2000s

Large and Small

StuckinaBook All , 15 Comments

Here’s a bit of personal trivia for you – the first new book that I ever bought on impulse was Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris. I was about 17, and didn’t buy new books very often (and I still don’t, actually – probably 95% of the books I buy are secondhand) but I had a book token, and this one called out to me. It’s a wonderful, slim volume packed with delightful essays about books and reading – and, in fact, it’s in my ongoing 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Heard About.


It took me another seven years to get around to read At Large and At Small: Confessions of a Literary Hedonist (2007) which my friend Clare got me for my 25th birthday last year. Part of me was worried that I wouldn’t love it as much, and Ex Libris had been such an eye-opener, in terms of making me realise that my bibliophilia didn’t make me strange. Or perhaps it did, but at least I wasn’t the only one! It was a step towards the wonder that is knowing fellow book bloggers.

Well, despite ‘Literary’ being in Fadiman’s subtitle, she has widened her net, rather. It does cover all manner of things – ‘The title is meant to suggest that my interests are presbyopic (“at large”) but my focus is myopic (“at small”).’ Fadiman’s writing is still wonderful – utterly engaging, and personal without being cloying or unduly emotional. She is, indeed, championing the personal essay – a form that has very few authors practising it at the moment. That’s not quite true. I suppose you could say that lots of bloggers write occasional personal essays, although for the most part we tend towards the ‘review’ end of the spectrum, which is quite a different thing. Some bloggers are absolutely brilliant at the personal essay type post (of course, we’re all thinking about lovely Rachel – I can’t say how often people say to me, when the topic of blogs comes up, “Oh, the one I really love is…” and they always say Book Snob. Quite right, too. I’m delighted to have been a small part of her genesis!)

Back to Fadiman. She really has spread her net wide – with the inevitable result that some of the essays will appeal, and some will not. Whereas all book lovers will probably also love Ex Libris, with its various chapters on different facets of reading, there aren’t really any essays in At Large and At Small which are guaranteed to delight all. Topics like post (sorry, mail), ice cream, and coffee are all general enough to be very entertaining to even those who avoid dairy, caffeine, and, er, ink. I can’t stand coffee, but I still found her ode to its joys incredibly fun to read – and Fadiman has a way of engaging the reader which classes her amongst the best of her art form. Here is the opening paragraph of the essay on coffee; I defy you not to be beguiled:
When I was a sophomore in college, I drank coffee nearly every evening with my friends Peter and Alex. Even though the coffee was canned; even though the milk was stolen from the dining hall and refrigerated on the windowsill of my friends’ dormitory room, where it was diluted by snow and adulterated by soot; even though Alex’s scuzzy one-burner hot plate looked as if it might electrocute us at any moment; and even though we washed our batterie de cuisine in the bathroom sink and let it air-dry on a pile of paper towels next to the toiler – even though Dunster F-13 was, in short, not exactly Escoffier’s kitchen, we considered our nightly coffee tirual [EDIT: oops, I mean ‘ritual’, but I love the new word ‘tirual’!] the very acme and pitch of elegance. And I think that in many ways we were right.
I think the reason these sorts of essays work is that Anne and her friends and family are the main focus – or at least a point to which all the tangents are tethered. However, any reader of At Large and At Small, I suspect, will find some of the collection uninspiring. The first essay, on moths and suchlike, was not an auspicious beginning for me. I ended up skimming through the chapter on arctic explorers. And yet I was enthralled by what she wrote on Charles Lamb – an essay I can imagine others would hurry through with the same speed that I dismissed Vilhjalmur Stefansson.

It would be impossible to give you a proper taste of every chapter without making this post enormous, and it would spoil the surprise of reading them. So, I intend to give a warning – Anne Fadiman gives this collection the subtitle ‘Confessions of a Literary Hedonist’, but it is not that. A love of the literary will not carry you through every essay in At Large and At Small. This book is the Confessions of a Polymath, and it is more than likely that Fadiman will leave you cold with some of the essays. She will, however, delight you with others. And so few people write this sort of book this well, that I think it deserves a place on your bookshelf (and mine) for the half or three-quarters of it that you will (and I did) love.

Burying the Pratchett

StuckinaBook All , 17 Comments

First things first – huge congratulations to my brother, who has passed his final lot of actuarial exams, and is now a fully-qualified actuary!

Second things second – onto the post for today (and possibly my favourite ever post title – I do love a pun, donchaknow). There are a few authors who are not just liked or disliked, but seem to inspire a fervour in their fans which sets them apart from common or garden novelists on your bookshelf. Jane Austen, James Joyce, Angela Thirkell – these are all names which come to mind. And, beating all these by securing such fanaticism during his own life, Terry Pratchett.

Of course, there are plenty of people who like Mr. P a bit, or appreciate some of his books and not others, etc. But there are plenty who think he can do no wrong, and refuse to believe that anybody could be immune to his charms. Their eyes light up at his name, and they are adamant that he should be read by all. I don’t think I know anybody quite at this level of fandom in the blogosphere (are there?) but I have met quite a few in book groups and other social gatherings – and Mr. P certainly isn’t without his devoted (if not feverishly fervent) fans among the blogs – including the lovely Claire of Paperback Reader, Sakura of Chasing Bawa, and doubtless many others.

