Empire Of The Sun
Empire Of The Sun is the story of a little British boy named Jamie who is forced to grow up and become Jim, when he is interred in a prison camp in China by the Japanese during World War Two.
In the camp he runs wild, whilst those around him try and help him as best they can.
The prose is excellent and the imagery evocative of pre-War China and a certain social class at a certain time, and it engaged me from the beginning, but there were other ways in which I was left puzzled by it.
I was surprised when at the back an interview with J. G Ballard revealed that he was not in fact separated from his parents but interred alongside them and that he chose to write this semi-autobiographical novel as if he was not with them because he felt completely estranged from them from their internment onwards. They could no longer take care of him, and were in a position were they held no authority, and so his entire relationship with them crumbled.
Heartbreaking as this is; this then made some sense of what is by far the silliest and most implausible section of the book, when separated from his parents, Jim meanders around Shanghai alone, riding his bike around and living in other people's houses before hooking up with two American seamen. To hear that this part was a fictional element came as no surprise.
The books strength lies in his journey to the camp, and his experiences there and at various stops along the way which, stark and bleak, feel like truth.
The other interesting element here is Jim's apparent disconnect from events, as atrocity unfolds around him Jim seems to become anaesthetised having adjusted to this war and this life that he leads now, were stealing from the starving and from the dead is not just necessary but normal.
In some ways this makes him an unsympathetic character and in others this emphasises the true price of war.
As a whole it was a thought provoking novel, I read it as it was the favourite of an old friend, but I somehow didn't become completely absorbed in it or become wowed by it, in the same way for example that I was wowed by fellow war memoir The Things They Carried.
It is however, a book destined to be, as the series it comes from suggests, a perennial classic.
8/10
Showing posts with label Memoir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memoir. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 December 2014
Monday, 16 June 2014
Book #17 Orange Is The New Black by Piper Kerman
Orange Is The New Black
Piper Kerman's prison memoir which inspired the Netflix series of the same name is, unsurprisingly not nearly as eventful as the series it gave inspiration to. Kerman's real life experience is a much tamer affair though there are several moments which translated straight to screen.
Notable differences include that Piper was close to 'Pops' who inspired 'Red' and certainly was never 'starved out' by her and 'Pennsatucky' a vulnerable girl who Piper tried to help.
Nevertheless the story of a middle class woman whose intense lesbian affair with a drug dealer in her 20s caused her to commit a minor felony, before she came to her senses and left the relationship; only to find her past actions catch up to her, was absolutely ripe to be made for television.
And an entertaining, mind boggling tale it is, so unusual that really you couldn't make it up. An easy, quick and enjoyable read, I would recommend it especially if you enjoy autobiography, and I definitely recommend the show.
Verdict : 8/10
Piper Kerman's prison memoir which inspired the Netflix series of the same name is, unsurprisingly not nearly as eventful as the series it gave inspiration to. Kerman's real life experience is a much tamer affair though there are several moments which translated straight to screen.
Notable differences include that Piper was close to 'Pops' who inspired 'Red' and certainly was never 'starved out' by her and 'Pennsatucky' a vulnerable girl who Piper tried to help.
Nevertheless the story of a middle class woman whose intense lesbian affair with a drug dealer in her 20s caused her to commit a minor felony, before she came to her senses and left the relationship; only to find her past actions catch up to her, was absolutely ripe to be made for television.
And an entertaining, mind boggling tale it is, so unusual that really you couldn't make it up. An easy, quick and enjoyable read, I would recommend it especially if you enjoy autobiography, and I definitely recommend the show.
Verdict : 8/10
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Book #12 And When Did You Last See Your Father? by Blake Morrison
And When Did You Last See Your Father?
Length Of Time In Possession : 1 month
Unlike most reviews I write in which I more or less say whether or not I like the book, this review proved extraordinarily difficult to write. It's a Life Memoir, a biography/autobiography of a man, Blake Morrison and his father Arthur. In criticising a life memoir you are essentially criticising the author themselves, I suppose.
Before I read it I felt like I had some idea of what to expect, a story of how difficult it is to live up to your father's expectations, how awful life with a difficult father who is somehow abusive can be. I was attracted to this book for personal reasons.
When the story begins at Oulton Park as Blake and his sister hide with embarrassment as their father bluffs and bullies his way into the best enclosure without queuing appropriately or paying appropriately, I thought this was very much the story I would read.
As it goes on, Arthur Morrison is revealed to be bluff, bombastic, something of a philanderer, and unable to stop interfering in his adult children's lives, but these really are his only crimes. He is very much a man of his time, a 1970's Yorkshireman, and nothing more despicable or insidious than that.
