March 7th, 2011
#21 – The Lemon Table
My bookish love affair with Julian Barnes continues, and I thoroughly enjoyed his short story collection, The Lemon Table. It’s funny, a lot of the criticisms that I leveled against Sarah Selecky’s work — mainly its use of the second person, a story in epistolary format, and general the “twee-ness” of much of the stories — can be set against this collection as well. Barnes uses the second person, which normally makes me crazy; he has a story that’s all letters from a kooky old lady to himself, wherein the self-referential nature of it all would usually enrage me; and the last piece could be described as microfiction with no “real” plot per se but a selection of descriptions that come together to tell the tale of an egotistical composer. All of the above normally have me throwing the book against the wall and giving up in exasperation. But gracious, these stories are excellent.
The last story, “The Silence” tells me that lemons are a symbol of death in Chinese culture — I’m not sure how reliable the narrator is in this last piece, so I am not going to take that verbatim. But it does give the reader and understanding of the general theme that pervades the entire collection. Musings on the ends of lives, on divorce, on death, on widows and the children left behind, on relationships that could have been but never were — and I imagined ‘table’ more of tableau — of that terrible acting exercise where your teacher yells “hold” and everyone freezes in whatever position they landed upon.
It’s a terrific collection, cohesive even though none of the stories are linked; rich in language and metaphor; paced brilliantly and truly honest in its interpretation of the human condition. In a way, these stories reminded me of Alice Munro, only there’s a little bit more sex and bad language, especially in “Appetite,” which like her story, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” deals with the tragic and debilitating affects of Alzheimer’s. Both Barnes and Munro have a distinct talent when it comes to creating characters and situations that highlight the slightly awkward and sometimes terrible aspects of human nature. In this, the stories feel real, they feel relevant, and they feel complete, but not overwritten.
On the whole, I can’t get over the immense breadth of Barnes’s talent for creating characters that cross decades, even centuries, are so wholly different in voice, and are so utterly believable (even when he writes from a woman’s perspective). In the epistolary story, entitled, “Knowing French,” a spunky pensioner sends the author Julian Barnes a number of letters, each progressively more familiar, with little gems of humour and slices of life: “What I was trying to say about Daphne [a fellow "inmate" at her home] is that she was always someone who looked forward, almost never back. This probably seems not much of a feat to you, but I promise it gets harder.”
Indeed!
And then, in an amazing story about misguided and unrequited love, “The Story of Mats Israelson,” he writes, “Barbro Lindwall was not convinced of her feelings for Anders Boden until she recognized that she would now spend the rest of her life with her husband.”
Exactly!
And then my last favourite line from the book, it’s from the last story, the microfiction-like one about the egocentric, aging, and silent-for-years composer: “Geese would be beautiful if cranes didn’t exist.”
You see!
I can’t stop. I earmarked a half-dozen, maybe more, pages, and kept putting the book down on my chest just to savour particular passages. In “The Things You Know,” two elderly widows sit down for a terribly polite breakfast once a month and what comes out of their mouths is completely different from the thoughts in their heads: the resentment towards one another only palpable as a fork stabs an egg or a waiter brings hot water instead of a purely fresh pot of tea — it was actually one of my favourites among an already rich collection.
Overall, now I think I want to read every single book Julian Barnes has ever written. It’ll be a challenge to find books this good on my shelves as I continue through them. Thankfully, I’ve got a few books from publishers to get through before I get back to my challenge. I need a bit of a break from the pressure of the 300-odd titles staring at me day after day from my desk chair.
February 27th, 2011
#17 – Arthur & George
Oh, Julian Barnes, how I adored Arthur & George. From its opening pages right up until the end, it’s a complex mix of the fictional and the historical, a comment on colonialism/literature, and a rollicking good adventure. The novel even encouraged me to download The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes to my iPad (it’s on the 1001 Books list anyway). I’m not quite sure how to alphabetize my ebooks into my reading yet so it might remain unread for some time, but I digress.
Told from either man’s changing perspectives, with a few odd other characters thrown in, the novel brings to life to exceptionally interesting characters: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, among others and George Edalji, a half-Scottish, half Parsee solicitor wrongly accused of a number of heinous crimes.
