update December 2010

# of books read in December: 4

Cumulative total: 54

1. The Blessing (Nancy Mitford)

2. The Plato Papers (Peter Ackroyd)

3. The Hours (Michael Cunningham)

4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows)

5. Love in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford)

6. En passant (Raymond Queneau)

7. The Story of God (Robert Winston)

8. Ye Gods! Travels in Greece (Jill Dudley)

9. The Man in the High Castle (Philip K Dick)

10. La Chine Classique (Ivan P Kamenarovic)

11. White Teeth (Zadie Smith)

12. The House in Norham Gardens (Penelope Lively)

13. Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)

14. Sarah's Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)

15. Rebuilding Coventry (Sue Townsend)

16. On Chesil Beach (Ian McEwan)

17. The Undomestic Goddess (Sophie Kinsella)

18. French Kissing (Catherine Sanderson)

19. Icons of England (various authors; edited by Bill Bryson)

20. Shirley (Charlotte Brontë)

21. Women's Hour Short Stories

22. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

23. Juliet, Naked (Nick Hornby)

24. Reviving Ophelia (Mary Pipher)

25. Nightingale Wood (Stella Gibbons)

26. The Orange Girl (Jostein Gaarder)
27. Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)
28. Gemma and Sisters (Noel Streatfeild)
29. See Under: Love (David Grossman)
30. Swann's Way (Marcel Proust)

31. Le roi des fougères (Jean Anglade)

32. The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio)

33. The Glass Room (Simon Mawer)

34. Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)

35. Missykad, or Britannic Raj Through The Turnstiles (Malcolm Henry James)

36. Where We Going, Daddy?: Life With Two Sons Unlike Any Other (Jean-Louis Fournier)

37. First Grey, Then White, Then Blue (Margriet de Moor)

38. The Dead School (Patrick McCabe)

39. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)

40. My Favourite Wife (Tony Parsons)

41. How to be Alone (Jonathan Franzen)

42. Eclipse (John Banville) - review forthcoming

43. Dancing Shoes (Noel Streatfeild)

44. Petite Anglaise (Catherine Sanderson)

45. Within A Budding Grove (Marcel Proust)

46. Puligny-Montrachet (Simon Loftus)

47. Circus Shoes (Noel Streatfeild) 

48. A Growing Summer (Noel Streatfeild)

49. The Icarus Girl (Helen Oyeyemi)

50. Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down (Stuart Payne)

51. A London Christmas (Marina Cantacuzino)

52. One Day (David Nicholls)

53. There's Probably No God: The Atheist's Guide To Christmas (edited by Ariane Sherine) 

54. And Another Thing (Eoin Colfer) 

A London Christmas (Marina Cantacuzino)

--The blurb--

""A London Christmas" is an anthology of seasonal memories compiled from journals, novels, poems, local traditions and historical events, illustrated with over forty photographs and engravings. Diatribes against seasonal excesses mingle with celebrations of a more benevolent kind - best illustrated by Charles Dickens in "A Christmas Carol". In this book you will find everything associated with Christmas in London through the ages from the fifteenth century when festivities were overseen by a Lord of Misrule, to when the Puritans attempted to abolish Christmas, through to Norway's annual gift of a Christmas tree and the bravery of Londoners spending Christmas under the threat of the Blitz. A wealth of fictional characters help to celebrate the joy of the season from Mr Pooter in "The Diary of a Nobody" to the tale of a shopping spree in London in "Diary of a Provincial Lady"."

--The review--

When Christmas comes I love to savour it for as long as possible. While there are plenty of seasonal compilations out there to choose from, this certainly strikes me as being an ideal accompaniment which can be enjoyed throughout December. 

The word 'enjoyed' is certainly key here: this is a collection to be savoured rather than devoured. This is certainly not a criticism, as it means that A London Christmas can serve as a companion for weeks on end. The selections are well-chosen and transport the reader successfully to Christmases gone by, although the extracts are on the whole rather highbrow and extremely traditional, so definitely more for those who prefer their literature to be more in a classical vein. 

In spite of the beautiful illustrations, this anthology appears to be relatively little-known. It therefore perhaps gives off an impression of being a little too serious, and something that you have to work at to read rather than something you can read for relaxation, and while one might struggle to read it all the way through at once without losing focus, the extracts are short enough for one to be able to pick the collection up and put it down at leisure. It can therefore be enjoyed in any way that you see fit as the festive season plays out, with new secrets and details tucked within its pages for you to discover and rediscover with every Christmas that follows.

There's Probably No God: The Atheist's Guide To Christmas (edited by Ariane Sherine)

--The blurb--

"Forty-two atheist celebrities, comedians, scientists and writers give their funny and serious tips for enjoying the Christmas season.

When the Atheist Bus Campaign was first launched, over £150,000 was raised in four days - enough to place the advert 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life' on 800 UK buses in January 2009. Now dozens of atheist writers, comedians and scientists are joining together to raise money for a very different cause. The Atheist's Guide to Christmas is a funny, thoughtful handbook all about enjoying Christmas, from 42 of the world's most entertaining atheists. It features everything from an atheist Christmas miracle to a guide to the best Christmas pop hits, and contributors include Richard Dawkins, Charlie Brooker, Derren Brown, Ben Goldacre, Jenny Colgan, David Baddiel, Simon Singh, AC Grayling, Brian Cox and Richard Herring. The full book advance and all royalties will go to the UK HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust."

--The review--

As traditional as I am when it comes to the festive season, it's always good to have a breath of fresh air when it comes to my beloved Crimbo (which I fear, on my MP3 player at least, is still stuck in the 1980s). This collection of famous names, I thought, which includes many names that I admire, such as AC Grayling and Simon Singh, would certainly provide a plethora of new points of view which would be both thought-provoking and entertaining.

As is perhaps difficult to avoid when you have forty-two people all trying to work together to write one book, this is only partly the case. While some of the entries are hilariously funny and articulate, others are unamusing (while trying to be the opposite) or just plain hackneyed. Some, one suspects, would be nothing without Ariane Sherine's editing skills. Again, like most anthologies, it is a collection to be savoured rather than raced through, and not something that one should feel compelled to read chronologically - in fact, dipping into it at random is possibly the best way to enjoy it throughout Christmas.

An interesting topic approached by some of the contributors involves how to explain Christmas to children when as parents you do not believe in the original Christmas story, and some of the resulting explanations are quite ingenious, funny, and touching enough to be used in real life. The collection is also helpful to the cause of further amplifying how one can identify culturally and even emotionally with a religion while not actually believing in its allegedly Christian roots. While the book is fun, it also touches on the serious, making it, in fact, not only a manual for an atheist Christmas but also offering a few pointers on how to manoeuvre one's way through an atheist life. Not that it is a rehashed Bible in any sense; we are presented with a platter of different viewpoints and allowed to dine from it at our leisure, whether over the course of a month or several years.

Many different forms of interpretation are also presented here, such as paganism and humanism, alongside more 'basic' varieties of atheism. As we all grow older we figure out where we fit into this and how our beliefs change, making multiple readings of this compendium not only possible but appealing as well - not only as a spiritual quest but also as part of a quest on a journey of finding the joy in life (at Christmas in particular, as well as all year round).

Petite Anglaise (Catherine Sanderson)

--The blurb--

"Living in Paris with her partner, the workaholic Mr Frog, and their adorable toddler, Tadpole, Catherine decides to alleviate the boredom of her metro-boulot-dodo routine by starting a blog under the name of Petite Anglaise. Writing with disarming honesty about Paris life, about the confines of her hollow relationship with Mr Frog and about the wonder and pain that comes with being a mother, she finds a new purpose to her day. As Petite Anglaise, Catherine regains her confidence and makes virtual friends, including one charismatic and single Englishman who lives in Brittany, James. And after meeting James one evening in a bar, Catherine feels she has regained her ability to fall in love, too."

