James Buchan (1) (1954–)

Not much short of a masterpiece, although a fairly modest book in its ambition. Its triumph - apart from in its erudition and style - is in its conception. Uniquely, as far as I am aware, this book attempts a cultural definition of money, and shatters the pretension of economics as a science. Utterly convincing and compelling in equal measure. It is not without out the odd flaw (a dodgy assertion, a specious argument, an unflattering revelation about its author) but I have already read it show more twice and doubtless will read it again. Over the years I have bought extra copies to foist on friends and colleagues. For the casual browser on LibraryThing, all I can say as an online stranger is that I urge you to read this book - moreso than any other I have read. show less

An excellent historical-philosophical-literary look at the growing power of money in our world, and a plea for sanity. "Humanity itself is transforming into the dragon of the Nibelungen, squatting in a filthy cave amid heaps of dusty treasure." (Interestingly, I found this book reduced to $2, as further evidence of the disengagement of price and value).

Highly recommended by its publisher (need this be said?), A Street Shaken by Light (Mountain Leopard Press) by James Buchan is published in September and is certainly one hell of a yarn. The hero, William Nielson, is a young man who leaves his native Scotland to find fortune and adventure abroad. He makes his way to Paris where he falls in love at first sight and is immediately imprisoned. On his release, he sets off across the world where he has adventures galore, learning diplomatic, show more linguistic and military skills that are allied to his hopeless romantic attachment to that girl he first encountered on his arrival in Paris. It swirls, surges and swamps at times as Nielson’s escapades become ever more arduous and he learns how to master whatever is thrown at him. This is historical fiction and storytelling at its entertaining best and is apparently the first in a trilogy. show less

I didn’t get on with this. On the front cover it declares itself “a ghost story” but anyone expecting a shivers down your spine-type experience is likely to be disappointed. It has a cerebral feel to it and is altogether too intelligent for common or garden spookiness. Supernatural events are few and far between and largely confined to dream sequences. But if it wasn’t a ghost story I’m not sure what else it was supposed to be.

From an early stage I had the feeling that whilst the show more plot probably played itself out fully in the author’s head, only a small fraction of it found its way onto the page. I kept turning back and re-reading sections, convinced I had missed something...the piece that would make it all make sense. But no. We simply stumbled between disjointed events, many of which suggested an interesting direction in which the story might head, but then off we would go on another tangent. There was a chapter in the first half where Jim Smith, the uncharismatically named central character, attends a party at the home of his rich neighbours and is treated rudely. There were moments of drama, moments of humour, and he got to sit next to someone called Glory Gainer who I fully expected to burst into a rendition of “I Will Survive” at any moment, and I thought I was really going to like this book. It’s not as though the quality of the writing is bad – quite the opposite. But it’s writing that gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Soon we were heading off on another incomprehensible dream sequence before an archaeology plotline attempted to gain ascendency. But of course that also shuddered to a premature halt.

Looking back, I wonder whether I really “knew” any of the characters. Jim himself I wrongly supposed to be in his fifties. Fair enough – the first page states that he’s in the “prime of life” but as that’s a phrase I have often heard used to patronise those past middle-age I made incorrect assumptions. Later....much later... I discovered he was younger than me, the rascal. Having mentally placed the waistband of his trousers a few inches below his armpits I had to mentally readjust that and everything else. It was most troubling. It was the same, only worse, with the rest of the cast who are seen in tiny snippets and never feel as important to the reader as they apparently are to the story. It comes to something when one of the most rounded characters is the dog. (He’s called Argos. “What? Like the catalogue-store on the ring road?” Jim observes in a rare moment of real-world clarity)

Having staggered through to the end my head is full of questions, but they are only questions about why things happened the way they did in the story, why did so-and-so say that, how was such and such a character able to guess such and such a thing etc, they aren’t questions that broaden my understanding of any real world topic. I never leave books unfinished, but sometimes ...I really am tempted. show less