Tales of the City

I must admit that I judged Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy (1985-1986) by its cover. It was the look and feel of the book that persuaded me to buy it. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition seduced me with its cover art by renowned cartoonist and artist Art Spiegelman. The image of the three books on the carpet, a limp hand clutching a fountain pen, blood spots and some unknown person standing over the scene intrigued me. Spiegelman also did full colour title page for each of the novels inside, which neatly divide the text, and a map of New York’s Upper West Side on the back cover. But it wasn’t just the cover art that seduced me: the cover flaps, the embossing of the author’s name, and corrugated paper stock provide a tactile delight, which remind me why I will never fully convert to e-books.

Beyond my superficial reasons for purchase I also wanted to read my first Paul Auster. His name appeared many times on must-read book lists (for example, “The 1001 books you must read before you die”) so I thought it was time to explore his work. Having read The New York Trilogy, however, I will not be in a hurry to read any more Auster.

The first part of the trilogy, City of Glass, tells the story of Quinn, a mystery writer who poses as a detective in a case that he hopes will provide material for his novels. As he becomes more embedded in the case, Quinn spends months on a stakeout in the streets with his obsession leading to his ruin.  In Ghosts a private eye named Blue is hired by White to investigate a man named Black on Orange Street (the colour wheel is exhausted by the end of the story). The final story, The Locked Room, centres on a writer asked to help locate his childhood friend who has gone missing. I thought this was the best tale in the trilogy because it was linear and had more fully-formed characters. I particularly liked the description of the author’s childhood with his friend.

I must admit I am not sure what to make of this book as Auster plays with the reader’s mind with the interlinked stories and recurring themes. Using the devices of metafiction to raise questions of truth and identity, this is a postmodern detective tale. While there were parts I thoroughly enjoyed, my overall feeling is ambivalence. Perhaps I liked the idea of the book, rather than the book itself. Reading reviews of this book online it appears that many readers found deeper meanings that I did not. Regardless, my curiosity about Auster has been satiated and if nothing else I have a beautiful book that looks lovely on my bookcase!

Pride and Prejudice

Set in London in 1948 with flashbacks to the time ‘before’, Andrea Levy’s Small Island is a story of race, colonialism, imperialism, sexuality and war. The book focuses on two couples brought together in a London boarding house.  

Jamaican Gilbert joins the Royal Air Force to defend England, his ‘mother country’ during WWII. He brings his new wife, the prim and proper Hortense, to live with him in London. Being raised in the colonies dreaming of England, Hortense has high hopes for her new life and is horrified to see the dilapidated bedsit Gilbert has secured as their home. Hortense had also never experienced racism until she moves to the UK. When she realizes that her qualifications will not be recognized and she is unable to find work as a teacher, she is humiliated. As a proud woman this rejection is a substantial blow to her ego and jolts her from her naivety.

Working class couple Queenie Bligh and her husband Bernard live in London. When Bernard goes off to war Queenie takes in boarders to make ends meet. Her tenants are mostly Jamaican immigrants like Gilbert. Queenie stands out among her neighbours for her opposition to their racial prejudice. She also finds that her husband harbours racist views.

Told in alternating narratives by each of the four characters with their own distinct voice, the book flows beautifully and seamlessly. While quite a long book, the story is gripping and it is a fairly quick read. Andrea Levy won the Orange Prize for Fiction for Small Island, as well as the Whitbread Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize. These accolades are well deserved as Levy has created a magical work of literary fiction.

Small Island has been made into an excellent BBC miniseries starring Ruth Wilson (Queenie), Benedict Cumberbatch (Bernard), Naomie Harris (Hotense) and David Oyelowo (Gilbert).  The actors are phenomenal and bring the characters to life. Well worth viewing this adaptation, but best to do so after reading the book so as to get the most from the novel.

Time proved the representation false

Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900) is a classic of American fiction and has been hailed as a must-read ‘novel of the century’. Writing in a journalistic fashion, Drieser describes in realistic detail the lives of his characters. He does not moralise or judge them, but presents in a factual manner their successes and failures. His style is welcoming and makes for an interesting read, but at 650 pages I admit I did find that it was a bit slow in parts and in need of an edit to hasten the pace.

