HoL Book Club | Part 1 – My Musings, Just in time for World Book Day…

Tags

book challenge, book club, ergodic literature, HoL, house of leaves, hypertext, japan, Jorge Luis Borges, mark z danielewski, readalong

It is March 1st – which means I get to mark World Book Day from a busy cafe in a shopping mall, after having travelled 40 minutes (there and back) to work only to find out it is a ‘snow day’ and therefore the site is shut.

I am currently drowning the last embers of my rage in my chai latte and top it off with a blueberry muffin, which quite frankly, I think I bloody well deserve after battling with Storm Emma’s offering on my car this morning. But hey-ho, can’t complain. I get to sit across the way from a Scouse handyman who is commiserating about his personal life to his mate and just eavesdrop (because that is what reader/writers do – we are very Parisian in that fashion).

This is the perfect time and place to write another blog post. Go me.

So, WBD is celebrated all day by reading books, talking about books, writing about books, and that is exactly what this is. MZD, the prodigal author of House of Leaves, began his online book club which looks at one section of this massive genre-defying tome at a time, and we all get to basically go nuts over inferring the shit out of it.

My observations so far of the group talk on the House of Leaves FB Book Club Page  is as follows:

• Every person has a different edition (full colour, black and white mostly) which means people are now sharing pictures of the inner sleeve that others do not have. There is a lot of camaraderie going on! And I have unearthed some pretty neat connections I never had the chance of learning about 10 years ago, because of the limitations on internet chat rooms and forums (remember those? Yeah, still miss ’em).
• It is all one MASSIVE GEEK PARTY! I mean, there is one lady who literally got paranoid over a splodge of blue ink on the title page (if you know the book, blue is a significant colour. All references to the HOUSE are in blue.) It was reading into stuff, gone mad. I have come to the conclusion that there is such a thing as too much interpretation, and that can ruin a beautiful thing like HoL. Turns out, MZD even gets exasperated at how deeply and seriously some people may lose themselves in HoL.
• The conversations are attracting not only the academically minded, but also complete newbies who are entering the horrific alchemy of the novel and realising that YES, this book CAN give you nightmares. A word of warning to those beginning it: make sure you read it during the day, not in your house, and you have someone around to have a light-hearted conversation afterwards. DO NOT READ AT NIGHT. You have been warned. I have personally experienced the horrors of that.
• It can be a bit confusing, but that is the nature of the novel and the way ideas unspool from it. When you have a piece of work that has been constructed like a daisy-chain from other pieces of literature and literature that doesn’t even exist, but is given the illusion it is a credible piece of evidence, then people begin to echo that in their own surmisings. It is completely a meta-experience. We are the book, the book is us. Simple as.

What ‘Genre’ is House of Leaves?

This is my second read through of HoL, which means I’ll be approaching it from a completely different perspective. When I first read it, I didn’t really get what I was experiencing. Yes, it was a very unique experience as the book is laid out differently from other texts. It is a story about a labyrinth, that grows in a house in Ash Tree Lane, and the text is labyrinthine to mimic that.

A labyrinth, as everyone knows, is designed to throw you off, make you lose your bearings, your sense of ‘self’, induce a sense of panic etc until you ‘work’ to find out the exit. This is what I mean by the ‘structure’ of the book mimicking the content of the book:

The text will not obey the laws of literature as we know it. Text will flow backwards, go sideways, be cut off, slide down the page, even be ‘caged’ in a box, which here is symbolising how one of the characters feels as he crawls through one of the ever shifting spaces in the labyrinth.

As for what ergodic means:

“The ergodic work of art is one that in a material sense includes the rules for its own use, a work that has certain requirements built in that automatically distinguishes between successful and unsuccessful users.”

It also needs to be something that requires the reader to interact with the text, (which the book club members are doing, they are digging up meanings, joining up the dots, making new connections and using the ‘interface’ that MZD created.) This book does not come with a manual on how to read it – you need to figure out what is needed to crack it:

“In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text. If ergodic literature is to make sense as a concept, there must also be nonergodic literature, where the effort to traverse the text is trivial, with no extranoematic responsibilities placed on the reader except (for example) eye movement and the periodic or arbitrary turning of pages.”

So basically moving your eyes from right to left is not going to get you anywhere with HoL.

