Chatting to me about books the other day, my nephew – a scientific type – mentioned this one which had intrigued and fascinated him. And I’m so glad he did because it’s the most enthralling non-fiction book I’ve read since Entangled by Merlin Sheldrake which I wrote about here in February 2024.

William Smith (1769-1839) was the son of an Oxfordshire blacksmith who eventually created what this book’s title refers to – the world’s first geological map.  I had, to my shame never heard of him and neither, I think, had my nephew. Smith was a self-educated canal engineer and surveyor who became fascinated with the rocky strata he was working though only a few years after the term “geology” was coined. His major observation was that different sorts of fossils are found in different sorts of rock even as they run in massive seams across the country. He concluded therefore that it is possible to date the fossils from this data, thereby negating all the orthodox religious views about creation as a seven day event which took place four millennia before Christ – a doctrine in which many people still believed. His work, almost literally, paved the way for Darwin and Wallace and their theories of natural selection later in the nineteenth century

Eventually Smith began to map his conclusions and one of his masterpieces hangs behind a curtain at Burlington House Academy in Piccadilly – which is Simon Winchester’s starting point for his engaging biographical story. The trouble was that others were beginning to draw similar conclusions and Smith was very badly treated.  His work was plagiarised and stolen – mostly by dilettante, well-born amateur geologists who, among other slights, snobbishly denied him membership of the Geological Society when it was formed in 1807, because he wasn’t the right sort of chap. So severe did his problems become that he spent eleven weeks in a debtors’ prison. Meanwhile he had made an unfortunate marriage to a woman who sounds like a cross between Mrs Rochester and Tchaikovsky’s wife Antonina,  although Smith’s diaries, a rich source of information for Winchester, say little about her. When he was discharged from prison he left London and went to live in Yorkshire where he seems to have found peace and at least some of the acclaim he was more than entitled to. The Geological Society which soon ceased to be a lunch club and became much more focused on serious science, eventually awarded Smith its first Wollastaon medal in 1831 which was very prestigious and remains so to this day.

Winchester, ever inch a story teller, writes very compellingly and one senses that his heart really is in this book because he studied geology himself at Oxford before branching into political and other journalism. There are one or two dating errors in the history. For instance he mentions wisteria-covered cottages in Oxfordshire in the late eighteenth century but wisteria didn’t arrive in the UK (from China) until 1816 and it this leapt off the page at me because, my a strange coincidence I researched this for a story of my own only a few months ago. But this, and couple of other similar tiny things,  are very minor gripes in a fine book.

Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

PERSONAL NOTE

 This blog is, for me, rather a special one. It is five years since I posted the very first one about Death of Grass by John Christoper on 13 January 2021. So I’m celebrating the quinquennial anniversary of Susan’s Bookshelves. And I as I do so, of course I can’t help but look back. It was originally a project to give me something to do when we were locked down and there was no other work. But I found I enjoyed doing it and the feedback has always been encouraging.  So 260 blogs and book titles later, here we are. I said at the start that I planned to be as eclectic as possible so I’ve ranged over short stories, poetry, non-fiction, children’s books and, of course novels from all periods including rereads and new discoveries. I’ll read pretty much anything but I can’t stand dragons, giants, trolls and their mates and I’m not keen on ghosts or horror as you might just have noticed …

 Join me in raising a glass to the next five years.

I saw the film in August 1974 – at ABC cinema in Catford – and have never seen it again despite the iconic status it has acquired since. I remember only three things about it: a horse’s head in a bed (of course), a lot of people attending a wedding and a great deal of violence. At the time I didn’t understand it. I had difficulty keeping track of who was who and Marlon Brando’s near incomprehensible drawl didn’t help. Then, a few weeks later, I read Mario Puzo’s marvellous 1969 novel and it all fell into place. I always was better with books than films or TV adaptations – something my students used to tease me about.

A friend recently told me that The Godfather is her 80-something husband’s favourite film and that reminded me of all this and triggered an urge to revisit the novel – and I’m astonished all over again. It may be 56 years old but it has more than stood the test of time.

It’s 1945 and America is in post-war recovery. Five Sicilian Mafia families dominate New York. They run and control almost everything ruthlessly – and that much is based on fact although, of course, Puzo’s characters are fictional. The Corleone family is the dominant one and the novel opens at the wedding of Connie Corleone, the Don’s only daughter. Her eldest brother Sonny is being groomed to take over the “family business” which is ostensibly olive oil. Freddie is a bit of a drop-out and Michael is supposed to be the one with the brains (and a brave war record) who can be kept out of things but of course fate has other ideas as the novel moves through its ten year time span.

