Category: british fiction

#67 – Little Black Book of Stories

Have you ever noticed I generally start all of my reviews with some long, rambling introduction? Today will be no different.

I’m reading about 4 different books right now (What Should I Do With My Life, The Law of Dreams, Slowing Down to the Speed of Life; can you sense a theme there?), including the only one I’ve finished so far, A.S. Byatt’s engaging short story collection, Little Black Book of Stories. Monday was spent in transit (doctor’s app’t, to and fro from work), which ensured I had a few spare moments to read (and by spare I mean an entire hour in the middle of the day waiting for the damn doctor).

We were at a birthday party this summer when the sister of a friend of mine was telling me the book that she had most enjoyed reading so far in 2009 was A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book. As I don’t have a copy that book in my possession, when I found this book just sitting on my shelf, I thought, “yes, that’s it for this week.” Because if you can’t have THE book why not at least try A book by one of the year’s most celebrated writers?

Comprised of five lengthy short stories, Byatt’s expansive imagination coupled with her never-ending quest to aptly describe human saddness (or longing, that might even be a better word), the book reminded me a little of Too Much Happiness. Every single character in the stories has been marred emotionally by their lives — happiness isn’t expected and nor is it gained. Life is rough, untidy, difficult and downright miserable in places. But because Byatt’s an exceptional writer, the undercurrents running through each story, the little bits of lives that exude joy, are there as well. She also has some lovely fantastical elements in each — the stories themselves tend a little toward fairy tales for adults.

My favourite of the five would have to be “Body Art”: an aging doctor released from an unhappy marriage but not his religious convictions finds himself entangled with a young (apparently almost-homeless) artist charged with “brightening” up the ward. Universal questions like how and why is art important to a life are, of course, raised, but the unlikely relationship between the two resonates even more. The central tale, “A Stone Woman,” has lovely fantastic elements, and “The Pink Ribbon” too — even if that story is achingly sad (it too reminded me of Munro, specifically, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”).

On the whole, this collection was far more satisfying to read than Nocturnes. Because, holy cow, what a snoozer of a book that was.

READING CHALLENGES: Cleaning Out My Closet — a book from the dark corners of my bookshelf, for once. And because this book just feels so British (along with A.S. Byatt being born in England), I’m tagging it for Around the World in 52 Books too. My only reading challenge for next year? To keep up with all of my other reading challenges. Or maybe even finish one or two.

Three Books To End November (#s 64,65 & 66)

This cold has lingered, and actually rendered me quite useless yesterday, which meant I did a lot of reading (and watching of movies). I finished Mo Hayder’s latest Walking Man novel, Skin (it’s excellent), Anne Giardini’s enjoyable Advice for Italian Boys, and Twilight (note the lack of adjective).

#64 – Skin
Mo Hayder’s writing scares the living bejeezus out of me. She writes excellent mysteries that keep you guessing to the very end. This book picks up right where Ritual ends, picking up the threads of the story just a couple days after Flea Marley and Jack Caffrey solve the muti case they were working on. There’s a serial killer in this book who will send shivers up and down your spine, and the twists and turns that the book takes will no doubt have you shouting, “No!” as much as I did. Mo Hayder’s writing’s as addictive as her stories are — once I started this book, I didn’t put it down until I was finished. There’s a lovely image of Flea in the middle of the book feeling as if the sky is pressing down on her — squeezing all of the air out of her lungs — and the passage was just so perfect, so indicative of Hayder’s simple prose powers, that even if the book had stopped there I would have been satisfied.

#65- Advice for Italian Boys
Full disclosure — I interviewed Anne Giardini for work the other day and had managed to read half the book before sitting down to talk to her (it was a REALLY busy week). Let’s keep in mind that Ms. Giardini’s a CEO of a giant company in her day job as I tell this story.

1. I forgot the battery to my recorder. And had to race back to my desk to get them.

2. Then I put said battery in upside down and had to fight with it to get the little thingy back open to switch it over.

3. I turned it on and set it down in front of her and started the interview. But I didn’t press RECORD. So we had to start the whole interview over again after I realized that I wouldn’t have a single note because I was relying on the audio… Sigh.