Doyle’s a larger than life character — both in the book and in his own mind, to a degree. He’s the prototype for the colonial British man: athletic, sharp, intelligent, opinionated, moral, and just (to his own sense of duty and accomplishment, if that makes any sense — we might question his upstanding “Britishness” under a post-colonial analysis and discover his beliefs lacking a broader, more realized context) and his confidence spills over every page. He marries a lovely woman because he should; and then promptly falls in love with someone else (but never acts upon his feelings in anyway that could be considered ungentlemanly). He strives to clear George Edalji’s name because it’s the right thing to do but doesn’t believe in the suffrage of women. And it’s these contradictions that make him such a fascinating character caught within Barnes’s rollicking story.
George Edalji, a firm believer in truth with a capital “T” finds himself in quite a pickle when the local constabulary arrests him for mutilating animals and sending horrible, harmful prank letters to his own family. George, a solicitor by trade, firmly believes in the good, just righteousness of the legal system. It will save him. What he doesn’t count on is the racism that feeds the decision to imprison him. Even when further animals end up mutilated, there’s a “viable” explanation as per why George is still guilty of the crimes.When Sir Arthur reads about his case in an obscure newspaper, he sets his mind upon clearing George’s name and helping him seek restitution for both his wrongful conviction and his imprisonment.
Even though their lives and personalities couldn’t be more different, when they finally meet, their actions — Doyle’s “investigation” and subsequent attacks in the press and George Edalji’s further insistence of his innocence — challenged and then changed the existing legal system. But it is the personal lives of both men that keep the narrative from feeling dry and/or crisp. Barnes remains rich in his description of their lives, their wants, their needs, their loves (or lack thereof in the case of Edalji). He’s also careful to keep a narrative distance. While we feel and know the racism behind George’s conviction — the staunch way that George himself refuses to believe it had any part in his troubles, how George firmly believes (and was brought up to be) himself to be an Englishman first, remains a fascinating part of his character. Goodness, I enjoyed this novel — its pacing, the characters, the setting, the “investigation,” — all of it. It was a bright and welcome change — to race through a book that you felt was somewhat flawless in terms of its prose and presentation.
I’ve never read any other Julian Barnes. I’m glad there is at least one other on my shelf that will be tackled the next time I reach the British section. It shouldn’t take me too long. I can’t believe that after finishing In the Time of Butterflies, I’ll be back reading Austen again — the last on my shelves.
February 9th, 2011
#14 – Emma
When I was younger, much younger, the first time I went to university, I sort of decided that “old” books weren’t worth studying. I did my whole English degree trying to avoid anything remotely written before the 21st century. It wasn’t easy. I think I had to do a Romantics and a Victorian class, along with Shakespeare, but I filled every elective with Post-Colonial, American, Modern British, anything to avoid what I perceived to be “boring” books.
No one ever said I was particularly smart in my youth.
But what it means is that I haven’t read all of Jane Austen. I’ve barely scratched the surface of some of the best work in the English language, actually. And it’s a good time of my life, two degrees later, working in publishing, to be reading these books for the 1001 Books list. So, in my quest for alphabetical order in my off the shelf reading, Emma came up first.
We all know the story: Emma Woodhouse makes all kinds of matchmaking mistakes, often puts her foot in her mouth, gets jealous, and sometimes becomes a person she doesn’t like very much. Emma takes the young, impressionable, yet pretty, Harriet under her wing (a girl with lesser prospects and an unknown lineage) and finding her a suitable husband (first Mr. Elton, then Mr. Churchill, then, disaster when Harriet falls for Mr. Knightley and Emma is not particularly pleased with this turn of events) becomes her goal. Throw in a little petty jealousy when the talented and accomplished Miss Jane Fairfax arrives on the scene and there’s plenty of picnics and parties to entertain the romantic in everyone. Of course, there’s a happy ending, and much emotional development upon Emma’s part. In a way, it’s a little bit of a coming of age novel — as we watch Emma develop from girl to woman.
Any critical analysis of the novel on my part would be ridiculous, I’m sure there’s nothing I can add to the conversation. We live in a society that’s already Austen-obsessed: There are mugs (of which I own four), multiple movies, numerous (far inferior) books, and a whole host of ivory tower work surrounding her life and her novels. But I will say this, from a format perspective, in terms of pacing, humour, theme, and depth of character, Austen certainly defined the novel for, well, just about every novelist to come after her writing in this genre. The more I read, the more I am astounded at the depth of her structure, how it perfectly suits the characters, and reaches a conclusion, while completely predictable only because I’ve seen Clueless about a half-dozen times, that made me smile.