Two fascinating things emerge from all this and one senses that Puzo really has penetrated the Mafia mentality. These people have a totally different sense of honour and respect from (most of) the rest of us. They believe that enemies have to be killed, trusted collaborators rewarded financially and objectors taught appalling physical lessons to ensure compliance or submission. None of the men believes any of this is wrong. They simply live in an alternative parallel morality although obviously they take steps to protect themselves from mainstream forces of law and order. Occasionally we get a glimpse of how it looks from outside. Would Kay Adams’s family want her to marry into a family of “gangsters” for example?

Second, there are the women most of whom are tightly bound into their ancestral Catholicism in which godfathers, confirmation and the like are very important. Mama Corleone (who never gets a given name)  goes to mass every morning.  How can any form of Christianity be reconciled with all that killing and revenge? What happened to “turn the other cheek” and “whatsoever ye would have that men should do to you, do ye unto them”?  Well, traditionally, Catholics were never encouraged to read the Bible freely. Moreover, how much do these women actually know about what’s going on? The answer, of course, is that they half-know but mostly deny it to themselves while living very comfortably on family money, an uneasy mindset which Puzo understands very well. And it makes the last few paragraphs of the novel almost unbearably poignant.

He is very good at making unusual characters plausible too. The Don, for example, is a wise, patient, calm, authoritative, loving, scheming. regal and ruthless tactician and leader. It’s a very strange mix but we believe in him totally. Then there’s Michael Corleone whose character, attitude and stature evolve gradually as the novel progresses and he is irreversibly changed by events. And Tom Hagen, the only family “member” (adopted) who isn’t Sicilian, is a calm, efficient, totally trustworthy fixer with law training. He’s very likeable and, as you get sucked into the Corleone mores, you have to keep reminding yourself what he’s actually doing.

It’s a very compelling novel and I’m pleased to have rediscovered it although I shan’t be going back to the film. I am wimpish about on-screen blood and gore. Even when I’m reading, imagination in overdrive, I sometimes have to skim over the worst pages. And The Godfather  certainly isn’t a narrative for the faint-hearted.

Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester

Well if, at this late stage, you’re still looking for a rich, warm, affirmative book to climb into during the next few days, this could be it. I have read Sally Vickers before – the delightful Miss Garnet’s Angel at least twice, for example – but somehow this 2018 title had passed me by. And it shouldn’t have done because it’s a glorious hymn to power of reading, and especially children’s reading, to change lives. Definitely my sort of thing.

Sylvia Blackwell takes a post as children’s librarian in East Mole, a small fictional town in Wiltshire. It is the 1950s which Vickers captures perfectly. She is a year younger than me so, as I do, she vividly remembers children eating Spangles, grown ups measuring each other by their war experience and 11+ anxiety dominating everything. There are few TV sets, better off people drive Hillmans and everyone is still influenced by recent rationing. Class prejudice – in both directions – prevails.

Young, keen and passionate about books, Sylvia finds a house to rent and sets about reforming the children’s library. She makes friends locally, the children love her and there’s an ultimately educative liaison – no spoilers. At work though, her reforming zeal is disapproved of by her boss who is a rather complicated character. She buys books for the library, teams up with the primary school and is very quickly able to Make a Difference, as we would say now. But inevitably it goes wrong and suddenly she’s no longer approved of by many of the colourfully drawn inhabitants of East Mole although some of them surprise her. Meanwhile she has a troubled relationship with her own parents, especially her mother back in her native London suburb so there’s guilt there too.

But it’s Part Two which really got me. We’re whizzed forward 60 years where a grandmother – it’s a while before Vickers names her – is a globally successful children’s novelist in the manner of, perhaps, Jacqueline Wilson.  And amidst much brouhaha she’s returning to East Mole, where she grew up, to do a book event, as she does regularly all over the world. Her nicely depicted grandchildren and their parents are accompanying her to East Mole and they’re proud of her, of course, when they’re not on the internet. I was quite moved by all this once I realised who Granny must be. And there’s a wonderful ending which put me in mind of Morpurgo’s The Amazing Story of Adophus Tips or several of Victoria Hislop’s novels. And what a splendid idea to add end notes about all the titles which are mentioned in the novel. Yes, let’s hear if for reading good and loud.

Go on – read it, even if you have to sneak away. I can promise you an entertaining, uplifting respite from preparing Brussels sprouts, playing Monopoly or watching Christmas specials on TV.