Well, we've hit that time of year again, which means I feel compelled to rattle off my best, worst and pretty much any other category of books for the year. As always I'm starting with the dishonourable mentions or, as I like to call it, the Shelf of Shame. 2011 has been quite the doozy, full of unwarranted pomposity, false messiahs and fallen idols, and I'm not afraid to call shenanigans on all of them. Granted it's the sort of thing that might lose a person friends, but luckily I don't have any to begin with. So without further ado, I bring you 2011's Shelf of Shame.
Most Overrated Books of 2011
These books weren't necessarily terrible. A couple were actually quite good. But none came close to living up to the hype that was heaped upon them. Time to knock 'em down a few pegs:
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami: The excitement began to build sometime around March for the release of this supposed masterwork by Japan's literary colossus. Such was the hysteria that Murakami was being touted in the bookies' top 5 for the Nobel. And then, come October it was upon us and, while it was eminently readable, it crumbled under the weight of expectation. Perhaps had it been released over time in its three volumes, as had ben the case in Japan, the narrative ellipses would have been less obvious, the repetition less tedious and the excitement sustained. Instead, it turned out the equivalent of being forced to read the first four Harry Potters in one go, complete with retellings of the same story for the first half of each new volume (and no, that's not a compliment).
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace: Another book that just could not have hoped to live up to the hype, David Foster Wallace's last hurrah (not counting the shopping lists and other ephemera that cynical publishers have been churning out of late) was a good, sometimes brilliant but ultimately underdeveloped riff on the white collar world of tax. Two or three of the chapters stood amongst the best the tragic hipster ever penned, but other than that there was a lot of fat just begging to be trimmed. The literati had to wipe any number of bodily fluids from their patent leather shoes. I merely shrugged.
The Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer: Smoke and mirror wankerism by someone who ought to know better. I'm a massive Bruno Schulz fan and am generally quite fond of Foer but, wow, this was a gimmicky stunt that just didn't pay off. At least Foer answered the question he set out to ask: Can meaningful literature be created anew from the words of a pre-existing text? Put simply, no.
Snowdrops by A. D. Miller: How the hell did this mediocre thriller get shortlisted for the Booker? I'm still speechless.
More Hype but No Hurrah: Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman, We The Animals by Justin Torres, Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson, The Boy In The Suitcase by Lene Kaaberol and Agnete Friis, The Wind-Up Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi (technically a 2010 book but still way over-hyped).
Biggest Disappointments of 2011
Again, not terrible by any standard, but hardly what I had hoped for.
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco: As I said in my review, The Prague Cemetery might as well have been written with me in mind. This re-imagining of the genesis of history's most ghastly literary hoax, The Protocols of The Elders Of Zion, started off well but quickly unravelled into something slightly too smart, too vitriolic and, ultimately too unconvincing to deliver on my expectations. Someone said to me recently that they thought Eco had lost the plot a while back. And while I'm not quite ready to give up on the portly one just yet, I have a sneaking suspicion it'll only be a matter of time.
The Angel Esmerelda by Don Delillo: I'd like to just put it down to a late-era flailing on Delillo's part, but these stories have been culled from his entire career, which leaves me to think that while he might have been the long-form prophet of American decline, brevity was never his strong suit. Delillo gets the singular distinction of producing one my most disappointing books two years running. Bravo!
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carre: Granted it is not a new book, but thanks to the wonders of Hollywood, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy had a bit of a renaissance this year. I had high hopes for this classic of the espionage genre, but coming to it for the first time in 2011 showed how badly it has dated. Now let's wait and see whether the wonders of CGI can make Gary Oldman better than Alec Guinness. As if.
More Books That Broke My Heart (For All The Wrong Reasons): Salvage The Bones by Jesmyn Ward, The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman, The Messenger by Yannick Haenel, Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson, Gargling With Tar by Jochym Topol (a 2008 book, but one for which I had high hopes).
Most Annoying Trend of 2011
"The Next Stieg Larsson". Just because your ancestors were vikings and you have a name I can't pronounce, doesn't make you the next great crime writer. I get that it's all an opportunistic cash grab by publishers but, seriously folks, are book buyers so gullible that a simple sticker on every second hardboiled release will get them to empty their wallets? Heck, I didn't even like the first Stieg Larrson so what's with all the fuss? Buy a warm coat and be done with it! On the flipside, this rush to publish (and republish) Scandinavian crime fiction led me to discover the team of Maj Sjowell and Per Wahloo. Crackingly good stuff penned in the late 60s and 70s, making them the original (and easily best) Stieg Larsson.
Flat Out Worst Book of 2011
The Girl In The Polka Dot Dress by Beryl Bainbridge: Some editors and publishers need to be slapped. Sure, Dame Beryl might have been working on this when she died but it was clearly still just a lump of clay with very little sculpting. It should never have seen the light of day. Bravo to the Booker crowd for distracting her fans with a Best of Beryl Prize, which allowed us all to overlook this tragic blight on an otherwise wonderful career.
