*Wonders of a Godless World, by Andrew McGahan

9780007352630
Blue Door/HarperCollns
2010
originally published 2009, Allen & Unwin, Australia
327 pp

To be quite blunt, I very nearly put this book down shortly after I started it, but good little reader that I am (and because I felt guilty I haven't posted a book to Jo's Aussie Authors challenge) I soldiered on. And I'm happy I did. As a sidebar, if you want to get anything out of this novel, you absolutely must see it through to the end. Otherwise don't bother to pick it up.

Related in true magical realism style, Wonders of a Godless World won the 2009 Aurealis Award for Science Fiction. The main character is known only as "The Orphan," a young woman who came to live at a mental hospital on an unnamed island after her mother died, and it is through her eyes that the story is related.  She lives among the hospital's patients, doing chores & helping with some of the patients in exchange for her keep.  The orphan can neither speak nor process the words of others, has no understanding of the world at large, and lives a rather quiet, uneventful and rather isolated life. Then one day, a new patient arrives, an enigmatic and catatonic stranger no one's ever seen on the island before.  Somehow, the orphan pulls it all together in her head enough to realize that he's a "foreigner," and he is labeled thusly for the rest of the novel. When he's put into the old crematorium,  which now is a small ward with only a few patients, odd things begin to happen, none the least of which is that the foreigner begins speaking to the orphan, but only inside of her head.  He takes her on a series of out-of-body type journeys into his past (he claims to be immortal and to have died several times), each time guiding her into the violence of the natural world and ultimately beyond. His effect on her (and on the other inmates in the crematorium) is definitely profound, but is this really a case of a true psychic link, or is something else going on here? Ultimately this is the decision that the reader has to make.

Wonders of a Godless World is not an easy book to read. It absolutely demands reader participation (as well as a suspension of disbelief), and believe me, the biggest amount of energy you'll expend will be on trying to suss out just who or what the foreigner might represent.   The book works very well as part environmental parable and part fantasy story, but there's so much more. What is taken away from the novel is ultimately up to the reader's interpretation. And anyone the least bit familiar with Jung might recognize the archetypical symbols scattered throughout (especially if you are carefully following the foreigner's story of his multiple deaths). No matter how you interpret it, it will definitely leave you scratching your head considering the line between delusion and reality, as well as madness and sanity.  The writing is well paced, drawing the reader deeper and deeper into the novel;  the characters are all well drawn and are mostly pitiable creatures with whom you can't help but sympathize.  The novel may start out a bit slow, and the story might seem a bit weird at first, but you will be greatly rewarded for your perseverance if you stick to it until the end.

Personally, I was blown away by this book, despite my initial reluctance.  There are so many levels at work here, and it's difficult to discuss without giving anything away, but I can tell you that if you want something very different from normal reading fare, you might wish to give this a try. It won't work for everyone, but it definitely resonated with me (why, I'm not sure yet), leaving my head spinning with a number of possibilities as to what it all meant after I'd finished it.  I know I'm coming back to this book again someday; considering I wanted to chuck it at first, that says a lot.

fiction from Australia

Four December titles -- and greetings from the Pacific Northwest

This post is brought to you by the letter "d", especially as it is the first letter in distraction. And distracted has been my middle name for most of the month. First at home, with various family issues, getting ready for the holidays and getting myself ready for travel; now away (hello from Seattle!) with little writing time at my disposal, the rare moments available for penning my thoughts have been relatively few and far between.  Even today I have only a brief window of time (stolen while others are busy playing with the Wii) -- enough to jot down a list of definite "yesses" in my world of books lately.

The first up is The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, (Knopf; 0307268934, 2010, 352 pp) by John Vaillant. The Tiger is a simply amazing work of nonfiction, detailing the hunt for an Amur tiger responsible for killing a man in the far east of  Russia, in Primorye.  While this is the central story in this book, around this narrative Vaillant provides a look at the environment, ecology, and history of the area, as well as an examination of the cultural make-up of the people who inhabit this place and its boundaries. Throughout the book the author details how perestroika and the fall of the wall in 1989 changed this sparsely-populated area, often not for the better.  But it's the story of the Amur tiger that will keep you turning pages -- well worth every second of time you invest in it.

Next: Yellow Blue Tibia, by Adam Roberts (Gollancz; 0575083581, 2010, 488 pp), is a novel that will be appreciated by sci-fi fans who are into quantum physics & alternate time lines as well as conspiracies, put together in a rather humorous fashion.  Again, the setting is modern-day Russia, but the novel begins back in Stalin's USSR, when a group of science fiction writers are summoned to a countryside dacha by the evil dictator himself.  Their task: to create a believable scenario of attack by aliens (the intergalactic kind) to bring together the people in a common unity against an enemy.  Konstantin Skvorecky is one of these writers, and he and the group have just started writing when suddenly the project is cancelled for no reason.   As the writers are being sent home, they are sworn to secrecy -- in fact, told that their little conclave never happened.  But in 1986, he is drawn back into the whole UFO thing when he is placed at the center of two competing groups of conspirators: both believe that the Earth is in the midst of an alien invasion and both want his help to further their own agendas.  Yellow Blue Tibia is literate and funny -- yet also reveals that we are not alone in our American fascination with the UFO phenomenon.  This little paragraph does not do the book justice, but if you like your science fiction on the witty side, you'll enjoy this one. It's one of those books I'd label as "not for everyone," but it's really quite good and you'll find yourself sucked into your own private vortex as you read it.

The Redeemer, by Jo Nesbo (CCV; 0099505967, 2009, 592 pp) picks up where The Devil's Star left off.  Harry Hole, Nesbo's awesome yet angst-ridden Norwegian detective, is back -- and this time he's investigating a cold-blooded murder of Salvation Army officer Robert Karlsen in Oslo. The man was killed at point-blank range and the killer left behind no evidence. The police are stymied -- but on his way home, the killer realizes that he's killed the wrong man and botched the hit he was paid to make -- and must stay until the job is completed correctly.  Nesbo's done it again (he's undoubtedly ranks among my top three Scandinavian crime writers) with a great storyline as well as a mystery which will leave you scratching your head throughout the novel as you try to figure it out. Beyond the mystery the author examines what makes the killer tick, as usual, going back a bit into the past to put some relevance into the present. He also looks at the machinations of wealth and power -- and of course, delves more deeply into Harry's psyche as he attempts to reroute his life.  My only issue with this novel is that I wasn't enthralled with the whole Salvation Army bit but it wasn't enough to make the book any less of a good read. Highly recommended, but do read these novels in the right order -- putting The Redbreast, Nemesis, and The Devil's Star before this one keeps the underlying Harry Hole story flowing.

Last but definitely not least is  Ben Macintyre's Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory (Crown; 0307453278, 2010, 416 pp). I just finished this one, actually, and I have to say it's one of the most fascinating books of history I've read in a very long time.  You don't even need to be a WWII buff to appreciate it -- I'm not -- but it's simply amazing. The basic story is this: it's 1943, and the Allies have plans to invade Sicily to get a foothold in Europe and defeat Hitler.  But since Sicily is the most obvious place for an Allied landing, Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley (it's pronounced "Chumley") of the Naval Intelligence section of the Admiralty decide to dupe the Germans into thinking that Greece is the actual target -- and with the help of a fiction writer, a plan is born. The British Navy will ferry a dead body in the guise of a Navy officer carrying misleading documents to the coast of Spain, where the body would be found and the documents leaked to German spies there and hopefully believed.  The idea is that the Germans will redeploy a large percentage of their military forces currently on Sicily elsewhere, saving countless Allied lives. How the plan was conceived and how it was put into action is an amazing story in itself, but Macintyre does so much more -- he manages to infuse the story with a bit of suspense and delivers human portraits of all those involved, including the Germans, rounding out this remarkable story.  The drawback to this one is that often the story gets bogged down with a little too much detail (like the description of an entertainer doing his show), breaking up the flow of the narrative, but otherwise it is definitely one of those stories you won't soon forget.

