Tag Archives: Fiction

Book Review | ‘Heroes and Villains’ by Angela Carter

06 Friday Jul 2012

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Heroes and VillainsHeroes and Villains by Angela Carter

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am now pretty certain that no one ever really gets used to Angela Carter’s brand of vitriolic love or her genre-defying characters. I mean, when I try to figure out ‘Heroes and Villains’, I really struggle to put a label on what I have just read. Instead I come up with crazy statements like: it’s a futuristic fairytale with elements of creation mythology that registers roughly on the ultraviolet section of the story-telling rainbow. Yeah. It’s like THAT.

The main ingredients of a typical Carter novel are a fistful of folktale blueprints, which are then stripped from all the pretty ‘Perrault‘ restraints and marched at gunpoint into the roiling, acerbic crucible of the author’s mind. And from this magician’s melting pot which consists of a curious alchemy of brains, barbarism and wily femininity come out twisted versions of the tales themselves; genetically spliced monsters that would and could turn upon themselves at the slightest provocation. Actually, imagine the cannibalistic fairies that feature in ‘Pan’s Labyrinth‘ and you’re more than halfway there to figuring out just how brutal Carter can be in her own re-telling of events.

Take our main character for example, one bony slip of a girl called Marianne, who quite literally grows up in an ivory tower surrounded by luxuries. The tower and her social status as a professor’s daughter places her as the ‘princess’ of the story. A quick glance outside those castle walls and we instantly see how privileged she really is; as only two other caste systems remain in this bleak post-apocalyptic world. The dreaded barbarians are the ‘noble savages’ made up of wandering gypsies, thieves and vagabonds. Then there are the Out-People; a genetically corrupt version of humanity that have devolved into monsters. From these Carter makes up the misunderstood ‘other’ who are not as intellectually inferior as they seem and the half-man, half-monster types that would rank among the minotaurs and Centaurs of ancient mythology. The sad irony of this is that even though the latter group emulate the glory of demigods, the reality is quite the opposite as Carter marks their existence as unnatural and the undoing of man.

Marianne therefore surprises us when she tires from her closeted upbringing and decides to defect into the wilderness with a dangerous barbarian who is held captive in the fortress. Even worse is the fact that she runs away with the very boy who murdered her own brother. So begins a very strange tale of love (if love it can be called) between a savage and a professor’s daughter as they form an odd alliance that can only be described as a type of Stockholm Syndrome.

Within the span of the story, Marianne shows her true colours, as her life with the savage tribe exposes her to vulgarity and sexual assault. Male/ female relationships are brought down to their bare primal essentials and we realise how Marianne is made of much, much sterner stuff. As the story progresses we see how Marianne by instinct has finally found the place where she is most happy; beside the beautiful but violent raven-haired Jewel.

As a reader I enjoyed the progression of their relationship, this unlikely romance that would go sour in some places and then pick up again when you least expected it. There story is underpinned by the Adam and Eve mythos, and this also handsomely features in the form of a grotesque tattoo on Jewels torso of the scene where Eve offers Adam the forbidden fruit. In fact, Jewel is somewhat of a synthetic messiah; a puppet controlled by the ominous ‘Doctor’; a madman who is trying to fabricate his own religion using members of the savage tribe. Jewel with his imposing physique and handsome looks doubles as Adam, Jesus and other religious characters.

So, dystopian fiction or post-apocalyptic nightmare; barbaric romance or feminist literature, you read and decide.

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Book Review | ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by John Boyne

05 Thursday Apr 2012

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The boy in the striped pajamasThe boy in the striped pajamas by John Boyne

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though this book is about the Holocaust and Auschwitz there is a persistent, deliberate sense of censorship that haunts the narrative and stops us from truly experiencing the horrors of the concentration camp. This will either have one of two effects on the reader: either they will be attracted to this ‘lighter’ way of story-telling, or they will be completely put off by it.

The story is about Bruno, a nine-year old boy living in Berlin with his wealthy family, who comes home one day from school to find they are moving to a place called ‘Out-With’. Bruno is greatly disappointed and mourns the fact that he will no longer be able to play at exploring the nooks and crannies of the grand, mahogany rooms. This tumultuous change in family life is all due to his father’s promotion, which coincided with a personal visit from a short, cold-mannered and rather rude man known as ‘the Fury’.