The story focuses on Carrie Meeber who leaves her Wisconsin home to move to Chicago in the hopes of finding employment. Initially staying with her sister’s family, Carrie secures employment in a shoe factory for $4.50 a week, most of which is spent on room and board rather than the fine clothes and trinkets she covets. She meets salesman Charles Drouet who convinces Carrie to quit her job and move in with him, promising marriage once he is financially secure. Later Drouet introduces Carrie to Hurstwood, a socially respectable manager. Hurstwood is enamored by Carrie’s beauty and youth and begins to woo her away from his friend. Carrie, believing she is trading up, responds favourably to his attention. Determined to have Carrie at all costs, Hurstwood leaves his wife and children, steals money from his employer, and takes Carrie to New York. Over the next few years Hurstwood fails to earn enough money to keep Carrie in the style she wishes and they continually have to downgrade their lodgings and Carrie’s expectations. Their relationship strains and Carrie falls out of love. Eventually she asserts herself and becomes employed as an admired actress, while Hurstwood fails to secure work and is ruined.

The novel contrasts the fortunes of the three main characters: Carrie, Drouet and Hurstwood. Each one wants something unobtainable, lured by material things and the desire for upward mobility. Ultimately they will keep dreaming for happiness, while ending up lonely and longing for human connection.

The beauty of the novel is in its writing. I enjoyed reading Dreiser’s descriptions of the early days of Chicago and things like department stores that were just being developed. His depiction of homelessness and striking transport workers is compelling. The other thing I loved about this book were the random awesomeness of the chapter headings. For example:

·      The Spendings of Fancy: Facts Answered with Sneers

·      The Magnet Attracting: A Waif Amid Forces

·      His Credentials Accepted: A Babel of Tongues

·      The Lure of the Spirit: The Flesh in Pursuit

·      Ashes of Tinder: The Loosing of Stays

·      The Grind of the Millstones: A Sample of Chaff

Carrie was a frustrating character in many ways. She seemed to be a bit of a naïve and superficial doormat. It was hard to see what these men saw in her. She was continually waiting for them to give her what they promised. As Drieser puts it, ‘time proved the representation false’. She could have been a more rounded, deeper character. But Drouet and Hurstwood were interesting and delightful.

I was reminded of Madame Bovary, Effi Briest and Anna Karenina while reading this novel as each woman sought out happiness through the men around her and made poor choices resulting in tragedy. While Carrie’s tale ends with her triumph on stage rather than her death, she is unfulfilled and alone, reminding readers that fame and fortune do not necessarily bring happiness.

Wayward Women

I am currently reading Sister Carrie (1900) by American author Theodore Dreiser. While I am not yet ready to publish my thoughts on this novel, it brings to mind other books I have read which feature young women who embark on relationships that are contrary to the roles expected of them by society.

One of my all time favourite novels is Madame Bovary (1856) by Gustave Flaubert in which Emma Bovary, a young naïve woman, marries a simple small town doctor. Emma reads romantic literature and is unable to distinguish reality from fiction. She takes a lover and lives a dual life of faithful wife to her husband and mistress in her own romantic fantasy. Emma begins to yearn for refinement and starts spending money on objects that she cannot afford, going into debt and becoming ruined by her adultery. Flaubert’s writing is beautiful, humourous and richly descriptive.

German author Theodor Fontane’s 1895 novel Effi Briest tells a similar tale. At the age of seventeen young and immature Effi is married to a much older man. As her husband travels regularly, Effi becomes lonely and socially isolated in her new home. A notorious womaniser, Crampas, visits Effi and they begin a relationship. When her husband learns of Effi’s disloyalty he seeks divorce and custody of their daughter. This is a melancholy, deliberately paced novel with realistic characters that are not reduced to stereotypes. There are multiple layers to this story too – exploring the decline of the German aristocracy and the pressures of Victoria morality.

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1877) is the story of Anna’s adulterous romance with Count Vronsky, which leads to tragic consequences. The aristocracy has a code of behaviour to which all members must conform. Leaving her loveless marriage and abandoning her child condemn Anna and force her exile from Russian high society. Tolstoy examines Anna’s motives without judgement. There are many characters and plot lines to keep track of. Littered with beautiful passages, Anna Karenina has one of the best opening lines of any novel: “Happy families are all alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”.

This trio of tales are often compared and contrasted. To view these stories as simply romances misses the complexities and richness each author brings to his social critique. The women at the centre serve as vehicles to explore morality, politics, class, and even religion. Each one is extraordinary it its own right and should be treasured as uniquely individual. The authors are masters of their craft. Of the three, Madame Bovary is perhaps the most accessible – better known than Effi Briest, and shorter and less daunting than Anna Karenina. Which is perhaps why I have read Bovary many, many times and the others only once.

