The Song Of Achilles
The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller won the Orange Prize 2012 about a week or so ago and rarely has a book been so worthy of the accolades it has received.
The story of Patroclus an exiled Prince, who is befriended by Achilles, Prince Of Phthia, the novel charts their lives together from childhood to adolescence to the Trojan war.
For me this book was flawless, just flawless, it got me from the first page onwards and I sat smiling at it as I read it, so pleased was I with the knock out quality of the prose. Tender, beautiful, dramatic, atmospheric, touching, heartbreaking. This book is all these things.
Moreover the characters leap off the page. Known from The Iliad, they become rounded humans in Miller's reworking and are beautifully realised. Particularly, I could feel Thetis before me, smelling of salt and choking the earth beneath her feet, with the threat of power all around her.
The relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, thoroughly believable is the obvious star of the show, but the relationship between Briseis and Patroclus is both touching and sad.
I was blown away by this book and I think everyone who reads it should be. A Herculean piece of work in order to portray the Trojan war and an obvious labour of love, I can only thank Madeline Miller for providing me and other readers with it.
Though it has the obvious attraction for anyone into Ancient Greece and Greek Myths it utterly transcends that. If you love reading, if you love books you need this book in your life, you will not be sorry you spent your money. An outstanding achievement 10/10
Showing posts with label Beautiful. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beautiful. Show all posts
Saturday, 9 June 2012
Thursday, 1 September 2011
Book #74 Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch
Jamrach's Menagerie
Longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize, Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch is the first book on the list I've read this year and what a place to start.
In what must be some time in the Victorian era, eight year old Jaffy Brown moves to London from Bermondsey with his mother, too unaware to be afraid he pets a tiger in the street that has escaped from a crate and is taken into its jaws. This chance encounter brings him to the attention of Mr Jamrach owner of a menagerie of exotic animals for whom he then works before being swept up in the excitement promised by an adventure at sea with best friend Tim and their idol, old sea dog Dan Rymer.
The narrative is rich, vivid and colourful, both in the early days of Tim and Jaffy's time in the menagerie and later when they go to sea. I read Moby Dick, well 95% of it, in 2009 and there are shades of Melville in this novel. Where it succeeds over the classic is the difficulty presented in Moby Dick was Melville's tendency to go off plot and character, to spend a few chapters discussing, or rather waffling on (in my opinion) about the anatomy of the whale or the many uses of whale oil and there is no such difficulty here. Birch's writing focuses on plot, character and setting and pulls you up and down with the motion of the boat.
As their adventure with Rymer begins to turn sour, the book becomes ever more compelling. Although you realise what may be about to happen before it does, their harrowing experience becomes all the more riveting to read. The eloquent strong prose impresses as does the originality at work here.
Where I had a minor quibble was that in moving the location from Jamrach's Menagerie to the sea, there was a lost opportunity in the original and interesting setting of a story about a business dealing in the trade of exotic animals, this was really a location from which a very unique story could have been born. Yet, the novel is still unique. It just seems a waste, although there is a link between the two stories, the mission Rymer is tasked with, a mission which to the superstitious seaman becomes a curse. Birch based Jamrach's Menagerie on two real life tales and would not have been able to do the second without including the sea section
At the centre of all things is the touching friendship of Jaffy and Tim, and the book is worth it for that alone. A worthy contender for the Booker, I hope to see in shortlisted and potentially win the contest 9.5/10
Longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize, Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch is the first book on the list I've read this year and what a place to start.
In what must be some time in the Victorian era, eight year old Jaffy Brown moves to London from Bermondsey with his mother, too unaware to be afraid he pets a tiger in the street that has escaped from a crate and is taken into its jaws. This chance encounter brings him to the attention of Mr Jamrach owner of a menagerie of exotic animals for whom he then works before being swept up in the excitement promised by an adventure at sea with best friend Tim and their idol, old sea dog Dan Rymer.
The narrative is rich, vivid and colourful, both in the early days of Tim and Jaffy's time in the menagerie and later when they go to sea. I read Moby Dick, well 95% of it, in 2009 and there are shades of Melville in this novel. Where it succeeds over the classic is the difficulty presented in Moby Dick was Melville's tendency to go off plot and character, to spend a few chapters discussing, or rather waffling on (in my opinion) about the anatomy of the whale or the many uses of whale oil and there is no such difficulty here. Birch's writing focuses on plot, character and setting and pulls you up and down with the motion of the boat.
