If only I had been born a hundred years ago. Maybe two hundred. Sure, I'd probably have died at birth, seen my family wiped out by plague, contracted some disease we haven't even heard of today or been trampled by an elephant while performing my daring trapeze act in an Eastern European travelling circus BUT I also might have had the incredible fortune of being there when some of the great classics were first published. Assuming I was lucky enough to get an education and wasn't just sweeping chimneys or shovelling runny shit from ditches, you probably would have found me waiting in line for the latest Dostoevsky, Hugo, Austin, Dickens or Poe. Then I'd hand-press pamphlets with my opinions and run around the streets trying to get people to read them. That's how bloggers rolled back then. Alas, it just wasn't to be. Or was it?
2013 brought me the closest I think I will ever come to experiencing first hand the release of a book that is destined to be read as a classic well after I'm around to rave about it. It was a book so profoundly moving, so perfectly constructed, so enthralling, that I was in awe from the first line. At its most basic, The Infatuations by Javier Marias is a murder mystery. A woman obsesses over a couple she sees in a diner. She doesn't speak with them but feels she has some deep connection. One day she opens the paper to learn that the man has been killed. Marias uses this relatively simple premise to crack open the world as we know it. What he has to say about human nature, about the way in which society functions, about life and literature is something you'd expect to read from one of the greats of classical literature. With The Infatuations, I think he just might have joined them.
And so, Bookworms, this brings us to the end of another year. Wishing you and yours a great 2014 with many happy hours spent glued to any number of fantastic books.
Showing posts with label Books of 2013. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books of 2013. Show all posts
Microviews Vol. 48: In By A Frenchman's Whisker
Back in January I promised to review every book that I read this year. I thought I'd finished when I closed Rivers, a great book on which to end the challenge. Unfortunately, I couldn't resist. Two more days... surely there was time to read one more. And so I bring you this final blip on the radar, a lonely island, a single white flag flapping in the wind. What can I say? A promise is a promise.
An Officer And A Spy by Robert Harris
Along with Terry Pratchett, Robert Harris has long been one of my guilty pleasures. Fatherland still stands as my favourite thriller of all time as well as the best "What If?" novel I know. Engima was also a really cool take on a very exciting moment in military history. The Roman novels aren't exactly my thing, but as works of historical fiction they tower above most others. Bottom line - this guy knows how to write his way into history. Who better, then, to write the 'definitive' fictionalisation of the Dreyfus affair? There's something of The Titanic in this sort of venture. We all know how it ends. We know many of the characters. We know many of the details. And, of course, we all know Zola's classic full page indictment on the French military and judicial systems, J'Accuse. Harris comes at the story from the perspective of one of its middle tier players, Colonel Georges Picquart. Instrumental, albeit unwittingly, in the initial frame up of Alfred Dreyfus, his subsequent promotion to head of the military intelligence unit allows him to revisit the case and discover to his horror not only that Dreyfus was innocent but that the real villain had escaped any sort of justice. All of this is nothing new, but Harris creates such an incredible atmosphere of anti-semitism, conspiracy, arse-covering and downright arrogance amongst the upper echelons of the French military that the book left me seething with incredulity that they could ever have gotten away with it. Picquart was the perfect choice to tell the tale. He was, ultimately, on the side of truth and justice but he was also part of the machine that allowed it to happen. For him to be caught up and crushed in its cogs when he tries to expose the truth demonstrates the very fickle nature of power. An Officer And A Spy is a wonderful book and while it may not exactly be high literature it is a heady lesson in the feeble nature of powerful people caught in their own traps.
4 Out Of 5 Broken Sabres
An Officer And A Spy by Robert Harris
Along with Terry Pratchett, Robert Harris has long been one of my guilty pleasures. Fatherland still stands as my favourite thriller of all time as well as the best "What If?" novel I know. Engima was also a really cool take on a very exciting moment in military history. The Roman novels aren't exactly my thing, but as works of historical fiction they tower above most others. Bottom line - this guy knows how to write his way into history. Who better, then, to write the 'definitive' fictionalisation of the Dreyfus affair? There's something of The Titanic in this sort of venture. We all know how it ends. We know many of the characters. We know many of the details. And, of course, we all know Zola's classic full page indictment on the French military and judicial systems, J'Accuse. Harris comes at the story from the perspective of one of its middle tier players, Colonel Georges Picquart. Instrumental, albeit unwittingly, in the initial frame up of Alfred Dreyfus, his subsequent promotion to head of the military intelligence unit allows him to revisit the case and discover to his horror not only that Dreyfus was innocent but that the real villain had escaped any sort of justice. All of this is nothing new, but Harris creates such an incredible atmosphere of anti-semitism, conspiracy, arse-covering and downright arrogance amongst the upper echelons of the French military that the book left me seething with incredulity that they could ever have gotten away with it. Picquart was the perfect choice to tell the tale. He was, ultimately, on the side of truth and justice but he was also part of the machine that allowed it to happen. For him to be caught up and crushed in its cogs when he tries to expose the truth demonstrates the very fickle nature of power. An Officer And A Spy is a wonderful book and while it may not exactly be high literature it is a heady lesson in the feeble nature of powerful people caught in their own traps.
4 Out Of 5 Broken Sabres
2013: The Final Countdown
on Sunday, December 29, 2013
And so another year draws to an end. As always I leave behind a bunch of books I wish I'd read but just never had the time to yank from my shelf. One or two of them might have made this list. Apologies, then, to: Middle C by William H. Gass, Southern Cross The Dog by Bill Cheng, Wreaking by James Scudamore, Property by Rutu Modan, The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker and The Man With The Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi. I'd also have liked to read The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon. Oh well. Of the 90 or so books from 2013 that I read (as opposed to the other 65), these were my favourites.
THE TOP 10 OF 2013: FROM 10 TO 2
10. First Novel by Nicholas Royle. It starts as a reasonably conventional campus novel. Momentarily famous writer spends his days teaching and shagging students while trying to come up with his second novel. When a student hands in a story that might just be his life Royle shifts gears and gives us a brilliantly meta riff on identity, creation and psychosis. A highly literary Single White Female, if you will.
9. Goat Mountain by David Vann. After his last novel, Dirt, I was a little worried that Vann had run out of steam. Goat Mountain allayed that fear. Heart stopping tension when a family hunting trip turns murderous. Once again, the landscape is the real marvel, but the young boy, his father, grandfather and family friend traipsing around with a poacher's corpse makes for beautifully uncomfortable reading.
8. The Silence and The Roar by Nihad Sirees. A frightening glimpse into the suppression, exploitation and outright destruction of creativity under a dictatorial regime. After trying to help a student who has been bashed by the police, a young author is cast into bureaucratic purgatory. Kafka's nightmare vision made real.
7. It's a tie! Red Sky In Morning by Paul Lynch and Rivers by Michael Farris Smith. Two superb debuts, two harrowing reads. Red Sky In Morning might well be Ireland's answer to Blood Meridian. Brutality and injustice prevail when a good guy is forced to take terrible action. As for Rivers, no doubt JG Ballard would have been chuffed to write a dystopia as fully realised and utterly compelling as this. Can be read as a bloody ripping adventure or something far, far deeper.
6. The Devil's Workshop by Jachym Topol. Topol turns the whole Holocaust tourism concept on its head with this short, disturbing novel. A man who single handedly reinvigorated Theresienstadt is kidnapped by Belarusian operatives hell bent on making their forgotten camp into some sort of evil Disneyland. Hilarious, shocking with plenty of food for thought.
5. Carnival by Rawi Hage. Still can't make heads or tails of this completely disorientating thrill ride of a novel but I definitely know it's one of my favourites of the year. Modern life unfurled through the prism of a taxi driver cruising around town during the city's mysterious carnival.
4. Equilateral by Ken Kalfus. This whimsical tale of an hilariously madcap scheme to dig a giant equilateral triangle in the desert then light it to communicate with Mars has kept me smiling for around eight months now. Full of rich period detail and joyous storytelling, it is a ray of light in an otherwise rather dark Top 10.
3. Pink Mist by Owen Shears. I can't think of another poem (admittedly extended, and in prose form) that has ever moved me as profoundly as this. In the tradition of last year's magnificent novel Yellow Birds, Pink Mist is a searing indictment on the sheer horror and futility of war. Absolutely magnificent.