--The review--

As with Catherine Sanderson's fictionalised effort, French Kissing, I was expecting feelings of satisfaction and derision in equal measure following my reading of Petite Anglaise. Happily, this was more on the side of entertainment this time. Sanderson continues to demonstrate her canny ability to seize on tiny details that really do accurately portray daily Parisian life, and the way she writes veers between schmaltziness and sheer beauty in equal measure, making this a very comforting and accessible read.

There were plenty of ways in which I felt totally unable to empathise with Catherine. It certainly confirmed for me the feeling of absolute disgust which permeates me even contemplating the logistics and deceit of an affair, and from me the cherry tomato incident elicited no sympathy (just why would you even consider giving your child something which, when left completely whole, could so easily cause them to choke, and then be so surprised and annoyed when they throw them all up all over you?). However, there were many more ways in which I could empathise: she eloquently expresses the feeling of only living alongside French people, rather than living as part of them and being part of their landscape. Her writing reassured me that this can take many years to establish, and that not having a social life or (m)any friends at this stage of my life in France is not abnormal. Although I could not feel familiarity with her success as a blogger (given my quite frequent feeling when blogging that I am just shooting these words into a cyberspace equivalent of a black hole), I did not feel jealous either. Sanderson's familiar style invites you to take a seat beside her and enjoy the ride.

Consequently, Petite Anglaise proves a very quick read, which is never for a moment dull or sluggish: Sanderson keeps readers engaged and on their toes with ease. However, Petite Anglaise and French Kissing are both in a very similar vein in terms of their subject matter, and so while the advice to budding writers to write what they know is sound, I would issue a word of caution: Sanderson may wish to diversify her repertoire if she wishes to keep her readers on the hook. While the expat-lit market is popular, it is not insatiable.

Other works by Catherine Sanderson

French Kissing (2009)

Dancing Shoes (Noel Streatfeild)

--The blurb--

"When their mother dies, leaving them orphaned, Rachel and Hilary are sent to live with their aunt, who runs a troupe of dancing girls –‘Mrs Wintle’s Little Wonders’. Hilary, a talented dancer, settles there immediately and loves the chance to dance every day. Rachel finds it more difficult to fit in. She’s also got another worry on her mind. Her mother’s dying wish was for Hilary to attend the Royal Ballet School. But Hilary seems to have other ideas!"

--The review--

It is clear that following the success of her classic and arguably best-loved story, Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfeild (or her agent or publisher) decided that it would be a good idea to stretch the format for the American market in particular as far as was humanly possible. To an extent this was successful, with White Boots (also published as Skating Shoes) in particular enjoying similar popularity with the author's fans. However, is there such thing as taking a concept too far? Alongside these two novels, Streatfeild's back catalogue also includes - to name but a few - Tennis Shoes, Theatre Shoes (/Curtain Up), and Party Shoes (a.k.a. Party Frock; all yet to be read by me) as well as Circus Shoes (read; review forthcoming), and the subject of this review, Dancing Shoes. So is Streatfeild's breaking point reached here?

Arguably the answer is no: Streatfeild's stories often feature a "fairy godmother" style character who steps in to save the children from whatever happens to be threatening their futures, and in Dancing Shoes this is not the case. In fact, we are presented with the complete opposite; we have supportive adult characters, yes, but none with enough power to save the situation. Instead, we have the highly disagreeable aunt and her equally disagreeable and spoilt daughter Dulcie, and the trusted family doctor who rightly or wrongly believes that Hilary and Rachel's aunt is doing the best for them, rather than listening to Rachel's concerns. Rachel's misery is therefore rather a focus, and while it can make the story a bit of a plod to read, it does ultimately serve a purpose, as Rachel has to realise that people do not always want what we want for them - for better, or for worse. This is an important lesson to learn, and not one, to my best recollection, that appears elsewhere in Streatfeild's stories, where quite to the contrary children are propelled along by pushy parents.

Another important moral appearing in the story is the idea that whatever we are suffering is only for now; we are likely to have the power to change our situation later on, even if this power is out of reach at the time, and this is something that Rachel learns as well. This is not to say that we do not feel any sympathy for Rachel throughout the story - the aunt is so odious that we cannot help feeling for the little girl who struggles to fit into her new life on the death of her mother.

The story does suffer from some forgettable aspects: in the style of Enid Blyton, the children in Streatfeild's novels all tend to be of similar personalities and from similar backgrounds, and consequently only a month or so after reading the story I cannot say that I remember terribly well how it ends. This, perhaps is due to the cause outlined above: Streatfeild may have been under pressure to continue in the 'Shoes' vein to such an extent that many of the stories ended up merging together in an unoriginal vagueness. So while the stories are nice comfort reads that can be returned to over and over, on first reading they may not always stick. Dancing Shoes sadly falls into this category.

Other works by Noel Streatfeild

Ballet Shoes (1936)

Tennis Shoes (1937)

Circus Shoes [The Circus Is Coming] (1938)*

Theatre Shoes [Curtain Up] (1944)

Party Shoes [Party Frock] (1946)

Movie Shoes [The Painted Garden] (1949)**

Skating Shoes [White Boots] (1951)

Family Shoes [The Bell Family] (1954)

Travelling Shoes [Apple Bough] (1962)

*All of the titles mentioned here, with the exception of Ballet Shoes and Tennis Shoes, which only ever had one title, are listed under their published titles for the US market; their UK title is listed in brackets afterwards.

** Interested readers are advised that the American publication of this novel - Movie Shoes - is a significantly abridged version of Streatfeild's original work.

update November 2010

# of books read in November:4
Cumulative total: 50

1. The Blessing (Nancy Mitford)
2. The Plato Papers (Peter Ackroyd)
3. The Hours (Michael Cunningham)
4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows)
5. Love in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford)
6. En passant (Raymond Queneau)
7. The Story of God (Robert Winston)
8. Ye Gods! Travels in Greece (Jill Dudley)
9. The Man in the High Castle (Philip K Dick)
10. La Chine Classique (Ivan P Kamenarovic)
11. White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
12. The House in Norham Gardens (Penelope Lively)
13. Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)
14. Sarah's Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)
15. Rebuilding Coventry (Sue Townsend)
16. On Chesil Beach (Ian McEwan)
17. The Undomestic Goddess (Sophie Kinsella)
18. French Kissing (Catherine Sanderson)
19. Icons of England (various authors; edited by Bill Bryson)
20. Shirley (Charlotte Brontë)
21. Women's Hour Short Stories
22. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
23. Juliet, Naked (Nick Hornby)
24. Reviving Ophelia (Mary Pipher)
25. Nightingale Wood (Stella Gibbons)
26. The Orange Girl (Jostein Gaarder)
27. Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)
28. Gemma and Sisters (Noel Streatfeild)
29. See Under: Love (David Grossman)
30. Swann's Way (Marcel Proust)
31. Le roi des fougères (Jean Anglade)
32. The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio)
33. The Glass Room (Simon Mawer)
34. Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)
35. Missykad, or Britannic Raj Through The Turnstiles (Malcolm Henry James)
36. Where We Going, Daddy?: Life With Two Sons Unlike Any Other (Jean-Louis Fournier)
37. First Grey, Then White, Then Blue (Margriet de Moor)
38. The Dead School (Patrick McCabe)
39. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
40. My Favourite Wife (Tony Parsons)
41. How to be Alone (Jonathan Franzen)
42. Eclipse (John Banville) - review forthcoming
43. Dancing Shoes (Noel Streatfeild)
44. Petite Anglaise (Catherine Sanderson)
45. Within A Budding Grove (Marcel Proust)
46. Puligny-Montrachet (Simon Loftus)
47. Circus Shoes (Noel Streatfeild) 
48. A Growing Summer (Noel Streatfeild)
49. The Icarus Girl (Helen Oyeyemi)
50. Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down (Stuart Payne)

Bookish Bits & Bobs: NaNoWriMo

During the weekend before the end of this year's National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, a highly discouraging article was published in The Times on the subject. The article's main message to all of the WriMos (or National Novel Writing Month participants) out there was this: don't bother - I'm an author and it's not that great, and besides, the world already has too many novels and novelists. The article seemed to come from Julia Stephenson's general feelings of bitterness and lack of fulfilment and success, with her grudgingly acknowledging that her novels now only sell for 1p on Amazon and that she even admits to posting glowingly positive reviews on the site under a host of aliases.