Regardless, she’s lovely, and talks how she writes — in long, luxurious sentences. The novel loosely follows the almost coming of age of Nicolo, a twenty-something Italian-Canadian man whose trying to find his way in the world. He still lives at home, works at the gym, and hasn’t quite had a significant relationship with the opposite sex. The middle child (in between two Enzos), Nicolo has a very special relationship to his advice-spilling Nonna, whose sayings pepper the story and the text with old-world common sense. Giardini said that she wanted to write a book about a good man, a man who isn’t without conflict, but one who at his core has a moral centre that’s just right. She accomplishes this, and it’s a breezy, delightful novel that presents the picture of a lovely family that you’d be happy sitting down and sharing a meal with — and damn, I’d bet the food would be fantastic.

#66 – Twilight
I finished it. And that’s all I’m going to say. More to come via our Undeath Match next week.

#48 – Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Sometimes, you need a little lightness in your life. After a hard summer and an even harder year, I’m happy to say that there are a couple of things I’ve watched and read over the last couple weeks that just make me smile. Glee (Freaks and Geeks meets Fame meets Election) equals bliss and belly laughs, but it’s only one once a week. So over the last few weeks I was reading Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day only at the cottage and only before I went to sleep just to make it last that little bit longer.

I adored this novel.

Miss Pettigrew finds herself on Delysia Lafosse’s doorstep after a particularly trying last assignment as a governess. In fact, Miss Pettigrew has found herself sent off on a number of trying assignments as she attempts to make her way in the world. Plain (by her own standards), practical, and quite downtrodden, if this job doesn’t work out, Miss Pettigrew will find herself out on the streets. Only when Miss Lafosse opens up the door to usher Miss Pettigrew inside, there’s been a mixup — she’s not there to take care of any children but be a maid (of sorts) for the vivacious young actress/singer who finds herself in quite a pickle when it comes to her love life.

Over the course of the day Miss Pettigrew fixes, fiddles, meddles and generally makes herself indispensible to Delysia and her group of friends. She puts love affairs right, makes sure Miss Lafosse flies in the right direction and even spares some fun for herself. As the minutes and hours tick by, Miss Pettigrew evolves from the unconfident, unhappy, unsuccessful governess into a bright, witty, attractive woman who remains in charge of her station in life. It’s a simple Cinderella story in a way — but that doesn’t take away from the charm and utter bliss of this book.

When I was reading a little about the author, Winifred Watson, I learned that she wrote the majority of her first novel while working in an office as a sectretary. Her first books had darker themes and when she submitted Miss Pettigrew, her publisher rejected it (Lionel Shriver can relate). It’s a familiar story — publishers and agents rejecting books that find resonance, win prizes and get made into equally delightful Hollywood films (yes; I’ve seen the film version that starts Francis McDormand and Amy Adams). I’m so pleased that Persephone exists and a little ashamed that this is the first of their novels that I’ve read. It certainly won’t be the last.

READING CHALLENGES: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is one of the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die, and while I did actually buy it vs pull it off my shelf, I’m counting it anyway. Also, high props to Rachel for recommending it to me. She’s a gem.

#36 – The Little Stranger

After finally (with a month-long struggle) finishing Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger, I have to admit that I’m hit or miss with her books. I adored both Fingersmith and The Night Watch. But really didn’t like Tipping the Velvet. And I’m afraid I’ll have to add The Little Stranger to the cons side simply because the book just failed to grab me. No, wait, let me restate that, after the first 100 pages or so, I lost interest in the book entirely.

By fate and circumstance, a bachelor rural doctor becomes inextricably involved with the fading Ayers family (Mrs. Ayers, Caroline and Roderick), owners of Hundreds Hall, a decaying house that was once the centre of society for their corner of Warwickshire. The war has just ended, leaving the country and its young men wounded, and Roderick, the eldest son, suffers. Dr. Faraday, called out to the house in place of the Ayers’s regular doctor, soon finds himself an indispensible friend to the family.