Another of his rational admirers is my housemate Mel. We don’t have a hugely similar taste in books, but we do overlap with quite a few favourite titles (Gilead, Rebecca) and generally know whether or not the other person will share our enthusiasm for a book. I lend her Angela Young, but I wouldn’t bother with E.H. Young. She told me I shouldn’t judge Terry Pratchett by his covers (I think all the ones I’ve seen are awful) and should give him a go – so, over the course of a few months, I read Going Postal (2004).

Going Postal, in brief, is about conman and trickster Moist von Lipwig, who is apparently also in Making Money and Thud! He has been caught, and is faced with the choice of being hanged, or… sorting out Ankh-Morpork’s post office.

The plot winds over 472pp. and it would be too complex to explain to the uninitiated (such as I was myself) what golems or banshees are in the Discworld, er, world. Lots of characters appear in several novels, and I didn’t really know whether people like Havelock Vetinari, who seems to rule the roost, appear in lots of other novels or not. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to about Terry Pratchett say it doesn’t really matter whether or not you read them in order, and that they can all stand alone, but I think perhaps it would take a while to feel like you knew the world Pratchett returns to time and again.

For a full plot outline of Going Postal, I’m going to be lazy and point you in the direction of Wikipedia’s very able summary. The main gist is that the city’s postal service is completely useless, and the post office is filled with tens of thousands of unsent letters – envelopes cascade when any door is opened; the whole building threatens to collapse under the weight of it all. The command of aging postman Tolliver Groat and his assistant, pin-obsessive Stanley Howler, does not inspire confidence. Moist von Lipwig revitalises the postal service, and must decide between honest work or corruption – or, as seems more likely, a blend of the two. In the background, there is also a somewhat unlikely romance with the unaptly named Adora Bell Dearheart.

So… what did I think of my first Pratchett read? Well, I enjoyed it rather more than I thought I would. Some of it is very funny – I especially like the Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang which does not rhyme, an example being “Syrup of prunes: wig”, and I couldn’t help laughing a lot at Stanley’s discourses on the topic of pins. But… but… I did have a few problems with it.

One issue I have with Going Postal, rather than (I assume) Pratchett’s wider work, was Moist himself. Selfishness is the trait I loathe most in fictional characters, and I am never going to be able to get behind a character who is a conman or robber and yet is supposed to be sympathetic too. This is why I can’t watch the TV drama Hustle. And the same casual cruelty which I find so unpleasant in some of Evelyn Waugh’s novels. Moist has something of a redemption (I love that the Wikipedia article lists the themes of the novel as ‘Fantasy/Redemption/Post Office’) but not really – he’s still happy to trick innocent people out of their savings, and so on.

More generally, I found the whole novel a little too *silly*. I love surreal elements in books, and the idea of a post office which needs overhauling could be really fun. But everything is writ so large; there is so much exaggeration and extravagance, from the fantastical names onwards, that it all felt to me a bit like a schoolboy writing his first over-the-top story. Which was fun to read, most of the time, but difficult to feel like it affected me much. Not every novelist has to address the problems of the human condition (although I daresay plenty of Pratchett fans would argue that he does) but one of my problems with fantasy novels is that they often seem to sideline the minutiae of human interaction in favour of wider, more ridiculous and hyperbolic brushstrokes.

This might all be throwing fuel onto the fire for ardent Prachettites. I want to reiterate that I enjoyed Going Postal rather more than I thought I would, and I’m pleased I gave him a go. Since my book group is reading one of his novels later in the year, I daresay I’ll give him another go. But it has not been a wholly successful experiment – the fault is with the reader, not the book; the writing is good, and I imagine Pratchett is one of the best at what he does – but what he does is not what I want, and I shall slink back to my real people in real houses, with only a moderate amount of mail coming through the postbox of a morning.

Tepper Isn’t Going Out

StuckinaBook All , 8 Comments

When lovely Thomas at My Porch visited England last November, he very charmingly bought all the bloggers he met (and some he didn’t) books which he thought we’d like. He put a lot of thought into this, and I was impressed – for me was chosen Tepper Isn’t Going Out (2001) by Calvin Trillin, which Thomas had seen in my Amazon Wishlist. It was there because of him, in fact – he wrote here that Tepper was his favourite fictional character, and that was enough to sway me. Then I read the novel last December, thought it was quirky and great, and… somehow never got around to writing about it. I’m going to do my best to remember now what was great about it.

Murray Tepper is a very laid-back, ordinary man – with one rather bizarre quirk. He likes to spend time sat in his car, reading the newspaper, minding his own business and not bothering him. He parks his car in various spots around New York, knowing which roads use which parking systems, and where he and his car can best be undisturbed. Since he’s sitting in his car, he’ll often get people asking if he’s leaving the parking space – but Tepper isn’t going out.

He doesn’t try to justify his behaviour, and his intricate knowledge of the city’s parking potential – leaving his wife rather long-suffering, and his daughter Linda affectionately confused:

“Hi, Daddy,” she said.

“I’m not going out,” Tepper said.

“Daddy, it’s me – Linda,” his daughter said.

“I recognised you. One of the advantages of having only one daughter is that remembering her name and what she looks like is not difficult. Are you looking for a spot?”

“Of course I’m not looking for a spot, Daddy. Be serious.”