As a first time WriMo (or 'nanoteur' - the French word for a NaNoWriMo participant, which I much prefer), I was momentarily discouraged, but then remembered that a) Julia Stephenson is only against projects like NaNoWriMo, or just anyone aspiring to be a novelist in general, because she clearly cannot bear the idea that anyone might be more successful and happier than she has been in achieving their dream; and that b) nanoteurs receive plenty of support in the form of pep talks from established successful authors such as Dave Eggers and Lemony Snicket. If they can find it in themselves to endorse such a project, then why can't she?

NaNoWriMo (or indeed just writing as a whole) is not easy, and while a good dose of realism along the way is helpful, there's a fine line between being realistic and just rubbishing the ambitions of others. As a participant this year, I have had to approach my writing with more intensity than I ever have before, and it has involved putting several other aspects of my life on hold, including chiefly reading and blogging, which would explain why I appeared to have gone completely AWOL for the past few weeks. It also goes against a writer's basic instincts to prize quantity over quality and to push on through regardless with the sole aim of creating a credible first draft of 50,000 words (if you have achieved this, in NaNo terms you have 'won'). There were other associated pitfalls with being a NaNo participant: I was also discouraged by those participants who claimed after only halfway through the month, or less, to have 'won', and it makes me wonder if these people have families, or lives, or jobs, and if I was the only one taking this even semi-seriously in the sense of having something afterwards that I could actually keep and work with, rather than just being left with several megabytes of useless wordvomit about talking monkeys and purple dishwashers and whatever else these people happened to be writing about. I also failed to take advantage of NaNo as a social event, with me having only attended one write-in and opting for the comfort of my own home (rather than overpriced Parisian cafés) the rest of the time.

But in spite of that catalogue of negatives, NaNoWriMo has proved overall to be a positive experience for me. There is something incredibly empowering and liberating about creating so much from nothing in so short a space of time, and while there is certainly plenty of editing to do, it shows you as a person what you can achieve if you really set your mind to it. And, as I mentioned before, it has the potential as well to be a great group activity, which I plan to take much fuller advantage of during next year's NaNoWriMo. In addition, should I have the fortune/misfortune to still be in teaching, I can also see a great opportunity to implement NaNoWriMo, possibly in conjunction with Movember, as an excellent group/bonding activity for students in a school that frankly doesn't have a great deal of school spirit.

And even if, as the embittered author mentioned in the first paragraph states so starkly, the hundreds of thousands of NaNo participants never have their books published or make it as successful writers, it is important to remember that we all only have our own little tiny lives, and if we can make an impact on the world around us, it's nice, but ultimately, if we can make those own tiny lives just a little bit happier and more fulfilled, then that's nice as well. That, to me, does not seem to be something that Julia Stephenson has achieved for her own life.

So in short, I have enjoyed being a nanoteur for the month, but in a lot of respects that's all I've been - and now that November is over, I'm very grateful to have the rest of my life back.

for further information, see www.nanowrimo.org

update October 2010

# of books read in October:6
Cumulative total: 46

1. The Blessing (Nancy Mitford)
2. The Plato Papers (Peter Ackroyd)
3. The Hours (Michael Cunningham)
4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows)
5. Love in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford)
6. En passant (Raymond Queneau)
7. The Story of God (Robert Winston)
8. Ye Gods! Travels in Greece (Jill Dudley)
9. The Man in the High Castle (Philip K Dick)
10. La Chine Classique (Ivan P Kamenarovic)
11. White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
12. The House in Norham Gardens (Penelope Lively)
13. Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)
14. Sarah's Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)
15. Rebuilding Coventry (Sue Townsend)
16. On Chesil Beach (Ian McEwan)
17. The Undomestic Goddess (Sophie Kinsella)
18. French Kissing (Catherine Sanderson)
19. Icons of England (various authors; edited by Bill Bryson)
20. Shirley (Charlotte Brontë)
21. Women's Hour Short Stories
22. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
23. Juliet, Naked (Nick Hornby)
24. Reviving Ophelia (Mary Pipher)
25. Nightingale Wood (Stella Gibbons)
26. The Orange Girl (Jostein Gaarder)
27. Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)
28. Gemma and Sisters (Noel Streatfeild)
29. See Under: Love (David Grossman)
30. Swann's Way (Marcel Proust)
31. Le roi des fougères (Jean Anglade)
32. The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio)
33. The Glass Room (Simon Mawer)
34. Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)
35. Missykad, or Britannic Raj Through The Turnstiles (Malcolm Henry James)
36. Where We Going, Daddy?: Life With Two Sons Unlike Any Other (Jean-Louis Fournier)
37. First Grey, Then White, Then Blue (Margriet de Moor)
38. The Dead School (Patrick McCabe)
39. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
40. My Favourite Wife (Tony Parsons)
41. How to be Alone (Jonathan Franzen)
42. Eclipse (John Banville) - review forthcoming
43. Dancing Shoes (Noel Streatfeild)
44. Petite Anglaise (Catherine Sanderson)
45. Within A Budding Grove (Marcel Proust) 
46. Puligny-Montrachet (Simon Loftus)

How To Be Alone (Jonathan Franzen)

--The blurb--

"Here, in fifteen essays, are fifteen fresh answers to the question of how to be alone in a noisy and distracting mass culture. Franzen shows the wry distrust of the claims of technology and psychology, the love-hate relationship with consumerism, and the subversive belief in the tragic shape of the individual life."

--The review--

As a result of having studied Classics at university, the words of wisdom of Plato et al naturally line my bookshelves. In approaching the monolithic Jonathan Franzen's collection of essays, one has the same feeling of receiving wisdom: ancient, revered, but still relevant to today type wisdom.

Franzen initially hooks the 'average' reader with a sentimental but well-written and compelling essay chronicling a new approach to death and dying in the face of the demise of his father. This, however, does not set the tone for the rest of the essay collection: if sentimental writing is not your cup of tea, there are still plenty of reasons to keep reading. As well as a highly polticised essay that distinguishes between personal privacy and data protection, and an analysis of the Chicago postal system, we are treated to a whistle-stop tour via a job in Franzen's previous life for a small local exports company and a treatment of why cities still exist. As a result, the entire collection is a highly original trip through different perspectives on the notion of being alone. We are taken through the theme in ways that we would not expect, and this includes arguably the most unsavoury essay in the collection, which deals with the subject of being anti-smoking. At the beginning of the essay, as a non-smoking (and indeed anti-smoking) reader, it is easy to agree with Franzen's damning of the activity; it is therefore with dismay that we find out that he is in fact a smoker himself. While the essay proceeds in as cogent and sophisticated a manner as ever, it is somehow tainted after that with the vague hypocrisy of its author.

However, this is not enough to ruin enjoyment of the collection entirely. As previously hinted at, Franzen is an extremely skilled writer, at least in the field of non-fiction: he is lucid and erudite without alienating readers. There is truly something in this collection for everyone, and in creatively approaching the notion of what it means to be alone in our increasingly busy world, Franzen will have you asking yourself whether you are a Contract or Status reader and questioning the invasiveness of television. 

The vast majority of the essays were written in the mid 1990s, with a few broaching the late 1990s and early 2000s (the collection having been published in 2002). This means that some of the essays are now over fifteen years old, and that some addenda or revisions by the author as we set sail on a new decade may make equally intriguing reading. Providing valuable brain fodder for our lives, the collection easily bears multiple readings, and could arguably take the status of a modern philosophy manual for the days of these lives where it is so difficult to be alone. Although known chiefly for his fiction, Franzen's non-fiction is just as precious to the twenty-first century's hearts and minds - if not more so.

Other works by Jonathan Franzen

The Twenty-Seventh City (1988)

Strong Motion (1992)

The Corrections (2001)

The Discomfort Zone (2006; memoir)

Freedom (2010)

Bookworm News (October 2010)

Could ebooks save education?