In the great scheme of things when they handed out fathers, Blake Morrison seems quite lucky comparatively, it seems that the worst thing his father ever did was embarrass him in front of Julian Barnes and Salman Rushdie. There are a great many people who would yearn to swap their patriarchal recollections for such a first world, privileged accusation to launch against their father. Middle class naval gazing and whining spring to mind.
It is also clear from the prose that Blake, though often embarrassed and exasperated loved his father and his father loved him, which makes some authorial decision making all the more baffling.
Blake Morrison uses his memoir to launch what seems like a vengeful attack on the man's memory. An intensely private individual, Arthur Morrison clearly relished that he was a local GP and pillar of the community. He was memorialised posthumously with first a sundial and then a bench.
He desperately hid both his pacemaker and then his cancer from his friends and acquaintances wanting to preserve public opinion of him at all costs, refusing at one point to even allow his son in law to visit.
In this book, Blake Morrison takes his fathers dignity and not just strips it away but destroys it. He speaks of his "shrivelled penis" and changing his dirty nappy. He tells the world of his long standing affair with his mother's friend and the fact that he believes her daughter is his half sister. Whatever reputation Dr Morrison had, it was I am certain in tatters amongst those of his community who read it and a source of great gossip and scandal.
More telling than that, despite proudly displaying all his books in her home, his mother hides this one in her wardrobe, doubtless knowing how heartbroken and devastated her husband would have been by it. His mistress is more plucky and politely but firmly tells Blake that the particulars of their lengthy relationship are none of his damn business actually.
Blake speaks of how he wrote this piece in blind grief following his fathers death, and perhaps he would have done well to put it away and come back to it when he had calmed down emotionally. Writing something based on heightened emotional feeling and living to regret it is a sin, many, including myself are guilty of but most cannot boast of doing it so very publicly, and it is extremely hard to see precisely what Arthur did to Blake to warrant what actively feels like a vindictive and spiteful revenge.
Destination : ebook storage
5/10
Length Of Time In Possession : 1 month
Unlike most reviews I write in which I more or less say whether or not I like the book, this review proved extraordinarily difficult to write. It's a Life Memoir, a biography/autobiography of a man, Blake Morrison and his father Arthur. In criticising a life memoir you are essentially criticising the author themselves, I suppose.
Before I read it I felt like I had some idea of what to expect, a story of how difficult it is to live up to your father's expectations, how awful life with a difficult father who is somehow abusive can be. I was attracted to this book for personal reasons.
When the story begins at Oulton Park as Blake and his sister hide with embarrassment as their father bluffs and bullies his way into the best enclosure without queuing appropriately or paying appropriately, I thought this was very much the story I would read.
As it goes on, Arthur Morrison is revealed to be bluff, bombastic, something of a philanderer, and unable to stop interfering in his adult children's lives, but these really are his only crimes. He is very much a man of his time, a 1970's Yorkshireman, and nothing more despicable or insidious than that.
In the great scheme of things when they handed out fathers, Blake Morrison seems quite lucky comparatively, it seems that the worst thing his father ever did was embarrass him in front of Julian Barnes and Salman Rushdie. There are a great many people who would yearn to swap their patriarchal recollections for such a first world, privileged accusation to launch against their father. Middle class naval gazing and whining spring to mind.
It is also clear from the prose that Blake, though often embarrassed and exasperated loved his father and his father loved him, which makes some authorial decision making all the more baffling.
Blake Morrison uses his memoir to launch what seems like a vengeful attack on the man's memory. An intensely private individual, Arthur Morrison clearly relished that he was a local GP and pillar of the community. He was memorialised posthumously with first a sundial and then a bench.
He desperately hid both his pacemaker and then his cancer from his friends and acquaintances wanting to preserve public opinion of him at all costs, refusing at one point to even allow his son in law to visit.
In this book, Blake Morrison takes his fathers dignity and not just strips it away but destroys it. He speaks of his "shrivelled penis" and changing his dirty nappy. He tells the world of his long standing affair with his mother's friend and the fact that he believes her daughter is his half sister. Whatever reputation Dr Morrison had, it was I am certain in tatters amongst those of his community who read it and a source of great gossip and scandal.
More telling than that, despite proudly displaying all his books in her home, his mother hides this one in her wardrobe, doubtless knowing how heartbroken and devastated her husband would have been by it. His mistress is more plucky and politely but firmly tells Blake that the particulars of their lengthy relationship are none of his damn business actually.
Blake speaks of how he wrote this piece in blind grief following his fathers death, and perhaps he would have done well to put it away and come back to it when he had calmed down emotionally. Writing something based on heightened emotional feeling and living to regret it is a sin, many, including myself are guilty of but most cannot boast of doing it so very publicly, and it is extremely hard to see precisely what Arthur did to Blake to warrant what actively feels like a vindictive and spiteful revenge.