Storming Home!
on Monday, December 12, 2011
There's nothing like a holiday to salvage a slack reading year! After whinging about the unlikelihood of reaching one hundred and fifty books in 2011, I've really hit the ground running this month, knocking over twelve books in the first eleven days. And, no, I didn't resort to Roger Hargreaves. Right now I'm ploughing through book one hundred and forty, Erin Morgenstern's much lauded debut, The Night Circus. I was expecting to choke on saccharine, but so far it's utterly charming and a nice break from the drudgery of some of the other stuff I've read lately (once again, I'm looking at you Don Delillo).
I've also begun compiling my annual bevy of lists for your end-of-year entertainment. However, a brief glance over the one hundred and forty titles read thus far seems to suggest a paucity of 2011 books, which means it's going to pretty much be new(ish) releases from here on in. I don't want to have one of those "Books I'm Sure I Would Have Liked Had I Read It" awards again. So before the I explode one of those stupid streamer-filled poppers in someone's face, I'll be sure to get through Snuff by Terry Pratchett, Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson, The Third Reich by Roberto Bolano, The Postmortal by Drew Magary, Zone One by Colson Whitehead and City of Bohane by Kevin Barry.
Expect a flurry of posts from me towards the end of the month, but for now it's back to the circus.
I've also begun compiling my annual bevy of lists for your end-of-year entertainment. However, a brief glance over the one hundred and forty titles read thus far seems to suggest a paucity of 2011 books, which means it's going to pretty much be new(ish) releases from here on in. I don't want to have one of those "Books I'm Sure I Would Have Liked Had I Read It" awards again. So before the I explode one of those stupid streamer-filled poppers in someone's face, I'll be sure to get through Snuff by Terry Pratchett, Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson, The Third Reich by Roberto Bolano, The Postmortal by Drew Magary, Zone One by Colson Whitehead and City of Bohane by Kevin Barry.
Expect a flurry of posts from me towards the end of the month, but for now it's back to the circus.
Best Books of 2011: Eat Him If You Like by Jean Teule
on Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Never have I laughed so hard at humankind's capacity for horrific depravity as I did while reading Jean Teule's deliciously vile novella Eat Him If You Like. Based on a true event that took place in the French village of Hautefaye during the Franco-Prussian war of the 1870s, it is a bold testament to the dangers (and idiocy) of the mob in desperate times. Deputy Mayor Alain de Money heads to the village fair for purely altruistic reasons: he wants to buy a heifer for his poor neighbour and find someone to repair another unfortunate friend's roof. Only a week from joining the French army, he is initially greeted by all around in the usual, friendly manner befitting a popular public figure. But the villagers are on edge, with the region ravaged by drought and its people beaten down by a constant flow of bad news from the front. When one of them believes he hears Alain utter a pro-Prussian comment, the Deputy Mayor is singled out as a traitor and set upon with increasing savageness by pretty much everyone in Hautefaye.
Each short chapter brings a new level of wanton violence to the unfortunate Alain; he is beaten, tortured, drawn, quartered and ultimately burnt alive in extremely graphic detail. Yet there's something vaguely Monty Pythonesque about the absurdity of the whole affair. It is hard not to laugh when they start referring to him as "Prussian" (I couldn't help think of the blasphemer scene in Life of Brian), or when they refuse to believe it is their popular Deputy Mayor, having beaten him to an unrecognisable pulp. Similarly I found myself choking with laughter and incredulity at the townsfolk's ability to twist every word Alain or his friends say in his defence to bolster their belief in his treason. God knows why, but I even chuckled when they spread his bubbling fat like butter on their stale bread.
Like Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel, one of my favourite books of last year, Eat Him If You Like is a savage rumination on collective guilt that will sit uncomfortably with you long after you put it down. And while it might be a ghastly little book, it's one that I'd recommend without hesitation. I just wouldn't read it over breakfast. Particularly if you're having toast.
Each short chapter brings a new level of wanton violence to the unfortunate Alain; he is beaten, tortured, drawn, quartered and ultimately burnt alive in extremely graphic detail. Yet there's something vaguely Monty Pythonesque about the absurdity of the whole affair. It is hard not to laugh when they start referring to him as "Prussian" (I couldn't help think of the blasphemer scene in Life of Brian), or when they refuse to believe it is their popular Deputy Mayor, having beaten him to an unrecognisable pulp. Similarly I found myself choking with laughter and incredulity at the townsfolk's ability to twist every word Alain or his friends say in his defence to bolster their belief in his treason. God knows why, but I even chuckled when they spread his bubbling fat like butter on their stale bread.
Like Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel, one of my favourite books of last year, Eat Him If You Like is a savage rumination on collective guilt that will sit uncomfortably with you long after you put it down. And while it might be a ghastly little book, it's one that I'd recommend without hesitation. I just wouldn't read it over breakfast. Particularly if you're having toast.
Holy Crumbs! It's The Age Short Story Award 2011
on Saturday, December 3, 2011
KAPOW! Take that, crappy year of extreme sadness. Following eleven months of tragedy, fear and disappointment, December has swooped in and delivered a knockout blow of super awesomeness to 2011. Not only did my first ever piece of published fiction, The Prisoner of Babel, appear in the wonderful Sleepers Almanac Volume 7, but HOLY AMAZEBALLS(!!!) my short story Crumbs has just won the 2011 Age Short Story Competition. Kind of hard to believe, given that the short story is a form with which I am profoundly uncomfortable (as evidenced by only one - now two- of the 175 posts on this blog being about short fiction).