Decade of decadence

In 2004 Alan Hollinghurst won the Booker prize for his novel The Line of Beauty. The book received high praise from critics (who frequently compared Hollinghurst to Evelyn Waugh and E.M. Forster) and ended up on many ‘must-read’ lists. So, when I purchased this book and settled down to read it I was looking forward to a biting social satire, along the lines of some of my favourite authors.

Set in 1980s, in Thatcher’s Britain, The Line of Beauty is the story of Nick Guest, a young gay man, who moves into the London home of his school friend Toby Feddens while he finishes his studies. Toby’s father Gerald is a Tory MP, mother Rachael is extremely wealthy and his self-harming sister, Catherine. The story starts in 1983, then jumps to 1986 and 1987. 

In 1983 Nick is naïve and just beginning to explore his sexuality. He befriends Leo, a council worker, and has an affair with him. A few years later, Nick commences an affair with old school friend, Wani, a rich drug addict. The novel is basically a story of Nick coming out, hanging around with privileged party people, and taking cocaine. Looming over this decade, coinciding with Nick’s sexual awakening, is AIDS.

Much has been made of the open sexuality of this novel (the frank gay sex scenes) which readers may react to one way or another. This didn’t concern me. Rather my concern was over the lack of anyone to care about. The characters were shallow, unsympathetic and dull. The overall feel is pretentious.

There are passages in this book that are stunningly well written and where I found myself momentarily interested in these characters. But for the most part I found much of the novel boring and began skimming paragraphs in an effort to reach the end. Having said that, the last 60 pages or so were actually good, but not worth wading through the first 250 pages. This is another Booker Prize winner that I have not been impressed with (see my review of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi).

The BBC made a three part series of this book, which I have not seen, but it is adapted by Andrew Davies who is absolutely brilliant. I have heard that it is better than the book, so it may be worth a viewing.

Deal me in

Casino Royale (1953) by Ian Fleming is the first novel to feature British Secret Service agent James Bond. Villainous Le Chiffre, from the Soviet counterintelligence agency “SMERSH”, is participating in a high stakes baccarat game at a French casino. In attendance are Bond and his female companion Vesper Lynd, CIA Agent Felix Leiter, and Rene Mathis from the French Duexieme Bureau.  After many rounds of baccarat, described in detail, by Fleming, Bond succeeds. Le Chiffre kidnaps Vesper as ransom for Bond’s winnings. When Bond attempts rescue, he is tortured. Vesper cares for the injured Bond as he recuperates in hospital, and the two become lovers. However Vesper holds a secret, which is revealed in a surprising twist at the end.

There were many lines in the book that got my feminist back up. For example: These blithering women who thought that they could do a man’s work. Why the hell couldn’t they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men’s work to the men.

However it was written in the 1950s and many of the dated misogynist sentiments are laughable when read today (although his description of an encounter as having “the sweet tang of rape” is certainly not amusing). Fleming writes with such detail - the description of the baccarat game in particular is long and tedious. Missing here, for those who only know of Bond from the films, are the explosions and other action sequences. The book is fairly tame by comparison.

The 2006 film version of Casino Royale is the first to feature actor Daniel Craig as Bond. The film brings Fleming’s book to life and reinvigorated the Bond film franchise. The film adds in global locations (Bahamas, Miami Montenegro, Venice, as well as various places in Africa), romance, adventure (the opening sequence of running through a building site was amazing), action (blowing up planes, cars etc.) and updates the game to poker, which would be better understood by modern audiences than baccarat. The film is visually stunning and I really enjoyed it. My main criticism is the overt product placement that appeared throughout. But I admired Craig’s portrayal and the fact that his Bond got injured in fights unlike his pretty boy predecessors who emerged from encounters unscathed. Craig’s Bond is more faithful to Fleming’s vision of the character than any other actors who have portrayed him.

Fleming’s novels are interesting spy thrillers focusing on the Cold War. Bond is dark, cold, ponderous and a creature of his era – sexist and snobby. While I could do without the sexism, I enjoyed the novel. It is a quick read and a good introduction to Fleming’s work.