“If you are, it’s good here after six. But I’m not going out.”
Tepper’s job is one of the delights of the novel. I don’t know if it’s the sort of thing that really exists anymore, but it lends great comic possibility. I don’t know what the job title is, but Tepper and his company ‘Worldwide Lists’ compare lists of consumers to see where unexpected similarities between disparate lists might exist. Will buyers of binoculars want bird-watching books, or buyers of earplugs also want lettuce-dryers, etc. And they use this sort of information to sell addresses of customers to people designing products. I’ll let Tepper explain the process himself:
“We start with the obvious. We make a little universe around this imaginary customer of whatever Mittigin’s selling – in this case, someone trying to sleep on an airplane. So people who belong to frequent flyer programs are obviously in this universe. If there aren’t enough people in the center of the universe, we just reach a little farther – where the population is thinner. Barney likes it when we find a little clot of people we didn’t expect – maybe subscribers to the most sophisticated trade magazine for mainframe computer repair people, because those people are always travelling and they’re usually tired and because of their technical bent they might actually be able to figure out Barney’s maps. It gives him a thrill.
Barney Mittigin (“a schmuck”) is responsible for some of the richest comedy in the novel – he specialises in objects which double as other objects. A candlesnuffer that also cuts out melon chunks. An attache case that turns into a foldout computer table. And, in this case, a round-the-neck sleep pillow covered in maps of major airports. Wonderful stuff.

But the main thread of Tepper Isn’t Going Out is definitely Tepper’s determined parking. He starts off being noticed simply by those irked by his seemingly irrational occupancy of spaces – but mayor Frank Ducavelli is on the warpath, and he thinks Tepper is an anarchist.

This is where innocent, odd but pleasant Tepper gets caught up in a furore. Everyone invests his parking with different meaning – and they line up to sit with him and ask advice. For some he is battling the status quo; for others he is the symbol of a left-wing cause. Trillin takes a quirky, slightly silly topic and looks at the hysteria that can arise around a man who doesn’t say very much – but Trillin is wise, and doesn’t let the novel creep too far away from its quirky, silly basis. This isn’t Orwell territory, Trillin isn’t trying to make huge political points through metaphor – he is enjoying the surreal and entertaining things that can happen to offbeat people.

When I’m not reading interwar domestic novels, this is precisely the other sort of novel I rave about. I keep using that word ‘quirky’, but that’s what it is – and it’s so difficult to find left-of-centre novels which aren’t also macabre or ridiculous or *too* silly. Tepper Isn’t Going Out is grounded firmly in the normal world, and nobody’s actions and reactions are all that unlikely. It’s a gem of a novel, and I’m so pleased that Thomas gave it to me – and that I finally got around to writing about it!

Books to get Stuck into:

All Quiet on the Orient Express – Magnus Mills: I only reviewed this recently, but it is a similar (if slightly more unsettling) deadpan look at a surreal situation. For other suggestions, see those at the bottom of this review!

Virginia

StuckinaBook All , 9 Comments

Hands up who saw this post title and thought that I’d be talking about Mrs. Woolf? Well, that was the immediate connection in my mind when I saw Virginia on the shelf in my local £2 bookshop. If it was the title that made me pick it up, it was (a) the beauty, (b) the brevity, and (c) the Scandinavian..ity… that made me buy it. You know what a sucker I am for all those things. And it felt just the right book to read after church, in the park, on a beautifully sunny afternoon.

Jens Christian Grøndahl is a Danish writer who’s probably really well known, but was new to me. Virginia (2000, translated 2003 by Anne Born) is a deceptively simple novella about guilt and the ways in which brief encounters in other people’s lives can change the paths taken for both. If that’s ringing Atonement-sounding bells in anyone’s minds, then you’re not entirely off the mark – but Grøndahl treats the topic rather more calmly. I haven’t read enough Scandinavian literature to comment, I suppose, and I can’t read any except in translation, but I’m going to generalise wildly nonetheless. Scandinavian literary fiction seems to bathe the action in a haze – the beautiful landscapes are reflected in the choice of language, which isn’t short and sharp, but slightly dreamy and pensive. The Guardian reviewer wrote that Virginia ‘makes even Chekhov seem effusive.’ Of course there’s The Girl With The Gruesome Shocks to prove me wrong, but I did say ‘literary fiction’…

Virginia begins in 1942 in occupied Denmark. A young woman (I’m going to take a plunge and say that she’s unnamed, because I don’t *think* we’re told that she’s called Virginia – that name becomes important elsewhere) leaves Copenhagen to stay with a family she barely knows on the North Sea coast – presumably to avoid a city in wartime, although this is never really spelt out. Here is the first paragraph of Virginia, which gives you a taste of the prose:

You could never get used to the sound, the distant drone of aircraft engines passing high overheard in the night. It was hot under the sloping timber roof, and she kept her window open. She lay with one leg outside the duvet, breathing in the stuffy holiday cottage air and feeling the cool breeze on her calf and thigh, listening to the small dry click when the wooden edge of the black-out curtain bumped against the window-frame. She’d just had her sixteenth birthday that summer, the only time she stayed at the house by the sea. She didn’t belong here. She slipped out of our life and we slipped out of hers.

One of that family is our narrator (also unnamed?) who, at fourteen, is a couple of years younger than her, and something of a distant admirer. There is precious little dialogue between them, and almost no indirect speech – in fact there is barely any direct speech throughout Virginia – but Grøndahl evokes their dynamics perfectly. He is full of calf love, and she doesn’t really notice he’s there. The awakening of first infatuation is a topic which has been treated time and again, and although Grøndahl’s approach is gentle and subtle, it would not suffice as the pivot of even so short a novella – and indeed it is not the pivot.