2. Harvest by Jim Crace. I have spent the last two days incessantly swapping first and second position on my list. Crace bows out of the writing game with one of the most staggering allegories of modern society ever produced. Xenophobia, selfishness, opportunism, injustice, baseless fear and hatred. It's all there in this literary mirror. Recoil in horror. The truth is very, very ugly. And yet Harvest is so beautifully executed, such a classic piece of storytelling that there is not even a hint of bitterness to Crace's pill.
THE TOP 10 OF 2013: FROM 10 TO 2
10. First Novel by Nicholas Royle. It starts as a reasonably conventional campus novel. Momentarily famous writer spends his days teaching and shagging students while trying to come up with his second novel. When a student hands in a story that might just be his life Royle shifts gears and gives us a brilliantly meta riff on identity, creation and psychosis. A highly literary Single White Female, if you will.
9. Goat Mountain by David Vann. After his last novel, Dirt, I was a little worried that Vann had run out of steam. Goat Mountain allayed that fear. Heart stopping tension when a family hunting trip turns murderous. Once again, the landscape is the real marvel, but the young boy, his father, grandfather and family friend traipsing around with a poacher's corpse makes for beautifully uncomfortable reading.
8. The Silence and The Roar by Nihad Sirees. A frightening glimpse into the suppression, exploitation and outright destruction of creativity under a dictatorial regime. After trying to help a student who has been bashed by the police, a young author is cast into bureaucratic purgatory. Kafka's nightmare vision made real.
7. It's a tie! Red Sky In Morning by Paul Lynch and Rivers by Michael Farris Smith. Two superb debuts, two harrowing reads. Red Sky In Morning might well be Ireland's answer to Blood Meridian. Brutality and injustice prevail when a good guy is forced to take terrible action. As for Rivers, no doubt JG Ballard would have been chuffed to write a dystopia as fully realised and utterly compelling as this. Can be read as a bloody ripping adventure or something far, far deeper.
6. The Devil's Workshop by Jachym Topol. Topol turns the whole Holocaust tourism concept on its head with this short, disturbing novel. A man who single handedly reinvigorated Theresienstadt is kidnapped by Belarusian operatives hell bent on making their forgotten camp into some sort of evil Disneyland. Hilarious, shocking with plenty of food for thought.
5. Carnival by Rawi Hage. Still can't make heads or tails of this completely disorientating thrill ride of a novel but I definitely know it's one of my favourites of the year. Modern life unfurled through the prism of a taxi driver cruising around town during the city's mysterious carnival.
4. Equilateral by Ken Kalfus. This whimsical tale of an hilariously madcap scheme to dig a giant equilateral triangle in the desert then light it to communicate with Mars has kept me smiling for around eight months now. Full of rich period detail and joyous storytelling, it is a ray of light in an otherwise rather dark Top 10.
3. Pink Mist by Owen Shears. I can't think of another poem (admittedly extended, and in prose form) that has ever moved me as profoundly as this. In the tradition of last year's magnificent novel Yellow Birds, Pink Mist is a searing indictment on the sheer horror and futility of war. Absolutely magnificent.
2. Harvest by Jim Crace. I have spent the last two days incessantly swapping first and second position on my list. Crace bows out of the writing game with one of the most staggering allegories of modern society ever produced. Xenophobia, selfishness, opportunism, injustice, baseless fear and hatred. It's all there in this literary mirror. Recoil in horror. The truth is very, very ugly. And yet Harvest is so beautifully executed, such a classic piece of storytelling that there is not even a hint of bitterness to Crace's pill.
2013: The "Best Of" Bridesmaids
on Thursday, December 26, 2013
Another bumper year, another night spent shuffling cue cards trying to sort out what would make my Top 10. I wish I could have put these in. Then again, I also wish I could fly. To my own tropical island. With a talking lemur called Alfi. Whatever. If you haven't read these books Alfi will find you and poop in your fridge.
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton: Anyone who picked up Catton's debut The Rehearsal knew that she was destined for huge things. With The Luminaries she delivered both literally and figuratively - 850 pages of ingeniously constructed New Zealand Wild West storytelling and a Booker Prize to boot. After all the bitching about the prize that's been going on of late, it's nice to remind yourself that sometimes the judges hit on a truly worthy winner. Given the strength of this year's Booker field, that's really saying something.
The Son by Philip Meyer: Nestled somewhere in this hefty tome is 2013's book of the year. Unfortunately the extraordinary tale of Eli McCullough's kidnapping by a Commanche raid party and subsequent initiation into their brutal way of life is padded out by two far lesser interesting tales that run as parallel threads throughout. A salutary lesson for writers and editors alike: learn to recognise the magic.
The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin: The shortest book ever to be nominated for a Booker Prize, Toibin's masterful act of biblical ventriloquism must be read to be believed (pun only sort of intended). Drawing on traditional narratives, apocrypha and some very smart personal theorising, The Testament of Mary is refreshing, daring and immensely enjoyable.
Bough Down by Karen Green: She doesn't mention his name even once, but Green's meditation on the death of her husband David Foster Wallace and her attempts to come to terms with it through art is nothing short of breathtaking. Don't dare call it a misery memoir; Bough Down is life affirming art in its own right.
Murder in Mississippi by John Safran: Think what you want of Australia's enfant terrible (though not quite the enfant anymore), but he sure has a knack for finding a great story. Moreover, he is willing to risk his life to become part of it. Unsurprisingly, Murder In Mississippi reads like a classic Safran series put to the page - fast, funny, sharp and socially important. Don't let the nebbishe whimsy fool you.
The Making Of by Brecht Evens: It's not that hard to take the piss out of the literary world. Let's face it - we're all a bunch of wankers. But this extremely entertaining graphic novel managed to nail the absurdity of it all in a way I haven't seen since Martin Amis's The Information. Gorgeously drawn and hilariously spun this was not only the best graphic novel I read all year but one of the best books period.
A Few Flower Girls: Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich, The Illusion of Separateness by Simon Van Booy, Bruno Kramzer by AS Patric, Saving Mozart by Raphael Jerusalmy.
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton: Anyone who picked up Catton's debut The Rehearsal knew that she was destined for huge things. With The Luminaries she delivered both literally and figuratively - 850 pages of ingeniously constructed New Zealand Wild West storytelling and a Booker Prize to boot. After all the bitching about the prize that's been going on of late, it's nice to remind yourself that sometimes the judges hit on a truly worthy winner. Given the strength of this year's Booker field, that's really saying something.
The Son by Philip Meyer: Nestled somewhere in this hefty tome is 2013's book of the year. Unfortunately the extraordinary tale of Eli McCullough's kidnapping by a Commanche raid party and subsequent initiation into their brutal way of life is padded out by two far lesser interesting tales that run as parallel threads throughout. A salutary lesson for writers and editors alike: learn to recognise the magic.
The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin: The shortest book ever to be nominated for a Booker Prize, Toibin's masterful act of biblical ventriloquism must be read to be believed (pun only sort of intended). Drawing on traditional narratives, apocrypha and some very smart personal theorising, The Testament of Mary is refreshing, daring and immensely enjoyable.
Bough Down by Karen Green: She doesn't mention his name even once, but Green's meditation on the death of her husband David Foster Wallace and her attempts to come to terms with it through art is nothing short of breathtaking. Don't dare call it a misery memoir; Bough Down is life affirming art in its own right.
Murder in Mississippi by John Safran: Think what you want of Australia's enfant terrible (though not quite the enfant anymore), but he sure has a knack for finding a great story. Moreover, he is willing to risk his life to become part of it. Unsurprisingly, Murder In Mississippi reads like a classic Safran series put to the page - fast, funny, sharp and socially important. Don't let the nebbishe whimsy fool you.
The Making Of by Brecht Evens: It's not that hard to take the piss out of the literary world. Let's face it - we're all a bunch of wankers. But this extremely entertaining graphic novel managed to nail the absurdity of it all in a way I haven't seen since Martin Amis's The Information. Gorgeously drawn and hilariously spun this was not only the best graphic novel I read all year but one of the best books period.
A Few Flower Girls: Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich, The Illusion of Separateness by Simon Van Booy, Bruno Kramzer by AS Patric, Saving Mozart by Raphael Jerusalmy.
Premature Congratulations: What's With All The "Best Of" Lists?
on Monday, November 25, 2013
Knock knock...
Hello?
Anyone in book world listening?