Bruno resents the visit and the ensuing developments that cause his family to move, and when they do eventually arrive at their new home his disappointment grows into despair. ‘Out-With’ turns out to be a desolate place in the middle of nowhere and no place for a young adventurous boy to grow up. Even his mother objects and is uneasy with their surroundings; which he knows only because he hears his parents arguing about it.

With no friends to play with and no other houses for miles around, Bruno tries to make the best of things; however it doesn’t take long before Bruno’s inquisitive nature gets the better of him and he discovers that there are people living nearby. People living in a high-walled building; people who walk around listlessly wearing nothing but blue striped pyjamas. Bruno’s imagination is ignited and it is not long before he finds a way to reach this place and befriend a boy, just like him, who has had to leave his home behind because of the ‘Fury’.

What ensues is a friendship that destroys ethnic and religious boundaries and which ends in a final, cruel twist of fate.

Boyne warns us that this is ultimately a fable, a cautionary tale and that it is not true; even though the rare moments when we do get a glimpse of the horrors of Auschwitz goes to show that Boyne stays faithful to real accounts of that time.

However, I assume Boyne chose to write the story through the eyes of a nine-year-old in order to cultivate a more innocent, ‘fable-like’ approach. And indeed this not only leaks into the perspective, but also into the language of the characters in the form of ‘Out-With’ and ‘the Fury’. This, and other forms of censorship/ banning of ‘bad’ words are both a blessing and a curse. I initially read this book with a group of Year 8 students, and appreciated the fact that the story was clean and straight-forward to read. It also helped that they had to do a little thinking to figure out who ‘the Fury’ was and what ‘Out-With’ meant. However, I couldn’t help smiling when some more ‘awake’ readers complained that the main character was a little dumb. My twelve-year olds had touched on a very good point.

While Boyne was trying to make a terrible account about WW2 and concentration camps more accessible for younger children; he has also managed to ‘lobotimize’ it too. From experience I (and my year 8’s) know that most 9 year-olds are not as ignorant as the way Bruno is portrayed to be in the novel. They are the exact opposite: inquisitive and highly precocious. Children at that age learn things almost by osmosis and I feel (like my students) that Boyne made a grave mistake when dumbing his main character down like that.

If you are looking for an ideal book for your 11-13 year old that will tie in with their History classes and is a little more conservative, then this is the perfect book. However I would suggest that reading together would be the best, as then issues and questions can be raised about the narrative, who knows, you might be surprised about the intelligent responses you get as I did.

ANALYSIS OF ‘THE BOY IN STRIPED PYJAMAS’

Having had further thoughts on Boyne’s use of a child narrator, I have decided to analyse it as a deliberate device and a way of story-telling. There are passages within the book that I have criticised because I deem the viewpoint too simplistic or naive. However if we were to look at the book from an analytical standpoint, there is much to say about Boyne’s intent and message to the reader. Arguably WW2 was one of the most senseless and incomprehensibly violent wars the world has ever seen. The sense of gross defilement that victims went through is still very hard to process. Psychologically, there will always be a ‘why’ that the survivors of the holocaust have carried and will carry with them till they die. It’s like an empty vacuum that cannot be filled with an answer, because there isn’t one.

The children in the story represent both of these mentalities. Shmuel is a character that says very little, is world-weary and resigned to his fate. The vacuum I spoke about is evident in his description and actions. He understands the suffering, knows the pain, yet cannot (or IS not capable) of questioning it due to his age. The main character however is far more innocent. He has zero concept of the world around him (which is the only thing I don’t like about this book). We could argue that Boyne uses a painfully ignorant boy to highlight the incomprehensibility of the war itself, and that Boyne is channelling this message through the character’s actions.

This could also reflect in the innocent childish lisp that he has. There are certain words that have become imbued with horror that the child cannot pronounce come what may. I forget exactly which words they were, but I think ‘Auschwitz’ was one and possibly ‘Hitler’ was another. I found this to be quite potent, as Boyne is clearly signalling how some words are not fit to grace the lips of children. In some cases, people who suffer some sort of psychological trauma also develop speaking difficulties. We could also argue that the child narrator is foreshadowing the events about to befall him (his tragic end).