Digital publishing specialist The Digital Publisher thinks so. With funding cuts looming for UK universities and schools alike, this could be a cutting edge way to use money more prudently and enrich the learning experience by embedding other media such as video and audio in the texts. The company's latest white paper, Advancing Education Through Digital Editions, also points out that ebooks can be changed and updated at a fraction of what this costs for normal books. In other news, students who are just off to university can kickstart their own personal ebook revolution today by downloading a free freshers' guide, What next?: making smarter graduate career choices, created by www.mygraduatecareer.com. Additional guides are also planned, including using social media to further your career and how to make the most of your gap year.

iPads...iPhones...iMinds

Fit a little learning into your day wherever you are on your favoured device with iMinds. Founded in 2009, iMinds produces short-form digital content across non-fiction categories, but to mark its anniversary has also released Know What?, a compilation of its 100 bestselling titles. Eight-minute education snippets make this work even for those who are pushed for time, and cover everything from Music to Business. Accessible via www.iminds.com, they remind us of education guru Dylan William's precept that "smart is not something you are...smart is something you get".

Ramion competition: meet the author

On October 1st, Ramion launched its 14th story in the collection of children's stories aimed at children aged 7-8. To celebrate, it also has launched a competition so that children can win all 14 books especially dedicated to them. To enter, click on the link, listen to the author read an extract from the newly launched book, answer the question, and set sail on a reading journey for life.

Treasure chest

With Children's Book Week approaching (October 4-10), www.readingchest.co.uk can help children to read a wider variety of books than ever with its unique book rental service. A monthly membership fee results in books tailored to the child's needs being delivered to their home and allows access to an arguably greater range of books than are available in schools and in local libraries. Children are also equipped with reward charts, downloadable certificates, and the ability to upload book reviews to the Reading Chest website in order to help them not only start reading but continue reading too. And best of all, new customers joining before the end of October get £5 off their first month's membership with the discount code BOOKWEEK. So open the chest - and see what treasure lies within.

update September 2010

# of books read in September: 3 (epic fail)
Cumulative total: 40

1. The Blessing (Nancy Mitford)
2. The Plato Papers (Peter Ackroyd)
3. The Hours (Michael Cunningham)
4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows)
5. Love in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford)
6. En passant (Raymond Queneau)
7. The Story of God (Robert Winston)
8. Ye Gods! Travels in Greece (Jill Dudley)
9. The Man in the High Castle (Philip K Dick)
10. La Chine Classique (Ivan P Kamenarovic)
11. White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
12. The House in Norham Gardens (Penelope Lively)
13. Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)
14. Sarah's Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)
15. Rebuilding Coventry (Sue Townsend)
16. On Chesil Beach (Ian McEwan)
17. The Undomestic Goddess (Sophie Kinsella)
18. French Kissing (Catherine Sanderson)
19. Icons of England (various authors; edited by Bill Bryson)
20. Shirley (Charlotte Brontë)
21. Women's Hour Short Stories
22. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
23. Juliet, Naked (Nick Hornby)
24. Reviving Ophelia (Mary Pipher)
25. Nightingale Wood (Stella Gibbons)
26. The Orange Girl (Jostein Gaarder)
27. Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)
28. Gemma and Sisters (Noel Streatfeild)
29. See Under: Love (David Grossman)
30. Swann's Way (Marcel Proust)
31. Le roi des fougères (Jean Anglade)
32. The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio)
33. The Glass Room (Simon Mawer)
34. Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)
35. Missykad, or Britannic Raj Through The Turnstiles (Malcolm Henry James)
36. Where We Going, Daddy?: Life With Two Sons Unlike Any Other (Jean-Louis Fournier)
37. First Grey, Then White, Then Blue (Margriet de Moor)
38. The Dead School (Patrick McCabe)
39. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
40. My Favourite Wife (Tony Parsons)

My Favourite Wife (Tony Parsons)

--The blurb--

"Hot shot young lawyer Bill Holden and his wife Becca move their four-year-old daughter to the booming, gold-rush city of Shanghai. It is a place of opportunity and temptation, where fortunes are made and foreign marriages come apart in spectacular fashion. Bill's law firm houses the Holden family in Paradise Mansions - a luxury apartment block full of 'second wives': beautiful young women like JinJin Li, ex-school teacher, crossword addict, dedicated roller skater and the Holdens' neighbour. After Becca witnesses a near-tragedy, she returns temporarily to London with Holly - and Bill and JinJin are thrown together. Bill wants to be a better man than the millionaire who keeps JinJin Li as a second wife. Better than any man who cheats. Becca is his best friend. But in the end can he give JinJin anything different - can he give her the love she deserves? And can he love his wife too?"

--The review--

Tony Parsons, while arguably having not achieved the same level of fame as contemporary Nick Hornby, is in his normal state essentially him + 1. Sentimental and humorous in equal measure, he is able to blow readers out of the water with the poetry, quality, and depth of his expression. In fact, he almost makes budding writers want to give up because they feel that they could not produce anything of this calibre themselves.

However, in My Favourite Wife, Parsons does not live up to the reputation built up with novels such as Man and Boy. While his main focus previously was the family saga that everyone could relate to, told in ways never broached before, in My Favourite Wife Parsons' main agenda seems to be a social analysis of modern China. This marginalises the family aspects of the novel and inadvertently makes us care less about the characters. Even though the author admittedly handles the narrative arc well, building up Bill's respective relationships with his wife, lover and daughter effectively, reaching the climax of discovery and then bringing it down to a more subdued calmness, the constant chopping and changing between the personal and political prevents us from getting too involved, and this is ultimately to the detriment of the novel's efficacy.

Parsons is better when he returrns to doing what he does best in chronicling the decline and death of Bill's father: these segments are moving, heartfelt, realistic, and pack more of a punch than the other sections of the novel, which are punctuated by episodes of contrived symbolism and imagery, as well as a general feeling of predictability. Less effective than the parts regarding Bill's father is the demise of Bill's colleague Shane: there are perhaps too many characters, and we cannot give enough attention to them all, meaning that we do not care enough when it actually matters. As a consequence, My Favourite Wife lacks the wow-factor of Parsons' previous novels: it still has strengths, but these are outweighed by the weaknesses, and these strengths are therefore not enough to make the book a resounding success.

Other works by Tony Parsons

The Kids (1976)

Platinum Logic (1981)

Limelight Blues (1983)

Man and Boy (1999)

One for my Baby (2001)

Man and Wife (2003)

The Family Way (2004)

Stories We Could Tell (2006)

Starting Over (2009)

Men From The Boys (2010)

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)

--The blurb--

"Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence."

--The review--

Wilde is well-known, even by those who have never read a single one of his works, for his witty epigrams, his controversy, and his pretentious foppery, but the superficial knowledge of these things, as I have discovered, can never really tally with that of which Wilde is in fact capable.

To begin with, The Picture of Dorian Gray does not do much to convince readers (especially Wilde virgins) of the genius for which the author is so greatly reputed. While it is irreverent and witty, this is more of the Jane Austen style of witticism rather than being of the variety that will have you rolling in the aisles. The humour present in the work also matches well with that found in Restoration comedies and comedies of manners, but in conjunction with this, there is also the impression that Wilde is deliberately out to offend, which is a proposition that can leave a bit of a bad taste in your mouth.

Another Wildean weakness is his repeated attempt to philosophise. His lengthy expositions simply cannot match the ancient philosophers that he apparently tries to emulate and they thus fall flat. The highly metacritical purpose for which Wilde is aiming merely serves to appear pretentious and affected, although it does comply with his preface. The reader is therefore not seduced yet, and this continues: while there are occasional phrases of excellent poetic value, on the whole Wilde's dialogue wanders, the reader is easily distracted as a result, and Wilde's work consequently seems overrated. He is aphoristic and trying too hard, and yet at times strikes a strangely relevant chord: the notion that "[a]s long as a woman can look 10 years younger than her own daughter, she is satisfied" is oddly reminiscent of certain modern TV shows.

