From Andrea di Robilant to Simon Morrison: new books reviewed in short (original) (raw)

This Earthly Globe: A Venetian Geographer and the Quest to Map the World by Andrea di Robilant

Open-source intelligence is not a creation of the internet age but has a venerable history. In 1550, a Venetian civil servant named Giovambattista Ramusio published a book of travel information named Navigationi et Viaggi (“Navigations and Travels”). Two more volumes appeared in the next nine years. According to Andrea di Robilant, author of this engrossing and at times thrilling account of Ramusio and his enterprise, publication was “the biggest Wikileak of the Renaissance”.

Ramusio had used his position in the greatest maritime republic in the world to gather every scrap of information about foreign parts he could find. His sources included Marco Polo, Leo Africanus and Ferdinand Magellan, as well as secret reports from returning mariners, and he collated his information to display the full extent of the world. His book described the people, customs, plants and wildlife of China, Africa, Canada, South America, Persia and Muscovy. Ramusio was driven by his own curiosity and a desire to reveal hidden information and in doing so, says Di Robilant, he not only democratised knowledge but brought the modern discipline of geography into being.
By Michael Prodger Atlantic, 272pp, £22

Turning to Stone by Marcia Bjornerud

Earth’s story is remarkably long, tumultuous and enduring; one of death and destruction, yet also one of survival and renewal. It is not simply a passive backdrop against which human stories unfold – it is the backbone of the human experience. To demote matter that is imbued with infinite wisdom to something inert and unresponsive is not only a tragedy but also leads to cultural anomie. Or so argues the structural geologist and academic Marcia Bjornerud, and it this premise that is at the crux of Turning to Stone, which, as part memoir, part science book, deftly interweaves Bjornerud’s story – from a child in rural, sandstone-rich Wisconsin to a 30-something widowed mother of three researching eclogite on a remote, wind-scoured Norwegian island – with that of the planet’s.

She reasons that rocks articulate themselves in a way many have forgotten how to hear, and provides a compelling framework in which one can reconnect with this esoteric language. Having extracted profound insight from the substance she has dedicated her life to, Bjornerud demonstrates how the scientific can ascend to the philosophical. Hers is a remarkably human take on the geological world.
By Zoë Huxford Wildfire, 320pp, £25

Tchaikovsky’s Empire: A New Life of Russia’s Greatest Composer by Simon Morrison

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s compositions are a manifestation of his personality “and that”, says Simon Morrison, “like all personalities, greatly changed”. Yet Tchaikovsky’s Empire not only recounts the composer’s life and professional development, but also the evolution of music as a field of study and an art form. Weaving in personal letters and concert reviews, Morrison creates a vibrant picture of the eastern-European performing-arts scene of the late 19th century.

Full of pan-Slavism with imperialistic influences, Tchaikovsky’s 169 pieces of music – ranging from operas to ballets and cantatas – were shaped by socio-political events in Russia and abroad. His “Marche Slave” (“Slavonic March”), Op 31, for example, celebrated Russia’s intervention in the first Serbian-Ottoman War (1876-78) by combining Serbian folk melodies with the national anthem of the Russian empire.

Morrison draws on Tchaikovsky’s personal experiences, such as his short-lived and loveless marriage to Antonina Miliukova or his sister’s death, amid thorough descriptions of his works to add vivacity and meaning to his timeless empire of music.
By Zuzanna Lachendro Yale University Press, 384pp, £25

True Love by Paddy Crewe

Paddy Crewe’s world is a bleak corner of northern England – all shingle beaches, unkempt meadows, silty rivers and moody underpasses. And his characters are the lost and abandoned, the waifs and strays who wander this landscape, mourning and seeking. More specifically in this novel there’s Keely, the daughter of a sea-coaler, whose life ricochets from one catastrophe to the next, and Finn, a quiet loner brought up by his grandparents. The test of the novel is what these two individuals can produce as Crewe brings their stories together. A true, perfect love – or a love that is true only in the sense of its tragedy and failure.

Crewe’s story is therefore one of low, heavy emotions. But it is sustained throughout by the gruff lyricism of his writing. When Keely’s father suffers a breakdown, unable to leave his bedroom, the air “smells like old sweat, sour and oniony”, and at a funeral “everyone’s dressed in black, pecking like crows at the wilted buffet”. And while the novel moves at a steady pace, it builds to a climactic final third – not the ending of a love story, perhaps, but one that lands with the weight of truth nevertheless.
By Nicholas Harris Doubleday, 320pp, £16.99

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This article appears in the 21 Aug 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The Christian Comeback