In a local outbuilding there is an English solider, whose aeroplane has come down. While the narrator is infatuated with the girl, she in turn is experiencing her first love – for a man with whom she cannot converse, and whose presence she must keep secret. We learn this piece-by-piece, through the eyes of a fourteen year old boy. Or, rather, through those eyes as remembered by the same boy fifty years later – for Virginia is a novella of remembering, and incomplete recollections. The narrator calls the boy ‘he’, even though it is himself. We see the scenes through a glass darkly – and this is the pivot on which the novella turns. The boy has accidentally discovered the English pilot’s hiding place:

The German soldiers had stopped on the other side of the planked wall. He could hear their voices quite clearly now but couldn’t understand what they said. When he looked up again the pilot gestured excitedly at him as if to urge him away, out of the shed to where the soldiers were coming round the corner to the doorway.

He did not move while the other repeated his desperate, soundless gesture. Not a single thought passed through his mind in the seconds that followed, but through all the succeeding years I have asked myself whether the German soldiers had seen me go into the shed and whether it would have made any difference if I had gone out to them alone instead of letting them find us together.

Maybe they would have searched the place anyway. On the other hand it is not impossible that they might merely have laughed at the terrified boy who came out of his hiding place before they went along the path, while in fact the boy stayed there watching them and holding his breath. The possibility has stayed with me always, like a thought I have never been able to think through to the end and so have never finished.

These thoughts stay with the reader as well as the character through the rest of the novella – we move forwards fifty years. The narrator saw the girl (then a middle-aged, grey-haired woman) only once more, in Paris – he later meets her ex-husband and children. These scenes are haunted by his uncertain guilt – even more subtle than Atonement, because he cannot be certain that his actions were wrong, or just simply tragically unfortunate. It is a moment which has defined much of his life – but one over which he may have had no control.

In so slight a novella, so much is evoked. There is even something of a twist, which I shan’t spoil, but which is elegant and sobering. As I wrote at the top, Scandinavian authors seem to have a beautiful way of encasing a narrative in a sort of hazy beauty. Grøndahl enhances this by having almost no direct dialogue – which makes the novella so much more authentic as the recollections of a 64 year old man for his youth, as well as putting the events at a suitably nebulous distance. For those of you who love novellas as much as I do, Virginia is a really beautiful, thoughtful example (and there are copies from a penny on Amazon!) – I look forward to finding what else Grøndahl has written. Anyone?

Books to get Stuck into:

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson: this portrayal of rural American [edit: I mean Canadian, thanks Elizabeth!] family life, and the sister who left and has felt guilty all her life, has an equally clever twist, as well as being funny, sad, and thoughtful.

Atonement by Ian McEwan: well, it had to be, didn’t it? I’ve not reviewed it on SiaB, but writ on a larger scale than Virginia, it’s undoubtedly a clever and moving examination of how momentary decisions cause lasting guilt.

I feel like a leopard…

StuckinaBook All , 20 Comments

I normally wouldn’t bother writing about a book which left me thinking ‘meh’ (i.e. wholly apathetic) – I don’t really feel that I can construct a proper review about it. This post will probably confirm that I can’t. But The Gingerbread Woman by Jennifer Johnston (which I thought was neither good nor bad) was so loved by Kim, as well as most of the members of my book group, that I was left a bit baffled. (The post title, by the way, refers to a wonderful moment in budget awful reality TV show Coach Trip…)

It’s late and I’m tired, and as I said I didn’t really care enough about this novel to want to put much effort in, so I’m just going to chat and copy across from Amazon:

“Clara, who at 35 makes her living doing “odd jobs for newspapers”, is recovering from a serious operation and spends her days wandering around the cliff tops at Dublin Bay. She stares out to sea, trying to rediscover the direction in her life. One rainy afternoon, she encounters Laurence (Lar), a teacher who has run away from his life in Northern Ireland as he tries to come to terms with a family tragedy. The novel describes how these two unconventional people form a fragile friendship. Alternating the narrative voice, Johnston lets their stories unravel gradually. Both characters are trying to come to terms with loss and the novel examines the contrasting ways they cope: Clara is self-depreciating and humorous but can’t shake off the knowledge that haunts her; Lar is bitter and coiled, bottling up his pain in an ever-present anger. Johnston has no difficulty in keeping the reader intrigued as the plot is never a foregone conclusion.”

Sorry to be lazy… now I’ll turn over to my own thoughts.

Jennifer Johnston has a perfectly serviceable writing style, and occasionally has nice turns of phrase… She dealt skillfully with what were essentially four parallel perspectives (Lar’s present; Lar’s past; Clara’s present; Clara’s past.) But for the most part I was left cold. It’s mean to point out the worst examples within a novel, and I wouldn’t have done this, but someone at book group (ironically enough) chose this as a favourite section, and I thought it was the least realistic paragraph. Lar is on the phone to his Dad, with whom he has had little contact of late:
“There is nothing wrong with me.”

“You’re not yourself.”

“I am myself. I am Laurence McGrane. I am a schoolteacher. I know who I am. I know my wife and child were murdered. I know I am acting in a wild and irrational way towards the people who say they love me. I know that one day I will return to normality and be quiet and polite and acceptable, but not yet. I want to be allowed to scream and burn and hate, until I am sickened by my self-indulgence. I haven’t got a date for that. So f**k off Dad and stop trying to heal me.”

He had never sworn at his father before and the hand that held the receiver trembled as he did so.