That's it...back again with my list of favorite books before the year's out.

The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman

9780385343664
Dial Press, 2010
269 pp

The Imperfectionists made an appearance on several "notable books of 2010" lists published just before Christmas buying season begins in earnest. Normally I don't pay much attention to them, but this one showed up on so many that I was intrigued enough to pull it off the shelf and begin reading, and soon realized why it's mentioned in so many places.

The title reflects the group of people in this book, whose stories are told in eleven individual chapters that begin with their own little mini-headlines.  The backdrop of the book is an English-language  newspaper, "based in Rome and sold around the world," started in the 1950s by a wealthy American businessman. It drained money, but somehow managed to stay alive, and in the late 1970s and early 1980s the paper actually became profitable.   Most but not all of the characters work at the paper, although all are bound together because of it.  The story of the newspaper and the Ott family that owns it also weaves throughout the individual vignettes, binding the book together into a coherent whole as the paper, "the "daily report on the idiocy and the brilliance of the species," heads toward its eventual decline.

The characters are believable -- the reader follows the lives of the expat staffers: editors who come and go: the accountant, the feature writers and the reporters of the paper, all who present a certain face in the often-cutthroat world of the newsroom but who have their own human flaws and quirks as individuals, especially at home. They are, at the heart of it all, just people, complete with resentments, secrets and other qualities which make them human and ultimately imperfect. One of the characters is Oliver Ott, a grandson of the original owner Cyrus, who gets on better with his Bassett hound Schopenhauer than he does with people.  There's also the story of a reader, Ornella de Monterecchi, who began reading the news in the late 1970s when her husband was posted to Riyadh as the Italian ambassador. She was kept back in a "guarded zone for Westerners," and got so she took up reading the news, slowly, each and every article until she'd finished each edition.  Her husband would talk to her about events that she hadn't seen in the paper yet, but since she hadn't read about it, she didn't want him to bring anything up, beginning her "slow drift from the present:"

One year into her newspaper reading, she was six months behind. When they returned to Rome in the 1980s, she remained stranded in the late 1970s. When it was the 1990s outside, she was just getting to know President Reagan. When planes struck the Twin Towers, she was watching the Soviet Union collapse. Today, it is is February 18, 2007, outside this apartment. Within, the date remains April 23, 1994.

At the same time, the book manages to connect present to past and vice versa -- for example, the characters weave in and out of others' vignettes over the years, as does the story of the paper itself;  and then there are the changes in technologies as old ones are made obsolete that reflect a changing world outside of the newsroom. There's much more; these are only a couple of examples. 

Watching the paper's inevitable decline is really rather sad both on a human level and an institutional one; the author also brings up here and there throughout the novel that the changing face of the news industry over the years in general  is making it difficult for newspapers (and those in the industry as well) to stay afloat and compete as they used to in the past.  There's also a hovering feeling of human melancholy that pervades throughout, but there are some genuinely funny moments as well. It's very obvious that the author knows what he's talking about, bringing a sense of realism into the story that is unquestionable.

There's so much more to this novel, and it is well worth the time to examine it for yourself, but the bottom line here is that I really liked this book and would definitely recommend it.

Ghosted, by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

 9781593762957

Soft Skull Press

2010

322 pp. 

The cover picture with red is the American release cover, but I actually like the original blue cover better -- it more accurately reflects the psyche of the book:

I'm not sure why Americans had to have the red cover, but oh well.  On with the review.

“Anti-hero is a lot easier than hero,” one character notes to his best friend, but it is a lesson not easily learned for some people, especially the main character of Ghosted, another book I can add to my list of favorites for 2010.  It is darkly funny, yet while you're laughing sometimes you just want to cry over the desperation and darkness that permeates this novel.

Mason Dubisee is the main character in this story, set in Toronto.  At the end of his rope financially, mentally and physically, on a self-destructive bent, heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol, a loser at cards, Mason is taken in by his boyhood friend Chaz, who is also Mason's drug dealer. Mason had taught himself how to write, formerly

in order to document his own coolness, his guts -- his good-looking, good-lighting, good-karma-hair days -- the stuff that would sell a man to pretty girls and a fickle god so they'd take him as a hero,

and is trying to write a novel, but finds that he no longer "gives a damn about the reader."  Too high and too drunk to write, Mason becomes the "Dogfather," a kind of mafioso-themed hot dog seller out of a three-wheeled cart called the Dogmobile.  This is not exactly what Mason wants to do, but he literally has no other choice.  During one of his first days selling hot dogs, he meets a man named Warren, who finds out Mason is a writer, then offers him a proposition.  If Mason will write a love letter for him (Warren being much to shy to make any overtures toward the woman he loves), Warren will pay Mason $5,000.  Mason writes a series of different letters, handing them all over, allowing Warren to choose.  The next thing he knows, Warren is dead, evidently a suicide.  Mason attends the funeral, and hears one of the letters he wrote read by Warren's sister, only it's now a suicide note.  Mason is taken aback, but at the same time, realizes that maybe he's on to something here -- and comes up with a series of online ads designed to capture the eyes of those contemplating ending their lives, offering his services as a ghostwriter of suicide notes.  But as Mason becomes involved with these people, something happens inside of him, leading to a series of often-funny but simultaneously sobering experiences, including an encounter with someone who can only be described as a living embodiment of evil.

What really drew me deeper into the novel once I started was the author's writing. Oh my god, this man can write and write well.  His prose, which at times is almost poetic, brings scenes vividly to life -- first, the streets of Toronto:

 There was a small park in the middle of Kensington Market that reminded him of Richard Scarry’s Busytown – every kind of folk doing every kind of thing – mohawked punks playing guitar, old Chinese women doing tai chi, a man on a unicycle being chased by small children, a circle of fishmongers smoking from a hookah, painters with their easels and watercolours, young Wiccans with their sticks and stones, people writing in notebooks, readers reading, singers singing, dealers dealing, drummers drumming, drinkers drinking – all together in the same small frame.

and later in the Sherbourne Men's Shelter for the "hard to house:"

It was like a hospital in an old war movie where they'd managed to keep the soldiers alive but never quite healed. They were propped in doorways, lying on a bench, curled up in a corner, reading on a cot, walking around in circles, their hands buzzing at their own ears. They wore modern-day civilian rags, but the war was still with them -- in their yes, in their hacking coughs, their shaking hands, in the stiffness of their walk. The war was the cold of the winter, the heat of the summer, the violence on every corner, the never being able to relax, the pain of memory, the loss of memory, the rack, the Lysol, the smack, the booze and the new weapons, too: the meth and the oxy and the giant TV screens attached to high-rise buildings. The war was foster homes, halfway houses, residential schools, jails, prisons, shantytowns, soup kitchens and shelters. It was never getting a real night's sleep, hands grabbing at your belongings, men coughing sickness right into your mouth. It was abusive fathers, dead mothers, cruel foster parents, crowded jail cells. It was TB and scabies and Hep C and AIDS. It was bedbugs and kerosene fires and cuts that never got clean. It was cops and gangbangers and bikers and bashers and pimps and your brother passing out on the streetcar tracks. It was schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, borderline personality. It was rage, isolation, mourning. It was self-deception, self-hatred, self-harm self-destruction. It was your old lady loving you, your old lady leaving you, your old lady dead. It was missing everyone you'd ever known. It was nothing ever changing and no one to depend on. It was a code that changed every moment, a war that never ended. It was suicide. And Mason, walking through the shelter, felt like a man who'd barely dodged the draft.

