Having done a 10 book challenge now to only read books by women I have enjoyed the experiment. I am glad that I did it because in the process I have re-discovered Ann Patchett and newly discovered Scarlett Thomas, Kate Atkinson and Sarah Waters further novels by whom I look forward to reading. I particularly look forward to reading further Sarah Waters and completing the Jackson Brodie series. I am apprehensive about Scarlett Thomas' other novels because the reactions to them are so mixed whilst Sarah Waters seems ridiculously popular. Of course there was the genuine dud Ali Smith's There But For The and I don't think I would read any further books by her. I also would refuse to agree with anyone who suggested that the book is anything better than terrible.
As for Doris Lessing, I must know her more before I can appreciate her and I must remedy this. Unfortunately, having focused so much on women writers for a time I have built up a backlog of male ones! And so the unfair balance begins again! Obviously, the fifth book in A Song Of Ice And Fire approaches and at over 1,000 pages will keep me busy for some time, but after this and the other male writers that I have queuing up, I hope to make sure the blog has balanced gender representation.
I also hope to copy this challenge by doing a run of 10 "classic" novels in the near future. Suggestions, both of female authors and classic novels welcome.
Showing posts with label Women Writers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Women Writers. Show all posts
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Book #60 Alfred and Emily by Doris Lessing
Alfred and Emily
Warning : This review contains some spoilers
Alfred and Emily written by Nobel Prize for Literature winner Doris Lessing, was declared, shortly before publication to be the now 92 year old writer's final book.
Alfred and Emily is a curious blend of fiction and non-fiction the concept of which I was unaware of prior to reading. In the opening section, the first half of the book, we move from August to August beginning in 1902. Alfred Tayler gains notice at a cricket match but opts to stay within the farming community, he has a happy marriage to Betsy and they have twins. At the same cricket match was Emily McVeigh who has scandalised her father and her best friends mother by giving up a university place to become a nurse, her friend Daisy follows her. Later Emily experiences a short, unhappy marriage before becoming involved in charitable works, she maintains contact with her old community including Alfred, from time to time. The early section reminded me much of Virginia Woolf's "Between The Acts". Ordinary British people in the country enjoy summer pursuits, unaware that a World War silently approaches and will tear them apart. At least, that's what I thought was coming.
Alfred and Emily however is a "re-imagining" a guess, at how their lives would have developed without the intervention of the first World War. I read it perplexed, wondering why it didn't impact the characters at all, then suddenly realised that there was something "different" at work here, that Lessing for some reason had edited history and in her story the first World War did not happen.
Suddenly the involving story of Alfred and Emily brings you up short, you turn the page and are confronted by two short obituaries marking their deaths, with half a book left to go. Alfred and Emily are revealed to be Lessing's parents and the story, a story of what her parents lives might have been had not the war intervened, Alfred and Emily having become romantically involved in the war.
Whilst the first half of the book is a fiction, the second half is fact, little vignettes of different aspects of their lives as expats in what is now Zimbabwe and what was then Rhodesia. Their marriage is revealed to not have been entirely happy, and Doris' relationship with them, her mother in particular not always easy.
I suppose we all wonder at times about "might have beens" if we'd chosen a different university, or married a different person and I suppose we all wonder what would have happened if our parents hadn't met, one of my grandfathers for example, almost became a monk. Lessing seems to go one step further though, her story of Alfred and Emily seems almost like wish-fulfillment. Alfred has a happy marriage whilst Emily dies childless. Lessing strongly indicates that in her opinion Emily McVeigh should not have had children but in so doing wishes away her own existence, which makes the book slightly odd.
I found the Rhodesia episodes very true, I find it impossible to remember every incident that has ever happened in my whole life, and I'm only 30. I think all we ever retain are different snapshots of different eras, and the significant moments of our lives. Although sometimes we don't realise their significance. I am sceptical of autobiographies that recall word for word every detail of their lives and Lessing doesn't do that here.
It' s a shame that I still haven't read a "proper Lessing novel" like The Grass Is Singing or The Golden Notebook, I have only read this : a fact/fiction blend and Shikasta, an experimental space novel. Therefore I feel like I must continue to reserve judgement upon her as a writer.
From what I've read in the Amazon reviews, most people preferred the non-fiction section, I however preferred the fictionalised version of Alfred and Emily. Mainly because I like the idea of alternate realities and whether something so small as not catching the train (as in 1998 film Sliding Doors) can indeed change the world. 7/10
Warning : This review contains some spoilers
Alfred and Emily written by Nobel Prize for Literature winner Doris Lessing, was declared, shortly before publication to be the now 92 year old writer's final book.
Alfred and Emily is a curious blend of fiction and non-fiction the concept of which I was unaware of prior to reading. In the opening section, the first half of the book, we move from August to August beginning in 1902. Alfred Tayler gains notice at a cricket match but opts to stay within the farming community, he has a happy marriage to Betsy and they have twins. At the same cricket match was Emily McVeigh who has scandalised her father and her best friends mother by giving up a university place to become a nurse, her friend Daisy follows her. Later Emily experiences a short, unhappy marriage before becoming involved in charitable works, she maintains contact with her old community including Alfred, from time to time. The early section reminded me much of Virginia Woolf's "Between The Acts". Ordinary British people in the country enjoy summer pursuits, unaware that a World War silently approaches and will tear them apart. At least, that's what I thought was coming.
Alfred and Emily however is a "re-imagining" a guess, at how their lives would have developed without the intervention of the first World War. I read it perplexed, wondering why it didn't impact the characters at all, then suddenly realised that there was something "different" at work here, that Lessing for some reason had edited history and in her story the first World War did not happen.
Suddenly the involving story of Alfred and Emily brings you up short, you turn the page and are confronted by two short obituaries marking their deaths, with half a book left to go. Alfred and Emily are revealed to be Lessing's parents and the story, a story of what her parents lives might have been had not the war intervened, Alfred and Emily having become romantically involved in the war.
Whilst the first half of the book is a fiction, the second half is fact, little vignettes of different aspects of their lives as expats in what is now Zimbabwe and what was then Rhodesia. Their marriage is revealed to not have been entirely happy, and Doris' relationship with them, her mother in particular not always easy.