Here we are at the tail end of November and there's a sudden influx of Best Of 2013 lists. The Guardian just did their annual survey of authors. Goodreads has its poll running. Both Barnes and Noble and Amazon have already started flogging their picks in anticipation of the Christmas shopping rush. Even semi-respectable rags like Huffington Post and Publishers Weekly have blown their literary loads (and seriously, PW, Mohsin Hamid??? Did you even read that thing?).
HAVE YOU ALL GONE MAD?
There are still five weeks left. That's five weeks of reading all those books released this year that you have not yet had the chance to read. Best Of lists are for December. The last week of December, to be precise. Nobody wants to see your Best Of lists before that.
Grumble grumble.
Hello?
Anyone in book world listening?
Here we are at the tail end of November and there's a sudden influx of Best Of 2013 lists. The Guardian just did their annual survey of authors. Goodreads has its poll running. Both Barnes and Noble and Amazon have already started flogging their picks in anticipation of the Christmas shopping rush. Even semi-respectable rags like Huffington Post and Publishers Weekly have blown their literary loads (and seriously, PW, Mohsin Hamid??? Did you even read that thing?).
HAVE YOU ALL GONE MAD?
There are still five weeks left. That's five weeks of reading all those books released this year that you have not yet had the chance to read. Best Of lists are for December. The last week of December, to be precise. Nobody wants to see your Best Of lists before that.
Grumble grumble.
National Book Award 2013: The Bird and the McBridesmaids
on Thursday, November 21, 2013
At last I got one right!!!
Just as I predicted a few days ago, James McBride's The Good Lord Bird has taken home this year's National Book Award for fiction. Sure, I hadn't actually read it when I made the prediction but it was on top of my pile. And, true to this weird practical clairvoyance I seem to have when it comes to these things, I was on the last chapter of the book when the announcement was made. That means McBride joins Jose Saramago, J. M. Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk, Peter Carey, and Kiran Desai as recipients of major awards while I happened to be reading their work. Seriously. It's crazy Twilight Zone stuff. Next year I think I'll put my 'skill' to good use and try to engineer outcomes. If it actually works, stuff it, I'm starting a religion.
But I digress... Can't say I'm upset by the win. McBride's book is a lot of fun and tackles some pretty big issues. That said, I'm not sure it's Great American Novel stuff (full review coming soon!), but it certainly offers a unique (and slightly wacky) window on a very interesting period in American history. It is also quintessentially 'Murrrcan in its substance and style. So, all in all a good, safe pick by the National Book Foundation. And a bloody ripper pick by me!
Just as I predicted a few days ago, James McBride's The Good Lord Bird has taken home this year's National Book Award for fiction. Sure, I hadn't actually read it when I made the prediction but it was on top of my pile. And, true to this weird practical clairvoyance I seem to have when it comes to these things, I was on the last chapter of the book when the announcement was made. That means McBride joins Jose Saramago, J. M. Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk, Peter Carey, and Kiran Desai as recipients of major awards while I happened to be reading their work. Seriously. It's crazy Twilight Zone stuff. Next year I think I'll put my 'skill' to good use and try to engineer outcomes. If it actually works, stuff it, I'm starting a religion.
But I digress... Can't say I'm upset by the win. McBride's book is a lot of fun and tackles some pretty big issues. That said, I'm not sure it's Great American Novel stuff (full review coming soon!), but it certainly offers a unique (and slightly wacky) window on a very interesting period in American history. It is also quintessentially 'Murrrcan in its substance and style. So, all in all a good, safe pick by the National Book Foundation. And a bloody ripper pick by me!
The National Bonk Awards (By Which I Mean The National Book Award and the Bad Sex in Fiction Award)
on Friday, November 15, 2013
Thought you'd escaped my fetish for book awards? Think again.
It's National Book Award week and, like the Booker, this year boasts a pretty impressive shortlist. In case you haven't seen it (and let's face it, although Americans think there are only two book awards - this and the Pulitzer - those of us in the Yankee diaspora tend to be a little more blase about it all) the books battling it out for hometown glory are:
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Tenth of December by George Saunders
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon
Hard to pick a winner here, not that my predictions ever count for anything (right, Jim Crace?). A number of factors seem to bode well for George Saunders. Not only is he a long time darling of the American literati but this particular book got crazy buzz when it was released. Plus, with Alice Munro taking out the Nobel, this might just be the year of the short story. Personally I wasn't all that fussed with Tenth of December. Sure, it had a couple of great stories, but I could take or leave the rest. The other big buzz magnet this year was Kushner who had everyone from the latte-sipping West Villagers to the brisket-munching Brooklynites (apparently nobody above Union Square gave a shit) heralding the arrival of a new saviour. It's been on my shelf for ages and, I suppose, if it wins I'll get around to reading it. But for now it remains amongst the books I won't be reading this year. Lahiri gets a second bite at the apple but I suspect that come Wednesday she'll still be hungry. Reviews for Pynchon have been kinda patchy but I'm thinking they might give him the prize just to see if he turns up or if, as I suspect, Bleeding Edge was one of the manuscripts found in JD Salinger's safe. Which leaves my personal pick - The Good Lord Bird. The story of abolitionist John Brown told through the eyes (and stylised patio) of a cross dressing slave, it has WINNER written all over it. Also, as it happens, it's the next book on my pile to read and I've had some form in the past reading the book that won a major award at the time that award was announced.
This is also the time of the most enjoyable literary award on the calendar - The Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Run by my favourite book rag, The Literary Review, it is bestowed on the most off-purple prose in a new novel (erotica is excluded from contention so EL James has never got a look in). This year's shortlist is:
My Education by Susan Choi
The Last Banquet by Jonathan Grimwood
House of Earth by Woody Guthrie
Motherland by William Nicholson
The Victoria System by Eric Reinhardt
The World Was All Before Them by Matthew Reynolds
The City of Devi by Manil Suri
Secrecy by Rupert Thomson
Special props to Suri for "As he presses forth, he pulls me to him, so that my body bends against his in the same arc, like in the yoga asanas we once practiced. I feel his penis climb up my thigh", but surely the frontrunner has to be Woodie Guthrie's godawful sex scenes in an otherwise pretty decent book. Those of you with photographic memories might recall my review: "Think a less accomplished Steinbeck or Sinclair, with the added bonus of long descriptions of the protagonist's penis and you'll have some idea of what you're in for." Don't believe me? Here's a small... um... taste: "So magnified and so keen were her feelings that her inner nerves could even feel the bumps, the ridges, the pimples, the few stray hairs along the shaft of his male rod." It's gold, Jerry. GOLD!!!
Follow the hilarity on Twitter at #badsex
It's National Book Award week and, like the Booker, this year boasts a pretty impressive shortlist. In case you haven't seen it (and let's face it, although Americans think there are only two book awards - this and the Pulitzer - those of us in the Yankee diaspora tend to be a little more blase about it all) the books battling it out for hometown glory are:
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Tenth of December by George Saunders
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon
Hard to pick a winner here, not that my predictions ever count for anything (right, Jim Crace?). A number of factors seem to bode well for George Saunders. Not only is he a long time darling of the American literati but this particular book got crazy buzz when it was released. Plus, with Alice Munro taking out the Nobel, this might just be the year of the short story. Personally I wasn't all that fussed with Tenth of December. Sure, it had a couple of great stories, but I could take or leave the rest. The other big buzz magnet this year was Kushner who had everyone from the latte-sipping West Villagers to the brisket-munching Brooklynites (apparently nobody above Union Square gave a shit) heralding the arrival of a new saviour. It's been on my shelf for ages and, I suppose, if it wins I'll get around to reading it. But for now it remains amongst the books I won't be reading this year. Lahiri gets a second bite at the apple but I suspect that come Wednesday she'll still be hungry. Reviews for Pynchon have been kinda patchy but I'm thinking they might give him the prize just to see if he turns up or if, as I suspect, Bleeding Edge was one of the manuscripts found in JD Salinger's safe. Which leaves my personal pick - The Good Lord Bird. The story of abolitionist John Brown told through the eyes (and stylised patio) of a cross dressing slave, it has WINNER written all over it. Also, as it happens, it's the next book on my pile to read and I've had some form in the past reading the book that won a major award at the time that award was announced.