And within the story the author also has a bit of metafictional fun with his readers, including, but not limited to Mason's ongoing notes about his novel; "Socratic statements" that show up on a questionnaire for psychological therapy that Mason received two of each time he went to visit his doctor and wrote for her soberly in a journal; emails from and to his clients; and even videos.  He also seems to have a bit of fun with genre -- by the time you've finished the novel you're not sure how to categorize what you've just read, as the author changes his narrative style and perspective throughout the novel, especially at the end.  And I have to admit that as the book got a bit more on the thriller/suspense side, I was a bit disappointed -- hoping that the author wasn't trying to be one of those writers who sells out to attract a wider base of readers -- and came to the conclusion that perhaps it was just a vehicle for redeeming his character. At least I hope it was. But now that I think about it, I don't really care.  The book was so good it just doesn't matter.

Ghosted is one of those novels you just have to read to appreciate.  It's very different, very dark and by way of warning, there is one brief scene in which a character relates in a therapy notebook how he raped a child.  It's unsettling and disturbing at times, but it is so well written that you just can't stop reading it. The characters are well drawn, not made of cardboard and fit inside the story well, the dialogue is realistic, and the sense of place is so expertly evoked that you'll be there mentally no matter where the story goes. I can definitely recommend this novel but at the same time, it's for those readers who are into more gritty realism in their choice of books.  A warped sense of humor and a sarcastic streak couldn't hurt either. Books like this only confirm why I veer off the more mainstream-fiction track -- authors like this one are few and far between.

Let's Kill Uncle, by Rohan O'Grady

9781408808573

The Bloomsbury Group, 2010

originally published 1964, Longmans, Green and Co.

279 pp

(available in the US March 2011)

As the novel opens, two children are wreaking havoc aboard a ship: leaving blueberry pie on a sofa which was sat on by a retired admiral wearing white, spilling ink on the captain's charts, and throwing salad in the dining room among other nefarious deeds.  The crew can't wait to see them disembark and make their way down the gangplank to The Island, located in Canadian waters. They have come to The Island for their summer holidays -- Barnaby is supposed to meet and stay with his uncle there; the girl, Christie, is supposed to stay with friend of the family.  As it happens, Barnaby's uncle is not able to make it right away, so Barnaby is sent to room with a childless couple. The two children are the only kids on the island and start their time there making mischief, causing a lot of damage and uproar on the island, and eventually fall under the gaze of The Mountie, Sergeant Coulter.  While Barnaby and Christie settle in, Barnaby lets his friend in on a secret: he's worth $10 million dollars and his uncle wants the money and has been trying to kill him.  After Barnaby's uncle returns, and Christie sees that Barnaby is telling the truth, she comes up with a plan to save him: she reasons that before his uncle has the chance to kill her friend, they must do away with Uncle.

Let's Kill Uncle is, despite the title, a cute little book, one I probably would never have read had it not been for the fact that a few months back I saw the movie made from this novel in 1966 and wanted to read the story on which it was based. To be really honest, it's a novel I'd never heard of prior to the film (which imho, did not even come close to the novel). There's much more to it than murder; it's also look at the lives of the people on this remote island and the meaning of community.  It defies any sort of pigeonholing: at times it seems to be a book for older children -- there's a cougar in the story to whom the author affords human-like thought, for example -- but there's also the inner musings of Sergeant Coulter about his ill-fated hopes of love (in letters he writes to his beloved which he never mails) and his feelings of failure during the second world war, so the audience for the book is a bit unclear. Despite that shortcoming, however, the book is a good read: the author has done a fine job developing a sense of place, good characters --the uncle is a nasty piece of work and a bit mysterious as well, and the other characters on this remote island are a bit quirky, kind of what you'd expect of people who live tucked away here.  The story may be a bit antiquated for today's modern readers, but it still manages to drum up some suspense here and there. 

This is definitely not my normal reading fare, but I liked it -- not so much for the uncle storyline, but for the stories of the people on the island. It's really tough to pinpoint who might enjoy this book, so I'm not even going to try. Overall, it's a cute little book with a sinister twist.

*Hygiene and the Assassin, by Amélie Nothomb

9781933372778
Europa Editions, 2010
Translated by Alison Anderson
original French title: Hygiene de l'assassin, 
   1992, Éditions Albin Michel
167 pp.

Hygiene and the Assassin probably qualifies for my "strangest book read this year" award (up there with Little Hands Clapping)  but at the same time, there's something unique between the covers of this small novel. The setup for the story is that a Nobel Prize-winning author by the name of Prétextat Tach is about to die.  He is the author of twenty-two novels, is extremely reclusive, and has never granted an interview over his long career. Now that he is dying (from Elzenveirverplatz Syndrome -- a long name for a rare cartilage cancer), Tach's assistant has granted a select few journalists the rarest of opportunities for an interview.  One by one they come in, tape recorders ready to capture every word, and one by one Tach makes proverbial mincemeat out of them and tosses them out.  But the meat of this book begins with the entrance of Nina, an intriguing young woman who isn't about to join her predecessors.  After only a short while, and after Tach makes a remark about enjoying watching people crawl at his feet, Nina offers an intriguing wager:

 You said something about crawling. I suggest identical stakes for both of us. If I crack, I'm the one who'll crawl at your feet, but if you crack, you'll crawl at my feet.  I like to see people crawling at my feet too.

Tach takes the bet, noting that he loves "squashing people," and that "humiliating pretentious airhead females" is something that brings him "extreme pleasure."  And thus begins the verbal fencing match between the two, which lasts for the book's remaining 74 pages. There is absolutely no redeeming quality in the character of Tach; he is one of the most odious characters ever imagined.  He's self-obsessed, feels he has risen above the rest of the world, cares nothing for the rest of humanity (especially for women).  But what makes this book work and work well is the often brutal repartee between Tach and Nina, as she manipulates the conversation which eventually leads back into his past -- but to say more would be to ruin it.


This book is not for everyone; it is odd and very quirky with a main character that is, quite frankly, a disgusting pig. If that doesn't bother you, it is one of those novels that will entice you with its beginning and keep you reading until the last page.  And although the core of this story consists only of dialogue, it is extremely well done -- it is not clumsy or out of step, and stays solidly grounded within the inherent qualities of both characters.  IMHO, this is the mark of a talented writer, but also of a skilled translator.

I would recommend it for those who want more of a challenge in their reading. It's often difficult, and there are many literary references that many people may not get, but which are important to an understanding of Tach's character. I spent a great deal of time on Wikipedia, but a lot of readers want a straightforward novel with linear plot, resolution and a clearly-explained ending.  For those people, this may not be the book for you. But if you're up for it, and want something unique, you'll enjoy it.

fiction from France

*Needle in a Haystack, by Ernesto Mallo

my brief  review for this most excellent book can be found at the  crime segments portion of my online reading journal.  Pop on over if you're interested.