Of course there are the masters: Bruno Schulz, Daniil Kharms, Edgar Allen Poe, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, JG Ballard, Alice Munro, Robert Walser and pretty much every Yiddish writer that ever lived. But other than these dark fabulists I have struggled to read, let alone appreciate, much of the stuff, even when it was written by authors that I otherwise love (I'm looking at you Don Delillo and E.L. Doctorow!). If reading them presents a challenge, writing them is even harder. At least in long form you can overstep your mark and be forgiven. With short stories there is a crushing pressure to fully contain a world in less than ten, or in my case three, thousand words.
Luckily my background is in punk music so I've learned to think of short stories accordingly - blistering bursts that do the work of a Pink Floyd epic in the time it takes Roger Waters to play the first bar. Not that it's greatly helped my literary output. The vast majority of stories I have written are dismal failures. Two, however, appear to have worked. Thankfully they account for two of the three I've ever submitted for publication. And Crumbs is actually a modified version of the prologue to a novel I've been working on for five years so arguably it does not count.
For what it's worth, I do have a holy trinity of stories that I think anyone who loves to read ought to hit up at some point in their life. First is Kafka's In The Penal Settlement, a story that is just as harrowing as any of his novels. Next is Edgar Allen Poe's The Telltale Heart. Probably the greatest meditation on the nature of guilt, you're at least likely to recognise it from the classic Simpsons Diorama episode. And finally there's the saddest of them all, the absolutely heartbreaking Bontsche The Silent by I. L. Peretz. Also, if you like story collections that are thematically linked or that form a tenuous narrative, I'd recommend Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles, Jim Crace's Continent or, most recently, The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad.
As for me, I'll just be content with my two little additions to the sea of stories. You can read The Prisoner of Babel in The Sleepers Almanac Volume 7, available at all great bookstores in and around Australia and New Zealand. Please pick it up and help support independent Australian publishing (plus you might just find your next favourite author amongst the thirty two wonderful people in the book). Crumbs will be published in The Age newspaper on the first Saturday of January 2012 in the Summer Reading lift out. You can read the announcement here.
Hopefully this will give me a much needed kick in the arse to finish the book!
Of course there are the masters: Bruno Schulz, Daniil Kharms, Edgar Allen Poe, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, JG Ballard, Alice Munro, Robert Walser and pretty much every Yiddish writer that ever lived. But other than these dark fabulists I have struggled to read, let alone appreciate, much of the stuff, even when it was written by authors that I otherwise love (I'm looking at you Don Delillo and E.L. Doctorow!). If reading them presents a challenge, writing them is even harder. At least in long form you can overstep your mark and be forgiven. With short stories there is a crushing pressure to fully contain a world in less than ten, or in my case three, thousand words.
Luckily my background is in punk music so I've learned to think of short stories accordingly - blistering bursts that do the work of a Pink Floyd epic in the time it takes Roger Waters to play the first bar. Not that it's greatly helped my literary output. The vast majority of stories I have written are dismal failures. Two, however, appear to have worked. Thankfully they account for two of the three I've ever submitted for publication. And Crumbs is actually a modified version of the prologue to a novel I've been working on for five years so arguably it does not count.
For what it's worth, I do have a holy trinity of stories that I think anyone who loves to read ought to hit up at some point in their life. First is Kafka's In The Penal Settlement, a story that is just as harrowing as any of his novels. Next is Edgar Allen Poe's The Telltale Heart. Probably the greatest meditation on the nature of guilt, you're at least likely to recognise it from the classic Simpsons Diorama episode. And finally there's the saddest of them all, the absolutely heartbreaking Bontsche The Silent by I. L. Peretz. Also, if you like story collections that are thematically linked or that form a tenuous narrative, I'd recommend Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles, Jim Crace's Continent or, most recently, The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad.
As for me, I'll just be content with my two little additions to the sea of stories. You can read The Prisoner of Babel in The Sleepers Almanac Volume 7, available at all great bookstores in and around Australia and New Zealand. Please pick it up and help support independent Australian publishing (plus you might just find your next favourite author amongst the thirty two wonderful people in the book). Crumbs will be published in The Age newspaper on the first Saturday of January 2012 in the Summer Reading lift out. You can read the announcement here.
Hopefully this will give me a much needed kick in the arse to finish the book!
The Roger Hargreaves Confabulation
on Thursday, December 1, 2011
Please excuse the second rate Big Bang Theory reference, but I'm about to get all mathematical on yo' asses (well, arses actually). It's December and I've only managed to get through a paltry 129 books. Granted, a few of them exceeded the 800 page mark, but still it's a pretty unimpressive haul. My obsessive need to achieve round numbers suggests that the nearest milestone I can reach without going absolutely crazy is 150. This would also represent a fair total in light of my average since I first started keeping track five years ago. 2006 saw me knock over a somewhat unremarkable 105 books. In 2007 it was 101. I peaked in 2008 with a massive 251 books (and a totally fried brain), but offset that with 2009's measly 85. To be fair, that was the year of classics and epics, so most of the books were massive. Last year I managed a satisfactory 155, which leaves me with an average of 139.4 books read per year over 5 years.