This is also the time of the most enjoyable literary award on the calendar - The Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Run by my favourite book rag, The Literary Review, it is bestowed on the most off-purple prose in a new novel (erotica is excluded from contention so EL James has never got a look in). This year's shortlist is:
My Education by Susan Choi
The Last Banquet by Jonathan Grimwood
House of Earth by Woody Guthrie
Motherland by William Nicholson
The Victoria System by Eric Reinhardt
The World Was All Before Them by Matthew Reynolds
The City of Devi by Manil Suri
Secrecy by Rupert Thomson
Special props to Suri for "As he presses forth, he pulls me to him, so that my body bends against his in the same arc, like in the yoga asanas we once practiced. I feel his penis climb up my thigh", but surely the frontrunner has to be Woodie Guthrie's godawful sex scenes in an otherwise pretty decent book. Those of you with photographic memories might recall my review: "Think a less accomplished Steinbeck or Sinclair, with the added bonus of long descriptions of the protagonist's penis and you'll have some idea of what you're in for." Don't believe me? Here's a small... um... taste: "So magnified and so keen were her feelings that her inner nerves could even feel the bumps, the ridges, the pimples, the few stray hairs along the shaft of his male rod." It's gold, Jerry. GOLD!!!
Follow the hilarity on Twitter at #badsex
First World Reading Problems Vol. 3: Cramageddon
on Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Cramageddon(n): The last ditch effort to read as many books as possible before the end of the year. Usually undertaken with the intention of bumping up one's end of year tally (it is a competition, after all) or ensuring the infallibility of one's "Best Of" lists.
Aaaaaaaargh! 2014 is almost upon us and this, dear Bookworms, is my "To Read" shelf:
Yep, despite a fifty percent hit rate on new releases (sixty six of the one hundred and thirty five books I've read this year), I still have a long way to go. Somehow, I don't think I'm going to get through all of them.
How then to decide? Are there any that I'm really dying to read? Or that I absolutely must read if I don't want to seem foolish when I compile my "Best Of" list? I know books like The Goldfinch, The Flamethrowers and Bleeding Edge will be topping many other people's lists. But how can I pass up newies from former favourites like William H. Gass, Paul Auster or my old guilty pleasure, Robert Harris? And what about the buzz around The Golem and The Jinni, The Madonna On The Moon and The Man With the Compound Eyes? So many great books. So little time.
Ok, November. It's you, me and this pile. On your marks. Get set. CRAMAGEDDON!
Aaaaaaaargh! 2014 is almost upon us and this, dear Bookworms, is my "To Read" shelf:
Yep, despite a fifty percent hit rate on new releases (sixty six of the one hundred and thirty five books I've read this year), I still have a long way to go. Somehow, I don't think I'm going to get through all of them.
How then to decide? Are there any that I'm really dying to read? Or that I absolutely must read if I don't want to seem foolish when I compile my "Best Of" list? I know books like The Goldfinch, The Flamethrowers and Bleeding Edge will be topping many other people's lists. But how can I pass up newies from former favourites like William H. Gass, Paul Auster or my old guilty pleasure, Robert Harris? And what about the buzz around The Golem and The Jinni, The Madonna On The Moon and The Man With the Compound Eyes? So many great books. So little time.
Ok, November. It's you, me and this pile. On your marks. Get set. CRAMAGEDDON!
Battlefield Booker: Controversies That Do And Don't Count
on Monday, July 29, 2013
A week on and the dust has settled on this year's Booker Long List announcement. For the most part, it has been well received but, as always, there has been the odd grumble about what was (and wasn't) on the list. In usual Bookworm style, I'll just weigh in where I'm not wanted.
The Sour Grapes Of Wrath
So your favourite author missed out? Boo hoo. So did mine. Not that I expected J. M. Coetzee to really get a look in with his decent but nowhere-near-as-good-as-his-early-stuff The Childhood of Jesus. Sure, I still long for my favourite living author to pull the first Booker hat trick, but if there's one thing I hate more than missing out it's someone getting a gold watch award (you listening John Banville?). I suspect that is exactly what Margaret Attwood was pinning her hopes on for Maddaddam, the final instalment in her fascinating Oryx and Crake trilogy. I'd have loved to see a sci-fi novel take the gong but, future time machine acrobatics notwithstanding, it was never going to happen. At least she it won aeons ago for The Blind Assassin.
Lots more whinging abounds with the passing over of Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Roddy Doyle (following up The Commitments sans soundtrack), David Peace, and two very well-received novels in Nadeem Aslam's The Blind Man's Garden and Kate Atkinson's Life After Life (will she ever be taken seriously by the establishment?). If you're gunning for any of these, don't fret. You can still rush down to your local bookie and place a few dollars/pounds/shekels on The Folio Prize. As Boyd Tonkin, observed in The Independent, the Folio judges have "a banquet of Booker absentees to consider."
Is The Testament Of Mary A Novel?
It is the question that pops up every few years: How long must a book be to qualify as a novel? When Ian McEwan won for Amsterdam, the curmudgeons in the audience choked on their cigars. The bloody thing came in at under two hundred pages. We all know, however, that it was the consolation Booker, given to assuage a country's collective guilt that the poor guy hadn't won it for the infinitely greater Enduring Love. Ergo, we all forgave him pretty quickly. Then the smug prick had the audacity to do it again with On Chesil Beach only this time he had upped the ante. That books was only one hundred and sixty six pages. Thankfully, we needn't have worried. Nobody is allowed two consolation Bookers, even if Atonement probably should have won five years beforehand. Then again, perhaps he shot himself in the foot with the atrocious Saturday, a book that sat between the other two works like a barbed wire enema.
The novella really came into its own when Julian Barnes pipped a shortlist of bargain bin wannabes with The Sense Of An Ending. At only one hundred and sixty pages, it had encyclopaedia buffs up in arms. I, on the other hand, loved it. Indeed, in a year of spectacular ordinariness (thanks Stella Rimington), it was the only book that could have won if the Booker wasn't about to be turned into a joke. It also must have given hope to Donal Ryan who is long listed this year for the equally brief The Spinning Heart. Not that anyone is on his back about it. The Booker virgin has been trumped by serial list-humper Colm Toibin, who's The Testament of Mary is only one hundred and twelve pages. In other words, you can read it on the toilet without anyone thinking you've fallen in. Personally, I don't see what the fuss is about. Mary is a fully realised, brilliantly executed piece of fiction, wider in scope and deeper of heart than at least a third of the other long listed works. I didn't close it and think, "Nice short story, Colm." Sure, it isn't Proust, but would you question the value of Camus's The Stranger (128 pages) or Orwell's Animal Farm (125 pages)? And how long is a piece of string exactly?
For That Matter is The Kills A Novel?
The novella controversy has been eclipsed by a much more modern concern: Can an exercise in multimedia reading constitute a novel? Richard House's The Kills is testing the boundaries of contemporary fiction (in the Booker sense). Not only is it really four books in one - its thousand-odd pages are made up of four separate novels - but it continuously guides the reader to online content that isn't in the physical book. The judging panel have said that they will only be looking at what's between the covers but that seems to be doing the work an injustice. Make up your mind team Booker. Either you accept multimedia and judge the book as a whole or you make some archaic decision to ban works that rely on online content (as opposed to online stuff that is essentially just promo). Perhaps The Kills is just the toe-in-the-water, setting some precedent for a not-too-distant future in which online content will be a common part of the literary landscape.
When Did The Commonwealth Reclaim America?
Ok, I get that America has stuffed a lot of things up lately, but do the poms really need to take it back? Apparently so, if this long list is anything to go by. Otherwise, it's pretty hard to explain the inclusion of Ruth Ozecki or Jhumpa Lahiri. Don't get me wrong. I really like both of them. But Ozecki is American born, to American and Japanese parents. She spends half her time in America. For six months a year, she hangs out in Canada. Is that enough to justify her annexation by the Prince George Alexander Louis fan club? At least Lahiri was born in London, the daughter of Indian immigrants. That's double Commonwealth cred points. However she moved Stateside when she was two and now identifies as an Indian American. Clearly the Yanks takes her for one of their own. She won The Pulitzer Prize. At what point, then, can we consider the umbilical cord well and truly cut? I kind of hope she wins just to be the only author ever to win both the Pulitzer and Booker. Then she can make a triumphant, albeit brief stopover in Australia just so she's eligible for The Miles Franklin. The possibilities are endless.