There was a long pause.

“We do love you, son,” was all his father said, then he put down the phone and all Lar could hear was the emptiness of disconnection.
Does anyone ever talk like that? It felt like novel-talk, rather than real-talk.

And as for Clara… I think she was supposed to be something of a feisty, slightly kooky, independent heroine. I’m all for feisty, slightly kooky, independent heroines – but they topple so very easily into selfish, overblown, rude heroines. Clara was a bit beloved by some book group members, but I thought she was a paragon of self-involvement… Lar was better, but I think I’d still rather read a novel about his cute little dog.

But it wasn’t even the plot or the characters which didn’t work for me. It was the feel of the book overall – like there didn’t seem much point in reading it. Things were happening to people, or had happened to people, or might happen to people – and none of it much bothered me at all.

This is all (as you’ll have noticed) a bit of a haze, and I’m really just writing about The Gingerbread Woman to ask a question I might have asked before – have you read any books about which you were more or less indifferent, only to find that everyone raved about them? This happens to me quite a lot with modern novels – so many of which seem to dispense with style in favour of plot, or at least that’s true for the ones people recommend. Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is another case in point – interesting idea; incredibly bland prose.

These sorts of clashing viewpoints are especially noticeable at a book group, if you sit down completely unable to understand why everyone else seems enthusiastic about something. So much harder to discuss than a book you hated. In May we’re reading Wuthering Heights – hating Heathcliff as much as I do, sit me down with a Heathcliff-lover and we’ll be gabbing away for hours. But with The Gingerbread Woman… we could talk a bit about the characters and the events, but… in the end, I couldn’t really make myself care all that much.

Over to you. I think reviews like this (not that it is a review; it’s been far too all over the place to qualify) are a bit underwhelming to read – but perhaps you’ll recognise the feeling. Let me know any books which left you indifferent in the face of enthusiasm – or perhaps tell me why I should have liked The Gingerbread Woman more!

Is there no balm in…

StuckinaBook All , , 20 Comments

.

Has there ever been a more convincing review than Rachel’s post on Gilead (2004) by Marilynne Robinson? Seriously, schoolchildren should analyse it as a piece of persuasive writing. Even so, my reading demands and tbr piles meant it took a month or two before the copy I already owned (bought at a church fair in Middle Chinnock, Somerset) worked its way to the top of my pile. And thank goodness it did. Gilead has probably got the most perfectly rendered ‘voice’ of any novel I’ve ever read. Actually, before I go any further, I’m simply going to give you the opening paragraph:

I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, You aren’t very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a very different life from mine, and from the life you’ve had with me, and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to live a good life. And you said, Mama already told me that. And then you said, Don’t laugh! because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face beside your mother’s. It’s a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. I’m always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsinged after I’ve suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.

And so it begins. Gilead is in the form of one long letter, written in Iowa in 1956, from Reverend John Ames to his young son, for his son to read when he is an adult and Ames is dead. For Ames is a very old father, and one with a weak, dying heart. This letter is his attempt to put down all he would ever want to tell his son – stories; history; wisdom; love.

In the hands of a lesser writer, that would be a ruthlessly maudlin concept, but from that first paragraph onwards the reader is swept along by the gentle, lilting, genuine voice of Ames. His story starts with the histories of his father and grandfather – both, like him, clergymen, but with clashing ideals and tempestuous disagreements. He tells of his youthful memories of travelling with his father, to find the place his grandfather died. He tells of the pain his brother caused to the family, and of forgiveness. Throughout the letter he skips about with chronology – as we all do when thinking – and often returns to the events of present day. His son’s voice is rarely heard, but his actions are mentioned – with the deep affection of a father who waited long to become one:

I’d never have believed I’d see a wife of mine doting on a child of mine. It still amazes me every time I think of it. I’m writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you’ve done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God’s grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle. You may not remember me very well at all, and it may seem to you to be no great thing to have been the good child of an old man in a shabby little town you will no doubt leave behind. If only I had the words to tell you.

For a long time, Gilead doesn’t seem to have much plot. It is a mark of a great author that they can captivate you solely with characters and words, rather than events – Robinson certainly does that. But when the reader has settled into assuming that little will unsettle the memories and emotions of an old man, he turns to his oldest friend Robert Broughton – and, more particularly, John (Jack) Ames Broughton. Ames’ namesake is Broughton’s prodigal son, who returns to Gilead after bringing disgrace on the family. The nature of his wrongdoing is held a mystery from the reader, as Ames debates whether or not it is right to disclose it to his son – and so Robinson artfully adds yet another reason to read on.

But that is not the main reason. What makes Gilead so compelling is Ames himself. His voice is gentle, wise, kind, and sad. He is desperate at the idea of losing the opportunity to watch his son grow up, but he is equally amazed that God has granted him a son at all. Wonder fills him so often. Ames writes lovingly of his wife, and deprecatingly of his own failings. He is unfailingly honest and thoughtful – an utterly, utterly good man, and an incredibly lovable one. If Robinson were not a 60 year old woman (when this was written), I’d have assumed it was autobiographical – so convincing and enveloping is the voice of the narration.

