The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August
In The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August our eponymous hero is a kalachakra, an ouroboron. (someone who when they die is reborn to the same life over and over) After suffering several lives filled with confusion, false diagnosis of insanity, and becoming prey to those who would know the future, Harry is found by the Cronus Club, a secret society, which protects those who are not "linear" from everyone else. They have one rule, don't intervene, don't change the course of history, it's been tried before and it led to disaster. But a message is being whispered from the future, the world is ending, can the kalachakra stop it?
I have been reading as long as I can remember and over the years must have read thousands of books.
Since the advent of my blog in 2011, I have read at a rough count 304 books, the majority of which were fiction novels with a few exceptions per year. I would say that split across the reviews the average score per book is about a 7. A few have achieved the ignominy of a Zero, or perhaps worse, a 2, and approximately 10% of the books I've read have received a 10/10.
Among these there is a Super Group, a Clique, the Creme de la Creme, an elite to which many aspire but few are chosen. If I refine my terms to only books read since 2011, this group contains Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller, The End Of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas, Genus by Jonathan Trigell and The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness. These are books which kept me awake all night, books I thought were genius, books I envied the writers for having written, books which I felt were somehow written just for me, and particularly in the case of The Crane Wife books which triggered deep personal and emotional reactions.
At roughly 2am this morning, as I cursed my iPad for having found itself on 1% and I still had 100 pages left to go, The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August by Claire North joined their ranks.
I don't quite know how to explain fully just how good this book is, how much I loved it and why. It blew my mind. I thought it was incredible, brilliant, amazing and every other superlative thereof. I highlighted one line sentences, I highlighted full paragraphs, I got involved with the plot to an unreasonable degree, I stayed up with it as long as I could, I was engrossed in it, at times had physical feelings of excitement or anxiety. At first the central premise is not dissimilar to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, but the books could not diverge more in terms of plot and style. They are completely different. But God, this book is great.
Ultimately, I think what I liked best was the secret society angle, that these individuals stand outside of the world as experienced by the "linear", but support one another; the implied criticism of psychiatry, and the blurred lines between theology/philosophy and quantum physics as the kalachakra search for the meaning behind their existence.
I had a little niggle in that one character has this deep antipathy to the Cronus Club and the reasons for this are never explained. Was he ever a member? What happened? And if not how did he survive without them? It's not a problem that we don't find out, I just really wanted to know.
I was also curious about the butterfly effect, the kalachakra believe inaction is the right response to complexity so established events, almost as in Doctor Who, must remain fixed. However each of them do different things with each life they are gifted. Medical training in one life, law in another, different wives, different lovers that kind of thing, how do these changes not ultimately change the course of history in infinite and complex ways?
I'd love to ask the author about this, who in fact is an established author called Catherine Webb, also sometimes known as Kate Griffin and not in fact Claire North, which hot on the heels of Robert Galbraith, does make me wonder what the point of such pseudonyms ultimately is!
Verdict : 10/10 - DO buy this book, DO read it, it's the best book I've read this year.
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Showing posts with label Reincarnation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reincarnation. Show all posts
Sunday, 2 November 2014
Thursday, 11 July 2013
Book #41 Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Life After Life
Length Of Time In Possession : 4 months
Prior to reading Life After Life the only Kate Atkinson novels I had read were her Jackson Brodie private detective series beginning with Case Histories, a literary spin on the crime genre. I really liked those books, but had not managed to get "into" Behind The Scenes At The Museum when I tried it many, many years ago.
The premise of Life After Life (what if we could do it again and again until we got it right?) proved too enticing to me to resist. Instead of the Buddhist principle of moving from one life to another, this novel has more in common with parallel universe ideas and quantum theory : "Everything that can happen does happen" - the idea that you can go back and change your destiny from the point at which two paths were open to you.
Ursula is born on a snowy night in 1910, the midwife is unable to reach her mother, and Ursula does not survive. The novel rewinds, Ursula is born on a snowy night in 1910, she survives and goes on to grow up with her siblings Maurice and Pamela. At age 5 she drowns. Ursula is born on a snowy night in 1910.....and so on and so forth.
This novel is tremendously interesting : the impact of multiple lives begins to affect Ursula in her "next time around". She does things such as tell the maid Bridget her boyfriend is unfaithful or pushes her down the stairs. She does not know why she does this at the time, but in previous cycles, Bridget's relationship had dire consequences which Ursula instinctively knows she must prevent, but she is not psychic, and only has a vague idea, a deja vu.
Why do we, as people, experience deja vu? What is our mind REALLY trying to tell us? That vague sense of knowledge that we cannot quite grasp.....
There is also the idea that though destinies can change, certain things are set in stone. Elder brother Maurice is never anything more than despised, Auntie Izzy is always "a free spirit", Ursula always has a close bond with younger brother Teddy.
