begins writing a book about a promising poet, Archie Lunan, who died mysteriously three decades earlier, on the remote island of Lismore. What begins with a passionate quest to resuscitate the poet's reputation (echoing AS Byatt's Possessionin places) evolves into an exploration of the university environment, as well as Watson's own life. Welsh takes us from Glasgow to Edinburgh to Lismore, with a particularly vivid portrayal of the dark, rain-soaked island, whose mystical aspect permeates the novel. Yet it is the role of knowledge and the allure of its pursuit that are central here, themes that Welsh illustrates with clever, vivid prose that mixes classical references with modern locations, breaking the boundaries of the crime genre and creating a rich, Gothic literary fiction.
Siobhán Kane
The Woman Who Shot Mussolini
Frances Stonor Saunders
Faber, £9.99
The title of Frances Stonor Saunders’s latest offering could be described as a little misleading. Although the book deals in depth with the titular assailant, the aristocratic Irishwoman Violet Gibson, there is more scope and bravery to Saunders’s work than to mere biography. She widens her lens to include immaculately constructed critiques of fascism and psychology, and delicately creates a sense of place as Rome begins to be cannibalised by Mussolini’s national security state. She uses the character of Gibson as a grand rubric to examine the construction of social systems that largely denied women any agency, and does so without being unfair or manipulative to her subject. Saunders’s thoughtful discussion and forceful comment dissect the legitimacy afforded to mental instability, and contrast it with the equally contingent construction of fascism. The result is a compelling work, skillfully written, that encourages the reader to more rigorously examine the underpinnings of structures and ideas.
Jack Horgan-Jones
Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades
Jonathan Phillips
Vintage, £9.99
What first drew Phillips to study the crusades was the protagonists involved, especially “one of history’s great double acts”, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. Much attention is paid to these two, and other major figures as well, but interesting light is shone on more minor figures, such as Queen Melisende, “an intimidating and astute politician who dominated the kingdom of Jerusalem during the mid-12th century”. Phillips shows “the myriad contradictions and the diversity of holy war” – on both sides. Faith was the primary motivation among both sets of fighters, a fervour that led to horrific butchery but also to self-sacrifice, genuine heroism and even, at times, acts of simple human kindness. “Holy war” could also be waged against co-religionists – by Christians against Cathars and Sunnis against Shiites. The closed mind of the holy warrior allowed for no deviation. The main crusades are covered, and the concept of crusading is brought right up to date in this enlightening, thought-provoking and animated account.
Brian Maye