Apart from this, HoL is grossly intertextual – to the point where we can say that it doesn’t stay anchored to any one ideology, theme or genre. It passes fluently and fluidly from one to the next at will. In fact, you have control over what those connections are. The suggestions are there, only you have to make the links (if you wish).

So, let’s introduce ourselves to the notion of HYPERTEXT:

Hypertext fiction is characterized by networked nodes of text making up a fictional story. There are often several options in each node that directs where the reader can go next. Unlike traditional fiction, the reader is not constrained by reading the fiction from start to end, depending on the choices they make. In this sense, it is similar to an encyclopaedia, with the reader reading a node and then choosing a link to follow.

HoL, despite proclaiming itself to be a ‘novel’ is actually more of a manual of sorts, an academic paper, that gets lost in the throes of its own urban mythology. It desperately tries to anchor itself in reality. We have at least 3 narrators for starters: Zampano (a blind man who to me resembles Jorges Luis Borges more than anything (more on this for next week!), Johnny Truant (a young drug-addled failing tattoo artist who picks up the mantle of Zampano after he dies, whose voice is a footnote in the margins of the book) and Navidson (a man who may or may not have existed, who moved into a haunted house, that grew a labyrinth one day that was physically impossible according to some shaky home videos). In fact, here is one person’s very useful diagram of how many ‘narrative layers’ one experiences when reading this book:

 

Can you say ‘unreliable narrator’? Um, yep. So paranoia when reading this novel is inevitable. The hypertext aspect of the book comes into play as you go deeper into the story. You will find yourself breaking off, going away and delving into the story of the Minotaur for a few days, coming back, then realising that the page you are reading has a secret code embedded in it. Off you go again, figuring out what it means, you will go back several pages, pontificate on a word, a letter, a line. Repeat ad nauseam.

This aspect of hypertext is experienced more literally with MZD’s Only Revolutions, where you literally flip from the front to the back to the front of the book constantly to experience that same moment in time, from two different perspectives. It is a physical process and creates a feeling of symbiosis between the two lovers who are, interestingly, alive at two different points in history, and are travelling towards each other from opposite ends of the USA. It is the great American road novel, turned ergodic and hypertextualised (apt, since MZD’s fans had a hand in creating the novel itself).

But I digress… (as is natural for a novel like this). Let’s look at those all important words “This is not for you”.

Why does this greet the reader before the story begins? Some say it is a warning from Johnny Truant, who let’s face it, wishes he never went to Zampano’s apartment that day with his friend Lude. It is reminiscent of Milton’s “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” which greets those at the entrance to hell. I would like to agree that it is this an nothing more, as the house is a hell to anyone who enters it and especially goes down the 5 1/2 minute hallway to the great unknown.

However others have stated that the work itself consists of personal notes, scribblings, Zampano’s obsessive writings which are reminiscent of diary entries. The man was a graphomanic and died in a place much like this:

So maybe we are NOT meant to read his things, because they are a diary of his mad thoughts. The reader is solely himself (ironic, as the man was blind – another link to Borges!)

Others have suggested that since ‘echo’ plays a big part in the core theme of the book, then maybe we should apply to myth directly, in that if this is Echo’s voice, only the last two words would chime back to us ‘for you, for you’. An interesting theory (and one of my favourites!)

Lastly, one member of the book club made a very valuable contribution about how he had once met Danielewski at a signing, and he said the following ‘I wrote this for you so you could swim in it, not for you to drown in it’. Very revealing, as yes, it is for us and for the reader. Nice to know MZD worries about us and our obsession with his creation.

So remember guys – have fun, don’t drown. From one Pisces to another, just swim with the current*.

*Just an observation but it is WBD, 1st March. That means 4 days to go for MZD’s birthday, and 6 days for mine. Check out the publisher of my edition of the book:

*sly grin* Okay, I’ll stop now… I’ll stop. Those of you who got it, have got it. Thank you. I’ll just ‘swim’ and try not to drown. 

 

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Book Review | The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Tags

America Gods, book review, fantasy, Neil Gaiman, The Sandman

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have always had a little problem with Neil Gaiman. He’s one of these prolific authors who I really want to like more than I actually do. I think everyone has one author that makes them feel that way at least once in their life. What makes it worse, is that everyone I know adores him. I mean, the man is a living legend with a body of work that boasts of The Sandman and American Gods (which is being turned into an epic series by Amazon Prime!) So as you might expect, I feel a little bit left out at times.