The Sour Grapes Of Wrath
So your favourite author missed out? Boo hoo. So did mine. Not that I expected J. M. Coetzee to really get a look in with his decent but nowhere-near-as-good-as-his-early-stuff The Childhood of Jesus. Sure, I still long for my favourite living author to pull the first Booker hat trick, but if there's one thing I hate more than missing out it's someone getting a gold watch award (you listening John Banville?). I suspect that is exactly what Margaret Attwood was pinning her hopes on for Maddaddam, the final instalment in her fascinating Oryx and Crake trilogy. I'd have loved to see a sci-fi novel take the gong but, future time machine acrobatics notwithstanding, it was never going to happen. At least she it won aeons ago for The Blind Assassin.
Lots more whinging abounds with the passing over of Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Roddy Doyle (following up The Commitments sans soundtrack), David Peace, and two very well-received novels in Nadeem Aslam's The Blind Man's Garden and Kate Atkinson's Life After Life (will she ever be taken seriously by the establishment?). If you're gunning for any of these, don't fret. You can still rush down to your local bookie and place a few dollars/pounds/shekels on The Folio Prize. As Boyd Tonkin, observed in The Independent, the Folio judges have "a banquet of Booker absentees to consider."
Is The Testament Of Mary A Novel?
It is the question that pops up every few years: How long must a book be to qualify as a novel? When Ian McEwan won for Amsterdam, the curmudgeons in the audience choked on their cigars. The bloody thing came in at under two hundred pages. We all know, however, that it was the consolation Booker, given to assuage a country's collective guilt that the poor guy hadn't won it for the infinitely greater Enduring Love. Ergo, we all forgave him pretty quickly. Then the smug prick had the audacity to do it again with On Chesil Beach only this time he had upped the ante. That books was only one hundred and sixty six pages. Thankfully, we needn't have worried. Nobody is allowed two consolation Bookers, even if Atonement probably should have won five years beforehand. Then again, perhaps he shot himself in the foot with the atrocious Saturday, a book that sat between the other two works like a barbed wire enema.
The novella really came into its own when Julian Barnes pipped a shortlist of bargain bin wannabes with The Sense Of An Ending. At only one hundred and sixty pages, it had encyclopaedia buffs up in arms. I, on the other hand, loved it. Indeed, in a year of spectacular ordinariness (thanks Stella Rimington), it was the only book that could have won if the Booker wasn't about to be turned into a joke. It also must have given hope to Donal Ryan who is long listed this year for the equally brief The Spinning Heart. Not that anyone is on his back about it. The Booker virgin has been trumped by serial list-humper Colm Toibin, who's The Testament of Mary is only one hundred and twelve pages. In other words, you can read it on the toilet without anyone thinking you've fallen in. Personally, I don't see what the fuss is about. Mary is a fully realised, brilliantly executed piece of fiction, wider in scope and deeper of heart than at least a third of the other long listed works. I didn't close it and think, "Nice short story, Colm." Sure, it isn't Proust, but would you question the value of Camus's The Stranger (128 pages) or Orwell's Animal Farm (125 pages)? And how long is a piece of string exactly?
For That Matter is The Kills A Novel?
The novella controversy has been eclipsed by a much more modern concern: Can an exercise in multimedia reading constitute a novel? Richard House's The Kills is testing the boundaries of contemporary fiction (in the Booker sense). Not only is it really four books in one - its thousand-odd pages are made up of four separate novels - but it continuously guides the reader to online content that isn't in the physical book. The judging panel have said that they will only be looking at what's between the covers but that seems to be doing the work an injustice. Make up your mind team Booker. Either you accept multimedia and judge the book as a whole or you make some archaic decision to ban works that rely on online content (as opposed to online stuff that is essentially just promo). Perhaps The Kills is just the toe-in-the-water, setting some precedent for a not-too-distant future in which online content will be a common part of the literary landscape.
When Did The Commonwealth Reclaim America?
Ok, I get that America has stuffed a lot of things up lately, but do the poms really need to take it back? Apparently so, if this long list is anything to go by. Otherwise, it's pretty hard to explain the inclusion of Ruth Ozecki or Jhumpa Lahiri. Don't get me wrong. I really like both of them. But Ozecki is American born, to American and Japanese parents. She spends half her time in America. For six months a year, she hangs out in Canada. Is that enough to justify her annexation by the Prince George Alexander Louis fan club? At least Lahiri was born in London, the daughter of Indian immigrants. That's double Commonwealth cred points. However she moved Stateside when she was two and now identifies as an Indian American. Clearly the Yanks takes her for one of their own. She won The Pulitzer Prize. At what point, then, can we consider the umbilical cord well and truly cut? I kind of hope she wins just to be the only author ever to win both the Pulitzer and Booker. Then she can make a triumphant, albeit brief stopover in Australia just so she's eligible for The Miles Franklin. The possibilities are endless.
The Booker Long List: Cracey Cracey Nights
on Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Well, if you've been on book mars or hiding under some form of Royal Baby rock you might have missed the announcement of this year's Booker Prize long list today. It's a pretty even handed affair - eclectic, seemingly readable, a nice mix of populist and literary fiction. The judges have clearly paid heed to the criticisms levelled against their predecessors. No doubt the appearance of two new major prizes on the literary landscape has also been weighing on their minds.
Once again it's a case of big hitters (Lahiri, Ozecki, Aw, McCann) being pitted against some lesser known upstarts (Bulawayo, Harris, Ryan). I'm particularly excited about two of the titles that got a nod: Harvest by Jim Crace and The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. I haven't read the latter but this young New Zealander's last novel, The Rehearsal, was one of the best debuts that I have ever read. As for Crace, well, the guy really is my sentimental favourite. Leaving aside my love for his early work (Quarantine, Continent, Arcadia - which, of course are offset by the sheer awfulness of some of his more recent stuff) and his announcement earlier this year that he is retiring from writing, Harvest is a wonderful book that deserves the Booker more than many of the books that have actually won it over the past few years. Also, props for the inclusion of Colm Toibin's brilliant The Testament of Mary, which I feared the committee would snub given its brevity.
Anyway, for those who can't be bothered hitting the website, the full Booker Dozen is:
Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate)
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Granta)
Harvest by Jim Crace (Picador)
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris (Sandstone Press)
The Kills by Richard House (Picador)
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury)
Unexploded by Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton)
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (Bloomsbury)
Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson (Mantle)
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (Doubleday Ireland)
The Testament of Mary Colm Tóibín (Viking)
Once again it's a case of big hitters (Lahiri, Ozecki, Aw, McCann) being pitted against some lesser known upstarts (Bulawayo, Harris, Ryan). I'm particularly excited about two of the titles that got a nod: Harvest by Jim Crace and The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. I haven't read the latter but this young New Zealander's last novel, The Rehearsal, was one of the best debuts that I have ever read. As for Crace, well, the guy really is my sentimental favourite. Leaving aside my love for his early work (Quarantine, Continent, Arcadia - which, of course are offset by the sheer awfulness of some of his more recent stuff) and his announcement earlier this year that he is retiring from writing, Harvest is a wonderful book that deserves the Booker more than many of the books that have actually won it over the past few years. Also, props for the inclusion of Colm Toibin's brilliant The Testament of Mary, which I feared the committee would snub given its brevity.
Anyway, for those who can't be bothered hitting the website, the full Booker Dozen is:
Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate)
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Granta)
Harvest by Jim Crace (Picador)
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris (Sandstone Press)
The Kills by Richard House (Picador)
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury)
Unexploded by Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton)
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (Bloomsbury)
Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson (Mantle)
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (Doubleday Ireland)
The Testament of Mary Colm Tóibín (Viking)
2013: The Mid-Year Report
on Monday, July 1, 2013
A lack of New Years Resolutions means I can keep this nice and short. I've kept to the one I did make - review every book I read. That means 80 reviews done and dusted (I've actually read 81 books, but one is embargoed until October so you'll just have to wait). Of those, three got the full treatment (J.M. Coetzee's The Childhood Of Jesus, Javier Marias's The Infatuations and Iain Banks's final novel, The Quarry) while the rest were reduced to nugget-sized Microviews. Hope you've enjoyed the drippings of sweat from my brow!
Books of The Year (So Far)
The first half of 2013 has provided us booknerds with a veritable carnival of delights. Javier Marias brought us what I consider to be the masterpiece in an already spectacular career with his philosophical murder mystery, The Infatuations. Following a decade of mediocrity, Jim Crace finally proved that he could still pen a killer novel with the historical drama, Harvest. Owen Sheers joined the ranks of Kevin Powers and Karl Marlantes with his remarkable prose poem of the war in Afghanistan, Pink Mist. David Foster Wallace reappeared in spectral form in his wife Karen Green's extraordinary free verse piece about loss and recovery, Bough Down. Colm Toibin gave voice to one of history's most misunderstood women in The Testament Of Mary. And Ken Kalfus had me smiling and scratching my head at his adventurous mathematical romp of human folly, Equilateral.