The Vane family is initially a million times more engaging than Dorian and his dandyish counterparts, and it appears that Wilde is better when being more down to earth, versus aiming at being a pompous philosopher. This is further consolidated by his mad and purposeless ramblings later on in the novel, which make it easier to see why abridged versions of the work exist. However, despite the author's unsettling anti-Semitism, and despite the manifold other possible criticisms, by this point we have forgiven Wilde completely. His Poe-like tale of conscience has an exact and penetrating ability to captivate the audience, with the story quickly gaining momentum. We are absorbed by Dorian's descent into madness and Wilde's foreshadowing; we gasp at the characters' fates and marvel at the role of the portrait, which is highly similar to Charlotte Gilman Perkins' yellow wallpaper. The single object in combination with the character of Dorian and his relationships with others is a potent mix, and it is this mix that woos the previously unaware reader over to Wilde. An explosive opus that makes us love Wilde despite his flaws.

Other works by Oscar Wilde

The Happy Prince and other stories (1888)

Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

A Woman of No Importance (1893)

An Ideal Husband (1895)

The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

De Profundis (1897)

The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

Bookish Bits & Bobs: The Booker Prize Shortlist 2010

So following my previous post about this year's Booker longlist, I found myself thinking "Hey, wouldn't it be nice if I could be right this year about the winner?"

In truth, my track record is not too good on this score. In 2004, I really felt (and for once, the bookies did too) that David Mitchell was set to win with Cloud Atlas. I was absolutely shocked when Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty took it instead, and, furthermore, felt that all was not as it seemed with the choice of this particular book as the winner. It all seemed a little too convenient that the first openly gay author to win the prize was awarded it in the first year that an openly gay cabinet minister was on the judging panel. The controversy surrounding my views in the uni rag at this time means that it is perhaps unsurprising that I can't remember much else about the Booker Prizes that followed (except to comment on the breathtakingness of Kate Grenville's The Secret River, shortlisted for the 2006 prize, which makes your heart skip a beat right from the first page). In the 2009 round of the competition, I had lowered my expectations of my psychic abilities and only desired that it was NOT Sarah Waters who won (thankfully, on this score I was right).

Despite this admittedly weak history, though, I was still disappointed to find that against my prediction, David Mitchell had been culled from this year's longlist, not making it through to the final six. Turning my attention to those that had been chosen, the selection seemed disappointing. You've got your token post-colonial novel, and your typical novel based on recent news (Emma Donoghue's Room has uncanny resemblance to the case of Jaycee Lee Dugard and her children). The other nominations seem equally lacklustre, with the exception of the only one to light my fire, Tom McCarthy's C, which seems the most original, ambitious and unconventional.

The issue that has most characterised this year's Booker for me has been the bias and engineering that I see in the selections. As I mentioned in my previous post, the bookies rushed to put the strongest odds on Peter Carey's offering as soon as the press made a story of the fact that if he won this time he would be the only person to ever do so three times. These, to me, are not grounds to win in themselves, but now that the seed has been planted in the minds of the judges and in the minds of those who bet on these prizes, it is sure, whether consciously or unconsciously, to have an influence. If it does win, I shall be extremely sceptical about whether Carey actually deserved it.

The other novel which I now reject on principle as a "worthy winner" is The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson, thanks to Giles Coren's article on this author's shortlisted novel in this weekend's Times. I suspect he meant to attract people to the author's work, but sadly, Mr Coren, you have failed with me. The principal reason that Coren gave for Jacobson to win was that he is a Jewish author, and only the second to ever be shortlisted for the prize. No Jewish author has ever won it, and this, in Mr Coren's view, almost entitles him to win. Sorry, but no. Nobody should win any prize based on gender, age, race, sexuality, ethnicity, or for any other reason other than them being worthy of winning it. And that is it. Coren's proposition alone turns me off Jacobson's nomination entirely, which seems a shame in some ways.

In sneakily previewing what I could procure of this year's shortlist online, Carey's novel has personality and pretension but lacks vigour. The vast majority of the other nominations are not even available for preview. Is Amazon biasing readers and judges before the prize is even decided?

The only other novel I could take a sneak peek at from the shortlist was Andrea Levy's The Long Song, which sadly seemed contrived and arresting in a combination that is not altogether comfortable. My hope therefore remains for now with C; and as ominous as it sounds, we shall see.

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Bookish Bits & Bobs: Roald Dahl Day

A day celebrating the life and works of one of Britain's greatest children's authors, Roald Dahl, is being commemorated all around the UK (and indeed the world - why not?!) on September 13, the birthday of the magnificent man himself. It is rare of me to do two columns in one month (which is what will happen this September due to the release of the Booker shortlist), but Roald Dahl Day seemed to me to be too good to pass up. And with events going on all over the place on the day itself, there's no reason why anybody should have to pass it up: according to the Times, fans can enjoy everything from a musical version of Matilda in Wolverhampton to a quiz on the author at the Bishop's Stortford branch of Waterstones, as well as usual and added delights of the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden (including a sweet-making workshop - do you really need to be persuaded?!). The website gives more info on all of these.

But it all got me thinking about the author who captured - and continues to capture - children's imaginations around the world. While other children's authors have come under fire for being politically incorrect, classist, racist, or just generally outmoded, Dahl's books seem immune to such criticism (or, indeed, criticism of any other kind). So why is he different?

While the lives of other children's authors have attracted interest, Dahl arguably surpasses them all in having a life as fascinating and at times as gruesome as the books that he wrote. He was a sportsman and an art aficionado; a traveller and a Hollywood luvvie; a serviceman and and a scientist; an oenologist and a philanthropist, as well as a writer. No other children's author can claim ownership of autobiographies as intriguing and readable as Boy and Going Solo, which can be enjoyed by children and adults alike for their descriptions of his various scrapes in school and in the armed forces. This all leads on to the obvious: people do not abandon his work once they have passed a certain age. Dahl is somehow able to keep people consistently entertained throughout their lives - readers return to his children's books for nostalgia purposes, but start on his short stories and autobiographies as teenagers and keep coming back to those as well, with them being just as addictive as his children's books.

So that's what makes people stay, but why do they come to him to begin with? Quentin Blake's unforgettable illustrations, and (some of) the movies and TV adaptations made of his works, certainly contribute to the sustained interest in his books. But people pick up one book after another regardless of age, because as well as being a master of dark twists and deft prose, Dahl does not patronise children. Even though he plays on the themes that appeal to children, such as outsmarting adults, talking animals, and the child winning through in the end, Dahl is able to mix the magic and the tragic eclectically in a way that makes him unique. He does not shy away from scaring children with evil witches and man-eating giants, just as much as he does not shy away from delighting them. Equally, the suspense that is built, in conjunction with creating characters we can care about, keeps people coming back.

His dexterous use of language is also worth mentioning twice - The BFG is perhaps a prime example of Dahl's imaginative and amusing wordplay, and it is perhaps therefore even more astonishing that Dahl's books have been successful the world over in spite of the problems that they must have posed for translators. More than this, too, Dahl's own creations encourage children to create for themselves. Among the fond memories of my childhood are games with my sister where we used cucumber for snozzcumbers and lemonade for frobscottle, and while other books also penetrated my childhood in this way (re-enacting scenes from Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden using Sylvanian Families springs to mind), they perhaps lacked Dahl's winning combination of fantasy, reality, and originality. (As far as my love of The Secret Garden went, there were plenty of other Victorian and Edwardian works of literature that I could - and did - turn to for little-girl-lost style stories, but nothing comes to mind that is quite like the universes that Dahl created.)

All of this amounts to something quite simply indescribable. It was this uncapturable sentiment felt towards Dahl and his work that somehow led to me bursting into tears a few years ago during a documentary about his life. The combination of the remarkable man with his remarkable work has something really moving about it. But the good thing about successful authors is that they never really die, living on in their works. Ars longa, vita brevis, as they say. In my world at least, every day is Roald Dahl Day.

The Dead School (Patrick McCabe)

--The blurb--

"By the author of "The Butcher Boy", a novel shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize. This is the story of Malachy Dudgeon and Raphael Bell, and how the loss of a loved one destroyed their lives."