So imagine my delight at picking up The Ocean and the End of the Lane and discovering that I had found the perfect ‘Gaiman’ story. I can wholeheartedly say that this is a tale full of magic and wonderment that captures the essence of childhood – which is no mean feat when you are an adult trying to remember back to the golden age of your life. His storytelling is absolutely effortless here, I couldn’t spot a single snag (and that is not always the case).

The plot explores the dark shadows that stalk the corners of a child’s imagination. Our protagonist is a young boy who in the true nature of gothic fiction, is nameless. The story is told through a series of flashbacks, the beginning roof which is triggered by the aftermath of a funeral, as our unnamed protagonist seeks the comfort of his childhood days. He finds himself in front of the house he was brought up in and the memories begin to flood back, especially when he seeks out a puddle in the road that was called ‘the ocean’ by a distant childhood friend.

The story from here, melts into the past, and we are plunged into the distinctively sensory world of the adolescent. The imagery here is especially impressive, as the sights and sounds of the countryside, the cottages, nature itself are ‘painted’ so that I almost felt like I was there.

Yet everyone knows that the world of a child isn’t wholly safe or innocent – and Gaiman artfully turns the world of our protagonist upside down, shocking the reader with just how dangerous and inappropriate it could get.

Of course, this is a fantasy story – but I think everyone can relate to it, especially if they (like me) had an overactive imagination and could switch from reality to the make-believe world at the blink of an eye. A dandelion could become a wand, a fairy could be hiding behind a fallen rose petal, a tree trunk could have a hidden face in it. Thus Gaiman builds a world where our protagonist shows us how a child met a family of witches, and survived (barely) to tell the tale.

The most admirable thing about this story, is the potential for it to be carried on. I have so many questions about this world of witchcraft and magic, especially the way things work. Just how old are the wise women? What kind of creatures live in the fold between our world and theirs? I just hope there is a follow up to this, because it would make such an awesome series.

View all my reviews

Book Review | The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

My rating: 5/5 stars

NOTE: This book was sent to me upon request from netgalley.com. The novel will be available to purchase May 1st 2017.

“Ordinary women in 1920s America.

All they wanted was the chance to shine.

Be careful what you wish for.”

The Radium Girls is one of those rare works of non-fiction that reads effortlessly, because besides the artful prose and the meticulously rendered characters, the story itself beggars belief. How could a generation of hopeful, bright-eyed young women be mistreated in such a callous way by their work place? How could a well-known company encourage a young female workforce to ‘lick’ and ‘point’ the ends of paintbrushes that had been dipped into radioactive paint? I certainly didn’t believe this was true – until I researched and realised that yes, life can be stranger than fiction.

The book traces the long-forgotten, landmark case of various female factory workers who had contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials. The paint itself (mixed with radium – at the time, deemed a ‘wonder-drug’) seeped into the clothes, hair and very bones of the unsuspecting workers, until they began showing terrifying symptoms of anemia and necrosis.

Kate Moore’s novel is a tribute and an elegy to the working class girls who suffered horrendous agony at the hands of unapologetic capitalist corporations until they found a lawyer who was willing to fight back on their behalf. Moore spends time lovingly immersing us into the naive world of the girls, as they step into the world of work and become painters and artists. The glow of ‘undark’ gives their lives a Hollywood glamour they could only dream of. However the otherworldly light that clung to them like fairy dust is far from magical – unbeknownst to them it was the evil glow of death.

With every rise, there must be a fall. So Moore takes us on the tragic downturn of the girls’ lives, as she begins to paint with painful accuracy the onset of a series of agonising deaths that the mind finds hard to comprehend.

The history of these girls and their suffering resonated deeply with me. It is at once a heartbreaking tragedy and a true life ‘underdog’ story. At parts it evoked memories of Erin Brokovich, and there were moments when I saw it dove-tailing with Per Olov Enquist’s excellent novel ‘The Story of Blanche and Marie’; another incredibly vivid and saddening tale of how radium destroyed of the lives of Marie Curie and Blanche Wittman, her assistant.

When it comes to radium, one cannot help but be fascinated and horrified of it at the same time; especially the relationship has had with women. The Radium Girls is a book that will stay with me for a long time.