The children in the novel are severely repressed. Shmuel for obvious reasons in the camp, but for Bruno it is a repression of communication. There is a silence in the house, a clear ‘children should be seen and not heard’ culture which was prevalent then. Bruno’s communication with his father is sporadic and often curtailed for one reason or another. We can again link this to how the holocaust could not be explained in rational ways, because Bruno’s father is seen to avoid/ dodge the questions of his son. In a cast that is so heavily made up with male characters, there is a sense of imbalance which is again mirrored in the unfair imbalance of power during this time. The questioning of the Holocaust, or the attempt to break down barriers of communication come from the female characters. They are more divulgent, yet again, they are repressed. Hitler’s girlfriend reaches out to Bruno and shows affection which counts as emotional communication, Bruno’s mother is constantly arguing with her husband. Bruno’s grandmother is the bravest of them all, and outright challenges her son in what he is doing. The children’s lack of information and naivety could stem from the fact that they are starved from feminine affection. The Holocaust was a ‘man-made’ event, with emphasis on ‘man’, hence lack of feminine values and a feeling of absence or one-sidedness in the narrative.

That’s about all I can think about for now. However I’m pretty sure there is more to say about the ending and the meaning of Bruno’s fate. I’m pretty sure it’s more than just poetic (in)justice for his father’s crimes. It could be another more subtle, but in-your-face theme of how the son pays for the father’s crimes. Ultimately the Jews in the concentration camps were also paying the price of a crime committed by their forefathers; the crucifixion of Christ.

EDITED: Based on the response of a fellow commentor, I felt compelled to amend the end of my review (namely the last sentence above). What I should have said was that the Romans (Pilate) killed Jesus, but according to some scriptures the ancient Jews had just as much input into his death by creating allegations against him. If you wish to read my views on the subject then take a look at the comments section below; my review is merely an attempt to anaylse and draw parallels with what Boyne is trying to represent on a literary level. I will not comment on this further as this is a book review not a platform to discuss religious issues and in the current political/ religious climate. If you wish to do that, find yourself another forum, as it will probably be more welcome there than it is here.

So, what do you think? Got any other views on the subject? Do you agree/ disagree with any of the above?

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Book Review | ‘Man in the Dark’ by Paul Auster

19 Monday Dec 2011

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Man in the DarkMan in the Dark by Paul Auster

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Escaping into a film is not like escaping into a book. Books force you to give something back to them, to exercise your intelligence and imagination, where as you can watch a film-and even enjoy it-in a state of mindless passivity.”

It is my opinion that Paul Auster gets better with age. Whether that’s his age or mine I’ve not quite decided, but I’m finding him a lot more agreeable the older I get. I first met him in the acclaimed ‘The New York Trilogy‘; a book I fiercely wished I could like, but found I couldn’t because of all the disjointedness and the loose ends of plot he kept leaving artfully around for my poor brain to trip up on.

Anyway, the long and short of it is, I could smell a good thing was there and that my brain needed a bit more ripening, so I made a mental note to come back to Auster. Good job I did as well. After ‘The New York Trilogy’ I did what I normally do with fiction/ fiction writers I find hard to get into: try out a shorter work instead. So I indulged in ‘Travels in the Scriptorium‘ (excellent!) and now ‘Man in the Dark’, which I found electrifying.

One thing to remember is, when writing fiction, Auster can’t help but write ABOUT fiction as well. This must be a theme he loves returning to because both ‘Travels in the Scriptorium’ and ‘Man in the Dark’ have elements of ‘when fiction invades life’.

There is a decidedly Borgian element to ‘Man in the Dark’, mainly because it is a short narrative that harbours the seeds of a much larger one within it. There is a ‘story within a story’ thing happening here, parallel worlds that threaten to break through the thin membrane separating reality and imagination.

August Brill is an elderly man who is recovering from a car accident. He also suffers from severe insomnia, which compels him to make up stories to pass the time. One character, Owen Brick, becomes a fictional alter ego of sorts, and the world he occupies is an eerie place where history is re-written to create an alternative history. In Bricks’ world, America is a battleground as civil war ensues and fellow citizens kill each other relentlessly. The chapters alternate between Brill and Brick seamlessly and there is an overarching ’emptiness’ that unites or rather binds them together. For Brill this is the void left behind by the passing of his wife and his own general loneliness as an elderly man. For Brick, it is the frightening fear of waking up from a coma and not knowing who he is, where he is and more importantly what the hell he is doing there in the first place.