I'd like to think 2011 is an above-average year, so I'll have to get through at least 10 to be at all satisfied. I'll do my best not to make it into the crazy obsession it became in 2008, when I spent all day and night throughout December trying to top 250. Perhaps I ought to just cheat and rip through the collected Mr. Men series by Roger Hargreaves. That kind of crap worked when I was a kid doing the MS Read-a-thon. However, I'd really like to read Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, and the latest from Aharon Appelfeld. Ditto David Grossman's To The End Of The Land which I neglected to read last year. Now I think about it, I also really need to finish the last two books in Beckett's Molloy trilogy seeing as one of my new year's resolutions depends on it.
So there's the December challenge. Can I possibly do it? Oh the petit bourgeoise sufferings of a semi-employed litnerd!
I'd like to think 2011 is an above-average year, so I'll have to get through at least 10 to be at all satisfied. I'll do my best not to make it into the crazy obsession it became in 2008, when I spent all day and night throughout December trying to top 250. Perhaps I ought to just cheat and rip through the collected Mr. Men series by Roger Hargreaves. That kind of crap worked when I was a kid doing the MS Read-a-thon. However, I'd really like to read Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, and the latest from Aharon Appelfeld. Ditto David Grossman's To The End Of The Land which I neglected to read last year. Now I think about it, I also really need to finish the last two books in Beckett's Molloy trilogy seeing as one of my new year's resolutions depends on it.
So there's the December challenge. Can I possibly do it? Oh the petit bourgeoise sufferings of a semi-employed litnerd!
Big (though not Best) Books of 2011: Murakami's 1Q84 and Eco's The Prague Cemetery
on Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Ok, let me knock over two of the biggest books of the year with the shortest reviews you are likely to read of them.
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
There's a certain sense of achievement one is supposed to feel upon finishing a thousand page book. I remember feeling it when I closed Infinite Jest, despite the frustratingly abrupt ending. Others have told me of a similar feeling with War and Peace. To us readers, the thousand page book is our everest. Why then did I feel nothing with Haruki Murakami's much-lauded new brick, 1Q84? I was so excited for it to come out, and was instantly enthralled by its pacy, off-kilter beginning. It had me hoping that the book would turn out to be the 12-inch megamix of my favourite Murakami novel, A Wild Sheep Chase. But as the dual storyline progressed - Aomame, the righteous assassin, executing wife-beating scum and Tengo, the hack wannabe novelist, roped into rewriting the mysterious novella (or perhaps revelation) of the 17-year-old daughter of a cult leader - I slowly began to feel a disconnect that I still cannot explain. There is something vaguely China Mieville-ish about the whole thing; the multi-layered contemplation of duality, the peculiar sci-fi tropes, even the echo of a Shakespearean romance. And yet I found it all lacking in substance. Murakami didn't really seem to be saying anything. Eight hundred pages in and I was praying for it to end. Indeed, if I didn't have my annoying book-finishing OCD, I'd have put it down. Reading 1Q84 is like eating forty litres of sorbet. But at least my wish sort of came true. 1Q84 was a wild sheep chase. Just not in the way I'd hoped!
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco is a literary force of nature. Nary a year goes by without something from him, be it a philosophical treatise or a complex work of literary theory. His novels are much fewer and far between, and so the arrival of each one is heralded as a major event amongst book nerds. When I first heard about The Prague Cemetery, fireworks exploded in my heart. A novel by one of the greatest historical fiction writers, revolving around an alleged event in my second homeland, about one of the darkest periods in the history of the Jewish people. It's like Eco was writing the thing just for me. The moment it arrived at my doorstep I plunged in head first, sans floaties, and was overcome by a sensation I'd never before associated with Eco; mirth. The first chapter of The Prague Cemetery is damn funny. Yes, so full of piss and vinegar is the narrator Simonini that I had to stop reading periodically just to catch my breath. No religious group comes out unscathed in those first few pages - Jews, Muslims, Freemasons, Jesuits, you name it. And for the next four-hundred pages he just doesn't let up. Simonini is a master forger, and as such is well-placed to be an important player in the raging conspiracy-mongering of late-Nineteenth century Europe. From minor frauds to the Dreyfus Affair and ultimately the greatest forgery of them all, The Protocols of The Elders of Zion, Eco posits Simonini as the scoundrel behind them all (though, in a poor plot decision, he gives Simonini a Hyde-like alter ego to operationalise the unrelenting vitriol). As always with Eco the writing is flawless and the research impeccable (pretty much everyone in the book bar Simonini and one or two others actually existed), but there is something unsettling about the whole undertaking which only becomes apparent as the novel progresses. What I first took to be hilarious soon became grating and then, borderline offensive. Although I realise it was done for a certain end, and it might have been redeemed in the final couple of chapters, there was an air of ambiguity about the anti-semitism which, if read by the uninformed reader, might add fuel to the conspiracies Eco is lampooning. Ultimately it is a dangerous gamble that might only have partially paid off.