I read in the introduction that Jane Austen, while writing Emma, that she was creating a character that people wouldn’t like very much — and I heartily disagree. I loved Emma, couldn’t stand Mrs. Elton (as I am sure I was supposed to), and thought that Jane Fairfax should just come clean already — she’d feel so much better. See, how you just get caught up in them like they’re real people? Sigh. So, I’ve got two more Austens on my shelf, so by the time I get back to the 1001 Books section, I’ll have two more delightful reads before I get into the real down and dirty stuff that I’ve been avoiding reading for years (like Murakami — I honestly have zero desire to read Murakami, but it’s on my shelves and I will at least attempt it. But, luckily, it’s in the “M’s” so it’ll take me months to get there. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the first letter of the alphabet on any shelf).
WHAT’S UP NEXT: I’m reading the new Per Petterson, I know, it’s out of order, but I’ve got to read the books sent to me from the publishers — they do get priority. Then I’ll be back on my Canadian “A’s”, which I think is a novel by Jason Anderson from ECW.
January 31st, 2011
#11 – The Very Thought Of You
When I got the British/Irish/Scottish section of my shelves, the book that came up first was Rosie Alison’s The Very Thought of You. At the time, I couldn’t remember a) why I had this book in the first place or b) where it came from. Most of the books on my shelves are from various jobs I’ve had, things I’ve traded with friends at other publishers, blogger review copies, you get the idea. But this novel was a rarity, something I actually bought. I think I was trying to read all of the Orange Prize novels for some challenge I had invented for myself, or something.
Annnywaay, I was ultimately disappointed in this book, and found myself, more often than not, rolling my eyes at her prose and complaining, loudly, to my husband about how melodramatic and often nonsensical the book was as I was reading it yesterday while we were playing Scrabble on the iPad as the RRBB slept (you get a pattern here… a LOT of reading goes on while the RRBB sleeps these last few days). The story of a young girl evacuated from London at the start of the Second World War, The Very Thought of You simply tries too hard to capture the essence of the time and place. The novel opens promisingly — echoes of The Remains of the Day float through the book as it describes the fall of the house of Ashton, whose last remaining heir, Thomas, had just died leaving the house to the National Trust and its inevitable treasures up for auction.
Thomas, and his wife Elizabeth, opened their home to 80-odd boys and girls during the war. With his body destroyed by polio, and the remaining members of his family dead, Thomas and his wife, Elizabeth, who is, natch, beautiful but damaged, find solace in children roaming the halls and playing outside while the war rages around them. Anna Sands, a quiet, contemplative child, misses her mother desperately but finds her way at Ashton Park. The girl gets drawn into the complex adult relationships between the Ashtons and the various other people embroiled in their unhappiness.
There are way, way too many characters in this book, and much of the narrative consists of awkward, cliched prose that melodramatically describes not only the failing relationship between the main characters, but also the multiple extra-marital affairs that seem to happen all over the place. No one is happily married in Alison’s novel, and it gets a bit tiresome after a while. The story could have been simpler, the prose more direct, and then I could actually understand its inclusion on the Orange Prize longlist last year.
The author does an exceptional job of getting into the mind of Anna as a child, but then falls down by dragging the reader through the rest of her life in a Titanic-like moment that feels very put upon as an ending. There’s no doubt that Alison has talent, but the novel suffers from a lack of true perspective, it tries too hard, which ends up meaning a lot of it just isn’t believable. There’s a point where too much tragedy between the pages simply becomes too much tragedy. I felt something similar when watching The Company Men last week at Stars and Strollers. Sometimes, the reader just needs a break from all awful things humans can do to one another, they need to actually love their partners, and someone, somewhere needs to find a bit of happiness, even if it’s only for a moment. I’m not saying that Alison’s characters don’t — I’m just saying that it’s all a bit overdone.
