The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer - A Book Review

I always pick up a Jeffrey Archer whenever I spot one. I saw this in a charity shop in Moffat or Biggar on a camping trip and even though it seemed the protagonist was a woman, fished in my pocket for a quid and shuffled out of the shop with it under my arm like a goblin having stolen some treasure from Aladdin's cave.

Don't I like stories where protagonists are women, I hear you ask? Maleficent, Aliens, Silence Of The Lambs and Spirited Away are some of my favourite films, so that can't be strictly true.

Do I think men can't write convincing female characters, I hear you ask? Well, maybe, maybe not. They say write what you know, but they also say write what you don't know. So who knows.

Do I think the book was marketed towards women and so would have little for me to enjoy or empathise with? Maybe a little.

When I was a kid my Mum always had issues of Woman and Woman's Own lying around the house, and I used to flick through them and think, 'There is nothing in here for me' - a 12 year old boy - 'except for the competitions.' I read somewhere (probably in a book entitled 'How to Win at Competitions') that the secret to winning competitions is entering them. Lots of them. So I entered as many competitions as I could get my hands on, several from Woman and Woman's Own. And did I win anything? No. Not from them. But I did win a mug from a competition in Your Sinclair or something like that for my sketch on how Andy Capp's hairstyle might look under his cap. I remember drawing a very colourful mohawk. So I guess I am an 'award-winning artist.'

Anyway, whatever my chauvinistic, preconceived ideas about the book, I bought it, didn't I? And why? Well, a) because Jeffrey Archer, despite ending up in prison for perjury and perversion of the course of justice, and being a conservative, writes damn good novels and has constantly delivered on plot, humour and character in the past. It would be no exaggeration to say that Mr Archer's arrows hit the bullseye consistently when it comes to good, solid fiction. (See what I did there?) B) the cover had a red cloth, a white thorny rose and a president's seal on it. Not the usual soft, bright pastel shades on a cover aimed at the middle-aged housewife demographic. And c) there were also two duelling enemies in it called Kane and Abel. Wasn't there already a book about them, or a movie? Oh yeah, the bible. No, I mean another one.

Suffice to say, I was intrigued. And so should you be.

I imagined from the title and book cover that it was about a young woman who started out good and kind, then lost her way, became an evil sorceress, and then came back to save the day just before the final curtain falls. Was I close? That would be telling. Also sounds a bit like the plot for Maleficent.

Anyway, 'The Prodigal Daughter' (published 40 years ago in 1982) was great. I loved it. I laughed, I cried, I gripped the pages in triumph, I held them in slack disappointment, I followed the life, loves and career of Florentyna from her teddy bear christened Franklin D Roosevelt who gets his arm torn off and covered in ink, to her final golf game that she loses on a technicality. Her life is a real rollercoaster.

I don't know how he does it. I don't know how he weaves his tale into history so skilfully you end up asking yourself, did that really happen? You can't see the join between fact and fiction. It's flawless. It's so detailed. Nothing is missed. I don't know how a British writer can know so much about American politics. I don't know how long he takes to write a book but it seems he fires them out effortlessly. 

Hats off to you, sir.

Libraries

They'll soon become a thing of the past. Why bother using them anyway? It's all on the internet, right? Who wants to get up, put their shoes and jacket on, walk all the way down the street in the cold, rain and dark to go into a building whose soul purpose is to lavish stories of wonder and life-long experience on you for free? A place that's quiet, peaceful, thought-provoking, and staffed by friendly people whose job is to help you find the book or information you want. Why bother? It's all on the internet. Sure, your view is kind of obstructed by myriad ads for things you don't want or need, slowed down by lag, and the occasional eye strain headache, but it's there, isn't it? Sure you might forget to actually look for the thing you were looking for while distracted by a picture of a cat on a treadmill or Boris Johnson on a unicycle. Or you might just occasionally think, 'ach, I'll just jump on the old facebook or youtube to entertain myself first' and before you know it it's 5am and you're dehydrated and thinking, "what the hell just happened to the last 12 hours?" Who wants to have to actually hold a lump of paper mulch and turn the pages - what an effort! Much easier to scroll. Apart from the repetitive strain injury of course. And then you have to find a bookmark, and remember when the book's to go back. Who wants that hassle? If something's free it's worthless, right? If something's free it's worthless.

Clementinum in Prague, Czech Republic

Libraries should be protected and expanded, not shrunk or suffer reduction in opening hours. In this day and age of spiritual and creative desertification it's imperative that we ensure that the last bastions of hope, adventure, knowledge, discovery, peace & quiet, wisdom, self expression and thought are preserved. If everything becomes digitised it'll become characterless ones and zeros. Humanity will take another step towards the electronic abyss and drown itself in a River Styx of Google ads for six packs and Nikes. Libraries are universes within universes. Words are thoughts.

Saving Carmondean Library

Had a nice meeting at BNI TGI in the Edinburgh Marriott after which rushed back to Dobbies, Livingston to begin some video editing, when at the back of nine I saw on the Save Our Ability Centre - West Lothian FB Page there was a meeting about the proposed squeezed relocation of Carmondean Library into the Ability Centre building, at 9:30am in Livi Civic Centre. 

Typical, I thought. Having the meeting just when I'm at BNI TGI and can't attend. Then I looked at my watch. It was 9:10am. Oh. I can attend.

Immediately discarded my half drunk pot of tea and jumped in the car, parked it up at Howden Park and legged it down the hill to the Civic Centre with loads of great arguments I intended to put forward for how important libraries are (student literacy levels, social interaction, promoting and using imagination and creativity) and why Carmondean Library is perfect where it is (nice and central, next to supermarket, health centre and park) and should be protected, invested in, expanded even (more books, audio books, DVDs, book clubs, writing classes) - not crammed into a building and shuffled off out of sight.

I jogged breathlessly into the Civic Centre only 10 minutes after the meeting started, signed in and crept into the public gallery unsure whether I could/should/wanted to say something, and/or whether I should blurt something out even if I wasn't allowed, while simultaneously shaking my fist or some such. 

After a nice chap confirmed to me the public weren't actually permitted to comment, I resigned myself to sitting in the public gallery between someone who bore all the resemblances to being a reporter from my days doing work experience at the EK News, and two other people sitting up the back. 

The Save Carmondean Library issue was the last on the agenda. It turned out the nice guy who who told me I couldn't comment was the Acting head of Housing, Customer and Building Services who seemed to be leading the charge to move Carmondean Library into the Ability Centre (push pull Jaws effect here) and 'decant' the staff and users of the Ability Centre into Deans Community High School for ten months while the renovations took place. 

According to he and the Acting Head of Social Policy the feedback that they had received about the proposal to cram Carmondean Library and Ability Centre into one building was nothing but positive. Everybody they had spoken to was over the moon about the move. People were tripping over themselves to spill adulations and praise upon them like pearls.

But who have they talked to? Well, not me. And they don't seem to have heard of Facebook in general or the 'Save The Ability Centre' page or 'Save Carmondean Library' pages in particular.

After cramming my fist in my mouth in an effort to not blurt out something untoward, the meeting drew to a close and I had a chat with the other two good people in the gallery, who it turns out were to be my allies in this fight, and I look forward to working with them in the hope that we can bring this to light, reach the public and find out whether it really is a necessary and popular move, and if not, what else can be done instead.

It's just a shame a public consultation (not to be confused with 'engagement') was carried out before all of these plans were put in motion rather than in the coming months just before they are finalised.

Then if/when we win all their work that we have paid for will not have been in vain.