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
There's a certain sense of achievement one is supposed to feel upon finishing a thousand page book. I remember feeling it when I closed Infinite Jest, despite the frustratingly abrupt ending. Others have told me of a similar feeling with War and Peace. To us readers, the thousand page book is our everest. Why then did I feel nothing with Haruki Murakami's much-lauded new brick, 1Q84? I was so excited for it to come out, and was instantly enthralled by its pacy, off-kilter beginning. It had me hoping that the book would turn out to be the 12-inch megamix of my favourite Murakami novel, A Wild Sheep Chase. But as the dual storyline progressed - Aomame, the righteous assassin, executing wife-beating scum and Tengo, the hack wannabe novelist, roped into rewriting the mysterious novella (or perhaps revelation) of the 17-year-old daughter of a cult leader - I slowly began to feel a disconnect that I still cannot explain. There is something vaguely China Mieville-ish about the whole thing; the multi-layered contemplation of duality, the peculiar sci-fi tropes, even the echo of a Shakespearean romance. And yet I found it all lacking in substance. Murakami didn't really seem to be saying anything. Eight hundred pages in and I was praying for it to end. Indeed, if I didn't have my annoying book-finishing OCD, I'd have put it down. Reading 1Q84 is like eating forty litres of sorbet. But at least my wish sort of came true. 1Q84 was a wild sheep chase. Just not in the way I'd hoped!
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco is a literary force of nature. Nary a year goes by without something from him, be it a philosophical treatise or a complex work of literary theory. His novels are much fewer and far between, and so the arrival of each one is heralded as a major event amongst book nerds. When I first heard about The Prague Cemetery, fireworks exploded in my heart. A novel by one of the greatest historical fiction writers, revolving around an alleged event in my second homeland, about one of the darkest periods in the history of the Jewish people. It's like Eco was writing the thing just for me. The moment it arrived at my doorstep I plunged in head first, sans floaties, and was overcome by a sensation I'd never before associated with Eco; mirth. The first chapter of The Prague Cemetery is damn funny. Yes, so full of piss and vinegar is the narrator Simonini that I had to stop reading periodically just to catch my breath. No religious group comes out unscathed in those first few pages - Jews, Muslims, Freemasons, Jesuits, you name it. And for the next four-hundred pages he just doesn't let up. Simonini is a master forger, and as such is well-placed to be an important player in the raging conspiracy-mongering of late-Nineteenth century Europe. From minor frauds to the Dreyfus Affair and ultimately the greatest forgery of them all, The Protocols of The Elders of Zion, Eco posits Simonini as the scoundrel behind them all (though, in a poor plot decision, he gives Simonini a Hyde-like alter ego to operationalise the unrelenting vitriol). As always with Eco the writing is flawless and the research impeccable (pretty much everyone in the book bar Simonini and one or two others actually existed), but there is something unsettling about the whole undertaking which only becomes apparent as the novel progresses. What I first took to be hilarious soon became grating and then, borderline offensive. Although I realise it was done for a certain end, and it might have been redeemed in the final couple of chapters, there was an air of ambiguity about the anti-semitism which, if read by the uninformed reader, might add fuel to the conspiracies Eco is lampooning. Ultimately it is a dangerous gamble that might only have partially paid off.
The Bookworm, Exposed: My First Published Story
on Wednesday, November 23, 2011
After one hundred and seventy-odd posts about other people's writing, I figure I might be forgiven for taking a brief moment to yap on about some writing of my own. Next week sees the release of the seventh volume of The Sleepers Almanac which, for those who don't know, is an always-exciting compendium of short stories by new and established writers, put out annually by Australia's finest independent publisher, Sleepers. The publication of the first six volumes were, to me, worthy of celebration, but I'm shouting this one from the rooftops because it contains my first piece of published fiction (as opposed to the reams of newspaper columns, reviews and academic articles), a story called "The Prisoner of Babel". I'm told the story is funny, though I thought it horrifying when writing it. I guess, as I told the editor, one cannot judge one's own children (actually I told her that I was willing to accept that my child is a little shit, even if I can't see it). Either way, hopefully, you'll like it because right about now I feel like I'm standing in front of the class naked!
The Sleepers Almanac is being launched at Bella Union Bar in Trades Hall (corner Lygon Street and Victoria Street, Carlton in Melbourne) at 6.30pm on Thursday December 1. Jessica Au will be hosting the show and I shall be doing a brief reading from my story, as will four of the other authors, Rosanna Stevens, Julie Koh, Eric Dando and Pierz Newton-John. If you're in Melbourne and can drag yourself away from the computer screen for an hour, please come down and help celebrate great Australian writing (hey, it'll be worth it just to find out if Pierz is related to Olivia and Eric is related to Evan). If you are unable to make it to the launch, make sure you pick up a copy of the Almanac at your favourite independent bookstore when you next stop in. There will also be a Sleepers Almanac iPhone App, but more on that as it comes to hand.