London during the war is a fascinating subject for me. One of my favourites to read about, and the idea of the novel works, as does its basic plot — but there were two secondary characters, Norton, a diplomat with whom Thomas Ashton worked, and his wife Peter, whose lives would have made for a far more interesting novel than the sappy “love gone wrong” and then “love lost forever” storyline occupied by the Ashtons, the two main adult characters. It’s a shame when one gets to the end of a book and all one has to say for it is, “well, I’m glad that’s done.” And considering the other Orange Prize nominees, including Barbara Kingsolver’s exceptional The Lacuna, I’m surprised that the panel included this book at all. However, despite Alison’s first novel jitters (overwritten sentences, the tendency to say something, then repeat it just in case the reader didn’t get it the first time, introducing bucketloads of characters that never appear again, the need to tell the WHOLE story), I’m curious to see how she matures as a writer. I’m sure her next novel will straighten out some of the above and what great exposure for an up-and-coming writer regardless of how I ended up feeling about the book.
January 27th, 2011
#9 – Weight
So, before I hit upon my latest reading strategy, I was at a loss for what to read next. I was in the bedroom with the baby and said to my RRHB, “just get me a book, any book.” He picked Jeanette Winterson’s Weight. As part of The Myths series, I’m not sure how to categorize this book — part fiction, part philosophy and part mythology, Weight re-tells the story of Heracles, a scoundrel of a god, and Atlas, the man charged with holding up the world.
Again, this was a short book, so it took me merely an evening to read (including breastfeeding bouts throughout the night). Overall, I enjoyed Winterson’s re-telling, and while I have read very little mythology in my lifetime and have only the cursory understanding of these stories in the first place, I liked the moral underpinning she employs here — that we all have our own burdens, and like Atlas, we can choose or not choose to hold them up or simply let them go. Winterson relates everything back to her own life throughout the telling, and there are chapters where she explains her history, and how and why she came to write as she does. The personal element adds a little something to the tale and there are whimsical elements (like Atlas finally getting some company in the form of a pet; I won’t spoil it, it is very cute) that I also enjoyed.
After reading The City Man, it’s interesting that I got through another book so quickly — and pleased to have read something slightly different than pure fiction. I have one more book from the series on my shelves, Karen Armstrong’s, and will probably get to that shortly as well. For now, I’m moving on to American fiction and have started Russel Banks’ The Reserve. Lots to get through!
December 19th, 2010
#61 – Affinity
In a lot of ways, I am neither here nor there with Sarah Waters. By that I mean, I either really love her books, like Fingersmith and The Night Watch or I really, really don’t like them at all like Tipping the Velvet and the incredibly boring (by my estimation only) The Little Stranger, which honestly put me to sleep more than scared the bejeezus out of me, as was probably intended. So, I’ve had Affinity languishing on my shelves for years. And, at first, I thought it was going to go the way of The Little Stranger, but I actually ended up quite enjoying the novel.
Set in the 1870s in London at the height of the spiritualist craze, the novel’s protagonist, Margaret, falls head over heals for an inmate at Millbank prison. Selina’s an infamous spiritualist who finds herself in hot water after her patron dies unexpectedly following a fairly intense visit from “beyond.” Being the cynic that I am, of course, you know that Margaret’s being swindled, but it’s a long con, and a devastating one when you look at the novel in terms of options for women, single women, of her class, stature and sexual orientation. So, the harder Margaret falls for Selina, and her impressive parlour tricks, the more you, the reader, realize that it’s all going to turn out very, very poorly for the trusting, intelligent, yet wholly gullible girl.
Devastated by the loss of her beloved father, Margaret’s an easy target. Set adrift by lack of options, she will neither marry but nor does she want to spend the rest of her life caring for her demanding, controlling and often obnoxious mother. She sees her mother growing older and more demanding, can’t bear a life of calling cards and visits, and longs to visit Italy. But the upper middle classes aren’t the place for women to go travelling alone, and without a sustainable relationship, Margaret’s trapped in her drafty house with only her diary, and her visits to Millbank prison, to keep her sane.
The novel speeds along and the format suits the subject matter impressively. Interspersed with Margaret’s own journal/diary entries, you get more and more backstory from Selina. Are her psychic powers authentic? Can she truly call upon the spirits to come? Or is it all just a ruse? Waters is careful to parcel out the truth and the tricks throughout the narrative in a way that intends to keep one guessing but it’s fairly obvious early on what’s going to happen. Knowing that Margaret’s being duped didn’t lessen the impact of the novel but increases the emotional quotient — you are that much more involved when it gets to the end.