I suppose we all wonder at times about "might have beens" if we'd chosen a different university, or married a different person and I suppose we all wonder what would have happened if our parents hadn't met, one of my grandfathers for example, almost became a monk. Lessing seems to go one step further though, her story of Alfred and Emily seems almost like wish-fulfillment. Alfred has a happy marriage whilst Emily dies childless. Lessing strongly indicates that in her opinion Emily McVeigh should not have had children but in so doing wishes away her own existence, which makes the book slightly odd.
I found the Rhodesia episodes very true, I find it impossible to remember every incident that has ever happened in my whole life, and I'm only 30. I think all we ever retain are different snapshots of different eras, and the significant moments of our lives. Although sometimes we don't realise their significance. I am sceptical of autobiographies that recall word for word every detail of their lives and Lessing doesn't do that here.
It' s a shame that I still haven't read a "proper Lessing novel" like The Grass Is Singing or The Golden Notebook, I have only read this : a fact/fiction blend and Shikasta, an experimental space novel. Therefore I feel like I must continue to reserve judgement upon her as a writer.
From what I've read in the Amazon reviews, most people preferred the non-fiction section, I however preferred the fictionalised version of Alfred and Emily. Mainly because I like the idea of alternate realities and whether something so small as not catching the train (as in 1998 film Sliding Doors) can indeed change the world. 7/10
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Book #59 The House Of Mirth by Edith Wharton
The House Of Mirth
The House Of Mirth published in 1905 tells the story of Lily Bart a young woman in society. Though young, Lily is not getting younger and must make a good match soon. Unlike other novels of this type, The House Of Mirth charts not the romances and eventual happy nuptials of Lily but her failures and social decline.
I have had some conversations with my friend Matt over my inability to like novels which feature anti-heroes rather than heroes. Is whether we like our heroes important? Does it mar the story if we do not? Even if the story offers us a glimpse behind the curtains of a different world to our experience as all novels seek to do? The House Of Mirth certainly does this being as it covers the lives of New York Society at the turn of the twentieth century. Is the fact that our characters are thoroughly vile somewhat the point? The House Of Mirth is something of a polemic against those that inhabit that society or better yet an exposure of them. My sympathies ought to have been with Lily Bart, a woman whose father was ruined and is now dead remains in those social circles out of respect for her breeding and almost out of charity. But, she's an anti-heroine, she looks imperiously down her nose at everything, from her aunt and the surroundings she has shared with her to the homes of others. Equally too, she is snobbish in society, dismissing Simon Rosedale, the man who shows most care for her as nothing but a Jew and considers herself quite above Selden's impoverished spinster cousin, again, the friend who shows her most loyalty. Even without the likes of Simon and Gerty, Lily truly ranks herself as much above the rest of her company, though discomforted when unable to match them financially.
So Lily Bart is difficult to like but so too is her circle, Bertha Dorset and Carry Fisher and Judy Trenor. On the one hand these people have these wonderful parties and social lives and are all of course so very attached to one another, and yet beneath the veneer would and do destroy each other without hesitation lest they be destroyed. The men, though seeing the deplorable behaviour of their wives do little or nothing to stand up to it, protecting their good names through terrible injustice. They are ineffectual and spineless, but will seek to take advantage of Lily's vulnerability as and when they can.
Because the book is so depressing, it gave me cause to wonder why on earth it was called The House Of Mirth. A bit of googling reveals it to come from Ecclesiastes: the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. The point being of course is that these women and their husbands by extension are obsessed with money and jewels, and dresses and having money to gamble at bridge and who is marrying whom and who is the leader of "their set", the most popular hostess. In short, they are obsessed with frivolities and are insidious, vapid, fools.
It is difficult to feel for Lily for although she wishes more than anything to be part of that set, she throws away multiple opportunities to get what she wants, and later, to get back what she has lost. And so too, comes across as terribly foolish and ultimately irritating. Because I couldn't like anyone in the story I found it difficult to enjoy the book and trudged through it almost begrudgingly. It's possible I would have abandoned it were it not for the rule that I must finish books on this challenge. From a critical perspective, this novel is probably very interesting a damning indictment of the perilous position of well-bred young women without husbands and of "polite society" of the era. Alternatively, the message seems to say, if you are a woman of no fortune marry no matter how you feel, marry a boring Percy Gryce or someone you find contemptible like Simon Rosedale or find yourself like poor Lily Bart. A warning to strike fear in the hearts of young debutantes to conform to such a world. I doubt Wharton meant the latter but in a way that's the effect. A warped "moral tale".
That said for a book essentially short, I found it an utter nightmare to read, it took me a long time; mainly because I hated the characters so badly and found the whole thing just distasteful. It does have an interesting "point" to make, but I prefer "points" that are made artfully with subtlety, so as they come to you in the midst of your absorption in the story, rather than novels that seem to solely exist in order to make such "points".
I find it difficult to know how to rate this book because I am aware of my own bias against unlikeable leads. I also found it incredibly boring for the first two thirds as I despised their company as characters. Despite this, is it a good portrait of a type of society? Yes. Is it making an interesting point? Yes. But did I enjoy it? No. So how do I rate it then? Probably for enjoyment 3/10 and for merit 7/10. However, having such a complicated reaction to a novel says something for it. Lily Bart, on the other hand, remains completely insufferable.
The House Of Mirth published in 1905 tells the story of Lily Bart a young woman in society. Though young, Lily is not getting younger and must make a good match soon. Unlike other novels of this type, The House Of Mirth charts not the romances and eventual happy nuptials of Lily but her failures and social decline.
I have had some conversations with my friend Matt over my inability to like novels which feature anti-heroes rather than heroes. Is whether we like our heroes important? Does it mar the story if we do not? Even if the story offers us a glimpse behind the curtains of a different world to our experience as all novels seek to do? The House Of Mirth certainly does this being as it covers the lives of New York Society at the turn of the twentieth century. Is the fact that our characters are thoroughly vile somewhat the point? The House Of Mirth is something of a polemic against those that inhabit that society or better yet an exposure of them. My sympathies ought to have been with Lily Bart, a woman whose father was ruined and is now dead remains in those social circles out of respect for her breeding and almost out of charity. But, she's an anti-heroine, she looks imperiously down her nose at everything, from her aunt and the surroundings she has shared with her to the homes of others. Equally too, she is snobbish in society, dismissing Simon Rosedale, the man who shows most care for her as nothing but a Jew and considers herself quite above Selden's impoverished spinster cousin, again, the friend who shows her most loyalty. Even without the likes of Simon and Gerty, Lily truly ranks herself as much above the rest of her company, though discomforted when unable to match them financially.