The Sleepers Almanac is being launched at Bella Union Bar in Trades Hall (corner Lygon Street and Victoria Street, Carlton in Melbourne) at 6.30pm on Thursday December 1. Jessica Au will be hosting the show and I shall be doing a brief reading from my story, as will four of the other authors, Rosanna Stevens, Julie Koh, Eric Dando and Pierz Newton-John. If you're in Melbourne and can drag yourself away from the computer screen for an hour, please come down and help celebrate great Australian writing (hey, it'll be worth it just to find out if Pierz is related to Olivia and Eric is related to Evan). If you are unable to make it to the launch, make sure you pick up a copy of the Almanac at your favourite independent bookstore when you next stop in. There will also be a Sleepers Almanac iPhone App, but more on that as it comes to hand.
Costa Kicks Booker's Butt
on Thursday, November 17, 2011
Just when you thought it was safe to click your way back to B4BW without having to hear me rant about literary prizes, along come the Costas. But wait... You're never going to believe it. I actually like the shortlist! In the year that the Booker Prize committee criminally failed to recognise a number of awesome books, Team Costa have picked up the slack. Actually, I'm really only talking about one book: Pure by Andrew Miller. One of the great Booker bridesmaids, poor Andy probably thought he had it in the bag when he wrote his best novel since Ingenious Pain. But no, instead they go and give a nod to the other Andrew Miller (aka A. D. Miller) for his lacklustre Russian 'thriller', Snowdrops. Perhaps they just made a clerical error on the day they announced the long list and then felt compelled to keep up the ruse by pushing it all the way to the shortlist. Apparently egg is much harder to spot on people's faces from such lofty heights.
Anyway, I'm gunning for the real Andrew Miller to take out the Costa for best novel. He'll have stiff competition though. The other shortlisted titles are John Burnside's A Summer of Drowning, Louisa Young's My Dear I Wanted To Tell You and the great, giant-killing midget of a novel, Julian Barnes's The Sense Of An Ending. It's interesting to note that only one of the four was considered by the Booker committee and it was the one that went on to win the bloody thing. Another Booker longlisted novel has made it to the shortlist for the Costa Prize for a First Novel. Patrick McGuinness's The Last Hundred Days is facing off with the much-hyped City of Bohane by Kevin Barry as well as Christie Watson's Tiny Sunbirds Far Away and Kerry Young's Pao.
Both Costa fiction lists are interesting, considered and, ironically, more literary than the Booker shortlist. I've always been a fan of the Costa Prize (and its previous incarnation, The Whitbread Awards) and this year really rams it home. By picking up the other prizes' slack, the Costas might yet become the premiere British literary award. Which, I guess, would make the Booker the ultimate bridesmaid.
Anyway, I'm gunning for the real Andrew Miller to take out the Costa for best novel. He'll have stiff competition though. The other shortlisted titles are John Burnside's A Summer of Drowning, Louisa Young's My Dear I Wanted To Tell You and the great, giant-killing midget of a novel, Julian Barnes's The Sense Of An Ending. It's interesting to note that only one of the four was considered by the Booker committee and it was the one that went on to win the bloody thing. Another Booker longlisted novel has made it to the shortlist for the Costa Prize for a First Novel. Patrick McGuinness's The Last Hundred Days is facing off with the much-hyped City of Bohane by Kevin Barry as well as Christie Watson's Tiny Sunbirds Far Away and Kerry Young's Pao.
Both Costa fiction lists are interesting, considered and, ironically, more literary than the Booker shortlist. I've always been a fan of the Costa Prize (and its previous incarnation, The Whitbread Awards) and this year really rams it home. By picking up the other prizes' slack, the Costas might yet become the premiere British literary award. Which, I guess, would make the Booker the ultimate bridesmaid.
Premium Drafts: On Publishing Discarded Or Otherwise Unfinished Works
on Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Legend has it that my favourite book of all time never got past the drafting stage. Truth is, there's no way to know how close to completion Franz Kafka's The Trial actually was but I suspect that it was much further down the track than Max Brod would have had us believe. Same goes for David Foster Wallace's The Pale King, irrespective of the hoo-ha that accompanied its release earlier this year. The only thing that monolith lacked was a good edit. Either way, at least both of those books can be read as entire works which is more than can be said for 2009's publishing sensation (read: fraud), The Original of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov; a few cue cards, beautifully presented but ultimately inconsequential. Nabokov would have choked on a butterfly had he known his jumbled thoughts would see the light of day.
The publication of unfinished works is hardly new, but for some reason we seem to currently be drowning in a sea of offcuts. Even as I write, Arthur Conan Doyle's The Narrative of John Smith, written before the appearance of Sherlock Holmes, is hitting bookstore shelves worldwide. So what's with this deluge of (for the most part) dross? Perhaps it is a crass money-grabbing exercise by publishers who are reluctant to invest in new talent at a time when the book market is in such an extreme state of flux. Maybe demand is dictating supply; readers are simply desperate for words from the grave by authors they know and love. Or maybe it is a toast to a disappearing process; we read abandoned drafts because, thanks to the scourge of technology (and yes I appreciate the irony of bitching about it on a blog), 'drafts' as such are likely to become a thing of the past. Most likely it's a combination of all these. And more.