It reminded me about certain comments made in Doctor Who that some events are unalterable, but why them and not all? It's an intriguing question.
Who hasn't thought things like - what if I'd gone to a different university? What if that relationship had succeeded? What if I had been hit by that car that night? What would have changed? Who would I be, and would I still be the same me that I am now?
As a piece of prose the novel I thought this bore most comparison to was The Children's Book by AS Byatt, set within a similar era, a similar family and against the backdrop of history. There the likeness ends as they are very different novels, but I make the reference because I adored The Children's Book and equally loved Life After Life.
I thought this book was beautiful, eloquent and intelligent, both in terms of what it was saying and how it said it. I read this book in two sittings, and in a year when I've struggled to find things I've loved think this may be my book of 2013 thus far. I even wrote a poem inspired by it. Go buy it!
Verdict : 10/10
Destination : Ebook storage
Length Of Time In Possession : 4 months
Prior to reading Life After Life the only Kate Atkinson novels I had read were her Jackson Brodie private detective series beginning with Case Histories, a literary spin on the crime genre. I really liked those books, but had not managed to get "into" Behind The Scenes At The Museum when I tried it many, many years ago.
The premise of Life After Life (what if we could do it again and again until we got it right?) proved too enticing to me to resist. Instead of the Buddhist principle of moving from one life to another, this novel has more in common with parallel universe ideas and quantum theory : "Everything that can happen does happen" - the idea that you can go back and change your destiny from the point at which two paths were open to you.
Ursula is born on a snowy night in 1910, the midwife is unable to reach her mother, and Ursula does not survive. The novel rewinds, Ursula is born on a snowy night in 1910, she survives and goes on to grow up with her siblings Maurice and Pamela. At age 5 she drowns. Ursula is born on a snowy night in 1910.....and so on and so forth.
This novel is tremendously interesting : the impact of multiple lives begins to affect Ursula in her "next time around". She does things such as tell the maid Bridget her boyfriend is unfaithful or pushes her down the stairs. She does not know why she does this at the time, but in previous cycles, Bridget's relationship had dire consequences which Ursula instinctively knows she must prevent, but she is not psychic, and only has a vague idea, a deja vu.
Why do we, as people, experience deja vu? What is our mind REALLY trying to tell us? That vague sense of knowledge that we cannot quite grasp.....
There is also the idea that though destinies can change, certain things are set in stone. Elder brother Maurice is never anything more than despised, Auntie Izzy is always "a free spirit", Ursula always has a close bond with younger brother Teddy.
It reminded me about certain comments made in Doctor Who that some events are unalterable, but why them and not all? It's an intriguing question.
Who hasn't thought things like - what if I'd gone to a different university? What if that relationship had succeeded? What if I had been hit by that car that night? What would have changed? Who would I be, and would I still be the same me that I am now?
As a piece of prose the novel I thought this bore most comparison to was The Children's Book by AS Byatt, set within a similar era, a similar family and against the backdrop of history. There the likeness ends as they are very different novels, but I make the reference because I adored The Children's Book and equally loved Life After Life.
I thought this book was beautiful, eloquent and intelligent, both in terms of what it was saying and how it said it. I read this book in two sittings, and in a year when I've struggled to find things I've loved think this may be my book of 2013 thus far. I even wrote a poem inspired by it. Go buy it!
Verdict : 10/10
Destination : Ebook storage
Sunday, 12 August 2012
Book #68 Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas
I seem to have had a copy of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, a Booker nominee in 2004, languishing around my house for some years, I got rid of one unread in a decluttering haul and then brought another one back in at a later stage!
Ultimately it's time came when I saw the attention grabbing trailer for the forthcoming film adaptation from the Wachowski siblings, renowned for their work on The Matrix. Absolutely intent on seeing the film and ever one for reading the book first, I embarked upon it.
Cloud Atlas is essentially a series of short stories each about 50-70 pages long which then stops at the middle and revisits each narrative in reverse order like a train going backwards. These segments are connected by the same principle "Souls Cross Ages Like Clouds Cross Skies" and is a book about reincarnation showing how two soulmates named in one life as Robert Frobisher and Rufus Sixsmith have always known each other and always been connected in different ways across their past present and future.
These sections are as follows:
The Private Diary Of Adam Ewing - a period set piece reminiscent of Moby Dick
Letters From Zedelghem - in which an arrogant young aspiring composer discovers said diary during correspondence with his friend Rufus Sixmith
Half Lives - The First Luisa Rey Mystery - Reporter Luisa Rey meets whistleblower Rufus Sixsmith and embarks on a thriller style expose
The Ghastly Ordeal Of Timothy Cavendish - A publisher is tricked into entering an old peoples home
An Orison of Somni - The story of a replicant who becomes sentient
Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After - post apocalyptic Hawaii
The principle point behind Cloud Atlas really works until we get to Timothy Cavendish, though this section is an easy enough read and a connection is provided to Luisa Rey, it is difficult to see where he fits in with regard to the novel's overall Sixsmith/Frobisher soulmates idea.