So Lily Bart is difficult to like but so too is her circle, Bertha Dorset and Carry Fisher and Judy Trenor. On the one hand these people have these wonderful parties and social lives and are all of course so very attached to one another, and yet beneath the veneer would and do destroy each other without hesitation lest they be destroyed. The men, though seeing the deplorable behaviour of their wives do little or nothing to stand up to it, protecting their good names through terrible injustice. They are ineffectual and spineless, but will seek to take advantage of Lily's vulnerability as and when they can.
Because the book is so depressing, it gave me cause to wonder why on earth it was called The House Of Mirth. A bit of googling reveals it to come from Ecclesiastes: the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. The point being of course is that these women and their husbands by extension are obsessed with money and jewels, and dresses and having money to gamble at bridge and who is marrying whom and who is the leader of "their set", the most popular hostess. In short, they are obsessed with frivolities and are insidious, vapid, fools.
It is difficult to feel for Lily for although she wishes more than anything to be part of that set, she throws away multiple opportunities to get what she wants, and later, to get back what she has lost. And so too, comes across as terribly foolish and ultimately irritating. Because I couldn't like anyone in the story I found it difficult to enjoy the book and trudged through it almost begrudgingly. It's possible I would have abandoned it were it not for the rule that I must finish books on this challenge. From a critical perspective, this novel is probably very interesting a damning indictment of the perilous position of well-bred young women without husbands and of "polite society" of the era. Alternatively, the message seems to say, if you are a woman of no fortune marry no matter how you feel, marry a boring Percy Gryce or someone you find contemptible like Simon Rosedale or find yourself like poor Lily Bart. A warning to strike fear in the hearts of young debutantes to conform to such a world. I doubt Wharton meant the latter but in a way that's the effect. A warped "moral tale".
That said for a book essentially short, I found it an utter nightmare to read, it took me a long time; mainly because I hated the characters so badly and found the whole thing just distasteful. It does have an interesting "point" to make, but I prefer "points" that are made artfully with subtlety, so as they come to you in the midst of your absorption in the story, rather than novels that seem to solely exist in order to make such "points".
I find it difficult to know how to rate this book because I am aware of my own bias against unlikeable leads. I also found it incredibly boring for the first two thirds as I despised their company as characters. Despite this, is it a good portrait of a type of society? Yes. Is it making an interesting point? Yes. But did I enjoy it? No. So how do I rate it then? Probably for enjoyment 3/10 and for merit 7/10. However, having such a complicated reaction to a novel says something for it. Lily Bart, on the other hand, remains completely insufferable.
Thursday, 7 July 2011
Book #58 Then by Julie Myerson
Then
I've been trying to decide why there has been a recent glut of novels and films or TV shows which depict post apocalyptic scenarios. I wonder if it is because society, having left the Cold War era behind is not living with a significant reality of this kind of disaster and therefore can fearlessly explore it as a fiction, or whether we do live in uncertain times, and novels such as these seek to exhibit and explore our fear.
It is true that the human race faces many potential threats to its survival: Will we experience alien invasion, and if we did would it be hostile? Will an unusual illness like SARS or H1N1 become an incurable global pandemic? Will a terrorist attack plunge a nation or the world into the Dark Ages?
And then of course, there's our old friend The Zombie Apocalypse, which I discussed in my review of Justin Cronin's The Passage.
In Julie Myerson's 'Then', the event which causes widespread chaos is not made clear, potentially it's an environmental disaster of the type shown in the 2004 film 'The Day After Tomorrow' and potentially it's a nuclear winter. What is known is that one day it got very hot in February, too hot, and too bright, and then things went dark and it began to snow.
Myerson's novel is unusual in that it doesn't really focus on the disaster or on multiple survivors, just really upon one female survivor whose name we don't learn until nearly the end of the book. She has sought refuge in an office block with a handful of others, but she cannot remember who she is, or why she's there. Though her companions tell her things, she forgets again, and exists in a confused fog, seeing things that aren't always there.
'Then' is a classic case of the use of an unreliable narrator; because she can't remember her own past and questions the reality of her current experience, we cannot trust her perspective. The narrative is muddled, but deliberately so, so that you realistically experience her personal sense of confusion, though this is frustrating at times. Even near the end I was unsure about whether certain characters were real or merely figments of a broken mind.
The plot takes us backwards beginning at her current location and revealing how she got there to start with, but whilst the end has good shock value and explains her current mental fragility I questioned its plausibility. Though good techniques are shown by Myerson, I felt that there was just so much more to an event like this than one woman's plight, though I suppose that in itself is the novels Unique Selling Point.
It's not hard to read and it is "a bit different" but I thought it was good not great 7/10
I've been trying to decide why there has been a recent glut of novels and films or TV shows which depict post apocalyptic scenarios. I wonder if it is because society, having left the Cold War era behind is not living with a significant reality of this kind of disaster and therefore can fearlessly explore it as a fiction, or whether we do live in uncertain times, and novels such as these seek to exhibit and explore our fear.
It is true that the human race faces many potential threats to its survival: Will we experience alien invasion, and if we did would it be hostile? Will an unusual illness like SARS or H1N1 become an incurable global pandemic? Will a terrorist attack plunge a nation or the world into the Dark Ages?
And then of course, there's our old friend The Zombie Apocalypse, which I discussed in my review of Justin Cronin's The Passage.
In Julie Myerson's 'Then', the event which causes widespread chaos is not made clear, potentially it's an environmental disaster of the type shown in the 2004 film 'The Day After Tomorrow' and potentially it's a nuclear winter. What is known is that one day it got very hot in February, too hot, and too bright, and then things went dark and it began to snow.
Myerson's novel is unusual in that it doesn't really focus on the disaster or on multiple survivors, just really upon one female survivor whose name we don't learn until nearly the end of the book. She has sought refuge in an office block with a handful of others, but she cannot remember who she is, or why she's there. Though her companions tell her things, she forgets again, and exists in a confused fog, seeing things that aren't always there.