 

Book Review | ‘The Running Man’ by Stephen King

Tags

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ben Richards, book review, Clint Eastwood, dystopian, Hunger Games, Running Man, stephen king

The Running Man by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride–if responsibility robs him of his manhood.”

I was only looking for an entertaining read, something I would’t have to take too seriously and one that I knew would take me away from the copious amounts of marking and grading I had to do at the time.

Let’s put it this way; I got more than I bargained for! This book is all the above and then some. I first met with ‘The Running Man’ in the 1980’s film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger  At the time it felt very much like an ultra-futuristic, distant, dystopian nightmare that thrilled a lot of people with its American take on Orwellian themes.

I am not a big Stephen King fan; at the best of times I have lukewarm respect for his innovative imagery and ability to keep his audience entertained and slightly crapping themselves in certain creepy scenarios. However, I think I have become something of a convert with ‘The Running Man’. Nowadays I feel like I’m a more mature reader, and I can definitely appreciate his scary powers of second-guessing what the near future holds for mankind; which this piece of work definitely showcases.

For anyone who like me, was sitting on a fence in regards to King’s quality as a novelist is at an advantage. If you have never watched the film, or heard about the book then you are in luck, reading ‘The Running Man’ will give you a very clear answer.

Personally, I read this from a post 9/11 perspective. The novel depicts a corrupted America, whose political and social infrastructure rests on rotten foundations. More sinister tones of ‘The Hunger Games‘ prevail across the continent, where the poor are nothing but forgettable pawns that can be used to entertain the rich.

“In the year 2025, the best men don’t run for president, they run for their
lives. . .”

As I said before, the novel contains many parallels to that dark period in American history. It reflects the current culture of the corrupted ‘American Dream’, which Chuck Palahnuik very aptly describes as being able to “make your life into something you can sell.” And what is ‘The Running Man’ if not the reality show turned nightmare? King takes the capitalist, materialistic, consumerist attitude of America and shows us what it can turn into.

The writing is addictive and the pace is wonderfully set. King shows off all his skills as the reader is roped into following Ben Richards; who reads like a ‘last of his kind’ type of Clint Eastwood character fighting to save his baby girl who is slowly wasting away in front of his eyes. As a last resort, he enters the ‘Games’; as this is the only way he will ever find the money to save his family from poverty. What ensues is a true roller-coaster account of his fight to survive the ‘Games’ and save his family.

Even though this sounds like a plot that has been done to death; I recommend everybody give it a try. You will be surprised how fresh and original King’s version of events will be.

View all my reviews

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Best Books of 2012 Round-Up

Tags

banana yoshimoto, book review, daniel keyes, forster, japanese horror story, jeffrey eugenides, ryunosuke akutagawa

It’s that time of year again when I do a little retrospective of best books. I’m quite surprised that I’ve been a little frugal with my 5/5 stars, but 2012 has certainly put me in touch with some awesome authors I have never heard of or read before. So, without further ado, here’s a taste of the best bits of how my reading year went.

By far the most heartbreaking and astonishing book I have come across during the year. It’s one hell of a story that really examines the fleeting nature of our lives, our achievements and our losses. Nothing prepares you for the amazement and devastation you will feel when Charlie Gordon, a simpleton with an IQ of 18 undergoes breakthrough brain surgery to increase his intelligence levels. His one goal in life is to be intelligent, yet when this wish is granted, he is unaware of the horrible revelations it brings with it. As the veil of dumb ignorance is slowly lifted, his perception of friends and family also change. On his journey of discovery he gets a taste of emotions and thoughts he never knew existed. ‘Flowers for Algernon‘ is a beautiful illustration of how bitter the fruit of knowledge really can be.

My first attempt at Eugenides was absolute bliss. ‘Middlesex’ explores themes of incest and family history through the eyes of Cal, a hermaphrodite. “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver-s license…records my first name simply as Cal.” The opening paragraph on it’s own is electrifying enough. I couldn’t put it down and if you choose to read this, neither will you. Hilarious and tragic in equal amounts with just the right dose of literary intelligence to keep the literary critic in you smiling too.