For those finding Auster difficult I highly recommend this short novel. If any of the themes in this review interest you then ‘Travels in the Scriptorium’ by the same author or ‘Point Omega’ by Don Delillo are equally as good (and short!)

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Book Review | ‘First Love, Last Rites’ by Ian McEwan

28 Friday Oct 2011

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First Love, Last RitesFirst Love, Last Rites by Ian McEwan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Oh my. Ian McEwan, you are a sick @&%*! But bloody hell can you write…”

This was my first response to these lean, mean sickening stories of ennui, sexual perversity and emotional absence. McEwan manages to abridge the two opposing poles of sexuality and mortality in these scary little urban tales. Besides this over-arching theme McEwan seems to write each story from the perspective of the perpetrator rather than the victim – something I never actually got comfortable with considering all his protagonists are murderers, incestuous rapists, pimpish theatre directors and paedophiles.

What I suppose I liked about these stories was how McEwan took a day out of an ordinary person’s life, and showed us how quickly it could be degraded, how by degrees an average person could manage to commit an ‘accidental’ crime, sometimes through idle suggestion alone. There is a very precise psychology around these stories and I’m pretty sure anyone who has followed the news over the past 10 years can name at least ONE incident that bears an incredible resemblance to one of the fictions within this slim book.

The taboo subjects in this novel are the things that we tend to shudder and condemn within our circle of family and friends. These are things that we would never dare identify with because it’s outside ‘normal’ accepted social behaviour. The acts themselves are the type that once committed, puts one on a ‘road of no return’. They are acts of self-condemnation and moral ruin, and I sense it is McEwan’s intent to make us feel how close we really are to becoming such monsters. After all, no one is born a rapist or a murderer, and something has to happen to make them that way. And sometimes that something can be a subtle domestic happening that grows to sinister proportions until it finds an awful outlet.

The narrative itself is written in a deceptively straight-forward and often jolly manner which means we instantly fall into the habit of identifying with the narrator. And as readers that is what is expected of us. However, the trap is laid, and when things start getting nasty I personally found I couldn’t ‘disassociate’ myself with the protagonist as I wanted to, and ended up being given a pay-off of disgust and distress.

I have often found McEwan’s writing to be like a ‘small quake’, the events he writes about have a quiet devastation to them. They live long within you like a seismic echo. One of his most loved novels ‘Atonement‘ is a classic example of this which makes ‘First Love, Love Rites’ little miniature versions of such calamities.

The stories that stood out the most were ‘Solid Geometry’ and ‘Conversations With a Cupboard Man’. The former is a borderline gothic tale of spousal enmity and the occult of mathematics. The latter deals with the turbulent past of a retarded man, and looks at the horrific psychological damage done to people who do not receive proper social care.

Despite my glowing review I gave this book 3/5 stars because I have read better by McEwan and hope to discover more novels of the caliber of ‘Atonement’.

If you like Ian McEwan then please visit my review of ‘Amsterdam’.

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Book Review | ‘The Doll and Other Stories’ by Daphne Du Maurier

11 Tuesday Oct 2011

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The Doll Short StoriesThe Doll Short Stories by Daphne du Maurier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Here is an early showcase of Du Mauriers’ literary prowess and her interest for certain themes that she would develop later into full length novels. In this little medley of tales one can spot a prototype of ‘Manderley’ house as well as recurrences of the blood-red azaleas that have become synonymous with it (the haunted setting of her most acclaimed novel ‘Rebecca’).

Overall, the stories centre on the varying degrees of sexual degeneration and the disintegration of relationships. These are explored from different angles, be it through the eyes of a prostitute or an emotionally disturbed violinist. I got a sense that as a young writer, Du Maurier understood the value of subtlety, as even her most extreme story mostly hinges on the power of suggestion. As in the fashion of the great gothic novels like ‘The Monk’ nothing is openly described but more or less alluded to.