Gilead is also an inspiring book to read as a Christian. I am surprised that it has been so successful, since it is such a deeply faith-filled book. I wasn’t sure whether it would appeal to a non-Christian – for, to me, so much of the novel’s richness lies in its incredible depiction of the beauty and depth of a life lived for God – but it seems I was wrong. A reader I met who was affirmedly atheist said she loved Gilead nonetheless. Robinson certainly doesn’t preach, except by example, and I suspect the honesty and accuracy of Ames’ letter would appeal to anybody – although perhaps some of the Biblical allusions would be lost. I especially liked his reference to himself as ‘one of the righteous for whom the rejoicing in heaven will be comparatively restrained’ – a reference to Luke 15:7: ‘I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.’ If you’re not a Christian, please, please don’t let that put you off reading this beautiful novel – any lover of great writing will still love Gilead, I am sure.

I shan’t spoil the end of the novel, except to say that there is no real twist or change; just something simple, beautiful, and sad. I cried a tiny little bit, in the library, as I turned the final page. Gilead is truly one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever encountered. Perhaps I shan’t remember all the details of the story, or the characters, but I doubt I’ll ever forget Ames, or the feeling of being submerged in his life and his words. It’s certainly a novel to which I will return – and it seems only fitting to leave you with his voice rather than my own, with another excerpt which touched me.

When you are an old man like I am, you might think of writing some sort of account of yourself, as I am doing. In my experience of it, age has a tendency to make one’s sense of oneself harder to maintain, less robust in some ways.

Why do I love the thought of you old? That first twinge of arthritis in your knee is a thing I imagine with all the tenderness I felt when you showed me your loose tooth. Be diligent in your prayers, old man. I hope you will have seen more of the world than I ever got around to seeing – only myself to blame. And I hope you will have read some of my books. And God bless your eyes, and your hearing also, and of course your heart. I wish I could help you carry the weight of many years. But the Lord will have that fatherly satisfaction.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

StuckinaBook All , 14 Comments

My housemate Mel (who also edits fab flash fiction blog The Pygmy Giant) was telling me about the book she’d just finished, and was so enthusiastic about it that I told her to put her money where her mouth was. Well, I expect I said something more sensible and less slangy. Either way, she speedily wrote this brilliant review… enjoy and, if you’re like me, be severely tempted…

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Yesterday I finished what I think might possibly be the best book I’ve ever read. It’s probably not, but the fact that I am sitting here trying to get over it makes me think it’s a real contender.

I was introduced to Jonathan Safran Foer perhaps a year ago when my old housemate Liz leant me his first novel, Everything is Illuminated. I’d heard about that book a lot, but always thought it sounded like some pretentious intellectual tome that I’d never want to wade through. It was not. The strange-sounding title comes from the narrator’s technique of trying to write well in English by using a thesaurus far too liberally. It was funny, weird, tragic, original and totally brilliant. I recommend that one too…

So I bought Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close on the back of that good experience. The title is again inspired by the narrator’s distinctive way of describing things. It again features the stories of multiple generations of a family, and again much of the narration is done through letters.

If I had to tell you what it’s about, I’d say it’s about missing people. It’s about loss, and how loss can disrupt your entire life. It’s about the personal consequences of war. It’s about regret, and the things you just can’t talk about. It’s about things being simple, yes and no, and things being complicated.

In summary, Oskar is a smart, nine year-old nerd. He loved his dad above all else. His dad was killed in the twin towers on September 11. A year later, going through his dad’s things, he discovers a mysterious key in an envelope, and makes it his mission (his ‘raison d’etre’ – he’s learning French) to find out what it unlocks. He travels all across New York meeting everybody in the phone book with the surname Black. They can’t help but love him – he’s unintentionally funny, curious, and straightforward. The humour comes from Oskar’s telling of the story, but it’s also crushingly sad.

At the same time, we gradually learn the story of Oskar’s grandfather, who left his grandmother before his dad was born, through a series of letters written to the son he never met. What is completely brilliant about this is that Grandpa can’t talk, so communicates by writing in notebooks. His letters are interspersed with photos of doorknobs (you’ll find out why) and pages that he has written messages on to other people. This is so cleverly done, it means that everything is gradually (as the author would say) illuminated. The fact that he has YES and NO tattooed on his hands becomes symbolically significant too. I love the way all his words, all his days are recorded in books, on the backs of envelopes, on napkins or on his own arms – what these pieces of paper are used for, where his words get stuffed, what washes off, is fabulous. e.g.:

Later that year, when snow started to cover the front steps, when morning became evening as I sat on the sofa, buried under everything I’d lost, I made a fire and used my laughter for kindling: “Ha ha ha!” “Ha ha ha!” “Ha ha ha!” “Ha ha ha!”
In fact, all the parts written by Oskar’s grandfather are a wonderful stream of poetry.

Thirdly, we find Oskar’s beloved grandma writing him a letter/typing out her life story, explaining things that were never said, and perhaps giving us a more reliable version of events than her husband’s. Oskar’s grandparents witnessed the bombing of Dresden, and basically lost their lives there. They meet again in New York, Grandpa tells us, like this:
… the place was half empty but she slid right up to me, “You’ve lost everything,” she said, as if we were sharing a secret, “I can see.”
The three narrators are excellently drawn, each with their own writing style and their own way of expressing their story. And the writing is just beautiful. I cried at a letter from Stephen Hawking; I did not predict that. If you’ve never lost somebody vital, I don’t know how you will react to this story, but I think it will probably still break your heart.

I don’t want to put in too many spoilers, but to tell you what I love about this book, I think I just need to quote some astonishing lines that express so well some of the experiences of grief.