'Then' is a classic case of the use of an unreliable narrator; because she can't remember her own past and questions the reality of her current experience, we cannot trust her perspective. The narrative is muddled, but deliberately so, so that you realistically experience her personal sense of confusion, though this is frustrating at times. Even near the end I was unsure about whether certain characters were real or merely figments of a broken mind.
The plot takes us backwards beginning at her current location and revealing how she got there to start with, but whilst the end has good shock value and explains her current mental fragility I questioned its plausibility. Though good techniques are shown by Myerson, I felt that there was just so much more to an event like this than one woman's plight, though I suppose that in itself is the novels Unique Selling Point.
It's not hard to read and it is "a bit different" but I thought it was good not great 7/10
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Book #57 Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Fingersmith
It was late when I finished Ann Patchett's State Of Wonder, but, I was suffering from insomnia and decided to start Fingersmith. I didn't sleep last night. At all. I've always thought that reviewers who claimed a book kept them up all night were at best sycophantic and at worst writing pieces of wild cliches and hyperbole. And then I read Fingersmith.
Right from the start you feel not as reader but as genuine observer. The dialogue makes the voices ring clear and true in your mind. I've always loved nineteenth century literature, and Fingersmith feels like reading a cross between a Dickens and an Austen. All the rogues normally found in the works of either writer are present and correct, drawing room society, damsels in distress, low level ne'er do wells and the charming Gentleman fallen upon hard times who may not be all he seems; but Waters is able by writing in the modern era to turn things up a notch by writing about topics with a frankness unthinkable from her literary forebears.
The plot is just magnificent, a confidence trick within a confidence trick within a...like a set of Russian Dolls. It begins with Sue: raised by scam artists who do what they must to get by, Sue is enlisted by "Gentleman" to assist him in the ensnaring of a young lady of good fortune by posing as a lady's maid. That alone sets us off on a fascinating adventure of both guile and cruelty, but the turns that await Sue and her mistress Maud are as unexpected for the reader as they are for the characters.
It would be spoiling it to give any further information on the plot than this, I don't even really want to comment on some of the revelations that await for fear of giving some of the enjoyment away.
The story told in part by Sue and in part by Maud is charmingly done in both parts, and in the end you feel for both girls equally.
The world of nineteenth century London is revealed to be a truly sinister and hellish place for women particularly and there is a real sense of the macabre, especially when the tricks begin to pay off for the truly villainous "Gentleman"and his associates.
I must confess that when Sarah Waters first began to gain notice, I somewhat wrote her off as somebody who was (apparently) attempting to pass off overt erotica as literature for headlines and notoriety. Sex for the sake of sex. The experience of reading Fingersmith ought to teach me once and for all to always ignore the views of The Daily Fail. The sexual elements of this novel are not only essential to both plot and characterisation, but are reflected in a tasteful and legitimately artistic way.
Sometime ago, a friend and I were in Waterstones one night when Sarah Waters made an appearance for an evening Q and A. Having not read any of her work, I was disinterested in her and it. Having just spent the last 24 hours engrossed in her novel and thrilled by every page, I must confess myself completely and utterly gutted at having missed an opportunity of meeting her, but to have met her without having read Fingersmith would be akin to meeting a hero who was yet to save you, you would have no idea just how great they would be one day, and so would not remark upon them at all. Hindsight is a great if bittersweet thing.
A new literary hero. Wonderful. Now, I need sleep. Read This Now: 10/10
It was late when I finished Ann Patchett's State Of Wonder, but, I was suffering from insomnia and decided to start Fingersmith. I didn't sleep last night. At all. I've always thought that reviewers who claimed a book kept them up all night were at best sycophantic and at worst writing pieces of wild cliches and hyperbole. And then I read Fingersmith.
Right from the start you feel not as reader but as genuine observer. The dialogue makes the voices ring clear and true in your mind. I've always loved nineteenth century literature, and Fingersmith feels like reading a cross between a Dickens and an Austen. All the rogues normally found in the works of either writer are present and correct, drawing room society, damsels in distress, low level ne'er do wells and the charming Gentleman fallen upon hard times who may not be all he seems; but Waters is able by writing in the modern era to turn things up a notch by writing about topics with a frankness unthinkable from her literary forebears.
The plot is just magnificent, a confidence trick within a confidence trick within a...like a set of Russian Dolls. It begins with Sue: raised by scam artists who do what they must to get by, Sue is enlisted by "Gentleman" to assist him in the ensnaring of a young lady of good fortune by posing as a lady's maid. That alone sets us off on a fascinating adventure of both guile and cruelty, but the turns that await Sue and her mistress Maud are as unexpected for the reader as they are for the characters.
It would be spoiling it to give any further information on the plot than this, I don't even really want to comment on some of the revelations that await for fear of giving some of the enjoyment away.
The story told in part by Sue and in part by Maud is charmingly done in both parts, and in the end you feel for both girls equally.
The world of nineteenth century London is revealed to be a truly sinister and hellish place for women particularly and there is a real sense of the macabre, especially when the tricks begin to pay off for the truly villainous "Gentleman"and his associates.
I must confess that when Sarah Waters first began to gain notice, I somewhat wrote her off as somebody who was (apparently) attempting to pass off overt erotica as literature for headlines and notoriety. Sex for the sake of sex. The experience of reading Fingersmith ought to teach me once and for all to always ignore the views of The Daily Fail. The sexual elements of this novel are not only essential to both plot and characterisation, but are reflected in a tasteful and legitimately artistic way.
Sometime ago, a friend and I were in Waterstones one night when Sarah Waters made an appearance for an evening Q and A. Having not read any of her work, I was disinterested in her and it. Having just spent the last 24 hours engrossed in her novel and thrilled by every page, I must confess myself completely and utterly gutted at having missed an opportunity of meeting her, but to have met her without having read Fingersmith would be akin to meeting a hero who was yet to save you, you would have no idea just how great they would be one day, and so would not remark upon them at all. Hindsight is a great if bittersweet thing.