As their adventure with Rymer begins to turn sour, the book becomes ever more compelling. Although you realise what may be about to happen before it does, their harrowing experience becomes all the more riveting to read. The eloquent strong prose impresses as does the originality at work here.
Where I had a minor quibble was that in moving the location from Jamrach's Menagerie to the sea, there was a lost opportunity in the original and interesting setting of a story about a business dealing in the trade of exotic animals, this was really a location from which a very unique story could have been born. Yet, the novel is still unique. It just seems a waste, although there is a link between the two stories, the mission Rymer is tasked with, a mission which to the superstitious seaman becomes a curse. Birch based Jamrach's Menagerie on two real life tales and would not have been able to do the second without including the sea section
At the centre of all things is the touching friendship of Jaffy and Tim, and the book is worth it for that alone. A worthy contender for the Booker, I hope to see in shortlisted and potentially win the contest 9.5/10
Friday, 25 March 2011
Book #13 The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox
The Vintner's Luck
Unlucky Number 13. Or not.
I found this book in a strange shop in Akaroa, New Zealand which sold everything from gollywogs to fudge. I was keen to read a book by a Kiwi author and my sister suggested Elizabeth Knox. I had hoped to read a book set in New Zealand, but in fact The Vintner's Luck is set in the vineyards of 19th Century France.
I am really loathe to even mention this book in the same sentence as One Day, let alone compare the two as though they were equals but the basic premise is the same.
When he is 18, Sobran Jodeau gets drunk, and stumbles across an angel, from there Sobran and the angel Xas meet each year on one day, the 27th of June for many years.
When I initially attempted to read this book, carting it from motel to motel, I found it odd, and couldn't get into it. Though its chronological, the jump from June to June made it feel disjointed as though a natural progression was missing. However, I decided that in my iPad addiction I had left paperbacks I had bought unloved and unfinished and decided I should finish them before getting any more electronic books.
I'm glad I did, the initial oddness i felt faded the more I read it, and I came to feel passionately that this was a book of beauty, a gem with a lyrical, magical quality to it. It's uniqueness and originality in every respect seems to make it defy normal descriptions. The juxtaposition of the human and the divine, the elements that seem to be inspired by Paradise Lost. The warm believable love, the dark secrets and mysteries, the allusions to insanity and even to evil, make this book although couched in the reality of wine production seem like a fairytale for adults, and an extraordinary one that.
I tend to like anything that inspires theological or philosophical thought, and whilst I recognise this isn't for everyone, I still think there's so much more to The Vintner's Luck , something for everyone. I would tell anyone turned off by the idea that it is about an angel, and therefore possibly religious to think again, as by not reading it for that reason you would be losing out on what I felt was a rich even sensual experience.
Read this book. 10/10
Unlucky Number 13. Or not.
I found this book in a strange shop in Akaroa, New Zealand which sold everything from gollywogs to fudge. I was keen to read a book by a Kiwi author and my sister suggested Elizabeth Knox. I had hoped to read a book set in New Zealand, but in fact The Vintner's Luck is set in the vineyards of 19th Century France.
I am really loathe to even mention this book in the same sentence as One Day, let alone compare the two as though they were equals but the basic premise is the same.
When he is 18, Sobran Jodeau gets drunk, and stumbles across an angel, from there Sobran and the angel Xas meet each year on one day, the 27th of June for many years.
When I initially attempted to read this book, carting it from motel to motel, I found it odd, and couldn't get into it. Though its chronological, the jump from June to June made it feel disjointed as though a natural progression was missing. However, I decided that in my iPad addiction I had left paperbacks I had bought unloved and unfinished and decided I should finish them before getting any more electronic books.
I'm glad I did, the initial oddness i felt faded the more I read it, and I came to feel passionately that this was a book of beauty, a gem with a lyrical, magical quality to it. It's uniqueness and originality in every respect seems to make it defy normal descriptions. The juxtaposition of the human and the divine, the elements that seem to be inspired by Paradise Lost. The warm believable love, the dark secrets and mysteries, the allusions to insanity and even to evil, make this book although couched in the reality of wine production seem like a fairytale for adults, and an extraordinary one that.
I tend to like anything that inspires theological or philosophical thought, and whilst I recognise this isn't for everyone, I still think there's so much more to The Vintner's Luck , something for everyone. I would tell anyone turned off by the idea that it is about an angel, and therefore possibly religious to think again, as by not reading it for that reason you would be losing out on what I felt was a rich even sensual experience.
Read this book. 10/10
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