Having read a fair number of these 'newly discovered' drafts I can safely say that very few do anything to further the names of their authors. There is, however, one wonderful exception and, not surprisingly, it comes from one of the most exciting small publishing houses in business today. Without fanfare, Other Press has just put out Two Friends by Alberto Moravia. Regular readers would know how much I love Italy's post-war litgod. Yep, I'd read pretty much anything with his name on it. Thankfully, Two Friends is more than the preliminary scribblings of a great mind. Indeed, what makes it particularly enticing is that it was written (and abandoned) between my two favourite Moravia novels, The Conformist (1951) and Contempt (1954) and not only shows the development of his political thinking but does so three times over. You see, Two Friends isn't just one draft. It is three. Each with significant differences - in perspective, outcome and emphasis. The central question, however, is the same: to what extent will an individual compromise their personal morality to the greater cause? Sergio desperately wants to convince his rich friend Maurizio to join the Communist Party. Maurizio isn't the slightest bit interested but seizes the opportunity to play with Sergio's heart and test his conviction by offering an indecent proposal. He will join the party if, and only if, Sergio can convince his beautiful, loyal girlfriend to sleep with his him.
All three versions have their strengths, but it is the second that really shines. Taken on its own, it would have made a creditable addition to the Moravia canon. It is therefore intriguing to think that Moravia went on to discard many of its strongest aspects in draft three before ultimately giving up altogether. Reading this book in its entirety provides a prescient warning for budding authors: keep your drafts because sometimes it takes failed progress to appreciate what you already have. I hope other publishers now learn from Other Press's example and only publish unfinished works for which there are multiple drafts. Cobbling together a "final product" does the writer a disservice. There is, after all, a reason the thing was abandoned. However, exposing the entire process gives the reader a remarkable insight into the literary mind. Plus it doesn't hurt to be reminded that our heroes don't just click their fingers and have a masterpiece appear.
The publication of unfinished works is hardly new, but for some reason we seem to currently be drowning in a sea of offcuts. Even as I write, Arthur Conan Doyle's The Narrative of John Smith, written before the appearance of Sherlock Holmes, is hitting bookstore shelves worldwide. So what's with this deluge of (for the most part) dross? Perhaps it is a crass money-grabbing exercise by publishers who are reluctant to invest in new talent at a time when the book market is in such an extreme state of flux. Maybe demand is dictating supply; readers are simply desperate for words from the grave by authors they know and love. Or maybe it is a toast to a disappearing process; we read abandoned drafts because, thanks to the scourge of technology (and yes I appreciate the irony of bitching about it on a blog), 'drafts' as such are likely to become a thing of the past. Most likely it's a combination of all these. And more.
Having read a fair number of these 'newly discovered' drafts I can safely say that very few do anything to further the names of their authors. There is, however, one wonderful exception and, not surprisingly, it comes from one of the most exciting small publishing houses in business today. Without fanfare, Other Press has just put out Two Friends by Alberto Moravia. Regular readers would know how much I love Italy's post-war litgod. Yep, I'd read pretty much anything with his name on it. Thankfully, Two Friends is more than the preliminary scribblings of a great mind. Indeed, what makes it particularly enticing is that it was written (and abandoned) between my two favourite Moravia novels, The Conformist (1951) and Contempt (1954) and not only shows the development of his political thinking but does so three times over. You see, Two Friends isn't just one draft. It is three. Each with significant differences - in perspective, outcome and emphasis. The central question, however, is the same: to what extent will an individual compromise their personal morality to the greater cause? Sergio desperately wants to convince his rich friend Maurizio to join the Communist Party. Maurizio isn't the slightest bit interested but seizes the opportunity to play with Sergio's heart and test his conviction by offering an indecent proposal. He will join the party if, and only if, Sergio can convince his beautiful, loyal girlfriend to sleep with his him.
All three versions have their strengths, but it is the second that really shines. Taken on its own, it would have made a creditable addition to the Moravia canon. It is therefore intriguing to think that Moravia went on to discard many of its strongest aspects in draft three before ultimately giving up altogether. Reading this book in its entirety provides a prescient warning for budding authors: keep your drafts because sometimes it takes failed progress to appreciate what you already have. I hope other publishers now learn from Other Press's example and only publish unfinished works for which there are multiple drafts. Cobbling together a "final product" does the writer a disservice. There is, after all, a reason the thing was abandoned. However, exposing the entire process gives the reader a remarkable insight into the literary mind. Plus it doesn't hurt to be reminded that our heroes don't just click their fingers and have a masterpiece appear.
Best Books of 2011: The Submission by Amy Waldman
on Monday, November 14, 2011
I'm going to try and pepper the rest of my 2011 posts with reviews of the best books of the year. They won't be in any particular order and, of course, on December 31 I'll post my full annual Top 10. So here goes with one that I'm sure we will be seeing on almost every Best of '11 list:
The Submission by Amy Waldman
The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 have proven a spectacular stumbling block for America’s literary giants. Don Delillo failed dismally with his novel, Falling Man. John Updike similarly penned a stinker called Terrorist. Indeed, it took an Irish expat, Colum McCann to write the first great novel about that terrible day; Let The Great World Spin came out in 2009 and has yet to be surpassed as a work of true compassion, subtlety and insight. And it didn't even mention the attacks.