A new literary hero. Wonderful. Now, I need sleep. Read This Now: 10/10
Book #56 State Of Wonder by Ann Patchett
State Of Wonder
Some years ago I read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett an unusual but affecting story of a hostage scenario in a government building in an unnamed South American country. It had some beautiful prose and lingered with me afterwards. In the course of 30 years I have read so many books that I couldn't name them all, but if pressed to try I would remember Bel Canto for its strangely affecting qualities, somehow magical in the midst of crisis.
In State Of Wonder, Patchett again returns to South America but via a different route. Marina Singh works for a prestigious pharmaceutical company in Minnesota, and is engaged in an affair with her boss Mr Fox. Suddenly both their courses are changed by the shock news that their colleague Anders Eckman has died in the Amazon after being sent there on assignment by Fox.
Eckman was sent there on the trail of the aloof, imperious Annick Swenson who though employed by the company refuses to be in any way answerable to them and Singh is sent after him to establish what went wrong. What she finds there will change her forever.....
This novel has shades of Conrad's Heart Of Darkness, Theroux's Mosquito Coast and Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible, the last of the three being among my favourite novels, dealing with the issues of being a 'stranger in a strange land'. Marina makes a likeable central character and the dynamic she shares with Swenson is made all the more intense by their unspoken shared past. Surrounding characters with the exception of beautifully realised deaf orphan Easter, are a little thin, it is the single minded, slightly scary Swenson, who will stop at nothing to succeed who stands out.
The book touches on some issues which are interesting but doesn't overly develop them, such as the difficult relationship between students, and teachers who seem more like Gods to their faculty; and also, the difficult decisions Western outsiders must make when deciding to intervene in a society where they do not belong. I think it's a shame that these interesting topics were not further explored.
The prose is very accessible, and, I think in this case, I liked the inconclusiveness of the ending because there were so many ways in which the lives of the characters concerned could change or stay the same. It gives the reader something to imagine, and in the act of imagining what might happen next, you discover that actually, you really care. 8/10
Some years ago I read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett an unusual but affecting story of a hostage scenario in a government building in an unnamed South American country. It had some beautiful prose and lingered with me afterwards. In the course of 30 years I have read so many books that I couldn't name them all, but if pressed to try I would remember Bel Canto for its strangely affecting qualities, somehow magical in the midst of crisis.
In State Of Wonder, Patchett again returns to South America but via a different route. Marina Singh works for a prestigious pharmaceutical company in Minnesota, and is engaged in an affair with her boss Mr Fox. Suddenly both their courses are changed by the shock news that their colleague Anders Eckman has died in the Amazon after being sent there on assignment by Fox.
Eckman was sent there on the trail of the aloof, imperious Annick Swenson who though employed by the company refuses to be in any way answerable to them and Singh is sent after him to establish what went wrong. What she finds there will change her forever.....
This novel has shades of Conrad's Heart Of Darkness, Theroux's Mosquito Coast and Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible, the last of the three being among my favourite novels, dealing with the issues of being a 'stranger in a strange land'. Marina makes a likeable central character and the dynamic she shares with Swenson is made all the more intense by their unspoken shared past. Surrounding characters with the exception of beautifully realised deaf orphan Easter, are a little thin, it is the single minded, slightly scary Swenson, who will stop at nothing to succeed who stands out.
The book touches on some issues which are interesting but doesn't overly develop them, such as the difficult relationship between students, and teachers who seem more like Gods to their faculty; and also, the difficult decisions Western outsiders must make when deciding to intervene in a society where they do not belong. I think it's a shame that these interesting topics were not further explored.
The prose is very accessible, and, I think in this case, I liked the inconclusiveness of the ending because there were so many ways in which the lives of the characters concerned could change or stay the same. It gives the reader something to imagine, and in the act of imagining what might happen next, you discover that actually, you really care. 8/10
Saturday, 2 July 2011
Book #55 The End Of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas
The End Of Mr Y
I want to say right from the start that I thought The End Of Mr Y was brilliant. As soon as I started reading it I felt like this was a book I was meant to read. To borrow a popular film quote : "It had me at hello". The protagonist Ariel Monto is an English Literature graduate, with a recent burgeoning interest in theoretical physics. This immediately struck a chord with me on a personal level. When we meet Ariel she is a Phd student at an unnamed London university with an interest in little-known 18th century author Thomas E Lumas. Lumas wrote among others a novel called The End Of Mr Y, after which our novel takes its title. The novel is rare and there are but few copies in existence, it is also rumoured to be cursed.
The first section of the book is really the novel at its best. I was taken with much of the writing, and enjoyed many individual quotes about physics and other things, for example :
Or the description of a feeling Ariel experiences :
There was just a lot I liked about the opening of this book, the elusive cursed book, the academic setting and the character of Ariel herself, someone I felt I understood. I believe that detractors of this book have called it pretentious and pseudo-intellectual, but, having so recently levelled that accusation at Ali Smith's 'There But For The' I can safely say that Scarlett Thomas's 'The End Of Mr Y' bears no comparison to it. Instead, my position is that the book is incredibly intelligent and so is, clearly, its author. Where it succeeds and mightily over the former book, is that its storytelling is king. It is not a book trying to be clever, making some redundant point about society that might have been interesting ten years ago, it is actually genuinely clever. For there to be a fictional tale about a woman on a journey of discovery in a fourth dimension, a fantasy, magical realism tale; that pulls off discussions on quantum physics and philosophy, existential and otherwise, making them integral to as opposed to harming the story is a feat indeed. However, if you don't want your mind seriously taxed by difficult questions of science and existence, it would be best avoided.
The middle third is somewhat difficult bearing the similarities it did to 1980's computer games and virtual reality with shades of the 1999 film 'The Matrix'. It faltered somewhat for me in this section, though I did like the concept of "Pedesis" which is brought in at this stage.
Though I have seen criticism of the ending and expected something awful I was blown away by it. Whilst looking back near the beginning of the book after completion, I noticed a foreshadowing that I had not done on the first read. This book is ABSOLUTELY a novel which bears re-reading, not least for its philosophical and theoretical concepts which are worth further exploration. I read Paradise Lost about a year ago, and this book along with others I have read this year including Mirror, Mirror and The Vintner's Luck has clearly taken some inspiration from Milton's epic poem. I think once you've read a classic like Milton you start to see his impact everywhere. I loved the ending, loved it, and would argue down and defend it against detractors.