Not my slice of Pi

One of my blog readers enquired about whether I would ever write a negative review, as so far my reviews have all been favourable. I tend to stop reading disagreeable books. I don’t see the point of forcing myself to read something I am not enjoying but I often come back to them later when I am more in the mood. However, from time to time I read books that I do not like. One such novel is The Life of Pi (2001) by Yann Martel. 
I bought The Life of Pi because I collect books by Canadian authors and this novel won the Booker Prize in 2002, had rave reviews, and was on all the best sellers’ lists. I thought the premise sounded interesting and, adding all these factors together, that it would be worth a read.

The story is about Piscine Patel, known as Pi, and his early life in India where is father owns a zoo. As a young Hindu, Pi explores Christianity and Islam. The family sells the zoo and moves to Canada, travelling by boat with some of their animals. The boat sinks and Pi, the sole human survivor, ends up in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, orang-utan, zebra and hyena. Pi floats along at sea for 227 days while the animals eat each other (described in graphic detail).

The book is divided into thirds. I probably should have quit reading it after the first third, but because of all the best-selling, prize-winning hype, I kept at it hoping it would get better… It didn’t. It just got more violent and gory and duller leaving me disappointed and flat. I don't even feel it was well written.

So, while I absolutely hated The Life of Pi and can never get those hours of my life back,  reading it did teach me some important lessons. First, just because a novel wins a major literary award doesn’t necessarily mean it is actually any good. Second, just because thousands of people rushed out to buy it, putting it on the bestseller list, doesn’t mean that these people actually read it. So popularity and literary kudos do not always mean a winning formula for creating a reading list. 

Carrying the fire

Across a bleak and barren landscape a man and his son journey south to the sea in an attempt to flee the winter’s cold.  They march on through the rain, over the ash-covered streets and fields, pushing a supermarket cart with all of their belongings – a tarpaulin, blanket, some canned goods.

An unnamed event has destroyed civilisation and only a handful of survivors remain. While some are nomadic ‘good guys’ with no intention of harming others, there are also tribes of cannibals scavenging the desolate land for food in any form.

The man and his son rely on each other. The father is unwell and fears for the boy. He gives him a revolver with one round in it and tells the boy to use it on himself if he is about to be captured. As they make their way toward the sea, the man tries to impart as many life lessons as he can upon his son.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) is an extraordinary novel of post-apocalyptic life. It is a brilliant page-turner, poetic in its prose.  Told in short staccato sentences, The Road is atmospheric and vivid. With few words McCarthy creates this world. By cutting out excess verbiage he strips the story down to its roots allowing the reader to fill in the gaps. The themes that underpin the story - good and evil, love and hate, life and death – are captured in the man’s teachings to his son. They are the ‘good guys’, the ones ‘carrying the fire’. The hope of the whole world is in the boy.

McCarthy is my favourite contemporary author and The Road is among my most loved as he writes with such mastery – saying so much with so few words. Confronting and moving, I could not put it down and read it in one sitting. I felt so emotionally connected to the story, to the bond between the father and his son, that for days and weeks afterwards I thought of them and their predicament. Despite the bleakness of the subject matter, ultimately it is a story of hope and love.

The Road was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2007 and was adapted into an excellent film in 2009 starring Viggo Mortensen as the father and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the boy.  I recommend reading the book before seeing the film so as to appreciate McCarthy’s words and to allow you to imagine the world he created without the influence of the film. 

The Lowe-Down on Hollywood

When I was a teen the walls of my bedroom were plastered with posters of actors and musicians I admired. For many years, in prime position, was a large poster of Rob Lowe, with cigarette and saxophone, in character as Billy from St Elmo’s Fire. For most young girls in the 1980s he was an icon: pretty-boy and bad-boy rolled into one. 

Stories I only tell my friends (2011) is Rob Lowe’s memoir of the highs and lows of his life and acting career. It is told as a series of stories as if he is sitting down with the reader and reminiscing about ‘this one time…’.

Lowe had a fairly unsettling childhood in Dayton, Ohio: his parents divorced when he was five; mom remarried and was divorced again by the time Rob was 12; his father was absent for much of his life and his mother struggled with serious mental health issues. Despite this, Rob knew at an early age that he wanted to act. He was involved in community theatre and sought out every celebrity that came to town for advice.

Moving to Malibu at 12, Rob became friends with Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen and Chris Penn. He travels by bus across Los Angeles to audition for every part going, does some after-school specials, and crosses paths with Janet Jackson, LeVar Burton, Sarah Jessica Parker, Daryl Hannah, Melissa Gilbert, Dean Cain, Ron Howard and various others who would go on to become big names.