With his frequent visits to Hundreds Hall, Dr. Faraday soon becomes embroiled in the myriad problems the family begins to have. First, it’s a terrible accident involving a family pet, a particular favourite of Caroline’s. Then, as Roderick suffers through emotional and physical difficulties, another terrible accident happens. Soon, the family, and even the servants, a young Betty and the older Mrs. Bazeley, feel as if all of the bad luck converging remains squarely the fault of the house itself.

This theme, of suspicious activity coupled with the belief that the house is haunted felt a little like The X-Files, the Ayers’s Mulder to Dr. Faraday’s Scully. In a fairly typical way, each occurance is dismissed by various members of the scientific community and yet life for the Ayers’s doesn’t seem to get any better. It’s almost as if Waters was watching far too many episodes of Most Haunted during the writing of this novel. But, mainly, for me, I couldn’t hang on to the main character — I found him staid, kind of boring and a little two predictable. I’m a huge fan of Waters, as I’ve said above, but this novel put me right to sleep, and despite one or two truly terrifying scenes, left me without the necessary chill required from a book that’s supposed to scare the pants off of you.

READING CHALLENGES: Nothing to see here.

WHAT’S UP NEXT: Summer is short: reading Dorothy Allison’s Trash. And I’ve got to finish a Canadian book this weekend to sum up my Canadian Book Challenge.

#19 – Somewhere Towards the End

Diana Athill‘s inspiring memoir about old age was like a balm these past few days. Tears, anger, emotional eruption, and the fine realization that the prednisone crazies have probably conquered all my good thoughts (despite almost being off the drug), all combined to leave me feeling quite exhausted. Luckily, then, I had this slight memoir to keep me occupied. Athill, who worked in publishing until she retired at age 75 (I don’t know how she did it), has written brilliant little book in Somewhere Towards the End.

Narratively, the memoir has echoes of Jean Rhys (who was a friend), Joan Didion, and a touch of Isak Dinesen, and it’s sharp, unwavering voice remains focussed and clearly meditative throughout. The book opens with a number of clearly practical observations about age, moves through more traditional memoir-type content (the life and death of her sex life; the important men in her life), and then passes quickly over the idea of regret. Independent and fiercely individual, Athill’s words are nothing but inspiring. There are sentences, paragraphs, entire sections to be marked as one reads, which gives one pause to examine one’s own life. To imagine the spec of dust one’s own ninety-odd years will have left on humanity as a whole.

The parts that I liked best were about death and dying — the business of it, as such, and how lucky Athill has been in all of her years not to experience too much of it. The idea of luck persists throughout the book and it’s not as if Athill is bragging, her stoic, almost upright British self would never stand for such, no, she’s simply stating a fact. To have lived her life as she has done meant that she was both incredibly lucky and incredibly hard working. Some advice: avoid television, read a lot, take up gardening, never worry if your life falls somewhat outside of the norm, and experience life moment by moment if you can, taking pleasure out of what brings you happiness.

Now, my fingers are sore to the bone, and my arms and legs ache from lugging pounds of soil, so I am going to sign off by saying prestigious awards or not (the memoir won the Costa Biography Award in 2008), I adored every single inch of this little gem of a book.

#11 – Got You Back

Jane Fallon‘s latest novel, Got You Back, retreads familiar territory — the novel starts off, like Getting Rid of Matthew, with a cheating spouse (him) and the two women who are left to deal with his emotional wreckage. But even if the situation feels similar, the new novel is wholly different than her first book, the characters are fresh and new, and she never lets her writing fall down or stumble into the well-trodden clichés of the Sophie Kinsellas of the chick lit world.

Stephanie’s husband of the last ten years, James, is leading a double life. He spends half his time in rural England tending to his veterinary practice — and living with his mistress, Katie. He’s got the best of both worlds: savvy, stylish Steph at home and comfy, cozy Katie while he’s away. The trouble for James begins when Steph and Katie discover one another (and the fact that he’s been lying to both of them) and they vow to get revenge. And let me just say: poor James. But also let me say that the book doesn’t go or end up the way you’d think that it would. All of the characters grow and change and none in expected ways. Fallon’s prose is light and frothy but she has such a knack for keeping the reader engaged. Also, her dialogue sparkles right off the page — I know, it’s a little cheesy, but it’s true. Got You Back is a like a vacation — warm, sunny, and always entertaining, and I’d highly recommend it for that one weekend you really wish you could just get away.