My first attempt at Banana Yoshimoto also left me with warm, fuzzy feelings. Japanese fiction is so beautiful, and ‘Kitchen’ embodies faithful representations of human emotions with that trademark simplicity that Japanese writers seem to have a knack for. This book is like a celebration of death and life, and reminds us that we must cherish the people around us when we still have them. This book reads like a series of short stories. Here’s my review of it.

Akutagawa, the father of modern Japanese literature, translated by Jay Rubin. What more could you want? This is a short, short read that packs one hell of a punch. Akutagawa brings out the delicious lacquerwork and intricate embellishment of Japanese folklore in this collection of sharp, disturbing tales about art and sacrifice. Read my review here.

Romance novels, I do not like. However, I am willing to change that with a book like ‘A Room With A View’. Forster’s perspective of love is what really endeared this novel to me. It’s not lovey-dovey, wishy-wishy. Real love is messy, it’s more to do with gut feelings than rationality. It’s a tricky path to negotiate and our two lovers here certainly fall from grace more than once trying to find their way to one another. Read my review here.

That’s it folks! Those are my best pickings of 2012. What are yours?

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Book Review | ‘The Woman in Black’ by Susan Hill

Tags

book review, daphne du maurier, Ghost story, gothic fiction, Haunting of Hill House, Hollywood, jane austen, Shirley Jackson, susan hill

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

“I have sat here at my desk, day after day, night after night, a blank sheet of paper before me, unable to lift my pen, trembling and weeping too.”

This was one of those books that had come to my attention thanks to the Hollywood remake. The visuals in the trailer were fabulously dark and grotesque and held a sort of promise of the type of Gothic we just don’t get to see nowadays. But that was the movie, and I so desperately wanted to see it that I had to first hunt down the book. Which, as you know, is just the weird order in which I do things.

I finally managed to get a copy and settled down to be scared out of my wits by this ‘Jane Austen-esque ghost story‘, but to my disappointment found it very dry in description and wanting in the scare department. Maybe I had far too high an expectation of what is in reality, just a mediocre chilling tale about a vengeful spirit who haunts a remote backwater village.

The basic outline of the story goes like this: The story begins with Arthur Kipps, who begins to write about his terrible, real-life encounter with a ghost during his early days as an up and coming solicitor. He recounts how a business trip sent him to the remote  and forbidden Eel Marsh House to attend the funeral of the late Alice Drablow and complete the menial task of putting her legal papers in order. However, when Kipps asks about the Drablow estate, no one wants to speak about it. A mysterious woman dressed in black with a decaying countenance also seems to haunt him wherever he goes.

When he asks to be taken across the Nine Lives Causeway to the estate, no one is willing to take him, except one man. There in all its wild beauty and agonising splendor he encounters Eel Marsh House, a solitary Gothic mansion, standing alone, proud and teeming with terrible secrets. As he spends his days and nights there, hears the awful bumping sounds from the locked nursery room and witnesses the ghostly screams of a drowned child on the gurgling causeway, he realises he must leave quickly, or risk going mad.

“Whatever was about, whoever I had seen, and heard rocking, and who had passed me by just now, whoever had opened the locked door was not ‘real’. No. But what was ‘real’? At that moment I began to doubt my own reality.”

This had the opportunity to become a great ghost story. It’s just I’m really upset that Susan Hill sinks into the comfort of Victorian descriptions which make it too stuffy and constricting. Language-wise some areas are far too overly done while other parts could have benefited from more visual description.

I loved the idea of an isolated house that stood almost like a lighthouse in the middle of the deadly causeway. The house itself is very scary and the descriptions of it will stay with me for a long time. I almost half wish it existed, like Manderley in ‘Rebecca’ or the mansion in Shirley Jackson‘s ‘The Haunting of Hill House‘. The sounds across the causeway, and the idea that the death of a child is resurrected and replayed there every night in the swirling mists is also very disconcerting.

What I really wanted was a spotlight on the woman in black herself. She takes a back seat when she really shouldn’t. Even the house eclipses her.

I had some discussions with other people and their experience of the book compared to the movie and theatre versions and all have said the same thing: the original story is quite bland. I am hoping to see the stage version of this with a class of mine and hope it’s as good as they say it is! But one thing is for sure, it will be vastly different from the book, because every stage and film production that has been made in the past has taken liberties with the story and changed it dramatically to make it better. More proof that Hill was being a bit economical with her story?