Discovery Of The Year
It would be remiss of me to neglect to mention my standout discovery of 2013, Goncalo M. Tavares. Although he has not published anything this year, all four books I read were marvellous in their own way and I can't wait until Dalkey Archive get off their lazy arses and translates some of his other stuff. You hear me Dalkey? Don't make me learn Portugeuse.
Books Of Previous Years
Tavares aside, I have read some great books not published in 2013. Carlos Fuentes's Vlad was a playful take on the Dracula myth. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick had my jaw resting firmly on the floor for its entire 530 pages. I was repulsed and compelled in equal parts by Pascal Garnier's masterful crime thriller The A26. Ditto David Vogel's lost classic, Viennese Romance. And, of course, my rereads of Dasa Drndic's Trieste and Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle proved just as satisfying the second time around.
The Crystal Ball
Still lots to look forward to this year, with new releases expected from Jonathan Lethem, Donna Tartt, Robert Coover, Thomas Pynchon, Laszlo Kraznahorkai and William Vollman. I'm also keen to read Elizabeth Silver's The Execution of Noa P. Singleton, Andrew Sean Greer's The Impossible Lives of Greta Welles and Simon Van Booy's The Illusion of Separateness. As far as I can tell, those three are short and sweet, which is more than I can say for some of the others I meantioned. Tartt's newy weighs in at almost 800 pages and you'll be needing wrist braces to support all 1100 pages of Coover . It's a strange year when the shortest of the lot comes from serial verbiage-faucet Vollman!
Books of The Year (So Far)
The first half of 2013 has provided us booknerds with a veritable carnival of delights. Javier Marias brought us what I consider to be the masterpiece in an already spectacular career with his philosophical murder mystery, The Infatuations. Following a decade of mediocrity, Jim Crace finally proved that he could still pen a killer novel with the historical drama, Harvest. Owen Sheers joined the ranks of Kevin Powers and Karl Marlantes with his remarkable prose poem of the war in Afghanistan, Pink Mist. David Foster Wallace reappeared in spectral form in his wife Karen Green's extraordinary free verse piece about loss and recovery, Bough Down. Colm Toibin gave voice to one of history's most misunderstood women in The Testament Of Mary. And Ken Kalfus had me smiling and scratching my head at his adventurous mathematical romp of human folly, Equilateral.
Discovery Of The Year
It would be remiss of me to neglect to mention my standout discovery of 2013, Goncalo M. Tavares. Although he has not published anything this year, all four books I read were marvellous in their own way and I can't wait until Dalkey Archive get off their lazy arses and translates some of his other stuff. You hear me Dalkey? Don't make me learn Portugeuse.
Books Of Previous Years
Tavares aside, I have read some great books not published in 2013. Carlos Fuentes's Vlad was a playful take on the Dracula myth. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick had my jaw resting firmly on the floor for its entire 530 pages. I was repulsed and compelled in equal parts by Pascal Garnier's masterful crime thriller The A26. Ditto David Vogel's lost classic, Viennese Romance. And, of course, my rereads of Dasa Drndic's Trieste and Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle proved just as satisfying the second time around.
The Crystal Ball
Still lots to look forward to this year, with new releases expected from Jonathan Lethem, Donna Tartt, Robert Coover, Thomas Pynchon, Laszlo Kraznahorkai and William Vollman. I'm also keen to read Elizabeth Silver's The Execution of Noa P. Singleton, Andrew Sean Greer's The Impossible Lives of Greta Welles and Simon Van Booy's The Illusion of Separateness. As far as I can tell, those three are short and sweet, which is more than I can say for some of the others I meantioned. Tartt's newy weighs in at almost 800 pages and you'll be needing wrist braces to support all 1100 pages of Coover . It's a strange year when the shortest of the lot comes from serial verbiage-faucet Vollman!
Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Quarry by Iain Banks
on Thursday, June 20, 2013
Grief is a pretty crappy basis for a book review. Iain Banks's untimely death earlier this month was sad - especially for those of us who worshipped his early work - but we must be careful not to lionise his final novel without bothering to properly read it. Try tell that to other reviewers, who have called The Quarry a return to form, classic Banks catching his second wind or any number of similar platitudes. Put simply, it isn't. Thankfully, it also is not the sort of abomination that saw him demoted from my DEAR list three books ago. So while you had better not approach it expecting The Bridge, Complicity or The Wasp Factory, you can also safely pick it up without catching syphilis from another The Steep Approach To Garbadale.
By now you all would have heard the plot - Kit, an Aspergers teen (apparently Banks wasn't hip to the new DSM-5), lives in a house with his cancer stricken dad when a bunch of the latter's old friends come for one last weekend hoorah. They talk, they reminisce, they fight, they search for the home made porno they made as uni students. When he's not playing computer games, Kit tries to figure out who his mum is. Then, of course, there is the quarry itself, ever-expanding, soon to consume the land on which Kit's house stands. Hello thinly-veiled metaphor.
It is a strange beast, this book, almost a crucible of Banks's earlier works. It's got the slightly off-kilter narrator (although Kit is extremely reliable given he cannot lie whereas Frank in The Wasp Factory was the polar opposite - even he didn't know the truth). It takes place in a typically Banksian environment; hostile, menacing, yet strangely familiar. There's a science fiction thread, weak though it is, with occasional narrative forays into HeroSpace, a World of Warcraft-like online game. Heck, one of the climactic scenes even takes place on a friggin' bridge. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of what I didn't like about late era Iain Banks. That guy liked to grab a bunch of mostly annoying characters, all of whom had long ago fled their home towns, and plonk them right back where they started. There's always a 'big' reason, in this case Guy's cancer. There's always a lot of waxing lyrical, a settling of scores, a lot of boring chatter. The Quarry is no different. Guy's friends can talk. A lot. Of shit. Banks pretends there's a plot to be found - the porno, the mum, the quarry - but even the most generous reader would struggle to credit them with any substance.
The novel's real saving grace is Guy himself, a truly wonderful Banksian creation. The bloke is bitter, cantankerous and full of hilariously jaded opinions on just about everything. It is the luxury of the dying, I suppose. Obviously, many people will read Guy's opinions as those of Banks himself. The two have (had) a lot in common. Yet, according to the author's wife, Banks had finished the novel well before being told of his diagnosis. If that's true, it certainly is a strange coincidence. Either way, Guy gives Banks a fantastic platform to air a whole bunch of home truths about our shitty world.
Going purely on recent form (The Steep Approach To Garbadale, Transition, Stonemouth... well, pretty much everything post-Complicity), The Quarry ought to have sucked wasp factories. It doesn't. That said, it is nowhere near the calibre of his early works. Neither whimper, nor bang, Iain Banks has gone out with a moderate pop. At least I'll always have The Bridge.
3 Out Of 5 Crow Roads
By now you all would have heard the plot - Kit, an Aspergers teen (apparently Banks wasn't hip to the new DSM-5), lives in a house with his cancer stricken dad when a bunch of the latter's old friends come for one last weekend hoorah. They talk, they reminisce, they fight, they search for the home made porno they made as uni students. When he's not playing computer games, Kit tries to figure out who his mum is. Then, of course, there is the quarry itself, ever-expanding, soon to consume the land on which Kit's house stands. Hello thinly-veiled metaphor.
It is a strange beast, this book, almost a crucible of Banks's earlier works. It's got the slightly off-kilter narrator (although Kit is extremely reliable given he cannot lie whereas Frank in The Wasp Factory was the polar opposite - even he didn't know the truth). It takes place in a typically Banksian environment; hostile, menacing, yet strangely familiar. There's a science fiction thread, weak though it is, with occasional narrative forays into HeroSpace, a World of Warcraft-like online game. Heck, one of the climactic scenes even takes place on a friggin' bridge. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of what I didn't like about late era Iain Banks. That guy liked to grab a bunch of mostly annoying characters, all of whom had long ago fled their home towns, and plonk them right back where they started. There's always a 'big' reason, in this case Guy's cancer. There's always a lot of waxing lyrical, a settling of scores, a lot of boring chatter. The Quarry is no different. Guy's friends can talk. A lot. Of shit. Banks pretends there's a plot to be found - the porno, the mum, the quarry - but even the most generous reader would struggle to credit them with any substance.