--The review--

Irish literature, perhaps most famously popularised by Frank McCourt in recent years, often carries a rawness that is not replicated in literature from other countries.  In some ways this is accounted for by its painful history, but the rest of the magical mix is something mysterious and somehow undefinable. This is not to say that Ireland does not produce bad authors, but thankfully for readers, Patrick McCabe is not one of them. He employs a potent combination of poetry and violence in his prose in a way that makes for mindblowing reading, and as a whole, the short chapters and vivid characters contribute to the creation of something compelling and special.

Some reviewers of the novel have found humour in it, but while this is another common characteristic of Irish literature, any humour existing in the novel was lost on me. It is descriptive, harrowing and uplifting in equal measure, confronting reality from multiple vantage points, but humour - even of the black variety - did not seem to feature. 

However, The Dead School is no poorer for this. Malachy and Raphael's respective descents into madness were realistically portrayed and McCabe is equally good at dream sequences, at delineating the frustrations of being a teacher, and at documenting the consequences triggered by various Irish troubles. The author's chosen themes run through the book consistently, not only linking the personages and relationships in the book but also providing a unified framework for the narrative, hooking the reader in a variety of ways. The fabulous relationship between Malachy and Marion is particularly engrossing, filled with laughter and making the reader believe that this is how all relationships should be, and allowing us to hope that their relationship will not meet a sad and violent politically-motivated demise à la Jonathan Coe's Malcolm and Lois, despite the author's various hints to the contrary (McCabe's foreshadowing and hints, incidentally, form another of the long list of his strengths). 

It is therefore surprising that having been a regular face on the scene of contemporary Irish literature since the mid-1980s, McCabe is not better known - and, furthermore, that he has not been shortlisted for any major literary prizes since the 1990s. Those who do not know his work are missing out on The Dead School for its memorable imagery and characters, as well as its major themes of love, loss, change and transience. Life lessons are provided without preaching, and in addition to this, McCabe supplies the wow-factor almost effortlessly. It is to be hoped that perhaps in years to come, the author will continue to turn out books of high calibre - whether or not they catapult him into the spotlight.

Other works by Patrick McCabe

The Adventures of Shay Mouse (1985)

Music on Clinton Street (1986)

Carn (1989)

The Butcher Boy (1992)

Breakfast on Pluto (1998)

Mondo Desperado (1999)

Emerald Germs of Ireland (2001)

Call Me The Breeze (2003)

Winterwood (2006)

The Holy City (2009)

Bookish Bits & Bobs: Reading Is For Everyone! (2)

The title of this month's column may seem a tad familiar. In my last instalment on this topic, I was lamenting the existence of secondhand booksellers who seem intent on raping your wallet for many times more than a book is worth, even if it is a bit on the hard-to-find side.

In this instalment, I move on to consider the notion of paying for library membership. This is something that I never had to do whilst in Britain but do have to do now that I am in France.

This strikes me as being somehow intrinsically wrong; in Britain, paying for library membership was never something that presented itself to me. Thanks to free library membership, I was able to enjoy many thousands of hours of good quality time reading books that my parents would have never had the space to stash if we'd had to buy them all. I suspect that library membership is even more valuable to those coming from low-income backgrounds: we always had plenty of books at home, but for bookworms who can't actually afford books, a free library card is quite literally a lifeline.

The fee we pay in France for use of our local library is pretty nominal; while I'm guessing it varies from place to place, we pay under €40 a year for the two of us to use the library. It's not that we can't afford it, and it's better than paying for something you won't even use, but it's the principle of it that I object to. For many households, even this is a barrier (although I suspect not in the area where we live), and as I've said before, reading should be for everyone - no matter what.

But, nevertheless, I can see both sides of the story (no pun intended).
So why should we pay to use our libraries?
It's ultimately a business, not a charity. Even libraries that are entirely state-funded still make money from fines that are charged on late books and from flogging old stock to buy new things. You pay someone to stack the shelves for you; you pay someone to put the books in order so that you can find them easily; you pay someone to run a book group or an event at the library; you pay for maintenance of the building and grounds; you pay for the books and other media to be supplied to the library; the list goes on. You receive a service like any other and you ought to pay for it. If library services become free, then an argument is created for other beneficial services, such as museums and swimming pools, to also become free for all. This is perhaps ultimately economically unsustainable.

But now to the reason why I came here in the first place: why should our library service be free?
Local governments (and, indeed, national governments) need to invest in literacy unless they want to have a completely useless future generation. Furthermore, this needs to be a multi-pronged attack: just investing in schools is not always enough, and some schools will always be better than others anyway. As I already mentioned, some families will not be able to afford to further their children's education at home (whether said parents should have had said children to begin with is perhaps another debate, and not one for this blog), and it seems petty and silly but simultaneously monumentally disastrous to exclude people from a library (of all places!) on the grounds that they cannot afford to go. This only sets a downward spiral - library-going, just like going to a swimming pool (to use my earlier example) has to become habitual from an early age, or it is a million times harder to get into a routine with later on in life. And just as participating in sport from a young age sets you up for a physically healthy lifetime, getting into the habit of reading books sets you up for an intellectually healthy lifetime. It seems a shame that such things should be put paid to immediately solely due to a lack of funds.

As with most things, I expect, a middle ground has to be reached. Let those who can afford it pay for it by all means, but some concessions should perhaps be made for those who can't. In my view at least, basic literacy is a basic human right, and one that should not be denied just by the bad luck of one's background.

update August 2010

# of books read in August: 5
Cumulative total: 37

1. The Blessing (Nancy Mitford)
2. The Plato Papers (Peter Ackroyd)
3. The Hours (Michael Cunningham)
4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows)
5. Love in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford)
6. En passant (Raymond Queneau)
7. The Story of God (Robert Winston)
8. Ye Gods! Travels in Greece (Jill Dudley)
9. The Man in the High Castle (Philip K Dick)
10. La Chine Classique (Ivan P Kamenarovic)
11. White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
12. The House in Norham Gardens (Penelope Lively)
13. Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)
14. Sarah's Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)
15. Rebuilding Coventry (Sue Townsend)
16. On Chesil Beach (Ian McEwan)
17. The Undomestic Goddess (Sophie Kinsella)
18. French Kissing (Catherine Sanderson)
19. Icons of England (various authors; edited by Bill Bryson)
20. Shirley (Charlotte Brontë)
21. Women's Hour Short Stories
22. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
23. Juliet, Naked (Nick Hornby)
24. Reviving Ophelia (Mary Pipher)
25. Nightingale Wood (Stella Gibbons)
26. The Orange Girl (Jostein Gaarder)
27. Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)
28. Gemma and Sisters (Noel Streatfeild)
29. See Under: Love (David Grossman)
30. Swann's Way (Marcel Proust)
31. Le roi des fougères (Jean Anglade)
32. The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio)
33. The Glass Room (Simon Mawer)
34. Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)
35. Missykad, or Britannic Raj Through The Turnstiles (Malcolm Henry James)
36. Where We Going, Daddy?: Life With Two Sons Unlike Any Other (Jean-Louis Fournier)
37. First Grey, Then White, Then Blue (Margriet de Moor)


All reviews now available on this blog for your viewing pleasure; I seem to be better at keeping up with them this year :)

First Grey, Then White, Then Blue (Margriet de Moor)

--The blurb--
"Magda in life - no less than Magda in death - was an enigma. A free spirit, alluring but private, loving yet remote, she effected the lives of those around her in ways beyond measure. For her husband Robert, who wanted to possess her, body and soul, what Magda gave him was never enough. He murdered her, leaving her lover to discover her body. As friends gather for her funeral, the mystery of Magda's life is slowly, tantalizingly, revealed. Who really knew Magda, and what truths has her death revealed?"

--The review--
Dutch writer Margriet de Moor published her first novel in the 1990s, but despite having published three more books since, all of which have been translated into English, is pretty quiet on the British literary scene. It is eminently puzzling, in some ways, as to why this should be the case. Of course this may be out of choice on the part of the author, but it may also be attributable to the work itself.