Surprisingly, most of these were written during the authors younger years when I suppose her sexual curiosity was at its’ peak. But even then she approached her material with a maturity far beyond her years. This was raw talent trying to find its ultimate shape and form on some very sharp and often risqué ideas.

One particular story (and I can’t review without mentioning it) stands out as the most shocking. Nearly all her stories probe the dark recesses of the human psyche in one way or another, but this one tale really had me bewildered with its’ brazen pornographic twist. ‘The Doll’ is a story I can only describe as lurid and bold. It is dripping with sexual immorality and during its’ time must have caused quite a stir, as the immorality stems from a woman. The story is accessed through a fragment of letters discovered washed up on the shore. While the author is unknown, the account is legible enough to be understood, which turns out to be a strange confessional of an ex-lover who reveals one woman’s dark secret and her sickening fetish for a life-like, mechanical doll called Julio.

Now forgive me, but I didn’t know they actually HAD sex dolls back in the late 1800’s, especially ones that functioned. There is something very creepy about the thought of a cultured woman, carrying around this portable boyfriend in her trunk. The idea has a faint science-fictiony feel to it as I am reminded of the Japanese anime ‘Ghost-in-the-Shell: Innocence’, where the plot revolves around a load of ‘gynoids’ (robotic geishas) that suddenly go homicidal. Nothing like that happens here of course, but throughout the anime deep psychological questions were asked about why the dolls were created, and what they really represented outside their obvious functions. Because of this, I actually found myself attempting to relate with the doll as opposed to the other two characters, which as you can imagine made things more disturbing! Another book I should mention(and have not read yet) is ‘Locus Solus’ by Raymond Roussel, a surrealist take on the absurdities of scientific experimentation and the book which inspired a big part of the anime in question.

But I digress. As I read ’The Doll’, I got the feeling that this was evidence of Du Maurier playing in the sandbox of her ideas. There is an experimental quality to each story, but recurring characters like Maisie the prostitute shows she definitely had something in mind. It is also here that one can see early sketches of her now infamous Rebecca. If you like this book I recommend Raymond Carvers ‘Beginners’ for further reading, which is far sharper and more modern.

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Book Review | “Point Omega” by Don DeLillo

12 Tuesday Jul 2011

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Point OmegaPoint Omega by Don DeLillo

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever.”

There is a touch of the abstract, a large dose of surrealism that goes towards constructing the plot of ‘Point Omega’ that made me gawk the first time I read it. The fact that it opens on an art installation showing a super slowed-down version of Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ and through this manages to a) offer some seriously sharp observations on human nature and art and b) almost solve the mystery of time and space itself, is quite a mean feat. Yes, the opening paragraphs read rather like a bit of high-brow art criticism. But don’t let that put you off, I have heard DeLillo’s work described as being cryptic and rather impenetrable but this one apparently is his most straight-forward attempt yet. While I cannot vouch for his other works, I can honestly say that DeLillo’s reasoning will have you pondering some very strange topics that seem both out-of-this-world yet incredibly close to home at the same time. Which is exactly what I like about this book.

Told in a style that I consider to be unique to DeLillo, the story basically recounts the strange relationship between a freelance film-maker intent on creating a seamless, one-take film and a secret war advisor, who decides to withdraw to the engulfing anonymity of the desert. Themes of obsession, isolation and metaphysics are explored between man to fellow-man, nature and the ever-present, all-encompassing flow of time. Things flow slowly, conversations are fragmented, feelings and thoughts break down in such a static environment. The desert seems to swallow all sense of reality, takes away the passing of the time (or rather the recognition of its passing) as these two men bond in a quasi-primitive way.

However the arrival of the war advisor’s daughter on the scene begins a cycle that slightly disrupts this Beckett-esque, ‘two old grumpy men’ thing which to be truthful, I didn’t really get. I wanted to see the filmmaker get his one-take movie. I wanted to see these two crazy men do their weird collaboration. There was magic to be had there, and I believed DeLillo was well within his capabilities to explore that weirdness, a further breaking down of reality. But the daughter comes along and ruins that. This is the point I feel slightly ‘robbed’; like I was promised something and it wasn’t delivered. Nevermind, I got some recompense at the end with a bit more art theory cum life theory and managed to forgive DeLillo a little.