The novel's real saving grace is Guy himself, a truly wonderful Banksian creation. The bloke is bitter, cantankerous and full of hilariously jaded opinions on just about everything. It is the luxury of the dying, I suppose. Obviously, many people will read Guy's opinions as those of Banks himself. The two have (had) a lot in common. Yet, according to the author's wife, Banks had finished the novel well before being told of his diagnosis. If that's true, it certainly is a strange coincidence. Either way, Guy gives Banks a fantastic platform to air a whole bunch of home truths about our shitty world.
Going purely on recent form (The Steep Approach To Garbadale, Transition, Stonemouth... well, pretty much everything post-Complicity), The Quarry ought to have sucked wasp factories. It doesn't. That said, it is nowhere near the calibre of his early works. Neither whimper, nor bang, Iain Banks has gone out with a moderate pop. At least I'll always have The Bridge.
3 Out Of 5 Crow Roads
The Infatuations by Javier Marias: The Best Book Dostoevsky Didn't Write
on Saturday, April 6, 2013
I'm just going to go ahead and put it out there. Javier Marias is the greatest novelist of our time. If that wasn't enough I'm going to go one step further. He is the only true heir to the great writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His books to date have carried echoes of the classics but this one puts one of my favourites front and centre. So here you go. The Infatuations is our generation's Crime And Punishment (with strong undertones of Macbeth). Its depth, complexity and intense profundity has not seen an equal in one hundred and fifty years.
The story is, at first, engagingly simple. Maria Dolz goes to a cafe each morning and becomes, well, infatuated with a seemingly perfect couple who are also regulars. She is, therefore, shocked when she learns that the man has been brutally stabbed to death in the street in what seems to be the random act of a madman. After a while she befriends the man's widow, and soon thereafter, her late husband's best friend. A strange love triangle forms, with ever shifting, increasingly more disturbing contours. It slowly dawns on Maria that, far from a random act of violence, this was a well-planned, well-executed murder and, in a round about way, she has become part of the plot.
Although it starts off with an act of terrible brutality, the majority of the novel is spent pondering important philosophical questions relating to the moment of death, the legacy of mourning, the nature and elasticity of love, and the shifting fidelities of friendship. It is also a meditation on the purpose of literature from someone who understands it better than most. With deftness that borders on perfection, Marias forces his reader to continue answering the same questions over and over again, each time with one minor difference in the premise. This is manipulation of the highest order; just when you think you have a handle on what's really going on, he throws a jaw-dropping curveball.
The Infatuations is an endlessly rewarding novel. I could drone on for hours about its superb intricacies but I don't want to spoil it. I also don't want to take any more of the time you should be spending with your face buried in this true modern masterpiece. Seriously, stop wasting your life. Step away from your computer now and get this book.
5 Out Of 5 Damn Spots
The story is, at first, engagingly simple. Maria Dolz goes to a cafe each morning and becomes, well, infatuated with a seemingly perfect couple who are also regulars. She is, therefore, shocked when she learns that the man has been brutally stabbed to death in the street in what seems to be the random act of a madman. After a while she befriends the man's widow, and soon thereafter, her late husband's best friend. A strange love triangle forms, with ever shifting, increasingly more disturbing contours. It slowly dawns on Maria that, far from a random act of violence, this was a well-planned, well-executed murder and, in a round about way, she has become part of the plot.
Although it starts off with an act of terrible brutality, the majority of the novel is spent pondering important philosophical questions relating to the moment of death, the legacy of mourning, the nature and elasticity of love, and the shifting fidelities of friendship. It is also a meditation on the purpose of literature from someone who understands it better than most. With deftness that borders on perfection, Marias forces his reader to continue answering the same questions over and over again, each time with one minor difference in the premise. This is manipulation of the highest order; just when you think you have a handle on what's really going on, he throws a jaw-dropping curveball.
The Infatuations is an endlessly rewarding novel. I could drone on for hours about its superb intricacies but I don't want to spoil it. I also don't want to take any more of the time you should be spending with your face buried in this true modern masterpiece. Seriously, stop wasting your life. Step away from your computer now and get this book.
5 Out Of 5 Damn Spots
J. M. Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus: Not Quite The Second Coming (But Pretty Damn Close)
on Friday, March 8, 2013
Since moving to Australia in 2002, prize magnet and notorious recluse J. M. Coetzee has been struggling with (and, for the most part, succumbing to) the artistic dampening that comes with contented hermitude. While he remains my favourite living writer, even I have to admit that his post-South African output has been of a different class altogether to novels such as The Life and Times of Michael K., Waiting For The Barbarians and Disgrace. Both Elizabeth Costello and Slow Man were middling dalliances of drudgery, while Diary of A Bad Year was a fascinating experiment, but hardly a raging success. It wasn't until 2009's Summertime, the final instalment in his autobiographical trilogy, that I could discern signs of a resurrection. It's ironic then, that the book that should properly herald his return is titled The Childhood of Jesus.
Released in Australia today, The Childhood of Jesus is Coetzee at his elusive, spare and philosophically challenging best. Time and place are of little consequence - we are told not where the story takes place (our only clue is that it is an island and its language is Spanish) nor when. Even the names of the main characters aren't their own - they have been assigned by a processing centre upon arrival. It is not clear whether they are refugees or immigrants. This all-pervading sense of dislocation gives the novel a brilliantly unsettling atmosphere; the island is Coetzee's own spin on utopia, but is distinctly dystopian.
The novel begins as Simon and his young charge David (the boy, we are told, is not his son, nor his grandson, but Simon is responsible for him nonetheless) arrive in the city of Novilla, having left the processing centre after several weeks of acclimatisation. Their initial goal is to find shelter, food and, in Simon's case, employment but it soon becomes clear that Simon has a much more important task in mind. He wants to find the boy's mother. As he makes clear from the outset, he does not know who he is searching for, but he will recognise her when he sees her. What follows is a semi-picaresque (no surprises that Don Quixote gets a few doffs of the cap), where man and boy learn the strange ways of a new home that proves both welcoming and hostile in equal measures.
Although comparisons with Kafka are inevitable - The Castle is clearly a reference point - I sensed a much less likely literary forebear hiding in the wings. Simon and David's cryptic conversations about the basics of life and society reminded me of the dialogue between Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett's Waiting For Godot. Similar elipsese, similar parlance. Apparently there are also parallels to be drawn with The New Testament (title aside, Jesus doesn't get an actual look in) but I'll leave those to the theologians among you. What I can say is that Coetzee revisits some familiar territory - questions of identity, ethical living (the episode with the dray horse is particularly touching), fear of the other and the purpose of telling stories - but has the benefit of age and distance to bring a new, even deeper spin to them.
When I first read the blurb on The Childhood of Jesus, I thought that Coetzee had finally found his new great injustice against which to rally. Living in Adelaide, he can hardly be impervious to the disgraceful treatment of refugees in this country. Having now read the book, I'm not quite convinced that it was anything more than a catalyst, if it was even that. Either way, something must have been getting his goat, because this novel shows that the The World's Greatest Author (In Anticipation of A Return To Form)TM has finally bucked the Nobel curse and found his feet in his new home. That's not to say the novel isn't without its problems. It is a tad overcooked and might have done well with a little excision (not that I envy the person who must suggest this to a notoriously difficult man). But as a return to form, as a novel of complex ideas, it is a definite success. Sure, it may not quite be at the standard of his classics, but The Childhood of Jesus is certainly worthy of Coetzee's reputation and your time.
4 out of 5 Nobel Prizes
Released in Australia today, The Childhood of Jesus is Coetzee at his elusive, spare and philosophically challenging best. Time and place are of little consequence - we are told not where the story takes place (our only clue is that it is an island and its language is Spanish) nor when. Even the names of the main characters aren't their own - they have been assigned by a processing centre upon arrival. It is not clear whether they are refugees or immigrants. This all-pervading sense of dislocation gives the novel a brilliantly unsettling atmosphere; the island is Coetzee's own spin on utopia, but is distinctly dystopian.