“You never write to me.” “But I’m with you.” “So?” … It’s the tragedy of loving, you can’t love anything more than something you miss.

When I no longer had to be strong in front of you, I became very weak. I brought myself to the ground, which was where I belonged. I hit the floor with my fists. I wanted to break my hands, but when it hurt too much, I stopped. I was too selfish to break my hands for my only child.

“I lost a son.” “You did? How did he die?” “I lost him before he died.” “How?” “I went away.” “Why?” He wrote, “I was afraid.” “Afraid of what?” “Afraid of losing him.” “Were you afraid of him dying?” “I was afraid of him living.” “Why?” He wrote, “Life is scarier than death.”
Warning – this is from near the end:
“I wish I hadn’t found it.” “It wasn’t what you were looking for?” “That’s not it.” “Then what?” “I found it and now I can’t look for it.” I could tell he didn’t understand me. “Looking for it let me stay close to him for a little while longer.” “But won’t you always be close to him?” I knew the truth. “No.”
So this all sounds depressing, but there is so much humour and humanity in here that it’s a million miles from being a dirge. There are also nice little mysteries and clues and unexplained things that all come together later on in the book.

In summary: Oh My Goodness. In my boundless enthusiasm about this book, I feel like I’ve turned into Oskar. It’s extremely original and incredibly sad. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be astonished.

Waters run backwards

StuckinaBook All , , 16 Comments

The final book I read in 2010 – deftly added to the list I posted a couple of days ago – was Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch. This is my third Waters novel, and this year was the year of Third Time Lucky (c.f.: Evelyn Waugh; Muriel Sparks) – but not, as it happened, with Waters. That sounds like one of my shortest reviews, doesn’t it? Sorry, folks, but I’m not stopping there… After quite liking Affinity back in 2003 or 2004, I loved The Little Stranger this summer – and if it hadn’t been for that frustrating ending, it would have been one of my favourite reads this year. But I had caught the Waters bug, and my post-Christmas read was The Night Watch, only approx. four years after everyone else.

For those who haven’t read this already, I’ll give you a quick overview. The unusual angle of The Night Watch is that it is told backwards. Events kick off in 1947, and work their way backwards to 1941, stopping off in 1944. That’s not as many stepping stones as I expected, when I read various reviews of this novel in 2006, when it was published, and it does rather put the novel between two stools. On the one hand, there are all sorts of clues laid down regarding past events (further on in the narrative); on the other hand, since there are only three sections – and the final one is very short – it feels a bit like Waters didn’t let herself experiment quite enough. Al this leads me, if you’re not careful, to start talking about sjuzhet and fabula, or histoire and recit, if we’re getting all theoretical. Apologies if this is known already, but quick crash course in a bit Russian Formalism: ‘fabula’ is the chronological series of events; ‘sjuzhet’ is the way this is arranged in a narrative. So Waters has her sjuzhet all in a twist.

Which all means that Waters could be a little self-conscious when she writes this:
“I go to the cinema,” said Kay; “there’s nothing funny about that. Sometimes I sit through the films twice over. Sometimes I go in half-way through, and watch the second half first. I almost prefer them that way – people’s pasts, you know, being so much more interesting than their futures. Or perhaps that’s just me…”But, as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself.

There are plenty of characters, and plenty of things going on, in The Night Watch. Sarah Waters being Sarah Waters, quite a lot of the novel is about being a lesbian in wartime (I loved the if-you’re-in-the-know reference to ‘Quaint Irene’ from Mapp and Lucia as the name of a boat) – and four of the central characters are lesbians, who seem to all be in love with each other at various stages of the novel. Well, one of them – Mickey – appears to be immune to the charms of Helen, Julia, and Kay, but they are all embroiled with one another. To be honest, I didn’t find any of the female characters particularly well delineated – throw in Viv, Helen’s colleague at a sort of post-war dating agency, and they all rather blurred into one. Even Julia’s novelistic career didn’t help me remember which one was which until we were a hundred or so pages in.

Not so the men. Viv’s brother Duncan is doing a menial job in a factory, and has a surprise reunion with Robert Fraser. Duncan’s naive, bulky uncertainty and Robert’s confident charm are done very well – but the reader has no idea what sort of reunion is taking place. Were they colleagues, comrades-in-arms, or romantically involved? I couldn’t possibly tell you, of course…

I’m being a bit critical, so I shall redress the balance – Waters’ structure is often done very well. The careful laying of clues, and all manner of mysterious events, lead to plenty of gasp-moments in the second half. Obviously I shan’t reveal these, but the secret passing of a ring; curious Uncle Horace; and whispers of infidelity are all clues to watch out for… and lead to satisfying ‘oh, right’ moments later.

But as with The Little Stranger, which was almost all compelling reading but had a dud 100 pages, The Night Watch is longer than it needs to be, and drags occasionally. At her best, Waters can tear a story along – but at her worst, it feels rather self-indulgent and unedited.

And then… I feel a bit mean, quoting this bit, as it’s the worst offender – but:
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you happy?”

“Happy?” Viv blinked. “I don’t know. Is anybody happy? Really happy, I mean? People pretend they are.”