View all my reviews

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Top Ten Most Hated Books

Tags

Book Thief, Haunting of Hill House, janet fitch, Marcus Sedgwick, min jin lee, Shirley Jackson, white oleander

Recently I stumbled across a comment made by a reader of mine (Caroline Tien) who expressed, quite eloquently, her complete and utter disappointment of Janet Fitch’s ‘White Oleander’ (click here for comment, and scroll to bottom).  Now I love honest reviews of books and find it really refreshing when someone has the guts to say otherwise. I myself being a reader that prides herself on reading what is GOOD, not what is in vogue value that immensely. However I often find some readers simply join the herd and say how damn interesting it was, when it damn well wasn’t (*cough* 50shades *cough*).

Anyway, Caroline made some really valid points which, even though I could see and feel as I was reading it at the time, didn’t really disturb me much. But it obviously had a huge negative impact on her. She explained how Fitch ruined the story with her obsessive use of metaphors and melodrama. Among other things she touched upon the completely unlikable characters that portrayed women as unstable  nympho types (feminists unite!).

I can’t discount any of the above. It does exist in Fitch’s writing, and in huge helpings, but I personally loved all the metaphors and melodrama. But it got me thinking upon the REASONS people may love one book and completely dislike another. Like most bloggers in the blogopshere, I have my little collection of titles I love to loathe, which I simply do not get (regardless of how many times I’ve sat and tried to read) or because something about the thing offends me be it literary boo-boos or otherwise.

One blogger posted about how renowned author’s also have similar problems with certain books. My favourite is Ian Rankin’s rant, as it really struck a chord:

Ian Rankin, novelist

I haven’t ever wanted to hurl it to the floor, but I’ve started Midnight’s Children several times and been unable to get past the first 10 pages. Not sure why; it’s been a few years since I gave it a go . . . maybe time to try again! I loved Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, but was told by author friends that Blood Meridian is his masterpiece. I tried it and couldn’t get halfway through. Just didn’t find it interesting. Also couldn’t finish The Road. How can a book be harrowing and pedestrian at the same time? Enjoyed The Hobbit as a teenager; gave up on The Lord of the Rings after about 30 pages

It’s so good to know I’m not the only one who HATES McCarthy (he’s so DRY) and that I’m not alone in thinking how inaccessible ‘On The Road’ was. Maybe I need to do a bit of hillbillying around the USA to get what it’s all about. I’m from the UK, we don’t really have coming-of-age-bumpkining-around novels… I fear the subject is all too remote for us.

But the sad thing about it is this; I seriously DO want to get these novels. They’re big and beautiful and highly respected. Being the only one who doesn’t get it makes me feel slightly dumb.

So, here is my inspired response to Caroline’s comment and a list of my top ten most hated books in no particular order and why. Enjoy!

1. Lost Souls – Poppy Z. Brite

Gratuitous violence, sex and gore; vampiric LGBT incest; characters who act without thinking; a plotless plot and eating of placenta’s… Lost Souls? I damn well think so! On the upside, there are oodles of Chartereuse drinking going on, which is about the only positive thing about this novel of vampire’s who have lived for so long that they don’t know what to do with themselves. If you have still NOT grown out of your teenage-ennui, then you might like this. Otherwise grown-ups stay well away!!

2. My Swordhand is Singing – Marcus Sedgwick

What could have been a good vampire novel that began to truly look around the geographical period of the times fell flat on its face with a very clichéd, stereotypical representation of the invading Turkish army. Why does this bother me? I’m sick and tired of writers representing my people as bloodthirsty barbarians who are a blight on the face of the earth. When are we ever going to see a good Turkish guy? Never it seems, because it’s just too easy (and safe) to call us the undesirable ‘other’. Do me a favour. Leave it. It’s been done to death, and I think people are getting the idea that it’s all bullshit anyway. Armies invade, they kill, they conquer. Everybody was doing it back in the day. Deal with it.

3. On Writing – Stephen King

… we were prescribed this book as required reading for our creative writing classes. I bought it, read it, and was extremely ANGRY. It was a complete waste of money and time as it was King ranting on about the time when he wiped his arse with nettle leaves when he was a boy, with several chapters thrown in about his near-fatal car accident. Very little to do with actual CRAFT of writing itself. It’s all hot-air and pompous reminiscing guys. Only buy if you truly want to read it for THAT purpose. You have been warned.