All in all, I am glad I stuck with Affinity through the wee hours. I almost abandoned it halfway through and picked up AS Byatt’s latest book, which I am starting this evening. And, it cleared yet another book off my shelves!
December 13th, 2010
#59 – Birdman
Mo Hayder remains one of my favourite crime writers. I had the good fortune to interview her a couple of years ago when she was in Toronto promoting the Walking Man series, still Jack Caffrey mysteries, but with the introduction of Flea Marley, the police diver, who becomes the other central character in the books. She’s self-educated, incredibly smart, and it was one of the best interviews I had ever done (and she was very gracious when she signed my book).
Annnywaaay, I’ve had Birdman, the first Jack Caffrey mystery, on my shelf for about four years. Every time I look through my books to see what I should pick up next, I think, I should really read that Mo Hayder novel. I guess, with everything, and with my own superstitious nature about reading (books are ready for you at the right time in your life and never before… that’s why you can’t finish them if you start and put them down again
I don’t know what it is about motherhood that inspires me to want to watch and read about murder and mayhem. I’ve been only keeping up with shows like Law and Order UK, Detroit 1-8-7, and watching the boxed set of Prime Suspect. My friend Duncan suggested it’s because crime novels are easy to pick up and put down. You feel like you’ve accomplished a little something when you get to the end of a police drama: there’s a mystery, it gets solved, people are punished. It’s all my overloaded, exhausted brain can handle. Well, he’s got a point. And maybe the escapism I used to get from watching movies, I’m finding in a good, solid, mystery/thriller here and there.
So, Birdman. It’s a fairly typical crime novel, of course, because it’s Mo Hayder, it’s extremely well written and utterly readable. It charges along at a fast clip and before you know it, Jack’s done it again: ruined another relationship, pissed off a whole bunch of people, and solved a heinous crime (in this case a lot of dead prostitutes/strippers/addicts) involving a serial killer (or killers). In a way, this novel is more structured than Hayder’s later books. I’m not sure if this is part of a series with anything more linking it than Caffrey as the main character because it’s all tied up very neatly at the end — that’s not to say it’s a happy conclusion — but there’s a finality to this book that the Walking Man novels don’t have. They all seem to pick up where the other left off in a deliciously addictive way.
Jack’s new to the force in London, and it’s his first big case. When they uncover the bodies of five women, all mutilated, all murdered, there’s conflict in the force. There are clues that lead a racist, repugnant DI Diamond in the wrong direction and Jack, along with his partner Essex, have to fight against the curve to get everyone working in the right direction. His profile is correct, and when we meet the villain about eight pages in, you get the feeling that it’s all coming together a bit too quickly, you know, like when the cops disappear too soon on Law and Order, and you know there’s trouble with the case…and low and behold, once the villain becomes known to the police, the killing doesn’t stop. So who is the real Birdman? Of course, it’s a race against time for Caffrey and Essex to figure it out because there are real people involved now — not just victims, but people with personal relationships to these officers.
Part of Vintage Canada’s World of Crime series, I love how the jacket copy says, “For some killers, murder is just the beginning…” It’s a pretty terrific tagline and utterly relevant to this particular book. I love it when there’s a twist that’s hinted, ever so slightly upon toward the beginning of the novel, and explodes at just the right time in the reading. Hayder’s exceptional at creating completely creepy villains who do absolutely disgusting things. Yet, the level of (for lack of a better word) “grossness” that Hayder employs in her writing is consistently balanced with razor-sharp prose, snappy dialogue and intense research. These novels are solid, have ripping plots (how else do you read them in a night while breastfeeding a baby?) and hinge upon a fascinating character that she’s created in Caffrey. I mean, he does remind me a little of Jackson Brodie — Kate Atkinson’s protagonist — they’re both damaged in a way that makes them so good at their job. In Caffrey’s case, it’s the disappearance of his younger brother when he was eight and the passionate way he’s convinced his next-door neighbour, whom he still lives beside, is responsible for his murder.
Unlucky in love seems to be the MO for these kind of men, which, of course, makes them irresistible on the page, both to the reader and to just about every woman in their path. But romance never works out for Jack and it’s a good thing too because how else would he solve the crime and save the day? I’d highly recommend any Mo Hayder novel for the crime/thriller lover. She’s such an exceptional writer that it’ll totally satisfy your craving for good sentences as much as your craving for, as my grandmother used to say, “a good whack on the head.”