*The Wrong Blood, by Manuel de Lope

9781590513093
Other Press
2010
original Spanish title: Sangre Ajena, 2000; translated by John Cullen
288 pp.




The Wrong Blood  is the story of two women of different classes in Spain's Basque country: Maria Antonia Etxarri, the young daughter of a local innkeeper and Isabel Cruces Hernandez, who comes from a family of wealth and influence.  During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), their individual tragedies unexpectedly bring and then bind them together for the rest of their lives. Isabel falls in love with and marries an army captain, who is killed shortly afterwards, leaving behind not only Isabel but her unborn child. Maria Antonia, only a teenager, is raped when a group of soldiers take shelter at her father's inn. The local doctor, Felix Castro, is the central figure connecting them both. In the present, Miguel Goitia, law student and Isabel's grandson, is spending time at his grandmother's estate (which now belongs to Maria Antonia), a sanctuary of peace and quiet while he is preparing for his bar exam. His very presence there brings out memories of old wartime secrets that Miguel is not privy to -- and Castro is torn between telling him the truth about things or letting old memories lie dormant.  It is also a story about loss, grief, the nature of class distinction, and as Dave Boling, author of Guernica and one of the blurbers wrote, about  "... human survival at desperate times."

In terms of the writing, the direction of the plotline is a bit obvious once you begin reading, but that hardly matters in the long run.  I only rarely find an author whose prose is so eloquent that I want to read the book again just to appreciate its beauty. And considering this is a translated version, well, I can only imagine how absolutely wonderful it must be in the original Spanish.  The story is paced very well; it starts a bit slow, setting the overall tone immediately, while allowing the reader to absorb and appreciate small details that might otherwise be overlooked.  The sense of time and place is evoked largely through the use of flashbacks, which take the reader seamlessly and skillfully through the hardships of war into the present and back again, without causing any interruption to  the overall flow of the story. It is a book that will you find difficult to put down until the very end.

I recommend this novel to people who enjoy Spanish novels in translation, and who truly appreciate the beauty of the written word. It's definitely not a book for those who want something quick and easy, nor is it an action-packed novel that once you've read you'll forget, like so much fiction that's out there on bookstore shelves at the moment.. It's a book to be enjoyed slowly -- and kept on your shelf to visit again some day.

fiction from Spain

*The Report, by Jessica Francis Kane

978155975654
Graywolf Press
2010
240 pp.


Based on a true story, The Report is a novel centered on an event which happened on March 3, 1943 at the Bethnal Green Tube station, which at the time also served as the local bomb shelter. Sir Laurence Dunne, the magistrate who wrote the report on the incident noted that “the stairway was converted from a corridor to a charnel house in ten to 15 seconds,” when one hundred seventy-three people died in a human crush on the stairs near the entrance to the shelter, asphyxiated to death.  There were no bombs heading for or exploding in London, so how did this happen?   The author, Jessica Frances Kane, has created a fictional account of that day and its aftermath in this splendid novel, which not only recreates this event, but asks some tough questions along the way that are in many ways still pertinent today.

The story begins with the arrival of a young man who has been trying to arrange an interview with Dunne for a 30-year retrospective documentary on the Bethnal Green incident.  It then moves backward in time and the major characters who are involved in the tragedy are introduced.  These characters are all too real, making it easy for the reader to become deeply involved in the story on a very human level as events proceed up to March 3^rd and then afterward.  The way the author has written this novel also provides a glimpse of the wartime problems and frustrations of those at the London homefront – the mistrust of refugees, the food shortages, the years of ongoing blackouts (one character remarked that her beloved baby sister had never even seen the moon in the night sky), the sheer endurance involved in trying to hold on until the war is over, etc., and the differences made simply based on where you lived in the city.  As events are slowly revealed and unraveled, the characters become much more developed and come into their own and their motivations behind their actions also become clearer.  They move on from that fateful night on to the aftermath, when individuals, families and the community are left to cope with their grief or other feelings about the tragedy, along  with the progress of the inquiry led by Magistrate Dunne. Interspersed with the core story of the event, the story also moves in and out of the present of 1973, where people have definitely not forgotten, and where many of them are still dealing with the impact of this singular event, especially Dunne.  

There are many realistic observations made by the characters that exemplify Kane’s excellent writing.  For example, in a scene set in 1973, Dunne notes of the young man who came to interview him:

 …talking to him was like talking to any young person about the war years; they spoke from a background of black-and-white pictures, while your memories were very much in color. They asked about the rationing, while you saw coupons. They spoke about the public morale, when what you remembered were the faces. Try as they might, they only heard a chord or two, while the whole symphony still roared in your head.

The author became interested in the story when she discovered Tragedy at Bethnal Green, 1943: Report on an Inquiry into the Accident at Bethnal Green Tube Station Shelter (Uncovered Editions) at the British Library bookshop, and then went on to read the full transcript of the inquiry into the incident at the National Archives. She relates in the Author’s Note at the end of the book that news of the terrible event was “kept secret for days” and that magistrate Laurence Dunne pursued an investigation, published a report, and then the government suppressed it until the war’s end.

 The Report is (unbelievably) this writer’s first novel and you would be hard pressed as a reader to read this book and not end up forming your own conclusions as to what really happened on that fateful night. It draws you in from the start and does not lessen its hold until the very end, not only because of the subject matter, but also because it is beautifully constructed. I most definitely recommend this book – and I hope it does well with readership. It is easily one of the best novels I’ve read this year. If you want to read a compelling work of historical fiction, this book is one that should not be missed.

*A Geography of Secrets, by Frederick Reuss

1609530004
Unbridled Books
September, 2010
288 pages

 “Secrets don’t keep, they putrefy.”

Two men know very well the truth of this statement.  The first is Noel Leonard, whose job at the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center has him plotting precise points for the bombing of terrorist targets. When something goes wrong, and innocent children are killed at a school in Pakistan, he becomes weighted down with guilt.  But he has no one to turn to because of the levels of  secrecy involved,  and it begins to take a toll, not just on Noel, but on his life. Up until now he’s always been able to separate work from home, but at a time in his life when he needs to tell someone, he's sworn to secrecy and silence. The other person in this book who kept secrets is a man who spent a lifetime uprooting his family in service to the government, ostensibly as a diplomat in the Foreign Service.  His son, who narrates his story in first person,  is a “geographic information scientist,” whose father had kept his share of secrets --  his father’s life and career are so shrouded in mystery that he knows very little about him.   When he hears an enigmatic remark from an acquaintance of his father, he knows he needs to try to unearth what has been kept from him.  He also wants to discover exactly how far the burden of these secrets might take him, and in the process, hope to locate himself.  But it’s not going to be easy:  he is denied access to info about his dad even though he’s applied through the Freedom of Information Act -- and he is left to sort through what bits of information he manages to obtain piecemeal.

Geography of Secrets speaks about finding connections and finding oneself.  Aside from the two protagonists’ stories, the author uses the device of beginning each section with geographic coordinates to maintain this theme running throughout.  The culture of government secrecy is also examined, as are blame and responsibility – not just on a personal level, but at the very top  as well:

 It takes surprisingly little time for things to drift down to these lower depths. The bigger the catastrophe, the more leadenly it falls as the larger vertebrates swimming overhead voraciously consume responsibility while spitting out little pebbles of blame.

The book is very well written and there is definitely a well-established sense of place, especially as the reader moves through the city of Washington, DC.  I found myself heading to the internet to look up the places Reuss mentions there that were landmarks of the Cold War era.  But it is not, I repeat, not a thriller, as I have seen it described in a few places -- it's a very intelligent piece of writing that looks at the burden of secrets and imposed silence on innocent people.  It's also a look at what lengths people can go to just to share that burden. And although I found both of the main characters quite believable,  I also found the narrator’s story a bit more intriguing than that of Noel’s, probably because of the gradual uncovering of his father's secrets which were revealed layer by layer.  I will confess to being a bit disappointed at the rather vague ending, but overall, I definitely liked A Geography of Secrets and would recommend it.

*Panopticon, by David Bajo

 9781609530020
 Unbridled Books
 October 2010
 345 pp


First, my thanks to Rachel at Unbridled Books for sending me an ARC of this book. 