4. Free Food for Millionaires – Min Jin Lee

Don’t be fooled by the gorgeous cover. It’s a complete shambles. I love Eastern writers and writing, yet this debut novel by Korean author Min Jin Lee left a lot to be desired. Full of over-achieving young Korean characters who have all the opportunities in the world but fritter their time away feeling lost and lonely in the family and sexual relationships. All make characters were portrayed as nasty, and female ones – well, I couldn’t identify with. Avoid like the plague.

5. Woman in Black – Susan Hill

Works terrible as a novel, but could see the brilliance of it on the stage! The only scary bit was the moments describing the knocking sound in the nursery. For a more superior experience try Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House‘.

6. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

Simply. Did. Not. Get. I dislike it when something as serious as WW2 is described in a trite, childish manner. This is the same reason why I didn’t enjoy ‘The Boy in Striped Pyjama’s’ so much either.

7. The Catcher in the Rye

One I’m ashamed to say I didn’t get either. Holden Caulfield’s immature rants failed to find a place of recognition in me. I’ve never been as petulant as all that. I think I’m seeing a pattern in my most disliked books. Most are centered around teen angst!

8. The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Required reading for our creative writing class (again), and only because our lecturer at the time was such a bloody fan of Kundera. He waxed lyrical about him. I failed to see the greatness of his prose. Very inaccessible. I prefer Borges. Any day.

9. Lost World

I disliked this novel so much. And made it very clear WHY. And have had a heated debate about the merits of Melo’s writing. You can read my thoughts about it in my review.

10. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost

So bad that it has put me off reading Kadare for life. I really didn’t know where the story was going, and lack of structure really puts me off. Story-writing is an art of blending ideas, thoughts and language. If after reading halfway through it I still can’t find anything of merit, then I give up. I also suspect that it was victim of a very bad translation. Too bad.

So there it is, my embarrassing list of dead-end novels. But at least now I feel better in knowing that even well-known writers have the same difficulties.

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Book Review | Botchan by Natsume Soseki

Tags

book review, Botchan, Huckleberry Finn, japan, japanese, Matsuyama Ehime, Natsume Sōseki, Soseki, Tokyo

Botchan by Natsume Sōseki

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

‘Botchan‘ is an amusing account based on the ups and downs of the teaching profession which is closely related to Soseki’s own short-lived stint as a teacher in Matsuyama. It is one of the most widely read novels in Japan and I can see why; anyone who has ever been a student or a teacher can completely relate to the many naughty things teachers AND students get up to. Schools were and still are utterly insane environments, and will drive even the calmest person mad.

This is very much a summer read. It is mischievous and light-hearted with tones of Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn‘ running through it, as Botchan our slightly arrogant narrator, describes his early days as a juvenile delinquent and his karmic comeuppance as a pompous maths teacher. In the beginning Botchan comes across as a naughty kid who never really applies himself to his studies (unlike his brother) and is therefore always getting into all sorts of trouble. However, after his mother’s tragic death he learns to grow up pretty fast. His father and brother look upon him as a waste of space, yet Kiyo the family servant, treats him like a prince, always telling him how he will one day be a ‘great man’.

Never really having any real aims or goals, Botchan soon realises he must do something with his life. When his father dies and his brother sells the family house and moves away to set up his own business, Botchan decides to enroll himself in the Tokyo Academy of Physics, but even this is without any real enthusiasm. A few years later he is graduated and by chance offered the job of mathematics teacher in the backwater town of Matsuyama of all places.

On arrival he realises that Matsuyama is not as refined as Tokyo and it’s people (in his eyes) are equal to that of neanderthals. His observations of the townspeople, students and other professors of the faculty are hilarious as he gives his colleagues nicknames (he never refers to them by their real names anyway). The best thing about Botchan as a character is his inability to see his own shortcomings, yet he moans when bad things happen to him. His students torture him with names like ‘Red towel’ and tease him about his love of onsen’s and noodle bars.

Very soon he discovers that being a teacher means you cannot do whatever you want out of school hours. Living in such a small town means word gets around, and anyone who has ever taught will understand how your actions out of school could so easily be used against you. I found this to be a really faithful account of first-time teaching and how certain events still resonate today even though it was written back in 1906.