Responses to The End Of Mr Y are very clearly polarised and I would say that this is a book you will either fall in love with or detest, fortunately I am of the former camp. And though reader responses to Thomas's other novels 'Popco' and 'Our Tragic Universe' are equally polarised I look forward to reading them with serious enthusiasm.
For me this is a Read This: 10/10 book, but I have the objectivity to recognise that for some people this book may be the exact opposite.
I want to say right from the start that I thought The End Of Mr Y was brilliant. As soon as I started reading it I felt like this was a book I was meant to read. To borrow a popular film quote : "It had me at hello". The protagonist Ariel Monto is an English Literature graduate, with a recent burgeoning interest in theoretical physics. This immediately struck a chord with me on a personal level. When we meet Ariel she is a Phd student at an unnamed London university with an interest in little-known 18th century author Thomas E Lumas. Lumas wrote among others a novel called The End Of Mr Y, after which our novel takes its title. The novel is rare and there are but few copies in existence, it is also rumoured to be cursed.
The first section of the book is really the novel at its best. I was taken with much of the writing, and enjoyed many individual quotes about physics and other things, for example :
Or this description about the weather :I didn't go further and say that I want to know everything because of the high probability that if you know everything there'll be something to actually believe in.
Monday morning and the sky is the colour of sad weddings.
Or the description of a feeling Ariel experiences :
On days like this I do not feel afraid of death or pain. I don't know if it's tiredness, the book, or even the curse, but today as I walk through this housing estate, there's a feeling inside me like the potential nuclear fission of every atom in my body: a chain reaction of energy that could take me to the limits of everything. As I walk along, I almost desire some kind of violence: to live, to die, just for the experience of it. I'm so hyped up that suddenly I want to fuck the world or be fucked by it. Yes, I want to be penetrated by the shrapnel of a million explosions. I want to see my own blood.I don't know whether others will like these quotes, but personally I found them insightful. I could have sat here and listed many other quotes but I decided to stop at 3.
There was just a lot I liked about the opening of this book, the elusive cursed book, the academic setting and the character of Ariel herself, someone I felt I understood. I believe that detractors of this book have called it pretentious and pseudo-intellectual, but, having so recently levelled that accusation at Ali Smith's 'There But For The' I can safely say that Scarlett Thomas's 'The End Of Mr Y' bears no comparison to it. Instead, my position is that the book is incredibly intelligent and so is, clearly, its author. Where it succeeds and mightily over the former book, is that its storytelling is king. It is not a book trying to be clever, making some redundant point about society that might have been interesting ten years ago, it is actually genuinely clever. For there to be a fictional tale about a woman on a journey of discovery in a fourth dimension, a fantasy, magical realism tale; that pulls off discussions on quantum physics and philosophy, existential and otherwise, making them integral to as opposed to harming the story is a feat indeed. However, if you don't want your mind seriously taxed by difficult questions of science and existence, it would be best avoided.
The middle third is somewhat difficult bearing the similarities it did to 1980's computer games and virtual reality with shades of the 1999 film 'The Matrix'. It faltered somewhat for me in this section, though I did like the concept of "Pedesis" which is brought in at this stage.
Though I have seen criticism of the ending and expected something awful I was blown away by it. Whilst looking back near the beginning of the book after completion, I noticed a foreshadowing that I had not done on the first read. This book is ABSOLUTELY a novel which bears re-reading, not least for its philosophical and theoretical concepts which are worth further exploration. I read Paradise Lost about a year ago, and this book along with others I have read this year including Mirror, Mirror and The Vintner's Luck has clearly taken some inspiration from Milton's epic poem. I think once you've read a classic like Milton you start to see his impact everywhere. I loved the ending, loved it, and would argue down and defend it against detractors.
Responses to The End Of Mr Y are very clearly polarised and I would say that this is a book you will either fall in love with or detest, fortunately I am of the former camp. And though reader responses to Thomas's other novels 'Popco' and 'Our Tragic Universe' are equally polarised I look forward to reading them with serious enthusiasm.
For me this is a Read This: 10/10 book, but I have the objectivity to recognise that for some people this book may be the exact opposite.
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Book #54 There But For The by Ali Smith
There But For The
This book had two five star reviews on Amazon and has an interesting premise, that's why I chose it. Apparently it was also well reviewed by The Guardian. A couple in Greenwich hold a dinner party, one of their guests Mark brings a friend Miles, between the main course and the sweet, Miles locks himself in the spare room and refuses to leave, this lasts for days, then weeks then months.
The blurb of the book says :
Imagine you give a dinner party and a friend of a friend brings a stranger to your house as his guest.
He seems pleasant enough.
Imagine that this stranger goes upstairs halfway through the dinner party and locks himself in one of your bedrooms and won't come out.
Imagine you can't move him for days, weeks, months. If ever.
So, this is the question, and the people this happens to are Genevieve and Eric Lee (Gen and Eric - ooo isn't THAT clever....? Sigh.) Gen and Eric and Miles are the people that are caught in this event, but we do not hear from them. The novel is split into four sections 'There' 'But', 'For' and 'The' and each section focuses on a different character.
'There' introduces Anna who is summoned to Greenwich by Genevieve after she finds Anna's email on Miles' phone, but Anna hasn't seen Miles in nearly twenty years and cannot do anything for Genevieve and cannot explain why he had her email address.
'But' gives us Mark Palmer, the man responsible for bringing Miles to the dinner party but he barely knows him either.
'For' gives us Mary, the most connection she has to Miles is that he still remembers the anniversary of her long dead daughter Jennifer, and visits her or sends a card once a year.
'The' ends the novel with Brooke and the perspective on events of a nine year old who attended the dinner party with parents.
The 'But' section told in the third person about Mark recounts in minute detail the events of the dinner party. Gen, Eric and their friends are revealed to be patronising, self important fools who invited Mark because he was homosexual (my, how interesting) and Brooke's parents because they were black (how disappointing that they were not from Africa, as was thought, but Harrogate) On previous occasions they had included a Jewish and a Palestinian family at one of their soirees. (so entertaining) The dinner party conversation, a long, or it felt long section basically amounts to reading about a group of insufferable people having insufferable conversations. If I had been attending this dinner party I would have made an excuse and left, and that's what I wanted to do with this book, leave. If this book is making any social comment it is about privileged white people looking down their noses at minorities and using them for a curiosity and entertainment value. The fact that the characters are so dislikeable makes it thoroughly unpleasant reading.