 Now, I'm just a reader, not a critic, but David Bajo’s new novel Panopticon is thought provoking and intense. Set in San Diego and the border area between California and Mexico, it begins as reporters Aaron Klinsman, Oscar Medem and Rita Valdez are given their final assignments. The newspaper where they work is about to go to press for the last time, and their boss, Gina, has assigned them to cases, as the blurb notes, that turn out to be "suprisingly personal."  Klinsman has been assigned three subjects in places he's been before -- coverage of a Luchador event, surveillance in public parks, and a beat call at the old San Ysidro motel, where Klinsman expects a crime scene and doesn't find one. As he examines the room, he notices a number of oddities, including  the outline of a woman on the bed, black tape everywhere, covered mirrors, and a bag of lightbulbs. Wondering why his editor would send him there, he begins to try to piece together what may have happened in that room, and he brings Rita to the room for a fresh perspective. Rita and Oscar are also working on their assignments, and as the three get further into their stories, they come to realize that someone is out there watching them, but for what purpose?

One of the most prevalent themes in this book is that we are living in an age of  (in the author's own words)  "digital omniscience."  The title of Bajo's book is an interesting choice: the word "panopticon" literally means "all-seeing."  In the late 18th century, philosopher Jeremy Bentham conceptualized a structure (prison, poorhouse, facilities for quarantine, etc.)  that would offer authorities the opportunity to monitor the inmates of the place without being seen by those they are watching.  The idea (in a very brief nutshell here) was that the authorities were up in a tower in the center of the complex, behind blinds so they could not be observed. The inmates would not know when they were being observed, only that they could possibly be under the gaze of the authorities at all time.  The idea was that believing they were under surveillance at all times, those being observed would regulate their own behaviors.  Eventually the idea was that there didn't need to be anyone in the tower at all -- as Michel Foucault noted in his most excellent book Discipline and Punish,  the idea was to  "induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power" (201). The panopticon, however, has moved away from a physical structure, and today we are all living in it.  The fact is that we're all being observed by someone at some time, but believe erroneously that we can somehow elude the gaze and guard those parts of ourselves that are private, only letting others see what we want them to see or know what we want them to know.  Panopticon is filled with imagery that makes this point, for example, towels draped over mirrors, darkness, and masks all are methods used to keep prying eyes away. Yet, especially with the Internet, there are always traces left somewhere, and as technology becomes more sophisticated, as Klinsman, Rita and Oscar discover,  it is becoming much easier to watch others -- and there is always someone who wants to discover what it is we don't necessarily want others to see or to know.  From the obvious surveillance cameras to cell phone cameras to small video cameras and even our webcams, it's not only possible, but it's happening.  But I also believe that Bajo is saying here (toward the end, which I will not divulge) that panopticism can, in some cases, be put to good use, a positive application of what Foucault calls "coercion" (222). 

I really liked this book. The subject matter is something I've been interested in for eons and the author managed to keep it real, rather than making up a bunch of pseudo-scientific-techno crap, a place other authors (whose books I no longer read) have often gone.  I liked the characters, and the sense of place  was very well established.   As I got further into the story, and figured out what was going on, I couldn't put the book down because I had to know the why of it all, so I can say that there is an element of tension in the novel that will keep you reading.  Panopticon is one of those books where even if the critics hate it, I wouldn't care.

The Long Song, by Andrea Levy

 9780374192174

Frances Coady/Farrar, Straus and Giroux

2010

313 pp.

Well, here's a lesson for me. When I first saw that this book had made the Booker Prize longlist, I was thrilled.  I had read the author's Small Island when it first came out some years back and liked it so I was eager to get into this one.  Then, when I picked it up and started reading it, I was a bit unsure, because my first thought was "oh no, another book about slavery." There's a story behind that remark:  about a year ago, I had read a book about slavery that was emotionally difficult to get through called The Book of Night Women, by Marcus James and frankly, I didn't think I could go there again.  But The Long Song was not at all what I was expecting -- and I ended up being unable to put it down. And while I didn't love it, I liked it very much.

The narrator is Miss July, who was a slave at Amity plantation in Jamaica in the 19th century, as well as a witness to the end of slavery.  At first she's extremely reluctant and even apologetic in describing the night she was conceived, but eventually, her son, who is publishing his mother's memoirs, notes that this didn't last long:

 Although shy of the task at first, after several months she soon became quite puffed up, emboldened to the point where my advice often fell on to ears that remained deaf to it.

And really, July holds nothing back; indeed sometimes her zeal leads her to fabricate, but manages to rein in the "nice" version of her stories to get back to the reality of her life in Jamaica.  She belongs to John Howarth, master of Amity, and works out in the fields until the arrival of Howarth's sister, Caroline Mortimer.  Caroline brought a maid with her from England, but the maid dies shortly thereafter, and Caroline decides to take July in her maid's place. Inside the house, the mischievous and often devilish July is given the name "Marguerite," and with the other house servants, does everything she can to thwart Caroline, including putting a soiled bedsheet on the table instead of the best tablecloth for a company dinner. Her time at Amity runs through The Baptist War or Christmas Uprising of 1831, as well as through the eventual emancipation of all of the slaves in 1838.  In the meantime, a string of overseers come to Amity, ending with Robert Goodwin, whose arrival changes everything about life at the plantation.

The author does not disguise any of the dehumanizing and horrifying aspects of slavery, or the racism inherent among the whites who do not see slaves as people but rather as chattel.  She also examines the color line among the slaves themselves in July's discussion about  Miss Clara,  famous for her white man's boarding house, her dances (to which July would never be invited) and her jams:

Only with a white man, can there be guarantee that the colour of your pickney will be raised. For a mulatto who breeds with a white man will bring forth a quadroon; and the quadroon that enjoys white relations will give to this world a mustee; the mustee will beget a mustiphino; and the mustiphino...oh, the mustaphino's child with a white man for a papa will find each day greets them no longer with a frown, but welcomes them with a smile, as they at last stride within this world as a cherished white person....Forward only to white skin became Miss Clara's mission.

Her characterizations are very real, from the slaves to the masters to well-meaning Christian ministers and sympathetic white people. Her sense of place is well evoked.  And even small details become meaningful, especially in one of my favorite parts of the novel: a story about a painting by the artist Francis Bear.  But what really shines through here is the emphasis on the power of storytelling, which is highlighted each time July gives an introduction to what she's writing, addressing herself often as "your storyteller," and even advising her readers that she can't go on, interjecting herself throughout the story:

I can go no further! Reader, my story is at an end. Close up this book and go on about your day. You have heard all that I have to tell of a life lived upon this sugar island. This wretched pen will blot and splutter with ink no more in pursuance of our character July. I now lay it down in its final rest.

But thankfully, she does go on, until her "long song" is finished.  I appreciated the fact that Ms. Levy might have chosen to bring a sappy ending to this story that might have diminished this novel and did not, thereby maintaining the integrity of The Long Song until the final word.
 
I can definitely recommend this book -- it is powerful, extremely well written and it's a story you won't soon forget.

Trespass, by Rose Tremain

9780701178017

Chatto and Windus

253 pp.

2010

(read in August)

Veronica Verey (known as V) and her friend/lover Kitty live in a small village in the south of France. V is a garden designer, currently at work on a book called Gardening Without Rain. Kitty is a not-so-successful watercolor artist studying photography. The two find companionship in each other. Their home is an old stone farmhouse, and from the terrace they’re afforded a view of the beautiful Cévenne hills and "blinding red" sunsets. Kitty's happiness is "absolute" when they spend time on their terrace, drinking wine, taking in the view, listening to the birds -- but Kitty is also insecure, creating a sense of uneasiness between herself and V.