This short novel has lots of space to move, being wonderfully under-crowded character-wise (only four real characters populate the scene), yet DeLillo finds ways of introducing claustrophobia and discomfort into the sweeping desert landscape where he bases his story.

With Delillo, we finally understand how through the abstract, the surreal or the ‘theatre of the absurd‘ that we understand life and modes of living that are perhaps, too big to comprehend as they are. It is essentially the ‘jarring’ of reality that offers us a broader glimpse at truths that were previously hidden. So it is that DeLillo begins and ends his story with the art installation and his nameless protagonist who ponders the meaning and moreover the inexplicable profundity of such a piece where time is (quite literally) slowed down to the point of stopping.

I gave this book 3/5 stars, yet had DeLillo followed through with the film-maker/ war advisor storyline instead of interrupting it, this could have been a much greater novel, as well as a longer one.

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Book Review: ‘Lost World’ by Patricia Melo

13 Sunday Mar 2011

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Lost World: Translated from the Brazilian Portuguese by Clifford LandersLost World: Translated from the Brazilian Portuguese by Clifford Landers by Patricia Melo

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I am afraid to say that ‘Lost World’ is the first book to get 1/5 stars from me this year. No matter how bad a novel is, I hate giving that rating. Even worse is leaving a book unfinished, which unfortunately I had to do with this one. I don’t usually say a book is no good, but in this instance I must point out certain narrative errors that eventually made me throw in the towel.

Having been seduced by the front cover that is deceptively reminiscent of that film-making masterpiece the ‘City of God‘, I picked up Melo hoping to have discovered yet another brilliant South American novelist. It wasn’t to be. The premise itself promises something in the persuasion of ‘No Country For Old Men‘, as it’s protagonist, one ex-contract killer by the name of Maiquel, sets off on a (I quote) ‘heart-stopping journey of revenge’. Mmm. Yeah. The ‘Guardian’ also hailed it as ‘A Hero’s journey with a difference’, and The List said it was ‘Casually brutal and utterly uncompromising, this Brazilian noir thriller is nerve-shreddingly compelling from start to finish’. Has it whet your appetite as it did mine? There was me thinking Javier Bardem‘s Mr. Chigurh gets his own novel, but boy was I wrong.

Let’s get one thing straight; first off, I’ve read a few of McCarthy’s novels and know he is famous for being a bit stingy with his prose. He is very much in the ‘show don’t tell’ school of novelists, but the important thing is he knows how to make that work for his story. Melo probably wanted to go after that sort of ‘leanness’ as well, but ended up omitting, skipping and rearranging some vital storyline elements like an amateur interior designer who decides to nail the sofa to the wall because they think its ‘innovative’.

For one, our main character isn’t introduced properly. In fact, NONE of the character’s are introduced properly. They are all sketches that are being constantly rubbed out and re-drawn to accommodate Melo’s last-minute ideas about what they SHOULD be like. This is very frustrating and tiring for a reader as we shouldn’t be made to work THAT much for a story. For instance, I didn’t even know what Maiquel LOOKED like. I discovered almost 60 pages on that he was a blonde who dyed his hair black.

There were also other things that did not match. Maiquel has come out of prison to pursue and punish his girlfriend (who he’s still a little bit in love with) for setting him up, kidnapping his daughter and running off with the local preacher. Melo also reminds us he is a fugitive. If so, wouldn’t you take care to hide your identity, keep a low profile? Not Maiquel. He goes around sleeping with strange women who end up complaining about him to policemen and stealing his wallet. He also rescues dogs that are victims of hit-and-run accidents and takes them to the vet (Assassin school lesson one: stay away from government buildings/ establishments). That’s not the end of it either. This supposedly brutal, heartless Hardman gets hold of his ex-girlfriends phone number and does what might you like? Yep. Rings her. Several times. Thus fairly putting the wind up her and causing her to shift locations. Idiot.

Maiquel’s not very bright. In fact, the other characters are much more intelligent than him which lowers his credibility as a MC to well, 0. Still, good girl that I am I managed to haul myself through roughly 100 pages to see where Melo was taking this stagnating storyline. After all, I was promised a ‘fearsome climax’, so I thought I’d look for it, and the climax usually begins to show from the middle onwards but I kind of lost the will to live, so to speak.