The novel begins as Simon and his young charge David (the boy, we are told, is not his son, nor his grandson, but Simon is responsible for him nonetheless) arrive in the city of Novilla, having left the processing centre after several weeks of acclimatisation. Their initial goal is to find shelter, food and, in Simon's case, employment but it soon becomes clear that Simon has a much more important task in mind. He wants to find the boy's mother. As he makes clear from the outset, he does not know who he is searching for, but he will recognise her when he sees her. What follows is a semi-picaresque (no surprises that Don Quixote gets a few doffs of the cap), where man and boy learn the strange ways of a new home that proves both welcoming and hostile in equal measures.
Although comparisons with Kafka are inevitable - The Castle is clearly a reference point - I sensed a much less likely literary forebear hiding in the wings. Simon and David's cryptic conversations about the basics of life and society reminded me of the dialogue between Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett's Waiting For Godot. Similar elipsese, similar parlance. Apparently there are also parallels to be drawn with The New Testament (title aside, Jesus doesn't get an actual look in) but I'll leave those to the theologians among you. What I can say is that Coetzee revisits some familiar territory - questions of identity, ethical living (the episode with the dray horse is particularly touching), fear of the other and the purpose of telling stories - but has the benefit of age and distance to bring a new, even deeper spin to them.
When I first read the blurb on The Childhood of Jesus, I thought that Coetzee had finally found his new great injustice against which to rally. Living in Adelaide, he can hardly be impervious to the disgraceful treatment of refugees in this country. Having now read the book, I'm not quite convinced that it was anything more than a catalyst, if it was even that. Either way, something must have been getting his goat, because this novel shows that the The World's Greatest Author (In Anticipation of A Return To Form)TM has finally bucked the Nobel curse and found his feet in his new home. That's not to say the novel isn't without its problems. It is a tad overcooked and might have done well with a little excision (not that I envy the person who must suggest this to a notoriously difficult man). But as a return to form, as a novel of complex ideas, it is a definite success. Sure, it may not quite be at the standard of his classics, but The Childhood of Jesus is certainly worthy of Coetzee's reputation and your time.
4 out of 5 Nobel Prizes
Literary Triage: Fighting Floodwaters With a Teaspoon
on Thursday, February 28, 2013
There comes a time in every reader's life when they must concede that, no matter how hard they may try, no matter how much they put the real world on hold to prove otherwise, they simply cannot read every book ever written. Much harder to accept, however, is the fact that they can't even read all the books they might want to read.
I resigned myself to the first point quite a while ago. The second, I am begrudgingly coming to accept now. Check out my current backlog of "high priority" titles and weep:
I've read twenty nine books so far this year and I've barely made a dint in the stack. And it gets worse. As the literary levee prepares to break for 2013, I now realise that I won't be able to read all the amazing books that are about to come out in the next month, let alone the rest of the year. I've already set aside March 7 as Coetzee Day, a special holiday that comes around every few years to celebrate a new release from The World's Greatest Living Author (In Anticipation of a Return To Glory)TM. I'm seriously considering instituting a William H. Gass Day too - at 89 years old, I figure the old codger deserves a bit of fanfare any time he graces us with some new pages. So that's the 12th of March gone right there for Middle C. Chuck in Javier Marias Day (March 8 for The Infatuations, only because Coetzee has already claimed his actual release day) and the Feast of Mohsin Hamid (28 March for How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia), and I've got the month pockmarked with days on which I shall be hanging a sock from my doorknob to politely indicate that I am not to be disturbed.
Looking back on my pile and then on to the horizon, I am both elated and dismayed by this act of triage that I've been forced to undertake. So many good books, so little time. And somewhere in amongst it all I want to write - the children's book I've been commissioned to do and "the novel" that has been clinging to my back with its gnarled claws for the past three years. I now get the appeal of religions that believe in reincarnation. If it wasn't for the likelihood I'd come back as a dung beetle, I'd totally sign up!
I resigned myself to the first point quite a while ago. The second, I am begrudgingly coming to accept now. Check out my current backlog of "high priority" titles and weep:
I've read twenty nine books so far this year and I've barely made a dint in the stack. And it gets worse. As the literary levee prepares to break for 2013, I now realise that I won't be able to read all the amazing books that are about to come out in the next month, let alone the rest of the year. I've already set aside March 7 as Coetzee Day, a special holiday that comes around every few years to celebrate a new release from The World's Greatest Living Author (In Anticipation of a Return To Glory)TM. I'm seriously considering instituting a William H. Gass Day too - at 89 years old, I figure the old codger deserves a bit of fanfare any time he graces us with some new pages. So that's the 12th of March gone right there for Middle C. Chuck in Javier Marias Day (March 8 for The Infatuations, only because Coetzee has already claimed his actual release day) and the Feast of Mohsin Hamid (28 March for How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia), and I've got the month pockmarked with days on which I shall be hanging a sock from my doorknob to politely indicate that I am not to be disturbed.
Looking back on my pile and then on to the horizon, I am both elated and dismayed by this act of triage that I've been forced to undertake. So many good books, so little time. And somewhere in amongst it all I want to write - the children's book I've been commissioned to do and "the novel" that has been clinging to my back with its gnarled claws for the past three years. I now get the appeal of religions that believe in reincarnation. If it wasn't for the likelihood I'd come back as a dung beetle, I'd totally sign up!
Resolution In Retrospect
on Monday, January 21, 2013
Long-time readers of B4BW might have wondered about the absence of resolutions for 2013. I mean, I've always been the sort of guy who likes to set himself lofty goals and then revel in his failure to achieve most of them. So why not this year? I guess the answer is simple. I couldn't really think of any that were sufficiently different. Or fun. Or achievable.
I did have one half-decent idea: give every month a stupid pun name and read accordingly. Genre-ary!?! How good was that? I'm still strutting around my room with pride (it's worth noting that I could also have done Yan-uary, and only read books by the winner of last year's Nobel Prize, and the strutting would have been equally cocky). Unfortunately, that's where it ended. February... Hmmmm... Let's see. Feb-You-ary (where I only read books recommended by you guys)? Feb-brew-ary (where I read books by drunken Yiddish writers)? Even if I did one of those, what the heck rhymes with March?
Well, I'm glad to report that, almost a month too late, I've come up with what I hope will be an excellent challenge. I am going to review every single book I read in 2013. Yep. Whether it just be by way of a single line or whether I go the full hog, I'm doing them all. Just try to stop me!
(Meanwhile, inside my brain: March... Nope. Still nothing.)
I did have one half-decent idea: give every month a stupid pun name and read accordingly. Genre-ary!?! How good was that? I'm still strutting around my room with pride (it's worth noting that I could also have done Yan-uary, and only read books by the winner of last year's Nobel Prize, and the strutting would have been equally cocky). Unfortunately, that's where it ended. February... Hmmmm... Let's see. Feb-You-ary (where I only read books recommended by you guys)? Feb-brew-ary (where I read books by drunken Yiddish writers)? Even if I did one of those, what the heck rhymes with March?
Well, I'm glad to report that, almost a month too late, I've come up with what I hope will be an excellent challenge. I am going to review every single book I read in 2013. Yep. Whether it just be by way of a single line or whether I go the full hog, I'm doing them all. Just try to stop me!
(Meanwhile, inside my brain: March... Nope. Still nothing.)
2013: Hoorah For The New Horizon
on Thursday, January 3, 2013
Much indulgent fun is being had here in the land of the Bookworm during Genre-ary (as, it appears, are an overabundance of "hurrahs") but it's what's in store for the following months that really has me excited. I challenge you not to choke on your own drool when contemplating the potential excellence of these ten forthcoming releases:
Harvest - Jim Crace (February)
House of Earth - Woodie Guthrie (February)
Middle C - William H. Gass (March)
The Childhood of Jesus - J. M. Coetzee (March)
The Infatuations - Javier Marias (March)
The Enchanted Wanderer - Nikolai Leskov (March)
Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (April)
Odds Against Tomorrow - Nathaniel Rich(April)
Seiobo There Below - Laszlo Krasznahorkai (May)
The Unknown University: Poems - Roberto Bolano (May)
Harvest - Jim Crace (February)
House of Earth - Woodie Guthrie (February)
Middle C - William H. Gass (March)
The Childhood of Jesus - J. M. Coetzee (March)
The Infatuations - Javier Marias (March)
The Enchanted Wanderer - Nikolai Leskov (March)
Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (April)
Odds Against Tomorrow - Nathaniel Rich(April)
Seiobo There Below - Laszlo Krasznahorkai (May)
The Unknown University: Poems - Roberto Bolano (May)
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