Lowe’s big break was Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders and he spends a lot of time describing his time on and off set with Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, and the other actors who would experience a meteoric rise in stardom in the early 1980s. He goes on to tell stories of his post-Outsiders successes and failures; his relationships with a string of actress, models and royals; his involvement in a sex tape scandal; his battle with alcoholism that sends him to rehab; his move into comedy (Wayne’s World); his interest in politics; his marriage and parenthood; and eventually his experiences as Sam Seaborn on The West Wing.

While I enjoy autobiographies, I don’t often read celebrity memoirs. Despite my teenage crush on Rob Lowe, I didn’t really have much interest in him until he returned to prominence in The West Wing. But I read an excerpt of the book in Vanity Fair (May 2011) and enjoyed the candour with which Lowe described his auditions for Outsiders, which sparked my interest in his insider’s view of Hollywood. Reading the whole book, I found Lowe to be entertaining, witty and insightful. He can also be humble and self-depreciating. While there were parts that I wish he’d explored more deeply (he skims over some of the seedier aspects of his life), I respect his decision to tell his story the way he wanted to.  

At the Edge of a Cliff

I recently became reacquainted with Holden Caulfield, the hero of my teenaged years. First introduced to me in a high school English class, I came across my old dog-eared and yellowed copy of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951) and was instantly reminded of how intimately I once knew and cherished it.

A few weeks before Christmas 1949, seventeen-year-old Holden has been expelled from Pencey Prep School for flunking out of everything except English. Unable to go home and face his parents, Holden packs his bags and takes the train to New York City where he spends the next few days aimlessly trying to decide what to do and where to go. While Holden contemplates his future he encounters prostitutes, pimps, taxi drivers, nuns, old girlfriends and a former English teacher.

The novel is told from Holden’s perspective – a stream of consciousness monologue in which he frequently uses phrases like “that killed me” or referring to everyone as “old” (Old Ackley, Old Stradlater, Old Allie etc). Holden rails against the phonies of the world: the fake; the superficial; and the pretentious. He is bored and ungrounded with a lack of interest in most things. He lies compulsively, inventing tales to thwart his ennui.

Holden’s angst is central to the novel. He is immature yet deeply thoughtful. He is also anxious and desperate to preserve childhood from the corruption and phoniness of adult life. He seeks to protect his beloved younger sister Phoebe and maintain her childish naiveté forever. Misinterpreting a Robert Burns’ poem, Holden sees himself catching children running from a rye field before they fall off a cliff.

There are laugh out loud moments as Holden describes his thoughts and gets himself in to some strange situations. But more compelling are the moments of tremendous tenderness. Holden is lonely and sensitive and wants desperately to connect to the world around him. Will he ever find a place he belongs? Can he ever be happy? These are questions we all ask ourselves at some point in our lives.

The Catcher in the Rye is one of the best novels of the 20^th century. It has been frequently censored for its themes and language, which seem so tame and uncontroversial in modern times. On re-reading Catcher as an adult I have a deeper appreciation of the underlying themes and the quality of Salinger’s writing. I have now bought a new copy to treasure and am sure I will read and re-read this version time and again. 

Who killed Boy Staunton?

The Manticore (1972) by Robertson Davies is the second book of the Deptford Trilogy. It begins where Fifth Business left off, with the mysterious death of Percy Boy Staunton.

Boy’s son David, a Canadian lawyer in his forties, attempts to come to terms with his father’s death by going to Switzerland and engaging in an intensive program of Jungian analysis. In therapy with Dr Von Haller, David describes his unhappy life from childhood to the present as he tries to reconcile his feelings for his larger-than-life father.

Robertson Davies’ humour is evident in this novel - the description of his father’s death mark and in the relationship between David and his sister Caroline – are outright hilarious. But the novel feels much bleaker with the Jungian analysis allowing for exploration of David’s repressed Shadow self.

David’s therapy sessions are the basis of the novel – in the form of his diaries interspersed with dialogue between David and Dr Von Haller. His dreams of the mythical manticore (a beast with the head of a man, body of a lion and tail of a scorpion) and other archetypes are analysed. Readers with a keen interest in psychology will enjoy the theory and perhaps have a deeper engagement with the book.

Along the way David gives his perspective on events that appeared in Fifth Business from Dunstan Ramsey’s point of view. Where the two novels dovetail is a particular delight and demonstrate the genius of Robertson Davies’ ability to depict the layers of complexity in human relationships.