“I don’t know either,” said Helen, after a moment. “Happiness is such a fragile sort of thing these days. It’s as though there’s only so much to go round.”Do people talk like this? Did people ever talk like this – except in novels? It’s the sort of thing 1930s plays are scattered with, but I doubt it ever spilled over into read life…

But I’m only picking all these holes because I’m trying to work out why The Night Watch got shortlisted for all sorts of awards. There is so much to like in Waters’ novel, and it was definitely compelling reading much of the time. Writing the narrative backwards is a good idea executed without pretension, but also perhaps without reaching its potential. But somehow, for me, Waters missed the mark. The Little Stranger was very nearly a brilliant novel. The Night Watch was very nearly a very good novel. I’ve not read all of Waters’ novels, but… is she destined to always fall short from her potential? Or am I a lone voice in the wilderness? Fans of Waters – convince me!

Pow!

StuckinaBook All , 16 Comments

I was quite pleased when my book group decided to read The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (could someone tell me how to pronounce this, by the way?) because I’d got a copy through Amazon Vine a while ago, and knew I needed an incentive to make my way through all 483 pages of it. That wasn’t going to happen off my own bat. Or my own back. I can never remember which it is…

The idea seemed really interesting: at a barbecue, somebody slaps somebody else’s child. We see the event and its aftermath from various different perspectives, and an interesting and complex moral question is woven into the fabric of life for a group of Australian young parents.

Or that was the idea.

What Tsiolkas has actually done is so much less subtle that I wanted to shake him. The ingredients for a fascinating novel are in place, and – I’ll say it now, because this review might wander into negative territory – Tsiolkas is potentially a really good writer, but it is all wasted. Tsiolkas has gathered together the most loathsome characters imaginable, the most loathsome of the lot indisputably Harry, who is the one to slap Hugo. He is also a wife-beater, a druggie, and someone who despises everybody who is not himself. The chapter we see from his perspective left me feeling nauseous, he was so disgusting a human being. Which Tsiolkas recognises, I think, so it didn’t worry me from that point of view – what ruined The Slap was that the slapper in question offered no sort of moral grey area. He enjoys being violent to others, and enjoyed hurting Hugo. Hugo was, at the time, threatening Harry’s child – which could have been an interesting angle, especially if Harry were normally a mild-mannered man – but Tsiolkas sweeps this ambivalence away.

It’s not just Harry that is horrible. His wife Sandi is; Hugo’s parents Rosie and Gary are; the host of the party, Hector, is. In amongst an enormous cast of characters, only two of the central ones seemed at all likeable, especially Richie – more on him later. And – have I lived a terribly sheltered life? – EVERY single character takes drugs. I hate reading books with drug-taking, as it makes me feel ill. I know this is my own faint-heartedness, and I don’t expect every modern writer to steer clear of it, but Tsiolkas takes it to ridiculous lengths. Every character, from 14 to 60 odd, dabbles in recreational drug taking. Perhaps Tsiolkas thinks it spices up the book? And don’t get me started on the amount of swearing in The Slap. When I raved about Ned Beauman’s novel Boxer, Beetle, Lynne asked me what I thought about the swearing – well, I didn’t really notice it there. Maybe because it seemed fit for the characters, or was used intelligently. Tsiolkas is under the impression that a sentence isn’t complete without some really horrible expletives in it.

The structure of the novel isn’t what I expected. I thought we’d see the same incident from various perspectives, which would have been tricky to pull off, but potentially brilliant. Instead, we move between different characters, each chapter giving the viewpoint of a different person – from the party where the slap occurs, through the resultant court case, and then meandering onto some quite well observed chapters (the reminiscences of an old man, and a young man coming to terms with being gay and having a messed-up best friend) which had almost nothing to do with the rest of the plot. The last 200 pages should have been removed, or instead used as the starting point for other novels, as they were the best written sections, but entirely irrelevant. Richie – the young guy – is easily the most affecting character in The Slap, and has the final chapter, which is quite moving. I warmed to him with this sentence:
Richie had a dawning sense that the fact that men loved kicking a leather ball to one another boded ill for the sanity of the human race.
You tell ’em, Richie.

As I said at the beginning, Christos Tsiolkas is a good writer, which is what makes The Slap so annoying. If he’d been a bad writer treating his topic badly, that would have been fine – I’d have thrown the book to one side, and moved on. As it is, he has a brilliant way of capturing a character’s voice. Although the sheer number of characters, all arriving in a couple of paragraphs in the first chapter, meant I had to write out a sheet telling me who was married to whom, with which children etc. etc., after a dozen or so pages they all became sharply outlined, and very well drawn. The writing was compelling, and I read all 483 pages more quickly than I read many novels half that length.

But – the flaws in structure and the waste of a potentially interesting topic, not to mention the incessant drug-taking and swearing for effect, made The Slap ultimately fail in my eyes – and (for these and other reasons) in the eyes of those I discussed it with at book group. I can’t think of many bad books which yet reveal good writers, but with The Slap Tsiolkas has convinced me to consider reading him again, even when I couldn’t appreciate the novel itself.

Short But Not So Sweet

StuckinaBook All , 5 Comments

Just in case you can’t get enough of me writing about books here, I thought I’d keep tonight’s post short but sweet, and point to Short But Not So Sweet – which is the title given to my review of Alice Munro’s short story collection Too Much Happiness. It’s just come out in the online Oxonian Review, and you should be able to read it here. Hopefully it’s the same sort of ‘voice’ I use for this blog, but with the benefit of editing and wakefulness…


Oh, and Spots of Time, I haven’t heard from you yet in order to get your copy of The Love-Child to you. Hope to hear from you soon – otherwise this weekend I’ll draw another name. Make sure you (ahem) spot this in time!