 Word On Books
with Jeremy Fenton
The Smoke Jumper
By Nicholas Evans
Published by Corgi
 Nicholas Evans' first novel, The Horse Whisperer, sold 10 million copies after its release in 1995. It has been translated into 36 languages and reached the top of the bestseller lists in 16 different countries. It has also been made into a moderately successful film directed by (and starring) Robert Redford.
None of which necessarily make it a good read (there is some merit to the argument that an initial massive marketing campaign was the real success story). Whatever the truth, the central idea driving The Horse Whisperer was interesting enough to sustain its sales for several years.
I doubt whether Evans' latest book, despite being dressed in some similar fictional clothes, will have the same semi-lasting appeal.
A Smoke Jumper - in American lingo - is a firefighter who gets dropped by parachute into remote 'forest' fires. It's from this point that the novel takes off.
In the summer Connor Ford joins his best friend Ed Tully smoke jumping and dreaming of becoming a photographer. That is before a "terrible fire" - and a girl - cause an irreparable rift between the two that sees Connor wandering the world generally putting his life in danger while taking photographs of wars and natural disasters (for which he earns 'fame but never happiness').
While in part being a meditation on human suffering and our ability to put ourselves in the most challenging of situations (whether it be for the adrenalin rush, or for darker, more self-destructive reasons), The Smoke Jumper is really a pretty standard romance in all.
That's not to say that Evans doesn't have a way with crafting words into a compelling tale, but this novel is overly long and sometimes just plain boring.
But I guess you take your chances with any book that's billed as a searing work of "love and loyalty, guilt and honour".
The Ship of Fools
By Gregory Norminton
Published by Sceptre
 The Ship of Fools is 25 year old Gregory Norminton's first novel, and what an accomplished piece of work it is.
Taking its name from the Hieronymous Bosch painting, The Ship of Fools is a hard work to categorise. A plot is largely eschewed as the characters on board the title's ship vie for attention through their outrageous, inter-connected stories.
There's an immodest bather, drunkards, a glutton (whose stomach does his talking for him), a fool, a woman, a monk, three choristers and a nun - all with a particular story to impart.
While disjointed and often frustrating (as the tales start, end and echo backwards and forwards in new forms), the whole picture that emerges by the end of the book is remarkable - akin in some ways to a modern Canterbury Tales by Chaucer.
As a reader you have to work hard (with many sections demanding to be reread), but the combination of intertwined satire, romance, cautionary story, fairy tale and, above all, black humour is adventurous and rewarding.
That Norminton is an Oxford English graduate who has trained as an actor is no surprise: The Ship of Fools displays an immensity of literary knowledge, with dialogue that often more resembles a theatrical work than any page-bound novel.
It's recommended and challenging literature.
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