Destination : ebook storage
5/10
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Book #22 Another Bullshit Night In Suck City by Nick Flynn
Another Bullshit Night In Suck City
Another Bullshit Night In Suck City attracted my attention when I saw the trailer for the film based upon it Being Flynn starring Paul Dano and Robert De Niro.
The novel is a memoir of father and son, the impact growing up without a father had upon Nick Flynn as a boy and the complex psychological reaction and range of emotions Nick is put through when his absent father suddenly becomes a present client at the homeless shelter at which he works.
This book has a completely unique story to tell, I have not read a story like the situation Nick Flynn is faced with before. His father Jonathan, as described by him reminded me immensely of Joe Gould from the Joseph Mitchell portrait of the homeless character on New York's streets.
Jonathan similarly is full of grandiose beliefs and claims, including being related to the inventors of various things, and being descended from the Romanov dynasty. A failed writer he is racist, conceited, bombastic and rude, you pity Nick Flynn completely for having to deal with this man, for having to have his colleagues, friends and girlfriend know his father for what he is.
But, Another Bullshit Night In Suck City rises entirely above the plethora of "my awful childhood" books that dominate supermarket shelves because it is wonderfully written and literary in style. I empathised with Nick strongly throughout, like when he tends to homeless men in the street, gives them food and blankets and does not know if the man in the next doorway will be his own Dad. Or when from inside his house he spies his father alone, walking, and is guilt-ridden for not inviting him in but knows for the sake of sheer self preservation he cannot.
I saw someone on Amazon say they think it might be quite a male book, but I think the emotions transcend gender and I think anyone who has had a difficult or failed relationship with one or both parents will identify.
Where the book falters slightly is when he introduces experimental elements such as casting his father in a play not literally but as part of the narrative, these don't quite work. But, like David Vann's Legend Of A Suicide the emotional realities conveyed in this story are frequently so real that the reader feels the author's pain, which is an achievement indeed. 8/10
Another Bullshit Night In Suck City attracted my attention when I saw the trailer for the film based upon it Being Flynn starring Paul Dano and Robert De Niro.
The novel is a memoir of father and son, the impact growing up without a father had upon Nick Flynn as a boy and the complex psychological reaction and range of emotions Nick is put through when his absent father suddenly becomes a present client at the homeless shelter at which he works.
This book has a completely unique story to tell, I have not read a story like the situation Nick Flynn is faced with before. His father Jonathan, as described by him reminded me immensely of Joe Gould from the Joseph Mitchell portrait of the homeless character on New York's streets.
Jonathan similarly is full of grandiose beliefs and claims, including being related to the inventors of various things, and being descended from the Romanov dynasty. A failed writer he is racist, conceited, bombastic and rude, you pity Nick Flynn completely for having to deal with this man, for having to have his colleagues, friends and girlfriend know his father for what he is.
But, Another Bullshit Night In Suck City rises entirely above the plethora of "my awful childhood" books that dominate supermarket shelves because it is wonderfully written and literary in style. I empathised with Nick strongly throughout, like when he tends to homeless men in the street, gives them food and blankets and does not know if the man in the next doorway will be his own Dad. Or when from inside his house he spies his father alone, walking, and is guilt-ridden for not inviting him in but knows for the sake of sheer self preservation he cannot.
I saw someone on Amazon say they think it might be quite a male book, but I think the emotions transcend gender and I think anyone who has had a difficult or failed relationship with one or both parents will identify.
Where the book falters slightly is when he introduces experimental elements such as casting his father in a play not literally but as part of the narrative, these don't quite work. But, like David Vann's Legend Of A Suicide the emotional realities conveyed in this story are frequently so real that the reader feels the author's pain, which is an achievement indeed. 8/10
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Book #39 Naked by David Sedaris
Naked
Naked, published in 1997 is the second book by David Sedaris I have read having read Me Talk Pretty One Day, a later work, some years ago. All of Sedaris' work comprises of anecdotal, autobiographical short stories. A comic writer many of his stories are genuinely hilarious, but comedy is a personal taste thing and I found the stories overall in this one less amusing than I did the previous book I'd read, which isn't to say that was the case with every story.
In this book Sedaris tackles such diverse topics as his time on a nudist colony, his Greek grandmother, his volunteerism in a psychiatric hospital, his sister Lisa's friendship with a prostitute, a pornographic novel discovered in their home, Lisa's first period and her marriage, and his childhood issues with his homosexuality and OCD among others.
I felt when reading 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' that Sedaris' childhood made anyone's seem dull and tame, and 'Naked' expands on this, the man's life is full of incident and wild stories to tell at dinner parties, whilst what happens to David the majority of the time is unfortunate and often cringeworthy, you feel slightly envious that he had all these experiences. It beats the heck out of childhood Saturdays spent traipsing around garden centres.