After a year of therapy, David encounters Dunstan Ramsey, Magnus Eisengrim and their companion Liesl in Switzerland and spends the Christmas holidays with the trip in a gothic mansion. David learns more of his father from them but becomes more perplexed about the identity of his father’s killer.

While the ending of the novel is open, the third book World of Wonders (1975) promises to add more depth to the tale of the three boys from Deptford with intertwined lived.

I enjoyed this book but not to the same extent as Fifth Business (I missed Ramsey). In many ways The Manticore feels like a bridge in the trilogy, an awkward middle child. But I look forward to reading World of Wonders (1975) to round out the series. 

See also: 

My review of  Fifth Business (1970) 

Forbidden Love

Giovanni’s Room (1956) by James Baldwin tells the story of David, a twenty-something American living in Paris. David is struggling with his sexually. He is engaged to Hella, but when his fiancée travels to Spain, David begins a relationship with Italian barman Giovanni. His days and nights with Giovanni are glorious, filled with drunken love in their small room. Giovanni’s room is dark and private, and there they are safe to love one another.

But a shadow lurks over them, as David knows one day Hella will return and he must marry her as promised and have a family. David’s greatest struggle is with himself as he is unwilling to face his homosexuality. He sets out to prove he is straight by finding women to sleep with.

When Hella returns he must break with Giovanni, forcing both men into turmoil. Giovanni’s life ends in tragedy and David cannot reconcile his feelings. 

Baldwin is an amazing author and in less than 160 pages he explores complex human relationships and the subject of homophobia and social isolation in such a beautiful, readable way. Baldwin tells this story in a nonlinear fashion, unfurling details with a deliberate pace, and bringing life to the characters in such a way that you can feel their emotions.

Despite the relationship at the centre of the Giovanni’s Room, I would not classify this as a gay novel – it is a universal story of love, regret, heartache and loneliness.

This is the second Baldwin novel I have read. The first, If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), about a dysfunctional family facing racism in Harlem, further demonstrates Baldwin’s genius and is one of my favourites. 

Barbarians at the Gate

Set in South Africa during the 1970s, Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) is a story of a Magistrate at a regional outpost who lives a fairly solitary, predictable life.

One day Colonel Joll arrives declaring a state of emergency because he believes the nomadic native peoples, who live in the hills outside the town, are a threat. Joll’s troops round up some of these “barbarians”, torturing them until they admit their plans to attack the frontier town. The Magistrate is convinced that the confessions are false - stemming from the horrific torture at the hands of Joll and his men.

When Joll leaves town, swearing to return with a larger force, the Magistrate nurses the torture wounds of one of the female barbarians and embarks on a relationship with her. Joll learns of this and considers the Magistrate’s actions treason. The Magistrate is incarcerated, tortured and violated in the same ways the barbarians were.

Waiting for the Barbarians is a haunting allegorical novel with strong and complex themes – colonialism, power, humanity, and the treatment of prisoners – that are explored in a simple narrative. While set in South Africa, this could take place anywhere that imperial forces have attempted to invade and subjugate the native inhabitants.

J.M. Coetzee is a brilliant writer – a Nobel laureate and Booker prize winner. His power is in his ability to write so concisely with such magically descriptive passages without resorting to sentimentality. This is thought provoking novel that will leave you pondering its themes long after you have finished reading. 

Betty's Book Club

Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader (2007) is a delightfully witty novella which celebrates literature and the joy of (re)discovering the pleasures of reading as an adult.

The story is simple. The City of Westminster travelling library visits Windsor Castle one evening. While out with her corgis, Queen Elizabeth II encounters the van on the palace grounds and feels duty bound to select a book. While she does not like her first choice (Ivy Compton-Burnett), her next selections (Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love) are more to her taste and begins her learning journey.

Her Majesty works her way through many novels, poetry, autobiography and non-fiction. She consumes Henry James, Dick Francis, Shakespeare, Phillip Roth, Vikram Seth, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Johnson, Sylvia Plath, Mary Renault, Anita Brookner and many more. Her commitment to Proust causes her to delay some of her royal engagements. She learns how to wave from her car window while continuing her reading by placing her book at just the right height so as not to be seen by the crowd.

As Her Majesty becomes more of bibliophile she experiences a transformation and begins to see the world differently. She becomes enlightened about issues of class and gender and experiences different emotions. She asks well-wishers and her staff about their reading choices, and questions visiting dignitaries about authors from their homeland.

