Book reviews: The Gilded Stage | The Freedoms of Suburbia | Peak Water

Published on Friday 20 November 2009 18:36

THE GILDED STAGE BY DANIEL SNOWMAN (Atlantic, £40)

OBLIVIOUS to the action on the stage below, Tolstoy's characters pursue soap operas of their own, high up in their boxes; Italian patriots cheer for Verdi – and for freedom. At Bayreuth, the beauties of The Meistersingers inspire the Master Race; Frasier and Niles bid for superman status in Seattle society. What do they know of opera who only opera know? Snowman's love for opera is evident, as is his appreciation that no form has historically been more central to social, public and political life. The rise of the prima donna; the cult of the conductor; the transition from the aristocratic patron through the impresario to the state arts policy; the evolution of the audience. Respectful without being reverent, Snowman has a forthright style that makes this book a treat to read; he's never short of a vivid image or a telling detail.

THE FREEDOMS OF SUBURBIA

BY PAUL BARKER

(Frances Lincoln, 25)

FEW of us fantasise a life in Privet Drive. Rowling's Little Whinging is just the latest in a line; nothing says "small-minded mediocrity" like a suburban setting. Our ideal selves are country-dwellers, close to nature (or Debrett's); or else we're city-slickers – edgy and urbane. And yet, most of us end up leading a suburban existence of some sort. The triumph of experience over hope? Not if Paul Barker is to be believed. In an elegantly argued, appealingly illustrated essay, he makes the case for suburbia into a fanfare for the common man. In its much-maligned sprawl, he says, we find the space to live and breathe. That unplanned chaos is creative; that so-called conformism a petit-bourgeois anarchy. Perverse? At times it seems so; but then you wonder if Barker doesn't know us better than we know ourselves.

PEAK WATER

by Alexander Bell

(Luath, 16.99)

WHILE sea levels rise, the wells run dry, our human future draining steadily away. That's Bell's claim in this arrestingly urgent essay. Just as fresh water was the foundation for civilisation, the coming drought will bring it down. We worry about reaching "peak oil", but have passed the point of no return for water without even noticing. We're in for an arid apocalypse – war, famine, pestilence and all. In what's already a global crisis, dreich Scotland won't be spared. A wet blanket, but an eloquent and alarmingly persuasive book.