Following this the book falls apart a little, though An Orison Of Somni gets that notion back on track, it is occasionally extremely difficult to follow and because of that becomes incredibly tedious and tries your patience. This section also bears more than a passing debt to A Handmaid's Tale.
But, if I thought that of the "Somni" section, it has nothing on "Sloosha's Crossin"which is written in a dialect and is breathtaking in its utter awfulness as a read, so truly maddening that I debated whether to skip the entire section and just read the rest, but was afraid I would "miss something" and felt I couldn't "truly" claim to have read it if I skipped that part.
So, it leaves a situation for the reader in which the first third and final third of the novel are good and what matters essentially is whether you like that first third enough to be able to suffer the middle.
Despite areas of annoyance what David Mitchell does in this novel is he writes a period pastiche, then an epistolary novel, then a US style thriller, then a contemporary, then a sci-fi and then a dystopia in dialect, and he does all these sections with total literary believability. This is genuine writing talent which deserves praise. However it is also if not pretentious per se, a bit like the smug boy who always has his hand up across every subject. There is something narcissistic and ultimately masturbatory about it, which makes even the good bits difficult to like. I also didn't like the fiction-within fiction-within fiction aspect.
The idea of souls being together across many lives is a concept I find beautiful and compelling, and it's a shame this doesn't always pay off. Still the film trailer is beautiful and can be found here I hope that the Wachowski's do that rare thing and do a better job. 6.5/10
I seem to have had a copy of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, a Booker nominee in 2004, languishing around my house for some years, I got rid of one unread in a decluttering haul and then brought another one back in at a later stage!
Ultimately it's time came when I saw the attention grabbing trailer for the forthcoming film adaptation from the Wachowski siblings, renowned for their work on The Matrix. Absolutely intent on seeing the film and ever one for reading the book first, I embarked upon it.
Cloud Atlas is essentially a series of short stories each about 50-70 pages long which then stops at the middle and revisits each narrative in reverse order like a train going backwards. These segments are connected by the same principle "Souls Cross Ages Like Clouds Cross Skies" and is a book about reincarnation showing how two soulmates named in one life as Robert Frobisher and Rufus Sixsmith have always known each other and always been connected in different ways across their past present and future.
These sections are as follows:
The Private Diary Of Adam Ewing - a period set piece reminiscent of Moby Dick
Letters From Zedelghem - in which an arrogant young aspiring composer discovers said diary during correspondence with his friend Rufus Sixmith
Half Lives - The First Luisa Rey Mystery - Reporter Luisa Rey meets whistleblower Rufus Sixsmith and embarks on a thriller style expose
The Ghastly Ordeal Of Timothy Cavendish - A publisher is tricked into entering an old peoples home
An Orison of Somni - The story of a replicant who becomes sentient
Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After - post apocalyptic Hawaii
The principle point behind Cloud Atlas really works until we get to Timothy Cavendish, though this section is an easy enough read and a connection is provided to Luisa Rey, it is difficult to see where he fits in with regard to the novel's overall Sixsmith/Frobisher soulmates idea.
Following this the book falls apart a little, though An Orison Of Somni gets that notion back on track, it is occasionally extremely difficult to follow and because of that becomes incredibly tedious and tries your patience. This section also bears more than a passing debt to A Handmaid's Tale.
But, if I thought that of the "Somni" section, it has nothing on "Sloosha's Crossin"which is written in a dialect and is breathtaking in its utter awfulness as a read, so truly maddening that I debated whether to skip the entire section and just read the rest, but was afraid I would "miss something" and felt I couldn't "truly" claim to have read it if I skipped that part.
So, it leaves a situation for the reader in which the first third and final third of the novel are good and what matters essentially is whether you like that first third enough to be able to suffer the middle.
Despite areas of annoyance what David Mitchell does in this novel is he writes a period pastiche, then an epistolary novel, then a US style thriller, then a contemporary, then a sci-fi and then a dystopia in dialect, and he does all these sections with total literary believability. This is genuine writing talent which deserves praise. However it is also if not pretentious per se, a bit like the smug boy who always has his hand up across every subject. There is something narcissistic and ultimately masturbatory about it, which makes even the good bits difficult to like. I also didn't like the fiction-within fiction-within fiction aspect.
The idea of souls being together across many lives is a concept I find beautiful and compelling, and it's a shame this doesn't always pay off. Still the film trailer is beautiful and can be found here I hope that the Wachowski's do that rare thing and do a better job. 6.5/10
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