READING CHALLENGES: The Off The Shelf Challenge, of course. I already have a British writer for my Around the World in 52 Weeks, so I can’t double count Hayder.
WHAT’S UP NEXT: I started Sebastian Barry’s A Long, Long Way this morning and it absolutely reminded me of one of my all-time favourite books, A Star Called Henry, and so I’m hoping to continue it this evening. Not too much time to read today as I was alone with the baby and we took an amazing nap this afternoon. How delicious is it to lie in bed with your baby tucked into your chest, and then wake up with him snuggled right into your arm all smiley and sleepy when you both wake up. Even if the moment only lasts for about five minutes before he wakes up fully and discovers he’s got shitty pants and is starving and, therefore, starts screaming, but it was a bit of bliss on a cold blustery day.
December 7th, 2010
#57 – Little Bee
I am of mixed mind when it comes to Chris Cleave’s Little Bee. On the one hand, it’s an interesting novel that deals with important political issues; on the other hand, overall, I didn’t find the novel entirely plausible. Cleave has definite talent writing characters in voices that are atypical — female characters that read well, but there’s just something that rings false. I felt especially this way about Little Bee herself, that she was perhaps a bit too precocious for her age, but when you factor in what she’d been through (horrific, awful events in her home country of Nigeria; unspeakable violence and two years in a detention centre in England after stowing away in a boat), maybe it’s not so inconceivable that she would be wise beyond her years. Yet, it all didn’t sit quite right with me.
So, the plot of the novel revolves around two women, the aforementioned Little Bee, an asylum-seeking refugee from Nigeria who was subjected to an horrific experience of seeing her entire family destroyed by oil men; and Sarah, the wife of Andrew, a couple who met Little Bee on a beach on a fateful day that would change their lives forever. When Little Bee is finally released from the detention centre after spending two years essentially in jail as the British government evaluates her refugee claim, the only people she knows are Andrew and Sarah, and so she makes her way to them, which sets in motion a series of events that have tragic consequences.
And it’s not just the plot that felt forced but the relationship between the two women was awkward in many ways. I kept comparing the novel in my head to Dave Eggers’s What is the What, and to Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, both novels that have protagonists that go through unspeakable horrors, but both of these novels just pull it all together in a way that doesn’t make the reader feel as though the situations are jammed in just to make a point. Granted, it’s an important point — or an important book — and you can’t fault Cleave for his research or how hard he worked to create the voice of Little Bee. But how he chose to wrap her story within that of Sarah’s and how their lives are intertwined just doesn’t work. Further, there’s a fairytale element to the penultimate action that rang false and the end of the novel was quite flat compared to how hard he had worked to set up the situation from the start of the book. I didn’t believe the drama — and this book is ALL about dramatic situations that forever change people’s lives.
Overall, as much as I was looking forward to reading this book, I am not at all sure what I think or how I feel about it. I want to like it A LOT because I believe strongly in fiction that pushes the boundaries and tells important, political stories. But in a way, I don’t think they should be shoehorned in when they don’t fit the characters or the voice that’s actually telling the story. I wanted more for Little Bee — and I wanted more from the book. But maybe I’ll feel differently if/when I think about it some more.
Has anyone else read this book? What did you think?
WHAT’S UP NEXT: Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World. It’s a chunky, chunky book so I probably won’t finish it in a day but we’ll see how many hours my RRBB spends awake tonight.
READING CHALLENGES: The Off the Shelf Challenge — I think I’ve had this book on my TBR pile ever since it came out almost two years ago. Also, Chris Cleave is British, so that counts too for Around the World in 52 Books — he can be England.
August 19th, 2010
#36 – #39 – Summer Chicklit & #40 Gone
There’s something I’ve discovered about my iPad — it’s incredibly easy for me to buy books with one click. Books I had long ago stopped buying because they were (and I don’t want to use this word) disposable — not that they’re throwaways but that they satisfy the need I sometimes have for the reading equivalent of a girlie movie. When I was pinching my Gail Vaz-Oxlade-inspired pennies, I couldn’t justify buying a book that would only take me an hour to read. I needed to buy books that were an investment, that would keep me occupied for longer than the time it would take to watch a film.