The Queen’s reading begins to interfere with her work, evidenced by her boredom with official duties and attempts to build more reading time into her daily schedule.  Her personal secretary becomes most dismayed at her new hobby and attempts to quash it on the grounds that reading, “while not exactly elitist, sends the wrong message. It tends to exclude.”

Ultimately, The Uncommon Reader makes a case that reading literature can alter the reader’s outlook on life. The Queen’s regret that she had turned down opportunities to meet many writers (Ted Hughes, TS Eliot and others) is a compelling argument for seizing the day. Writing with humour, intellect and imagination, Bennett subversively hypothesizes about what would happen if the Queen were to become a voracious reader late in her life.

A Snowball's Chance

Dunstan Ramsay, war hero, historian and noted author of several books about saints, is retiring after 45 years of teaching at a prestigious Old Boys’ school in Canada. Miffed by an article in the college news which portrays him as “a typical old schoolmaster doddering into retirement”, Ramsay seeks to set the record straight and tell the true story of his life. He does so via a letter to the school’s headmaster, which forms the basis of Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business (1970), the first novel in the Deptford Trilogy.

Commencing with his youth in Deptford, Ontario, Ramsey describing the people and events that shaped his life. Along the way we meet his childhood “friend and enemy” Percy ‘Boy’ Staunton, renowned magician Magnus Eisengrim, unfortunate parson’s wife Mary Dempster, defeated Leola Cruickshank, hideous Liesl and a range of other interesting characters.

On reflection, Dunstan realises that much of what has happened in his life stems from a single incident in his childhood in which a snowball with a rock inside is thrown, hitting the pregnant Mary Dempster and bringing about her early labour. Staunton threw the snowball and feels no remorse. Ten-year-old Ramsay swerved to avoid it and is stricken with guilt. Paul Dempster is the child who is born prematurely as a result. All three boys are intricately linked in ways that unfold over this Trilogy.

There is so much to admire about Fifth Business. The description of the snowball incident and its aftermath is intriguing and Davies’ style of the writing makes you feel as if you know Deptford and its inhabitants intimately.

On one level the book is a simple bildungsroman as Ramsay describes his growth through World War I, the Great Depression and so on. But there are many layers and subtle complexities to this novel that add to its richness: the depictions of small town Canada in the early 20^th century; the focus on religion and hagiology; travels to Europe and South America; and the critique of materialism and morals.

Robertson Davies is such an esteemed writer and, as a Canadian, I am ashamed to admit that I waited so long to read any of his work. I loved hearing Ramsay’s tale, and the humour and insight with which he told it. Now that I have found Robertson Davies I will be quick to read the next two novels in the trilogy: The Manticore (1972) and World of Wonders (1975) and explore his other works.


See also: 
My review of  The Manticore (1972) 

Nature, Nurture or Something Other?

On 6 December 1989 14 female students were murdered in a shooting spree at the Ecole Polytechnique, in Montreal Canada.  This outrageous act of violence against women was the first I had ever heard of a school shooting and the horror of this crime stays in my memory.

Ten years later in April 1999 two students committed the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado killing 12 of their classmates. Again, in 2007 at Virginia Tech, 32 students and faculty were killed by a student.

These real life events prompt many questions: Why? What is the motive behind these killings? What sparked the assault? How were these killers raised? Were violent films or games to blame? Is access to guns too easy? 

While the perpetrators in each of these massacres committed suicide before answering these questions, authors Jodi Picoult and Lionel Shriver have attempted to fill in these gaps with interesting novels about teenage killers.

Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes (2007) focuses on 17-year-old Peter Houghton who has been bullied his whole life. Peter’s gentle nature and lack of athleticism made him a victim to playground tortures and daily humiliation in the halls at school. One day, Peter has enough and in a 19-minute spree he has killed 10 classmates and wounded dozens more. 

Josie Cormier grew up with Peter. She is part of the in-crowd and is a witness and silent participant in his humiliation. Josie’s mother Alex is initially the judge in the case, but recuses herself when her daughter gets put on the witness list. Jordan McAfee, Peter’s lawyer, attempts to defend his client by applying Battered Women’s Syndrome, claiming Peter acted in a dissociative state due to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin (2003) tackles the same subject matter from a different perspective. It is written in the first person in the form of letters from Kevin’s mother Eva to her husband Franklin while Kevin is in jail for shooting seven classmates. Eva writes of her relationship with Franklin, her ambivalence towards motherhood and instances of Kevin’s childhood that revealed his early sociopathic tendencies. Eva attempts to answer the nature versus nurture question by ascertaining whether Kevin was born a bad seed or if Eva and Franklin somehow failed their son.