In short, this revenge story had lots of plot-holes in it. The initial personalities of certain characters were about 10 sizes too big for them. Such a pity. I wish I could say Melo’s ‘Lost World’ might be the victim of bad translation, but I don’t think so. If you truly want to read something that is dark, uncompromising with a contract-killer that has a fear-factor on par with Harris’s Hannibal Lecter (minus cannibalism) then opt for McCarthy’s ‘No Country For Old Men’. The movie is amazing too, you won’t regret it.

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Book Review | ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ by Muriel Sparks

24 Monday Jan 2011

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The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Penguin Modern Classics)The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.”

Meet the ‘Brodie Bunch’; a group of precocious school girls vying to be the amanuensis of the glamorous and eccentric Jean Brodie. Miss Brodie is unlike other school tutors. She’s witty, worldy and imparts more knowledge on extra-curricular activities than other teachers at the Marcia Blaine school.

This unconventional, magpie-ish tutor is the rare (but not unheard of) type that is into selectivism of sorts. In a short space of time Miss Brodie’s keen hawk-eye spots the malleable, underloved and Lolita-esque among her brood. This forms the foundation of her ‘set’, which in the long run adopt her selfish, childish and manipulative ways, often to their ruin.

Spark manages to place a finger on the pulse of a very precise and ‘real’ part of girlhood. The passage to becoming a young woman is not always easy; adopting a role-model is central in this transformation,but what happens when impressionable young girls (some who are not even aware of their development)are coaxed across this bridge full of a very different set of ideas? Having said that, this is a fairly short book and not a lot happens in the novel. But Spark has a refined way of insinuating just how close some of the girl’s get to making some irreversible mistakes.

What I enjoyed most about this book was the dialogue, which is rare to find. There were also some arresting moments, where the descriptions were so good, it not only took me back to my own school days but also triggered all sorts of smells (and even tastes) of years gone by. Whoever said little girls were ‘made of sugar and spice and all things nice’ are a bit off. Girls can have deviant minds too just the same as boys, especially in their formative years, and I am glad to have read a book where the fairer sex is depicted with a more healthier helping of it.

The slightly high-brow language (a bit haughty, which I think Spark might have used for effect) juxtaposed nicely with the content of the novel. A bit more meat to this short novella would have made it more pleasurable to read.

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‘The Lovely Bones’ by Alice Sebold

22 Wednesday Sep 2010

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The Lovely BonesThe Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer.”

Susie Salmon watches from the ‘Inbetween’, a special kind of ‘tailor-made’ heaven, only it’s not. The ‘Inbetween is more like heaven’s ‘waiting-room’, a purgatory of sorts, a resting place for lost souls to abide until they are ready to move on. It’s a place for those like Susie Salmon, who still cannot cut herself off from what she left behind. Here, in Susie’s personal paradise, the sun never sets, dogs run freely through fields and children from other heavens appear at will, visiting those who share the same dreams.

The ‘Inbetween’ is an endless abyss that morphs and shifts to accomodate the perpetual flow of the dead. What is a soul, if it is not pure memory? The sum of all our experiences? The sights, smells and sensations of its’ first life on Earth? So it is, and it is such that the ‘Inbetween’ (that vast network of collective thought) is nothing but a mirror for souls to cast upon the very memories that obsess them. For souls like Susie, it is not easy to accept death. Even if you do, you cannot forsake the living. So Susie watches from the ‘Inbetween’, through the days, months, years after her death, watching her family grieve, her friends grow-up and her murderer live to kill others. Susie tells her own story; the before and the after, the things that could have been and the things that could never be, and that is what makes this novel so intriguing.

“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections – sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at a great cost, but often magnificent – that happened after I was gone.”

I can’t recall many stories that begin with the crime already committed and the murderer’s identity revealed. I suppose I can’t, because it’s such a difficult perspective to write from. However Sebold’s bold ‘God’s-eye view’ has it’s advantages. For one, the reader feels like they are in on the action – there is a certain privilege that comes with knowing things that other characters don’t. Susie has taken us into her confidence, she offers us glimpses of the netherworld and the world she left behind which gives the narrative a delicate magic.