Well, my iPad has changed all that — I can spend less than $15.00 (which is less than the cost of a movie now) and in some cases, less than $10.00 (and let’s not get into a moral discussion of what’s wrong with ebook pricing because I work in publishing, I KNOW), for books that I can read like my mother used to read Harlequin romances, quickly, painlessly and with some tears (because I get so emotionally involved). I don’t always have to be reading literature but it does have a very special place in my book snob heart so forgive me if I’m a bit harsh on these books. Take this all with a grain of salt.
#36 – Fly Away Home
I still remember reading Good in Bed one afternoon when I was home sick from work. I bawled from start to finish. Weiner has a way with writing female characters that just gets to the heart of the hurt that we all seem to carry around. I haven’t read a novel of hers for a while and so I downloaded one thinking it’d be good to read up north last week at the cottage. The situation that starts off the novel feels “ripped from the headlines” Law & Order-esque. The wife of a prominent politician discovers via CNN or something equally horrible (her best friend calls to comfort her re: the news that had just broken) that her husband of x-number of years cheated on her with a not-quite intern. Sylvie Serfer Woodruff has two grown daughters: Diana, an overachieving doctor, and Lizzie, a recovering addict. When each woman hears the news of their father’s affair, they react differently but in each case it becomes a catalyst for change. It’s a very chicklit scenario — the overtly dramatic “event” that spurns women into some sort of evolution as if regular life just isn’t enough to make anyone become introspective, but whatever, the emotional journey each takes throughout the novel is rewarding and I can’t front — I bawled like a baby towards the end. BAWLED. IN FRONT OF COMPANY. AT THE COTTAGE. So it’s a breezy, solid, emotionally rewarding read even if it feels overwhelmingly cliched in many, MANY places.
#37 – An Ideal Wife
I didn’t read this on my iPad, a friend sent me a copy, and Gemma Townley used to be one of my favourite chicklit writers — I always felt she was one step above so many of her counterparts. Her characters felt fresh, their lives just that little bit more interesting, but I’m no longer in my 20s or even early 30s and I’m less charmed by her books as I once was. An Ideal Wife follows Jessica Wild, a protagonist from two earlier books, and she’s never been my favourite. The hijinks that happen in the book feel contrived and I could tell what was going to happen almost from the beginning pages. In a sense, I think it’s the curse of a successful mid-list chicklit writer, the sales are good so the publisher puts you on a book-a-year treadmill and so you start churning out titles to suit the schedule and not the work. I’ll still recommend Townley over writers like Giffin and the like, simply because I’ve met her in person and she was AWESOME, but the last three books, in fact, the whole Jessica Wild series, has kind of disappointed me.
#38, #39 – The Sookie Stackhouse series (Dead Until Dark & Living Dead in Dallas)
Oh sweet Sundays I’m obsessed with a capital “O” with True Blood these days. It’s smart, sexy, fun, silly, fascinating, and now almost complete with fairies (as per Sookie’s reveal). Contrary to Salon, I don’t think fairies are lame and neither would about a half-dozen YA writers I know. But I digress. I’m dying for spoilers — even those trapped in cliched, irritating, truly terrible writing. Wait, did I just start to review the books? I know you have to give over to the nature of them, to the silly, candy-like essence of these books but I can’t help but feel my intelligence slipping away each time Sookie curls her hair or has someone comment on her perfect breasts. I’ve imbued the literary characters with a little of the spirited nature of the television show and that makes the writing a tad more palatable but I can’t help but wonder if Charlaine Harris doesn’t spend hours laughing her way to the bank over her royalty statements. What a fast one she’s pulled on all of us — there’s so little in the way of actual writing here vs. pure narration for the sake of narration that I’m not surprised it only takes me a little over three subway rides to get through one book (my commute is anywhere from 20 minutes to 45 minutes depending on the TTC). And it’s not that I’m NOT addictively flipping pages — it’s that I AM. I’m not reading. I’m scanning. I’m dying to know what happens just so I can know what happens and not at all because I’m enjoying the writing. I roll my eyes more times than I can count but I respect Harris for her success and I’ll probably read all eight of the books that I downloaded last week.