Highly recommended to all those entering the teaching profession for a bit of light entertainment. It will certainly take your mind away from all the lesson-planning and essay writing one needs to do during the ITT and NQT years!

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Book Review | ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ by Margery Williams

Tags

beatrix potter, benjamin bunny, book review, carlo collodi, childrens fiction, l. frank baum, Margery Williams, pinocchio, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, toy story, velveteen rabbit, Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ is a sweet little tale about a toy bunny who arrives at a nursery one day as the new plaything. At first he is an object of curiosity, but is quickly shunned when the other more expensive toys discover he is made of more inferior material. This greatly saddens the poor rabbit, yet one day one of the toys opens his eyes to a new concept; one where toys can actually become ‘real’. The toy rabbit learns that to become a real bunny, one must be loved by one’s owner; even if that means being loved to the point that a toy starts falling apart.

I started reading Margery Williams’ short story after I finished ‘Pinocchio’ by Collodi and whether by chance or coincidence, found it to be similar to that of the wooden boy. Both tales revolve around concepts of imitation versus reality, yet Williams’ tale has a ‘Toy Story‘ like twist, in that it is constructed in a world where toys come to life when you are not looking. This never fails to delight me, which means I have either not grown up… yet.

Williams has in her possession an ease of story-telling that looks and reads quite effortlessly but in reality is rather rare. The toy rabbit goes through a few trials and proves himself worthy of becoming a ‘real’ rabbit through his selfless acts as a loyal companion. In the end he discovers that it is not the material you are made of that matters, but rather what’s on the inside that counts. Like in ‘Pinocchio’, the Velveteen Rabbit is eventually granted his wish in becoming a real rabbit through a lovely fairy godmother and all ends happily ever after.

This is a perfect bedtime story for little ones to read aloud, with plenty of moral tales and a hugely satisfying, syrupy-sweet ending. I read the e-book version, which is again widely available. I accessed my copy through Kobo books. For books similar to ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ I recommend Beatrix Potter’s ‘Benjamin Bunny’ series and also L. Baum’s ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ (also a rather extensive series in its own right!’

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Book Review | ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Tags

alex haley, autobiography, beloved, black history, book review, che guevara, fidel castro, frederick douglass, malcolm x, roots, Slavery, toni morrison, Washington DC

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There is no doubt countless works written about slavery. The most famous that comes to mind is the epic ‘Roots’ by Alex Haley which is regarded as a keystone of Black historical fiction and the more contemporary, but equally compelling ‘Beloved’; Toni Morrison’s impenetrably abstract deconstruction of ‘slave psychology’ that explores the extremities of motherly love, death and the chains of freedom. Frederick Douglass’ autobiography may not be an epic, but his book definitely stands as a precious precursor to the aforementioned books. Because Douglass was a real-life pioneer of the abolition who not only managed to escape slavery, but who also went on to being a celebrated orator, secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission, marshall and recorder of deeds in the district of Columbia and US Minister to Haiti.

Needless to say, this short narrative really does not do justice to the many deeds Douglass managed to achieve during his extraordinary life, but rather gives us insight into the mind of a born revolutionary and the things he suffered that eventually and inevitably led him to his profession. The most common thing about such men of destiny is a striking similarity in their sense of ‘belonging to a cause’ and a dogged determination in overcoming the overwhelming obstacles shared by their brethren. This coupled with an unusual sensitivity to suffering gives rise to men of the ilk of Castro, Guevara and Malcolm X: men with a mission to alleviate the dishonour and injustice inflicted upon a race, a country, a creed.

For those interested in first person accounts of slavery, this is an excellent place to start. On the positive side it is free and widely available to read download and read online. I got my edition from Kobo, but it can also be accessed quite easily via Goodreads on Douglass’ author page. Secondly, it is also a historical document and could quite easily be used as a reference in a thesis or other type of research on the subject.

Through his writing I could easily see how powerful an orator Douglass must have been, as his sketches of the various good and cruel characters he met during his life is very clearly and deftly made. His command of the English language also makes the narrative very easy to read and understand. He also has the wonderful ability to make some very clever and impassioned metaphors pertaining to slavery that I felt was quite unique.

Altogether this narrative is a very valuable piece of literature that I think everyone should read, as it’s not only a part of Black history but everyone’s history. It is testament to what a man can achieve if only he sets his mind to it and perseveres not matter what.

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