Who hasn’t wondered what heaven is really like, or whether our loved ones still watch us after their gone? For anyone who has lost a child to a violent death, these questions barely scratch the surface of their anguish. But Sebold demonstrates her sensitivity to this particular type of grief, and this is evident with the creation of the ‘Inbetween’. It shows she has taken the time to consider Susie from her parents’ perspective; the pain of the lost and those who lose. The concept of a personal paradise is by far the most exquisite part of the novel and offers readers a welcome retreat from the intensity of the ‘earthly’ moments where Susie’s killer still stalks the neighbourhood, marking out his prey.

However, the novel does succumb to the dangers of an omniscient narrative. Having built up a wonderful momentum at the beginning of the novel (see opening paragraph at top), Sebold finds it difficult to maintain the ‘otherworldliness’ of her plot. Halfway through, I found myself losing attention, and often patience with some of the characters, but with the passing of time the characters are allowed to grow-up allowing more room for a different direction. This comes in the form of a yearning. Susie witnessing her life as it could have been, ceases to understand her now adolescent friends. She will never be older than fourteen, perpetually pre-pubescent, always a little girl. She wonders what love is like, a first kiss and begins to sense what was truly taken from her.

While all this is happening, Susie’s murder does not lie quietly in the past. Sebold shows us how it emerges every now and then, refusing to stay silent. Like a broken bone that juts out from under skin, Susie’s terrible memory also protrudes throughout time, reminding her murderer that nothing ever stays a secret.

I know many people have complained about Sebold’s writing and I admit, I wasn’t too keen on reading it either. I like my reads well-seasoned, time-honoured, ‘vintage’ if you like. But I was wrong this time. ‘The Lovely Bones’ may not have the depth and density expected of a story like this, but there is still much to learn and enjoy.

A mixture of the mundane and the occult is what gives this story its disturbing edge. Sebold manages to keep two parallel worlds in check as she writes, and that is no mean feat. However the best part of this book is the ending. I admire Sebold for turning a harrowing story about rape and murder into one of hope and peace. I think I’m right when I say you too will be surprised at the emotions you’ll go through when you read this.

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Book Review | ‘Spring Flowers, Spring Frost’ – Ismail Kadare

06 Monday Sep 2010

Posted by in 1001 Book Challenge, Book Review

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As winter slowly ebbs away, strange things begin to stir in the thaw of one Albanian town. Mark, a semi-successful artist, begins to notice violence of a different sort taking root in his neighbourhood. Old vendettas are re-surfacing, blood feuds thought to have been buried with the passage of time have found their way back into memories. However, the most dangerous thing is the return of the Kanun; the ancient and archaic mafia law of settling accounts of honour in the most barbarous way imaginable.
The confusion soon spreads across the whole town, and its’ inhabitants struggle to make sense of the developments as they spiral out of control.

Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (Panther)

Just because a book is part of the 1001 book list, doesn’t guarantee that it will be a good read. Kadare’s ‘Spring Flowers, Spring Frost’ is testament to that. Despite the gushing reviews and the generous comparisons to Gogol, Kafka and Orwell, I found this story to be extremely confusing. The aim of the novel was always a little bit out of my reach. I didn’t quite understand the structure of the ‘chapters’ and ‘counter-chapters’. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough to make sense of it all, but I was expecting the story to have a sound direction at least, a place it was going or taking me. I am afraid to say, Kadare’s characters were uninspiring, I simply wasn’t interested in their wellbeing, which I have found to be absolutely crucial if a story is to at least keep my attention.

There are, however, pockets of brilliance, but these are few and far between. When Kadare is writing about the strange ritualistic laws of the Kanun, it gets exciting. The story about the virgin who married a snake was engrossing, but I was quickly disappointed when Kadare didn’t follow this up. The account itself stood out as a stand-alone piece of information that had no bearing on the reflections of Mark or the inhabitants of the town.

Another thing I have noticed is this edition is translated from the French, which is translated from the original Albanian. This may also be the reason for the negative experience I had. If you are fluent in Albanian, or even French, I guess you my have a better chance of enjoying this short novel. I wouldn’t recommend this book at all, purely because I think a better translation is desperately needed.

I give this book 1/5 stars. I left it half-finshed, which says a lot!

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