#40 – Gone
Anyway, I felt a little sick to my stomach after reading so much chicklit in a row that this weekend I took Mo Hayder’s EXCELLENT new novel, Gone (published in Canada this January), away with me to the cottage and then proceeded to stay up very, very late to finish it. It’s a Jack Caffrey novel and it picks up relatively soon after Skin ended. There’s a new case in town — a man’s carjacking comes with a twist: he’s only taking cars with children in them, and the deeper Jack Caffrey gets into the case, the more goes wrong. Mo Hayder’s novels are suspenseful, terrifying, impeccably written and researched and this series just gets better with each novel. I know January is a long time to wait but if you’re at all interested in top-notch thrillers, why not give Ritual or Skin a try before then?
May 7th, 2010
#20 – Wolf Hall
As a part of the “The Orange Prize is Definitely the New Black” challenge that we started over at the work blog, I finished reading Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning novel, Wolf Hall, last weekend. And then couldn’t put it down. For days. On end. Now, that’s saying something for a giant hulking 650-page tome about Thomas Cromwell, of all people. Mantel’s certainly not the first, nor the last, to dramatize the Tudor period in literature. The lives and wives of Henry VIII have been immortalized, studied, fictionalized and melo-dramatized for our modern age — movies, TV series, novels abound about Katherine, Anne, Jane, etc., to the point of overkill. I reached my Henry VIII peak after seeing about three episodes of the current series The Tudors on the Ceeb a couple of years ago, and it all felt wrong, wrong, wrong. First off, and I know it’s me being far too literal, but as attractive as Jonathan Rhys Meyers might be, he’s just not Henry VIII material — and neither, for that matter, is Eric Bana — not in looks, countenance or bearing. I mean, can’t Hollywood even get the hair colour right?
Annnywaaay, like most history, pop culture weeds out the most salacious aspects and runs with them, and it’s not like the Tudors were lacking in dramatic moments that would work well in terms of adaptations, but it all started to feel a bit tired. I mean really tired. Like The Other Boleyn Girl might just be one of the worst films I’ve ever seen kind of tired. So when Mantel’s novel won the Booker, I kind of thought to myself, “Really, another novelization of the Tudors? Really?”
How wrong I was.
While this is a novel very much about the Tudors, it’s from the perspective of an outsider. Someone who came from nothing to make something of himself, who used his very sharp mind to control people and situations to his benefit, and not necessarily with the ulterior motives that tend to drive most characters in historical fiction (sex, greed, lust). But what I really, really enjoyed is that this novel didn’t focus entirely on the melodrama, it’s actually devoid almost completely of it, and instead turns its focus to relationships of all kinds and how life functioned for these characters at this epic moment in time. It’s not about the romance between Henry and Anne and what it means for love and betrayal; it’s about how the romance between Henry and Anne changed everything — and the man who not only made most of these changes possible, but who also participated in creating the whole background of the time period, was Thomas Cromwell.
The novel starts off with a young Thomas getting the stuffing knocked out of him by his brute of a father Walter. Soon, he takes off into the great big world to make a name for himself, and when the story picks up again, he’s done just that — found himself a position working for / serving Cardinal Wolsey, and when that turns sour, for the king himself. Politics, or political machinations rather, take centre stage in this novel. It’s about maneuvering situations more than anything, about how to be a man, and how to teach his children to be good in life, but it’s also about power — finding it, taking it, destroying it — and all the ways it contributes to the ups and downs of the Tudor court.
It’s hard to describe the novel as anything other than engrossing. I found myself totally sucked in and read the first 300 pages in just over a day — sometimes the narrative’s a bit muddled (Mantel uses a lot of pronouns and the “he’s” get all mixed up sometimes. I just decided that if I was remotely confused that the “he” in question was Cromwell and that seemed to work for me) and the book’s unquestionably dense — but I couldn’t put it down. When I gave my copy away mid-read to a friend (I had another at work; we’d save on mail that way), and decided to finish the McEwan novel that I’d started, I found myself longing to know what was going to happen next to Cromwell. Would he convince More to change his mind? Would he ever find a second wife? Would these ghosts ever stop appearing in front of him? Who would he marry his son off to (we didn’t get that far; it must be in the second book).
ALL of these questions are answered in history, yet I longed for Mantel’s perspective. I loved how she would add rich description to scenes, sum everything up with a brilliant sentence, and keep my interest in her novel far passed my bed time. This book? Definitely better than TV.
WHAT’S NEXT. I’ve started Attica Locke’s Black Water Rising. That’s #2 of the Orange Prize nominated books. Will I make the June 9th deadline, probably not. But maybe…