The latter reason seems to be countered in the negative: de Moor is able to write gruesomely and poetically in equal measure, which makes for a positively unique effect. Sustaining imagery and trains of thought with success, de Moor combines simplicity in terms of the number of characters with complexity as she jumps across time, making the tale of Magda deliberately non-chronological. In addition to spotlighting arbitrary aspects of the lives and relationships of Magda, Robert, Erik, and Nellie, this murder mystery is unlike others in being solved right at the beginning, with the rest of the book theoretically being devoted to unravelling it.

I say 'theoretically' because by the end of the book we are not much closer to understanding Magda. We have already heard from Robert and Erik about their contact with her and their roles in her life, so by the time Magda starts to speak our interest is piqued - her side of the story is already highly desirable and it is possible that the motivation behind her murder may finally be revealed. But while readers are given a lot more detail about her two-year absence prior to the murder, and while this is all very interesting and beautifully described, it does not give any concrete answers regarding the novel's principal premise.

The most intriguing segment is possibly the final one, when Nellie is preparing to go to Magda's funeral with her son Gaby. Even though it is no more illuminating in explaining the causes and background of the crime, it still gives a feeling of tying up the novel satisfyingly, especially since Gaby is finally given a voice here too. But the feeling of a lack of answers is still frustrating, and although this may be partly solved in a reader's mind by further readings of the book, this yawning chasm between mystery and truth, even if part of the book's beauty, may also explain why Margriet de Moor's works are still relatively unknown in the English-speaking world: the work can be as beautiful and poetic and gruesome as it likes, but if it is still too enigmatic for the general population, it may just not make it to the other side.

Other works by Margriet de Moor
Back Views (1988; short stories)
The Virtuoso (1996)
The Duke of Egypt (2001)
The Drowned (2005)

Where We Going, Daddy?: Life With Two Sons Unlike Any Other (Jean-Louis Fournier)

--The blurb--
"Jean-Louis Fournier did not expect to have a disabled child. He certainly did not expect to have two. But that is precisely what happened to this wry French humorist, and his attempts to live and cope with his Mathieu and Thomas, both facing extremely debilitating physical and mental challenges, is the subject of this brave and heartbreaking book. Fournier recalls the life he imagined having with his sons—but his boys will never really grow up, and he mourns the loss of every memory he thought he’d have.
   Though a devoted father, he does not shy away from exploring the limits of his love, the countless times he is filled with frustration and disappointment with no relief in sight. Mathieu and Thomas can barely communicate, and each in turn repeats learned phrases, such as “Where we going, Daddy?” (a favorite in the car) in what feels to Fournier to be an eternal loop."

--The review--
Having read Fournier's wry and sardonic God's CV, I had a little soupçon of what I thought I could expect from Where We Going, Daddy? However, even when reading it in French (under which it is published as Où on va, papa?), which is not my native language, I was hit with the full force of the emotion and surprise that Fournier packs into this short work, a fiction/non-fiction hybrid, with which to move his readers. And deeply moving it indeed is: perhaps too sentimental for some, Fournier explores all aspects of life as a parent of disabled children, from what happens when they are old enough to vote to how you feel when you think the au pair has done what you sometimes feel like doing and thrown them out of the window.

This little overview of the situations covered shows what Fournier is like as a writer; as well as having the potential to move you, he also has the potential to appall and shock you, dispensing black humour at the most unexpected turns in the road. He reveals unflinchingly his perceived failings as a parent and as a human being, and does not make a secret of his use of jokes to help keep him sane and in some small way to make fun of himself. But in spite of the sense of gallows humour exhibited here, Where We Going, Daddy? is ultimately a tale of the heart-rending variety. It is not in the least cheery and does not seek to be cheesy or inspirational, American-style. It is perhaps self-pitying in places, but as someone without disabled children, you think to yourself: but wouldn't you be, too? Those who manage to rise above such a situation and be relentlessly positive in the face of it are likely few and far between; I would imagine that a greater majority of parents of disabled children feel what Fournier expresses here. It is an assumption, to be sure; but this novella almost certainly delivers a much-dodged insight into the lives of these parents, and thus makes a valuable contribution to the world in enabling greater understanding. Immediately you are inside Fournier's mind and life.

While delivering risky literature in his tone, topic and approach, Fournier also delivers readable literature: there are no chapters as such, but the segments and anecdotes are short, allowing full reflection on each before moving on. While short, it is a book you can take your time over as the subject matter weighs heavily on your mind and heart, thus changing you.

The one question left for me as a reader was the marginalised topic of Fournier's other child, his 'normal' daughter Marie. We are given little or no indication as to how this affected her, or indeed Fournier's wife and the mother of the three children. The book is undeniably self-centred in this regard, but equally this is the source of its impact.

Laden with linguistic devices such as metaphor and repetition, this book is not difficult to read, but rather is strangely compelling as it lays out its images in easily understandable ways. While the narrative is not finished, this is an appropriate way to stop: life, too, for all of us, albeit in very different ways to Fournier, is also often messy, unfinished, and unexplained in its alleged dispensations of justice. It is parents of the disabled who perhaps feel this most keenly. Important to remember too, though, is that this is Fournier's experience - he is not trying to generalise the experience of all parents with disabled children, but if he manages to resonate with a few, he will have done well. And equally, if Fournier's book incites even one person to change their attitude towards disabled people, he has done his job and left his mark on the world. With this being his first and so far only work to have been translated into English, it is hoped that more will follow and that his literary and social influence will continue to spread far and wide.

Other works by Jean-Louis Fournier
Poet and peasant/Poète et paysan (2010)
Blasted God!/Satané Dieu! (2005)
Little Meaulnes/Le Petit Meaulnes (2003)
I'm Not Going To Hell/J'irai pas en enfer (2001)
The Dark Girl/La Noiraude (1999)
My Dad Never Killed Anyone/Il a jamais tué personne mon papa (1999)
I'll teach you to be polite, little idiot/Je vais t'apprendre la politesse, p'tit con (1998)
God's CV/Le CV de Dieu (1995)

50 book challenge 2007 - posts published

They can be found here.
This goes back to my very first 50 book challenge, which I undertook due to finding a group about it on Livejournal and thinking it sounded cool. I've finally imported all the posts from it over here, collating them into one giant uber-post.
Despite having done it in 2007, and completed it for 2009, and in the process of completing it for 2010, I did not undertake it in 2008. I actually sort of regret this; for a book lover, I think recording all your thoughts on the books you've read is one of the most rewarding things you can do.

Missykad, or Britannic Raj Through The Turnstiles (Malcolm Henry James)

available for purchase here.
Cost: 200 Indian rupees, which is about £3. The website above which sells it claims to offer free shipping worldwide, but someone would actually have to test this to see how that panned out.
ISBN: 8188330167

--The blurb--
"Missykad tells the story of Jack David Brewster, who was born out of wedlock to a British planter and a woman labourer of his estate, Missykad in Wayanad, bordering the Nilgiris. His curious love for a woman, Cleopatra, whom he chances to meet in a brothel in Bombay, forms the core of the story."

--The review--
Mr James' first and only self-published novel, issued when the now no longer living author was 71 years old in 2004, promises to "[explore] the conflicting values and the transitional mindset of losers and winners in the struggle for Independence and, analogously, the terminal struggle of life." Interspersed with sonnets by Mr James and taking on narrative as well as history, this is a lofty aspiration. Regrettably, it is not successful in achieving its aims, and perhaps reflects why the novel is self-published and not easy to purchase in the six years since its publication.

It would have benefited, first and foremost, from some good honest editing; the punctuation and grammar needs work in several places (although these errors do not damage the work to the point of making it illegible) and the sonnets, probably the best part of the work for their beauty and grace, would have been better situated at the beginnings of the chapters in which they appear, rather than being integrated into the prose in a manner that appears almost completely random. Repetition of information is also a common problem in some areas.

Secondly, Mr James is not especially even-handed in his approach, with there being too much detail in some places, not enough in others, and irrelevant information included elsewhere. This makes the reader's attention liable to wander. Although a positive impression is made at the start by Mr James' authentic and classically-styled prose, and by the setting and background of Missykad itself, the novella has very little to do with the coffee plantation after the first few chapters, which indicates perhaps a missed opportunity for the author in terms of plumbing a fantastic area of normally maligned history rather than focusing more traditionally on Gandhi and the runup to Independence.