The funniest stories this time round for me were 'The Drama Bug' a story in which Sedaris becomes taken with Shakespeare and begins to address his family in Shakespearean Language, which genuinely made me laugh aloud, The Women's Open : the story of Lisa's first period which distinguishes itself for Lisa's reaction to her father in the car. Cyclops, the story of the way in which parents project the worst case scenario outcome onto everything you do; I also liked True Detective an episode in which David tries to establish who is wiping their bum on the bathroom towels among other crimes and finally my favourite The Incomplete Quad chronicling Sedaris' friendship with a disabled student at university, and their various attempts at using her disability for financial gain, getting away with shoplifting and hitchhiking, really funny.
Some of the stories though are actually quite sad, the fact that nobody really liked his grandmother Ya-Ya, and the story of his mothers diagnosis with terminal cancer. Funny or sad, these are stories of a large, chaotic family and the sort of emotions and relationships that occur within a family dynamic, and as such should be very identifiable with a lot of readers. I think like me, other readers will like certain stories better than others and perhaps will like ones that I wasn't too keen on, and dislike ones that I enjoyed.
I struggled with maybe three stories in the book, C.O.G, Naked, and Something For Everyone which made the last section of the book a bit of a "go slow" as these were longer stories which I didn't really find interesting or funny. Like most short story collections you take to some stories and not to others which then makes the book rather a patchy experience. I don't know if I'll read a third collection of his stories, I think it's important that there was a long gap between my reading this book and Me Talk Pretty One Day because I think if you read all his stuff on top of one another it would become a bit samey and irritating.
I do wonder how his family, his brothers and sisters who are still living feel about having themselves and their childhood exposed in such a way, I read that an adaptation of Me Talk Pretty One Day was blocked after Amy Sedaris, herself a writer, voiced concerns to David about how their family would be portrayed.
Overall, I really enjoyed some of it and some of it bored me so maybe we'll say a 6.5/10
Naked, published in 1997 is the second book by David Sedaris I have read having read Me Talk Pretty One Day, a later work, some years ago. All of Sedaris' work comprises of anecdotal, autobiographical short stories. A comic writer many of his stories are genuinely hilarious, but comedy is a personal taste thing and I found the stories overall in this one less amusing than I did the previous book I'd read, which isn't to say that was the case with every story.
In this book Sedaris tackles such diverse topics as his time on a nudist colony, his Greek grandmother, his volunteerism in a psychiatric hospital, his sister Lisa's friendship with a prostitute, a pornographic novel discovered in their home, Lisa's first period and her marriage, and his childhood issues with his homosexuality and OCD among others.
I felt when reading 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' that Sedaris' childhood made anyone's seem dull and tame, and 'Naked' expands on this, the man's life is full of incident and wild stories to tell at dinner parties, whilst what happens to David the majority of the time is unfortunate and often cringeworthy, you feel slightly envious that he had all these experiences. It beats the heck out of childhood Saturdays spent traipsing around garden centres.
The funniest stories this time round for me were 'The Drama Bug' a story in which Sedaris becomes taken with Shakespeare and begins to address his family in Shakespearean Language, which genuinely made me laugh aloud, The Women's Open : the story of Lisa's first period which distinguishes itself for Lisa's reaction to her father in the car. Cyclops, the story of the way in which parents project the worst case scenario outcome onto everything you do; I also liked True Detective an episode in which David tries to establish who is wiping their bum on the bathroom towels among other crimes and finally my favourite The Incomplete Quad chronicling Sedaris' friendship with a disabled student at university, and their various attempts at using her disability for financial gain, getting away with shoplifting and hitchhiking, really funny.
Some of the stories though are actually quite sad, the fact that nobody really liked his grandmother Ya-Ya, and the story of his mothers diagnosis with terminal cancer. Funny or sad, these are stories of a large, chaotic family and the sort of emotions and relationships that occur within a family dynamic, and as such should be very identifiable with a lot of readers. I think like me, other readers will like certain stories better than others and perhaps will like ones that I wasn't too keen on, and dislike ones that I enjoyed.
I struggled with maybe three stories in the book, C.O.G, Naked, and Something For Everyone which made the last section of the book a bit of a "go slow" as these were longer stories which I didn't really find interesting or funny. Like most short story collections you take to some stories and not to others which then makes the book rather a patchy experience. I don't know if I'll read a third collection of his stories, I think it's important that there was a long gap between my reading this book and Me Talk Pretty One Day because I think if you read all his stuff on top of one another it would become a bit samey and irritating.
I do wonder how his family, his brothers and sisters who are still living feel about having themselves and their childhood exposed in such a way, I read that an adaptation of Me Talk Pretty One Day was blocked after Amy Sedaris, herself a writer, voiced concerns to David about how their family would be portrayed.
Overall, I really enjoyed some of it and some of it bored me so maybe we'll say a 6.5/10
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)