Audrun Lunel and her brother Aramon  live not far from V and Kitty.  They are in their sixties, living in the Cévennes village of La Callune where their family has owned and worked the land for generations. Audrun's father had left her a piece of the family land as her very own -- a wooded area where she built a bungalow -- for reasons I will leave unmentioned. Aramon remains in the family home, the Mas Lunel, once a U-shaped house, now only the back of the U remains. Now a drunken and broken old man, Aramon has virtually given up, preferring to sit and watch television while he drinks. Aramon has decided to sell what's left of Mas Lunel, learning that he could get a hefty chunk of money from foreign buyers for the place.  Although Audrun will still have her patch of woods and her bungalow, the thought of losing her childhood memories of her mother horrifies her beyond belief, and she can envision the changes that would come if Aramon were to sell the house. 


Enter Anthony Verey, Veronica's brother.  Anthony is 64, with a failing London antiques business. He used to thrive on the knowledge that people were envious of him and filled with admiration of his celebrity; now in his 60s, he realizes that what he sees now in the eyes of others is merely pity.  Even the young and beautiful boys he entertains no longer make him feel good -- in fact, seem to have the opposite effect.  Anthony also realizes that this is no way to continue on, and decides he's got to have that final shot at happiness.  As in the past, he turns to his sister V for rescue. He decides he will go stay with V at her farmhouse for a while; then once there, decides he should have a place of his own and make a fresh start.  This decision serves as a catalyst for tragedy as a series of events unfolds that begin to snowball out of control. 


Trespass is aptly titled; there are many varied forms of infringements that are threaded throughout the novel: emotional and physical, native and foreign, and even the boundaries of truth are encroached upon and violated. There's also the concept of trespass in terms of sin that is explored as well.  Another major theme is the past -- for some people the past is something they can never let go of while others want to escape it and move on.


The sense of place in this book is very well executed. The characters started out extremely strong, standing as unique individuals caught in their own lives as well as in webs of complexity within the scope of their relationships to others. The story was also strong and taut at the beginning, so much so that I couldn't put the book down.  However, in the second half of this book, at some point (for me, anyway) things became so incredibly foreseeable I continued reading just to confirm what I'd already figured out.  And it is also at this juncture that the characters started falling apart -- becoming just as predictable as the story and losing the depth that gave them so much life at the beginning.  But that doesn't mean that this is a bad novel. Au contraire; it is an incredible story and I found myself really liking it. And it's one I'd have no problems recommending. 


(so sorry about the font change..I have to figure out how to write in MS word & have it transfer with no changes. arrgh!)

February, by Lisa Moore

0802170706

Grove Press/Black Cat

February, 2010

320 pp.

(read in August)

The combination of loss, grief and the necessity of moving on in life (and love) is the main focus of this novel, which focuses on Helen after the death of her husband Cal in 1982.  Cal worked on the Ocean Ranger, an oil rig off the coast of Newfoundland, and was there when it went down due to bad weather and human error. All hands were lost; in horrible weather that left no opportunity for rescue by ship and water that can easily produce hypothermia in minutes, no one was saved (you can read about the Ocean Ranger here).

Much of the story is told through flashbacks, which bounce backward and forward in time, not very linearly. Helen has put off her grief for some time, and the book examines how she coped throughout the years, creating one of three separate plotlines that run and interweave constantly throughout the novel. Much of the time she spends trying to picture exactly what happened on the Ocean Ranger, and in the midst of trying to figure out what caused the rig to sink, she thinks of Cal doing his job or playing cards with his workmates on the rig, or Cal dying alone, in the icy water of the North Atlantic.   At the time of her husband’s death, she had three children and another one on the way – her struggle to raise them alone and her children in general take up a second narrative strand, especially in the present:  Helen's son John has just found out he’s going to be a father after a trip to Iceland. The call wakes her out of a deep sleep, both in terms of reality and metaphorically.    The third storyline begins as Helen’s sister convinces her that her house needs renovating (“you want this place to be condemned or what?”) and Helen meets the carpenter Barry. 

Grief consumes Helen, and Moore’s writing allows the reader to feel what Helen feels. Everyone can relate to the loss of a loved one, especially a partner/wife/husband, even more so when that loss comes unexpectedly before you think it should.  While the author explores the nuances of grieving, loss and love, and expresses them well through her talented writing, there’s just something more dynamic and complex that’s missing here.   While it may work on an emotional level, I noticed a surprising lack of real development of  characters who are most central to Helen’s life – her daughters.  John’s child’s mother, Jane, gets more air time than Helen’s own daughters, as does John himself, which just didn’t feel right. Even considering that their relationship was difficult and strained at times, I would have expected more from the mother-daughter aspects of this story.  This books also at times has a kind of (dare I say what I really think??) "women's-fictiony" feel to it that I didn’t particularly care for.  

What might have worked better for me would be a book about the men on the Ocean Ranger -- their reasons for being there, their camaraderie or conflicts, their last moments and the people they left behind. Someone should write that story.

But as always, so many people loved this book and gave it high ratings, so perhaps it will do well among the general-reading public. I'm just a demanding reader, and  this one just didn't do it for me.

Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray

9780865749487

Faber and Faber

2010

Originally published in Great Britain, Hamish Hamilton/Penguin

672 pages

If you're looking for a really good book to read, this is the one.  Don't just add it to your TBR pile...go get a copy and read it. It's nearly 700 pages, but you won't even notice, especially if you buy it in the 3-box set.  It is undoubtedly one of the funniest books I've ever read, but at the same time, quite poignant; it is a book that will at times tug at your heartstrings.

The story begins in the first book, called "Hopeland," and continues through the next two books, "Heartland" and "Ghostland."  In the very first scene at Ed's Doughnut House on a Friday evening in November, 14-year old Skippy, whose real name is Daniel Juster, is having a doughnut-eating race with his friend Ruprecht Van Doren, who boasts that he has not been beaten in "fifteen consecutive races."  But something goes wrong and (this is not a spoiler) Skippy dies after leaving the words "Tell Lori" written in jam on the floor.  And then the author takes his readers back to fall term at Seabrook College, the oldest Catholic boys' school in Ireland -- to find out exactly what brought things to this point.

Skippy is a student who boards at Seabrook. He gets his nickname from buck teeth that cause him to make a sound when he speaks  like the voice of a talking kangaroo on TV.  Until just shortly before midterm, Skippy had been an excellent student, is on the school's swim team, and generally liked, but his grades have been falling recently.  Skippy enjoys playing a video game called "Hopeland," a kind of mystic quest, which will increase in importance as the story goes on.  He shares a room with Ruprecht, for whom 

the world is a compendium of fascinating facts just waiting to be discovered, and a difficult maths problem is like sinking into a nice warm bath.

Ruprecht's goal is to study at Stanford, and his hero is physicist Hideo Tamashi, whose work entails trying to solve the Big Bang via ten-dimensional string theory. Ruprecht has a lab in the basement where he conducts experiments which he hopes will lead him to the secret origins of the universe. Skippy's other friends include Dennis, who is an "arch-cynic, whose very dreams are sadistic, hates the world and everything in it..." who thinks Ruprecht talks "non-stop bollocks." He also has Geoff, Niall and Mario as friends, although these characters (and many of the other boys around Skippy) are really less developed as characters than Ruprecht and Dennis.  After thinking he sees a UFO one day, Skippy looks through Ruprecht's telescope and sees a girl throwing a Frisbee. This is Lori, a girl from St. Brigid's, a "smoking-hot" girl who immediately captures Skippy's attention.  The problem is that another Seabrook boy, Barry, has become infatuated with Lori, and Barry is bad news.

