Another Time - W H Auden

 The 1930s were the era of Auden and his circle - the Auden Gang, the Pylon Poets, or (Gawd 'elp us) MacSpaunday.   It began with Auden's Poems and ended with Another Time.   By 1940 Auden was 'married' and living in the USA.   The UK, the England which he loved so profoundly and criticised so briskly in his early work, was at war.   The old gang - Day Lewis, MacNeice and Spender - had gone their separate ways.   Not that they had ever really been together.   The one and only thing they had in common was Auden, and he had been gone - to Germany, China, Iceland and now America - since the middle of the decade.

Another Time is the book in which Auden achieves full maturity.   His technique is refined and elegant, his thoughts serious and profound.   Here we have the magnificent 'Musee des Beaux Arts', the memorial poems for W B Yeats and Sigmund Freud, and the wondrous 'September 1, 1939'.   There are other gems and some dross.   Over all, though, it is a landmark in Auden's development and the development of English poetry as a whole in the Twentieth Century.

What I enjoy about Auden is the indirect approach, the way he draws us in to his way of thinking.   The texts are polished but the meanings are rich, diverse and require long reflection.   I've had this book beside my armchair for something like a year.   Certain poems (mainly the ones cites above) have been read many times until I feel I have finally found and unlocked the puzzles.   Another Time not only changed my mind about Auden, it made me a better person.

The hardback edition, for Faber's 90th anniversary, is a thing of beauty in itself.

Smoke Screen - Jorn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger

Another Horst/Enger collaboration in the Blix/Ramm series.   I can't decide if it comes before or after Unhinged (see below) and that's a good sign, showing you can start anywhere in the run.   It's another cracking idea: a bomb goes off in the centre of Oslo on New Year's Eve; Blix is on duty, Emma Ramm is there because she has a funny feeling.   Blix rescues one victim from the river.   She's carrying ID belonging to Ruth-Kristine Smeplass, whose daughter Patricia was snatched ten years ago and never found.   Patricia's father Christer Storm Isaksen killed a man who said he was involved; Blix was there when he did it.   Now Christer, in gaol but coming to the end of his sentence, has received a photograph which he believes shows Patricia now aged eleven.

Things get even more complicated.   Emma has suffered a personal loss in the bombing.  Only work can keep her occupied.   Blix believes Ruth-Kristine was the target of the bomber.   He digs deeper into the kidnapping.   It's a great yarn, effectively told.   The collaboration works really well.   It all builds nicely towards---

And then, I'm afraid to say, the climax is something of a disappointment.   Plot-wise, it is the only possible ending, but it is poorly done and a pointless epilogue doesn't help.   Even so, Smoke Screen was an enthralling read and not only will I read the next Horst/Enger when I come across it, I saw on social media yesterday that Enger has collaborated with someone else, a lead I shall definitely be pursuing.