Potentially fascinating characters are also left to fall by the wayside, with nobody really built up enough for readers to care about them. The lasting impression comes instead from the couple who originally owned Missykad and their daughter, after whom the plantation is named, but after the first chapter or so we unfortunately do not hear about them again, or much about the coffee plantation's work. The novella is short but dense and after a while James' overladen style starts to grate. This is perhaps compounded by the fact that the work is not really cohesive, with characterisation and description often abandoned in favour of seemingly unconnected anecdotes. This lack of attention means that little or no emotion is felt while reading, and when the book ends, we are filled only with what could have been about Missykad, rather than what was.

This book is only recommended, therefore, if you have a specific interest in Britain's influence in India, along with a lot of patience. As previously mentioned, the highlight of the novella is the sonnets, which, while eloquent and beautiful, also employ a style that is very much of things past, and unlikely to always resonate with today's readers. Fans of Shakespeare and Keats could be persuaded to seek out this highly affordable book for the poetry alone, and it is a shame only that Mr James is no longer alive to be counselled to instead publish a book of poetry, rather than a slipshod piece of fiction.

Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)

--The blurb--
"In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blond classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, Cal has inherited a rare genetic mutation. The biological trace of a guilty secret, this gene has followed her grandparents from the crumbling Ottoman Empire to Detroit and has outlasted the glory days of the Motor City, the race riots of 1967, and the family's second migration, into the foreign country known as suburbia. Thanks to the gene, Cal is part girl, part boy. And even though the gene's epic travels have ended, her own odyssey has only begun."

--The review--
When Homer Simpson decides, in yet another new line of work, to get a fake qualification online that allows him to conduct marriage ceremonies, quite a few people step up to tie the knot under his dubious jurisdiction. One of these couples is composed of Brandine and Cletus, a recurring hick-town couple in the show. Just as Homer is about to pronounce them man and wife, he suddenly stops and says "Hey, are you two brother and sister?!", to which the couple gaily reply, "We's all kinds of things!"

It is this premise of incest, and the disastrous chain of events that it can provoke, that provides the basis of Eugenides' second novel, Middlesex. Even though the novel's approach can seem slightly contrived in places, it is mostly believable, with the author assuming the female voice very successfully. Epic in its scope, the novel is not only detailed in its plot construction and scientific research, but also gives the reader a sweeping panoramic view of twentieth-century American history. This ambition could easily leave the reader lost, but Eugenides not only traverses the different generations and time periods with ease but does well, too, in making the novel accessible as well as unusual. Writing the novel chiefly from Callie's point of view, Eugenides occasionally slips into a more omniscient tone than might be considered appropriate, and yet in conjunction with the resolution of the novel, it does end up seeming appropriate after all.

In spite of the novel's length, and the author's sophisticated use of vocabulary, it has all the momentum of a runaway freight train, compelling the reader to read on. The characters are highly human and the spanning across three generations is something that I believe to have been influenced by Zadie Smith's White Teeth. It is possible, too, that Charlie Anders drew a little inspiration in Choir Boy from the relationships that Eugenides depicts. However, one aspect of the characterisation that will be lost on the vast majority of readers is the naming of protagonist Callie's brother only as Chapter Eleven, which is an obscure political reference that I had to look up in order for it to be explained. Even if it does hold some minor element of foreshadowing, this ultimately does not enhance the story in any way, and hinders rather than helps the reader.

Colm Toibin's introduction to the novel also does not help the reader in any meaningful way: to my mind, introductions to novels should help to explain to the reader or shed further light on issues arising in the novel. Toibin's introduction, however, is more of a book review in itself, and while admittedly it is a good one, his opinion is the sole focus, and this for me has no place in an introduction (or at least very little). In any case, Eugenides' work speaks for itself, with him handling the transition between scenes with dexterity and ease. Particularly interesting is the non-chronological order in which the story is told, which leads to increasing curiosity on the reader's part not only about how Callie has got to the present day but also about Callie's burgeoning relationship with Julie. The last we see of Callie and Julie is when Callie is just about to tell Julie about her past, and even though we don't get to see Julie's reaction, this feels right: we feel as if we ought to creep away quietly and let them get on with it in private.

The novel is neither wholly a sentimental family saga nor wholly an academic treatise on gender versus sex; its blend of various genres and topics makes it more significant than this, particularly as attitudes to sexuality and gender become more open and understood, especially in relation to the recent case of Caster Semenya. In trying to alert people to and inform people about the subject of hermaphrodism and intersexuality, Eugenides certainly succeeds. As previously mentioned, it also serves as a microcosm of American history over the past century, and also incorporates James Bond-style elements, such as car chases and dodgy deals. The reader is left beyond satisfied in virtually all respects, this highly influential work deserving a place on every modern bookshelf.

The Glass Room (Simon Mawer)

--The blurb--
"High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a wonder of steel and glass and onyx built specially for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile. But the radiant honesty of 1930 that the house, with its unique Glass Room, seems to engender quickly tarnishes as the storm clouds of WW2 gather, and eventually the family must flee, accompanied by Viktor's lover and her child. But the house's story is far from over, and as it passes from hand to hand, from Czech to Russian, both the best and the worst of the history of Eastern Europe becomes somehow embodied and perhaps emboldened within the beautiful and austere surfaces and planes so carefully designed, until events become full-circle."

--The review--
Simon Mawer's The Glass Room perhaps did not capture the attention of Booker Prize judges as the ultimate winner of the prize last year, despite making the shortlist, due to its focus on World War Two - a subject on which the cup truly runneth over in British history books and fiction books alike. However, its mass popular appeal is surely instant as a result; not only is the story framed in a context that is very familiar to the majority of the great British public, but it also centres on an elegant, sad, and yet strangely cold love story.

From the very beginning of the novel, we do not have the impression that the relationship between Viktor and Liesel is a happy one. Viktor is a Landauer, of the family who makes cars of the same name, so a marriage to him is surely a good marriage in terms of social status, and it illustrates starkly how a return to traditional values, as so often demanded by the UK's right-wing press and politicians in particular, may not be all it's cracked up to be. Viktor's infidelity in the end also means that we do not much care what happens to him; readers are not as saddened or affected by his demise as they should or could be. This is, however, likely a deliberate device by Mawer to draw Liesel as the heroine.

Another strong character is Hana, but the sexual undercurrent in the relationship between her and Liesel is not entirely realistic, although their strong friendship is. Happily, this weakness is easily ignored as Mawer draws us in to the ever-tightening complexity of the family's relationships, which eventually expand to include Viktor's lover and her child from a previous relationship. The impending doom of wartime Europe creeps up on readers slowly and authentically and provides an effective and dark backdrop, making this more than just a love story.

The setting of the glass room itself is undoubtedly stunning, and while Mawer says in a short foreword that the location on which it is based will be obvious to anyone who has ever visited it, other readers who are unfamiliar with it may well be able to call to mind other similar locations that also fit the bill. For me, it was the house of art dealer Louis Carré, which is located in the French village of Bazoches-sur-Guyonne and was built by Finnish architect Aalvar Alto. The image of the glass room in the novel is compelling and symbolic in itself, quite aside from the positive momentum of the rest of the story. A weaker version of this is the line of music that Mawer repeatedly incorporates, which is delightfully Proustian but does not quite imitate the success of its literary progenitor.

Utterly absorbing, the novel is a superb introduction to Mawer's work, and to my mind is proof that even if the Booker jury do not get it right all the time, they are still achieving their aim of bringing perhaps undiscovered great modern literature to a wider audience, and honouring it.

Other works by Simon Mawer
Chimera (1989)
A Place in Italy (1992)
The Bitter Cross (1992)
A Jealous God (1996)
Mendel's Dwarf (1997)
The Gospel of Judas (2000)
The Fall (2003)
Swimming to Ithaca (2006)