In addition, the rest of the book is quite random. We are introduced to elderly Mary in her hospital bed, and are told her story, and you spend the majority of her section wondering who she is, how she connects, and when you discover why she does, what the hell it has to do with anything. Mark's section is random too, a hodge-podge of his inner thoughts and rhymed conversations with his dead mother (Irritating) and then Brooke, the written equivalent of a precocious child talking at you incessantly for a very long time about nothing. Intensely irritating. Waffle.
The really frustrating part of this book is that the true story rests with the characters Gen, Eric and Miles and we hear NOTHING from them. The psychology of an event such as this, the effect of an intruder within your personal home, your space who won't leave, and the psychology of a man who feels the need to do this, the inner workings of his mind whilst isolated in a spare room, are NOT EXPLORED WHATSOEVER. And that is not only what would make the book intriguing, but is also what it falsely purports to be about. Even the introductory section with Anna involves much pointless waffle.
Also, I refuse to believe that the Lee's would have allowed the situation to continue as interminably as they did for the sake of an expensive door. I refuse to believe that the Community Mental Health Services wouldn't have intervened very early on, or at least that the police wouldn't have taken more action than simply knocking on the door. The ending is also a waste of time, a TOTAL anticlimax.
Ridiculously exasperating this novel is without a doubt the worst I have read on this challenge. Pretentious and the worst case of Emperor's New Clothes I have EVER seen. 0/10
This book had two five star reviews on Amazon and has an interesting premise, that's why I chose it. Apparently it was also well reviewed by The Guardian. A couple in Greenwich hold a dinner party, one of their guests Mark brings a friend Miles, between the main course and the sweet, Miles locks himself in the spare room and refuses to leave, this lasts for days, then weeks then months.
The blurb of the book says :
Imagine you give a dinner party and a friend of a friend brings a stranger to your house as his guest.
He seems pleasant enough.
Imagine that this stranger goes upstairs halfway through the dinner party and locks himself in one of your bedrooms and won't come out.
Imagine you can't move him for days, weeks, months. If ever.
So, this is the question, and the people this happens to are Genevieve and Eric Lee (Gen and Eric - ooo isn't THAT clever....? Sigh.) Gen and Eric and Miles are the people that are caught in this event, but we do not hear from them. The novel is split into four sections 'There' 'But', 'For' and 'The' and each section focuses on a different character.
'There' introduces Anna who is summoned to Greenwich by Genevieve after she finds Anna's email on Miles' phone, but Anna hasn't seen Miles in nearly twenty years and cannot do anything for Genevieve and cannot explain why he had her email address.
'But' gives us Mark Palmer, the man responsible for bringing Miles to the dinner party but he barely knows him either.
'For' gives us Mary, the most connection she has to Miles is that he still remembers the anniversary of her long dead daughter Jennifer, and visits her or sends a card once a year.
'The' ends the novel with Brooke and the perspective on events of a nine year old who attended the dinner party with parents.
The 'But' section told in the third person about Mark recounts in minute detail the events of the dinner party. Gen, Eric and their friends are revealed to be patronising, self important fools who invited Mark because he was homosexual (my, how interesting) and Brooke's parents because they were black (how disappointing that they were not from Africa, as was thought, but Harrogate) On previous occasions they had included a Jewish and a Palestinian family at one of their soirees. (so entertaining) The dinner party conversation, a long, or it felt long section basically amounts to reading about a group of insufferable people having insufferable conversations. If I had been attending this dinner party I would have made an excuse and left, and that's what I wanted to do with this book, leave. If this book is making any social comment it is about privileged white people looking down their noses at minorities and using them for a curiosity and entertainment value. The fact that the characters are so dislikeable makes it thoroughly unpleasant reading.
In addition, the rest of the book is quite random. We are introduced to elderly Mary in her hospital bed, and are told her story, and you spend the majority of her section wondering who she is, how she connects, and when you discover why she does, what the hell it has to do with anything. Mark's section is random too, a hodge-podge of his inner thoughts and rhymed conversations with his dead mother (Irritating) and then Brooke, the written equivalent of a precocious child talking at you incessantly for a very long time about nothing. Intensely irritating. Waffle.
The really frustrating part of this book is that the true story rests with the characters Gen, Eric and Miles and we hear NOTHING from them. The psychology of an event such as this, the effect of an intruder within your personal home, your space who won't leave, and the psychology of a man who feels the need to do this, the inner workings of his mind whilst isolated in a spare room, are NOT EXPLORED WHATSOEVER. And that is not only what would make the book intriguing, but is also what it falsely purports to be about. Even the introductory section with Anna involves much pointless waffle.
Also, I refuse to believe that the Lee's would have allowed the situation to continue as interminably as they did for the sake of an expensive door. I refuse to believe that the Community Mental Health Services wouldn't have intervened very early on, or at least that the police wouldn't have taken more action than simply knocking on the door. The ending is also a waste of time, a TOTAL anticlimax.
Ridiculously exasperating this novel is without a doubt the worst I have read on this challenge. Pretentious and the worst case of Emperor's New Clothes I have EVER seen. 0/10
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Book #51 The Ninth Life Of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen
The Ninth Life Of Louis Drax
My first selection in my challenge to showcase some female authors comes from Liz Jensen, suggested to me by one of my Twitter followers. Of her novels, I decided upon The Ninth Life Of Louis Drax, because I liked the title, and because I was afraid that recent novel The Rapture might bear too much similarity in topic to Justin Cronin's The Passage.
Louis Drax is a 9 year old French boy and self-labelled "Disturbed Child". Called Wacko Boy at school his mother sends him to a therapist to whom he feeds outrageous lies, so that he won't have to tell him the things that are really disturbing him. Louis addresses the reader in the first person and has a very distinctive narrative voice, of a child who psychologically just somehow isn't right.
Suddenly and unexpectedly the book introduces a second narrator Pascal Dannachet, a Doctor reflecting upon his treatment of Louis. It emerges that the cocky, funny, troubled Louis we have been introduced to has been in a terrible accident, and is comatose.