But this book is not just about the boys of Seabrook -- the school's faculty and staff are just as much a part of the story.  One of the main characters is Howard Fallon, the school's history teacher, who himself graduated from Seabrook some ten years back, and is haunted by an episode that took place at that time. He's back at the school after a stint in the world of finance. There's Father Green, the French teacher, whose name the boys have translated into French as "Pere-vert". His calling, as he sees it, is to snuff out sin, but at the same time, he feels he must keep Skippy in a state of innocence. He has his own inner demons to deal with as well.  Then there's Greg Costigan, the acting principal of Seabrook in the absence of Father Furlong, who has suffered a recent heart attack. Costigan is snarkily referred to as "the Automator," and believes that the Paraclete Order is on its last legs, and that the only solution is to modernize the school, with himself at the helm. He believes that Seabrook's history as the oldest Catholic boys' school is brandable -- and that the school's role is to prepare the students to "get up there on the world stage and duke it out with the best of them."  He wants to roll with the times --

Change is not a dirty word. Neither for that matter is profit. Profit is what enables change, positive change that helps everyone, such as for example demolishing the 1865 building and constructing an entirely new twenty-first-century wing in its place

and of course, the wing just might be named after him.  Costigan represents progress in a very anti-traditionalist sort of way; he doesn't care that the boys actually learn anything, just that they pass their exams to continue Seabrook's reputation, come what may.  The reputation of the school is everything and must remain so, no matter what.   Fallon, on the other hand, begins to understand that history is something of value -- and that teaching others to care about the past may be just as  important  as throwing them into the competitive capitalist arena. 


Although Skippy Dies is often so funny you can't help but laugh out loud (for example, there's a scene where the boys' English teacher has just gone over the meaning of  Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" and one of the kids takes his interpretation to a whole new level),  the story is at times tragic and heartbreaking. It's a good look at how these teenagers understand and interpret themselves in the face of today's world (including sex and drug use) how they see adults, and how despair can cause loss of hope and yet for some, become a building experience. It's about the hold of memory on the human psyche and the importance of remembering. There are other themes at work as well -- including the socio-economic situation of modern Ireland and the role of the Catholic church in the face of all of the scandals that dog it -- making this very long book just fly by. 

I loved this book. Absolutely. It's extremely well written, although it does get bogged down a bit for a short time in the middle.  But on the whole, it is most excellent.  Which is why I do not understand for the life of me how it did not make it on to the Booker Prize Shortlist, announced today. It is by far better than any of the books I've yet read, much more accessible and extremely reader oriented than its companions on the list.

I have absolutely zero qualms about recommending this book. It is so good you will not be able to stop reading it.  I really hope it becomes a runaway bestseller.

C, by Tom McCarthy

9780224090209 

Jonathan Cape, 2010

310 pp. 

Trying to put all of my thoughts together about this book was like giving birth, I swear. It took me forever, even after having read this book twice.

When you begin reading C, you immediately discover that you’re in for something well off the beaten path. The book is divided into four parts: the first offers the main character’s (Serge Carrefax) birth and childhood. At the time of Serge’s birth, as we learn from Serge’s father, the inventor Marconi was out on Salisbury Plain, doing his final demonstrations of his new wireless radio (he would receive the patent from the British that same year). Marconi’s invention proved that radio waves could travel through air, rather than through wires – from a transmitter to a receiver and ushered in the birth of modern telecommunications. This theme of transmission and receiving becomes a solid core element of McCarthy’s novel.

Serge has a rather unconventional childhood, with a father who runs a school for the deaf (where he focuses on teaching them to speak) and is obsessed with communications and technology. The first time we meet Simeon, he’s in the midst of spooling copper wire all around the grounds of the family home, Versoie, experimenting with signal transmission. Simeon hopes to find “a patent way for using radio to sense the weather in advance.” His mother raises silkworms, processing their cocoons to produce silk that brings very high prices on the market. He also has an older sister, Sophie. As they grow up, they are great playmates and friends. They are both interested in codes and ciphers (unlike their father, who believes codes & encryption go “against the whole principle of communication”), combing through the Times personals to find secret messages; they become involved in a rather complicated game of Monopoly designed by their tutor on the Versoie grounds (where there is constant noise and humming, both natural and technological – so that the grounds of their home are literally alive) where they come to thrive on the competition; both enjoy experimenting with chemistry from the Boy’s Playbook of Science – in other words, they grow up with a close connection to each other, as close as two siblings can be – much like two complementary opposites of a whole.

Sophie has a love for the natural world, and when she’s older, chooses to study natural science. Serge is like his father, more on the scientific end. He spends a great deal of time listening to the wireless, picking up static (“like the sound of thinking….the sound of thought itself, its hum and rush”), and then silence, and finally the “first quiet clicks” where “words start forming…”. He starts out on the local frequencies, moving out farther and farther into the airwaves, to Paris, then on to even higher frequencies, and as the clock climbs to the top of the hour, there’s silence – then the clicks start up again. As he listens, he conjures up images local to where the transmissions are originating. And at some point, the clicks dissipate, and “wireless ghosts come and go, moving in arpeggios that loop, repeat, mutate, then disappear.” But then…trauma strikes in the form of Sophie's death and as a result, Serge ends up at a sanitorium, where his doctor notes the cause and the cure:
“…Blockage. Jam, block, stuck. Instead of transformation, only repetition…Blockage must be broken, then body and soul will open up, like flowers…Out now…Go and start transforming.” So...it begins.

The second part finds Serge off to the first world war, to the British Air Force, working as an aerial observer, where he is able to see from above. Conversely, when taken prisoner, he finds solace in staying below in the tunnels. It is during his time as in the war that he also discovers the joy of cocaine, at first rubbing it in his eyes and then moving on to snorting it, offering him a heightened sense of awareness & perception. He continues his drug use once back in London where he hangs out with some very off-beat people living a rather Bohemian lifestyle as part three of the book begins, and in part four, Serge is off the Egypt, where it’s now 1922, and Egypt is celebrating its nominal independence from the once-great British Empire. He’s down in the crypts, exploring the history of the ancients, leading to an impressive and appropriate finish.

At first glance, this book seems to be a rather conventional novel. And in some sense it pretends to be: it’s a sort of coming-of-age story, told linearly, along the path of technological progress in the opening years of the 20th century. That’s what most conventional readers are used to. But when you start getting into it, McCarthy muddies those particular waters by adding in his theme of transmission and repetition throughout the novel, giving the reader pause for thought. You have to ask yourself: what is actually being transmitted here – what is being repeated?

This book isn't very user friendly, but in many ways, this stems from trying to unlock the keys to the puzzles here, of which there are many. I I think that part of what McCarthy is trying to show is the sense of loss, despair and a sense of alienation that began to make its way into the realms of literature & art and characterize this period of time in history -- all of these are reflected in Serge at the loss of his sister.  Major dislocations across the world occurred during this time, not the least of which was a new web of  "interconnectedness" (for lack of a better term) and "webs"  across the globe.  This was made possible by technology that furthered communication, transportation and, as the author notes toward the end, the beginnings of "Westernization" (and fyi, I hate that word)  desired by many formerly-colonized countries as the power of the Empire began to wane across the globe. Societies that once were based on tradition now wanted what the "West" had -- and in some cases, this wasn't always a good thing.  But I digress. Serge spends a great deal of his young life seeking to make connections that rationality (logic and reason) can't really explain -- and ultimately, it is not until he is down with the dead in Egypt and then on a boat home that things begin to converge for him. I think that my lack of familiarity with some of the art & literature referenced (and derived from) by the author put me at a definite disadvantage. But I've come to realize that it doesn't really matter. 