Despite the grim subject matter, both books are compelling reads examining how these tragic events affect individuals and the community. Picoult and Shriver try to get inside the minds of these killers by hypothesising their motives and what lead up to their crimes.

Picoult is a more populist storyteller and adds courtroom drama to draw the reader in. Her novels are true page-turners and reliable easy reads, although they are slightly formulaic with stereotypical characters. Nineteen Minutes exposes the terrible trauma that can result from schoolyard bullying.

In contrast, Shriver doesn’t do ‘easy’ and her novel is a challenge to read. Eva is an unlikeable character and her relationship with young Kevin is heartbreaking. Shriver uses complex language and creates a tremendous sense of unease.

While I enjoyed both books, We Need to Talk About Kevin is the one that has stayed with me and the one I found most intriguing. Eva is not a stereotypical mother and her feelings about parenting make her fascinating. Despite the challenge of the language and the subject matter it is well worth the read. If you only had time for one, Kevin is the better novel.

 

We Need to Talk About Kevin won the Orange Prize for literature in 2005 and has recently been made into a film staring Tilda Swinton as Eva.

A Stolen Life

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (2006) by Scottish author Maggie O’Farrell is a powerful and intriguing novel about a stolen life.

Esme Lennox was an unconventional girl in 1930s Edinburgh. She enjoyed reading and had a desire to attend University rather than attend balls and get married as was the ambition of most girls her age. Seemingly embarrassed by Esme's non-conformance, her family sought to erase her from memory. Her beloved sister Kitty colluded in the betrayal that resulted in Esme’s commitment to an asylum.

Sixty years later, Iris Lockhart, another unconventional woman, receives news that her great-aunt Esme is due for release. Iris begins to unravel the mystery of her great aunt who had never been spoken of in the family.

Told in brief snatches alternating from the past and present, Esme’s story unfolds in layers. Iris, Esme and Kitty (Iris’s grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer’s) provide their perspective on events. Like puzzle pieces, the fragments of the story come together gradually revealing the whole picture.

Maggie O'Farrell has such a compelling storyteller that the reader is drawn into the mysteries surrounding the women in the novel. Each of the three women have unique voices and contribute fascinating detail to the relationships between them.

Suspenseful, haunting and profoundly sad, this story of how Esme's life was taken from her will stick in your mind long after you have finished the book.

Maggie O’Farrell is also the author of After You’d Gone (2000), My Lover’s Lover (2002), The Distance Between Us (2004) and The Hand that First Held Mine (2010).

Brilliant Frozen Moments

Booker prize-winning author Penelope Lively (Moon Tiger) lived in Egypt as a child during the 1930s and 1940s until the age of twelve. In her memoir, Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived (1994), Lively reflects on her time in Egypt during the Second World War, with her devoted English governess Lucy, and tries to “recover something of the anarchic vision of childhood”.

This is not a chronological memoir, but rather like flicking through an old photo album with a friend who tells you random tales about the flora, fauna or furniture in each image. The result is the reader learns about young Penelope’s experiences with a snake charmer, visits by British soldiers to the Lively home Bulaq Dakhrur outside Cairo, car trips to Palestine, criteria for choosing donkeys to visit the pyramids, and her early interest in natural history.

Returning to Egypt later in life Lively is amazed by the changes in Egypt, especially in Alexandria where she has spent many summers on the beach, using gourds as flotation aids. Revisiting in 1988 Lively found the beaches replaced by “stark apartment blocks” and as such the Alexandria of her childhood “survives now only in my mind”.

I loved Lively’s conversational style and her ability to describe the child’s view of the world from adulthood. Whether she is talking about a settee she was not allowed to sit on, or children she could attend Brownies with but not invite over for tea, Lively reflects with great clarity through two lenses:  the past child and the present adult. She admits her vision of the past, while clear in her mind, is skewed. For example, she writes, “my Cairo of then is thus a landscape that is highly selective, entirely personal and only tenuously connected either to the reality of the time or the city that has overtaken it today”.

In the preface to Oleander, Jacaranda, Lively writes: “I believe that the experience of childhood I irretrievable. All that remains, for any of us, is a headful of brilliant frozen moments, already dangerously distorted by the wisdoms of maturity.” I am so glad I had an opportunity to share these frozen moments.