We do not lose Louis' voice however, the point-of-view narrative switching from Pascal to Louis' world inside his coma, where he has begun his ninth life. To begin with, Louis is just a new and interesting patient to Pascal but suddenly he finds himself drawn into a seductive web of psychological deceit and supernatural occurrences.
This is a really good book, with an outcome you feel like you should have seen coming but didn't, as secrets are revealed and then revealed to be twisted, it becomes all the more compelling. Though the Pascal segments work better than the "Louis in the coma" segments, the latter are still worthwhile. It is layered, tense, and an interesting examination of human behaviour, both from a point of view of child psychology, and the psychology of a doctor with a need to save. I felt perhaps that the very quick blurring of professional doctor/relative boundaries was unrealistic but the resulting situation works well in its impact on all elements of the novel.
What is really good about this novel is its accessibility and its ability to have universal appeal, I think whatever style of novels you read, there is a place for The Ninth Life Of Louis Drax among your purchases.
I liked Pascal, and was particularly moved at his closing remarks, still envisioning ways in which he can save Louis, a boy who perhaps never wanted to be saved....
I have a very high opinion of this novel, and read it quickly and compulsively 9/10
My first selection in my challenge to showcase some female authors comes from Liz Jensen, suggested to me by one of my Twitter followers. Of her novels, I decided upon The Ninth Life Of Louis Drax, because I liked the title, and because I was afraid that recent novel The Rapture might bear too much similarity in topic to Justin Cronin's The Passage.
Louis Drax is a 9 year old French boy and self-labelled "Disturbed Child". Called Wacko Boy at school his mother sends him to a therapist to whom he feeds outrageous lies, so that he won't have to tell him the things that are really disturbing him. Louis addresses the reader in the first person and has a very distinctive narrative voice, of a child who psychologically just somehow isn't right.
Suddenly and unexpectedly the book introduces a second narrator Pascal Dannachet, a Doctor reflecting upon his treatment of Louis. It emerges that the cocky, funny, troubled Louis we have been introduced to has been in a terrible accident, and is comatose.
We do not lose Louis' voice however, the point-of-view narrative switching from Pascal to Louis' world inside his coma, where he has begun his ninth life. To begin with, Louis is just a new and interesting patient to Pascal but suddenly he finds himself drawn into a seductive web of psychological deceit and supernatural occurrences.
This is a really good book, with an outcome you feel like you should have seen coming but didn't, as secrets are revealed and then revealed to be twisted, it becomes all the more compelling. Though the Pascal segments work better than the "Louis in the coma" segments, the latter are still worthwhile. It is layered, tense, and an interesting examination of human behaviour, both from a point of view of child psychology, and the psychology of a doctor with a need to save. I felt perhaps that the very quick blurring of professional doctor/relative boundaries was unrealistic but the resulting situation works well in its impact on all elements of the novel.
What is really good about this novel is its accessibility and its ability to have universal appeal, I think whatever style of novels you read, there is a place for The Ninth Life Of Louis Drax among your purchases.
I liked Pascal, and was particularly moved at his closing remarks, still envisioning ways in which he can save Louis, a boy who perhaps never wanted to be saved....
I have a very high opinion of this novel, and read it quickly and compulsively 9/10
Reflections at the Halfway Point
On completing Nigel Farndale's 'The Blasphemer' I have now reached 50 books and am officially halfway through the challenge. I have made it to 50 before the end of the first 6 months and am slightly ahead of myself now. As far as the challenge has been going for me, May was particularly difficult, I realised that I was slightly behind and towards the end of May became stressed out about needing to read to keep the pace going. Reading because of necessity rather than desire can somewhat spoil your enjoyment of the book, so the challenge has had to a degree that effect, though June has been much calmer.
I have noted however that of the 50 books I have read just TWELVE have been written by female authors, as a woman with writing aspirations I feel I must remedy this forthwith and have set myself a challenge within a challenge to make sure that the next 10 books I read are by women. This resolve however may be jeopardised by the forthcoming release of the fifth A Song Of Ice And Fire book, George R.R Martin's 'A Dance With Dragons' on 12th July. Which gives me 17 days to read 10 books. Pressure.
In terms of the Don't Read That Read This aspect the Top 10 Read This books would be as follows:
1) A Game Of Thrones (and then its sequels)
2) The Vintner's Luck
3) Lady Chatterley's Lover
4) The Things They Carried
5) My Antonia
6) Rivers Of London
7) A Monster Calls
8) The Art Of Racing In The Rain
9) Physics Of The Impossible
10) The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks
In the Don't Read That Corner - Top 10
1) The Obelisk
2) Crow Country
3) The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ
4) The Year Of Magical Thinking
5) The Patience Stone
6) Joe Gould's Secret
7) The Girl With Glass Feet
8) The Blasphemer
9) The New York Trilogy
10) One Day
with everything else falling somewhere in between the two and being classified as average.
Anyhow enough typing, back to reading. Let us see what the female authors I've chosen have to say for themselves. Here come the girls.
I have noted however that of the 50 books I have read just TWELVE have been written by female authors, as a woman with writing aspirations I feel I must remedy this forthwith and have set myself a challenge within a challenge to make sure that the next 10 books I read are by women. This resolve however may be jeopardised by the forthcoming release of the fifth A Song Of Ice And Fire book, George R.R Martin's 'A Dance With Dragons' on 12th July. Which gives me 17 days to read 10 books. Pressure.
In terms of the Don't Read That Read This aspect the Top 10 Read This books would be as follows:
1) A Game Of Thrones (and then its sequels)
2) The Vintner's Luck
3) Lady Chatterley's Lover
4) The Things They Carried
5) My Antonia
6) Rivers Of London
7) A Monster Calls
8) The Art Of Racing In The Rain
9) Physics Of The Impossible
10) The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks
In the Don't Read That Corner - Top 10
1) The Obelisk
2) Crow Country
3) The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ
4) The Year Of Magical Thinking
5) The Patience Stone
6) Joe Gould's Secret
7) The Girl With Glass Feet
8) The Blasphemer
9) The New York Trilogy
10) One Day
with everything else falling somewhere in between the two and being classified as average.
Anyhow enough typing, back to reading. Let us see what the female authors I've chosen have to say for themselves. Here come the girls.
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