After the second reading, I decided I liked the book, didn't love it, but I do recognize that McCarthy is an extremely talented writer. I want to try his book on Tintin next. I don't know if this is a book that the general public is going to embrace, but it's still very worth the time you spend reading it.

Room, by Emma Donoghue

9780330519014

Picador

2010

--warning-- this review may contain spoilers -- so beware



Jack is a five year old boy who lives in an 11 x 11 space with his mother that Jack calls "Room." Not only is this place their home, Room is the only world that this child has ever known.  He has never been outside Room, and although he and his mother (Ma) have a television, Ma has told him that what he sees on the tube is not real.  The door to Room is always locked.  Although Jack doesn't know this, Ma has worked very hard to make life as normal for Jack as it possibly can be given the circumstances -- Jack and Ma eat, sleep, exercise, play games, sing songs, have lessons and conversations all within Room's confines.

We learn about life in Room through Jack, who narrates the story.  The routines differ only sometimes at night, when the man that Jack has dubbed "Old Nick" occasionally shows up and Jack needs to go inside "Wardrobe," where he has to sleep, until Old Nick is gone again. Jack doesn't like Old Nick and instinctively feels something rather sinister about the man's presence; at the same time he knows that Old Nick is the one that he and Ma depend on for food, clothing, and the occasional "Sundaytreat."  Jack's observations of Room, his world view within this space, and his conversations with Ma are often surprisingly adult in nature, considering he's only five, but at the same time, the reader is still very conscious that Jack is just a little boy, still learning about and trying to make sense of things in his world, just like any other child his age.  But then one day, Ma decides to tell Jack the truth about some things, and makes plans to leave Room forever. The rest of the novel (which is not really giving anything away if you just look at the chapter headings) describes their escape from Room into a world Jack has never known, as well as its aftermath -- leading to collisions between what Jack has always believed was  real and what people are now telling him is real. And, just when you're comfortable thinking that this is only a work of fiction, FYI, Room is based on true events from Austria, the famous Kampusch kidnapping case.





I liked this book, but didn't fall in love with it the way most people who've read it have. At its heart,  it's a good story with a fresh premise.  Making Jack's eyes the ones through which the reader sees the Room world was a good idea -- there's much more immediacy to the story, making the reader wonder why they're there and what's going to happen.  Even though Jack's credibility often seemed a bit strained as a narrator due to his precocious and adult-like vocabulary, the fact that Donoghue also showed his child side makes this work.  The fact that Donoghue did not roam into the realm of the tawdry, either about the abduction or especially during Old Nick's night-time visits is to her credit -- doing this would have only cheapened the story to the point where I would have probably put the book down. Yet at the same time,  the second half of the book doesn't quite manage to hold on to the taut and clever construction of the first part, which had me reading nonstop. I won't say anything more specific, because I do not wish to give away the entire show.  


I predict that when this book hits the US next month it is going to sell big time. It comes on the heels of several widely-reported cases of kidnappings and victim rescues. It is designed to tug at heartstrings, and the author does that well. Finally, quite frankly, it's very reader friendly.   There isn't a lot of flowery prose, it's easy to read, resonates well with the fears of modern-day parents, and is generally suited to a wider audience of readers than most books that show up on the Booker Prize longlist.  I think it will do very well. That's not saying I think this is a great book, but I think it is going to be quite successful.

Parrot and Olivier In America, by Peter Carey

9780307592620

Knopf

2010

380 pp.

Parrot and Olivier in America is composed of two narratives that interweave throughout the novel: that of  Olivier-Jean-Baptiste de Clarel de Barfleur de Garmont, he of French aristo parentage, and that of  John Larrit (known as Parrot or sometimes Perroquet), son of an English  journeyman printer and a mother long dead.  Olivier's family were nobles who did not flee France during the revolution, but went to live in hiding in Normandy, so that when the monarchy eventually returned, their political position was tenuous. It became even more so when the last of the Bourbons (supported wholeheartedly by Olivier's mother) was later overthrown during the July Revolution of 1830. When Garmont was in his 20s and started attending lectures given by Francois Guizot, an activity deemed too politically dangerous for the young and naive man, his mother decided to ship him off to America for his safety:

You are a Garmont...the liberals see you and have no doubt you are a spy. The monarchists see you and know you for a traitor. You are in danger (77).

Ultimately his parents secured for him a commission to write on the state of American prisons, and create a report on his findings for France. Olivier, who as a child was a hypochondriac extraordinaire, never far from his Qianlong bowl of leeches, tends to be whiny and priggish, considers himself as a victim of the French Revolution, and has little to no understanding of others who are outside of his class and station.  Yet at the same time, there is a bit of a pathetic side to Olivier: he really has very little control over his own life -- everything is always decided for him by others.

Parrot, who as a young boy had escaped when his father and others were arrested in Dartmoor and ultimately executed for forging bank notes, had run across a Monsieur de Tilbot, who offered him help (eventually sending him off to Australia, promising that one day he would return -- the full account of which comes later in the story). As it so happens, Tilbot is also an acquaintance of the Garmont family, and turns out to be the initial connection between both characters. Parrot is older than Olivier, is an artist more firmly rooted in the working class, and in general understands the world better than his aristocratic counterpart. Parrot, a long time now in Monsieur's service, is called upon to spy upon Olivier while he attends Guizot's lectures. When Olivier's friend Blacqueville is killed defending their collective honors,  it is Parrot who is called on to escort him to America and to protect him while also serving as his secretary. And thus Parrot and Olivier come to America (but not until page 141!) -- and the rest of the book continues from there, where this odd couple of sorts come to realize the positives and negatives of living in a democracy and eventually come to terms with each other.

 I have to confess to never having read de Tocqueville (although I am familiar with many of his ideas on democracy), so at the end, when the author notes

The author's debt to Tocqueville himself will be obvious to scholars who will detect, squirreled away among the thatch of sentences, necklaces of words that were clearly made by the great man himself,

I find myself definitely not in the category of one of these "scholars," and perhaps I missed a thing or two along the way.  [The London Review of Books for August has an interesting take on this aspect of the novel if you're interested.]  But really, I don't think it makes that much of a difference while you're reading this book (unless, I suppose, you ARE a de Tocqueville scholar and you find things with which you may disagree or dislike about Carey's treatment).

I had a few minor issues with this novel. First, the book tends to lag at times -- for example, in the scenes where Olivier travels from place to place with Godefroy -- to the point where I found myself skimming to get to the next part, and there were other situations as well where the action was a bit dull.  Olivier's character, although drawn well, was rather aloof and often unreachable.  And then there's the little twist at the end. Just when I thought I had control over how I felt  about both main characters, Carey knocked the wind out of my sails for a while and made me have to do a rethink. But overall, I genuinely liked this book. When Parrot's first account began, I remember thinking how much I liked the feel of the narrative, as if someone were actively engaged in storytelling. Carey's judicious  use of imagery (especially of the birds) ran throughout , as did his constant allusions to the love of art. I also enjoyed his scenes that seemed to be taken right out of Dickens, especially in the case of Watkins and the forgers at the beginning.

 And I have to say also that I enjoyed the little barbs Carey throws out about the current situation in the US, especially when one of his characters notes that

America does not need either leadership or deep laid plans or great efforts, but liberty and still more liberty. The reason for this is that no one yet has any plans for abusing liberty. But wait, monsieur. It may take a century, but le fou viendra.

Take that as you will. My money's on W (pronounced "dubya").

Despite my minor issues with this novel, Parrot and Olivier is a clever philosophical debate about the pros and cons of democracy woven into a nice piece of historical fiction that will make you think about things long after you've put it aside.