Now it seems a debut novelist has written the first great post-September 11 American novel, one which captures the pulse of a nation crippled by fear and grief on the one hand and buoyed by hope and defiance on the other. The Submission rests on a simple premise: the city of New York holds a blind competition to design the permanent memorial at Ground Zero. The selection committee, made up of government lackies, socialites and a single representative of the victims’ families, reviews the submissions without knowing the names of the entrants. Following considerable argument, they defer to the preference of the victim’s representative, Claire Burwell, and choose a beautiful garden surrounded by walls with the names of the fallen, only to discover its creator is one Mohammad Khan. Hardly the apple pie name they had hoped for.
What follows is a mad scramble to backtrack, justify and second-guess in which Waldman subjects all sides to wide-ranging excoriation. There are the obvious targets: the press who feast on the controversy and lace their stories with half-truths and sensationalist provocations; the flag-waving zealots baying for blood, who start a wave of racist attacks on Muslim women, pulling off their burqas at every opportunity; the flip-flop politicos who chase the vote at the expense of even the most basic decency; and, of course, the Muslim extremists seeking to co-opt Khan for their cause.
To her credit, Waldman is not satisfied simply taking easy pot shots. Even the more sympathetic characters have agendas and are prone to infuriating thoughts and actions. Burwell is divisive and self-righteous. Khan himself is arrogant and unwilling to do anything to quell the controversy. Only Asma Aswan, a woman whose husband wasn’t listed among the victims because he was an illegal immigrant sweeping the Trade Centre’s floors, comes across as truly innocent but hers is ultimately the saddest fate.
For the first three quarters, The Submission is an almost perfect novel, examining the dangers of knee-jerk reactions and questioning what it means to be a victim, what it means to be Muslim and, ultimately, what it means to be American in the wake of the this century's defining moment. Unfortunately, Waldman veers wildly off the rails towards the end, with a fairly predictable crescendo and one of the most unnecessary epilogues I have ever read. Students visit Khan twenty years later to discuss the controversy, and we learn the fates of all the characters. It is a clumsy, desperate end in which perhaps lies a crucial, if unintended, lesson of this otherwise outstanding book; some tragedies are just so immense that there can never be satisfactory closure.
The Submission by Amy Waldman
The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 have proven a spectacular stumbling block for America’s literary giants. Don Delillo failed dismally with his novel, Falling Man. John Updike similarly penned a stinker called Terrorist. Indeed, it took an Irish expat, Colum McCann to write the first great novel about that terrible day; Let The Great World Spin came out in 2009 and has yet to be surpassed as a work of true compassion, subtlety and insight. And it didn't even mention the attacks.
Now it seems a debut novelist has written the first great post-September 11 American novel, one which captures the pulse of a nation crippled by fear and grief on the one hand and buoyed by hope and defiance on the other. The Submission rests on a simple premise: the city of New York holds a blind competition to design the permanent memorial at Ground Zero. The selection committee, made up of government lackies, socialites and a single representative of the victims’ families, reviews the submissions without knowing the names of the entrants. Following considerable argument, they defer to the preference of the victim’s representative, Claire Burwell, and choose a beautiful garden surrounded by walls with the names of the fallen, only to discover its creator is one Mohammad Khan. Hardly the apple pie name they had hoped for.
What follows is a mad scramble to backtrack, justify and second-guess in which Waldman subjects all sides to wide-ranging excoriation. There are the obvious targets: the press who feast on the controversy and lace their stories with half-truths and sensationalist provocations; the flag-waving zealots baying for blood, who start a wave of racist attacks on Muslim women, pulling off their burqas at every opportunity; the flip-flop politicos who chase the vote at the expense of even the most basic decency; and, of course, the Muslim extremists seeking to co-opt Khan for their cause.
To her credit, Waldman is not satisfied simply taking easy pot shots. Even the more sympathetic characters have agendas and are prone to infuriating thoughts and actions. Burwell is divisive and self-righteous. Khan himself is arrogant and unwilling to do anything to quell the controversy. Only Asma Aswan, a woman whose husband wasn’t listed among the victims because he was an illegal immigrant sweeping the Trade Centre’s floors, comes across as truly innocent but hers is ultimately the saddest fate.
For the first three quarters, The Submission is an almost perfect novel, examining the dangers of knee-jerk reactions and questioning what it means to be a victim, what it means to be Muslim and, ultimately, what it means to be American in the wake of the this century's defining moment. Unfortunately, Waldman veers wildly off the rails towards the end, with a fairly predictable crescendo and one of the most unnecessary epilogues I have ever read. Students visit Khan twenty years later to discuss the controversy, and we learn the fates of all the characters. It is a clumsy, desperate end in which perhaps lies a crucial, if unintended, lesson of this otherwise outstanding book; some tragedies are just so immense that there can never be satisfactory closure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Bookworm RSS
Posts
All Comments