READING CHALLENGES: Fallon’s British and the novel takes place in London and even though it’s not the kind of book that I’d usually pick for Around the World in 52 Books, I’m counting it for now. Don’t judge me.

#76 – Enduring Love

I remember reading an interview with Ann Patchett this past year (and please don’t ask me to find the reference; I have no idea where I found it) where she said something about each of her novels being somewhat the same in terms of their plot and premise. In a sense, she said, she keeps writing the same books over and over again. When it comes to writers as skilled as Patchett, exploring the same themes, working through similar plots, doesn’t detract from the quality of her prose, and I feel like this is the same with Ian McEwan.

So many of his novels begin with an event that forever impacts the lives of his characters, and you can see that pattern in Saturday, On Chesil Beach, and Atonement. The set-up for Enduring Love would fit as well: Joe Rose steps out of his everyday life to jump into action (a balloon accident; a boy hovering towards death; a helpless tragedy) and this act of altruism ends up changing the course of his life forever. It was a happy moment, a reunion, Joe’s lover, Clarissa, had just returned from a trip to the US and the two were in the park for a picnic. They were about to pop the cork on the champagne when the pair noticed the trouble with the giant helium balloon. The novel starts: “The beginning is simple to mark.” And it’s true: a hulking, and at times literal, metaphor dropped into the beginning, middle and end of the novel in the form of this balloon, meant to symbolize the tenuous state of life’s expectations: they’re blown off course, trumped by tragedy and then chased by a slightly insane man.

As the balloon teeters away, Joe loses hold of it, and runs to help the one man left hanging on (who soon falls to his death), but before he gets there, he’s faced with the odd character Jed Parry. Joe’s life, up until this point, was happy with the usual adult disappointments (his career isn’t what he expected). But the moment Jed becomes fixated upon him, the constructs that kept Joe tethered to his reality, his relationship with Clarissa, his work, his own grasp on his particular existence, fall apart. The further obsessed Jed becomes with Joe, the more Joe copes in ways that feel unnatural to his personality.

One of the blurbs on the cover of my edition says, “Utterly thrilling… as riveting at the finish as it is at the start,” The Globe and Mail, and I’d have to agree. I read the novel in about three hours and simply couldn’t put it down. I loved Joe’s work as a science writer, found Clarissa’s work with Keats reminiscent of one of my favourite good/bad movies of all time, Possession, and didn’t once feel at all like the action was either forced and/or contrived. McEwan, one of the English language’s most skilled novelists, has a way with these dramatic situations, he can use an almost clinical eye to pull them apart from every direction, exploring the impact upon his characters like a coroner would do a cadaver. Enduring Love wholly deserves its place on the 1001 Books list. I’m not sure every single one of McEwan’s novels should be there (I do question Amsterdam but only because I think it’s an utterly forgettable book) but I’m glad this one is, if only because it gave me the chance to read it.

READING CHALLENGES: Another of my “lost” 1001 Books from the master list for 2009. We’re still 12 hours away from the new year and I’m already two books into my 66 book challenge. The odds are looking good for me to make quite a dent in it over the year! Fingers crossed, indeed.

WHAT’S UP NEXT: I’m about to clean out the last upstairs closet (finished the one in the bedroom yesterday) where boxes and boxes of books are hidden. I want to go through these ones too for 1001 Books that I know I have an haven’t finished (Moby-Dick, I’m looking at you) so that I can put them all on the right shelf and update the online list. God, I am LOVING this week off.

#72 – When Will There Be Good News

Having spent the last few days in the whirlwind of the holidays with the added spice of my father’s wedding on Xmas eve, of course I conked out with a touch of the flu yesterday. Spent the day in bed with Vicks on my chest and the added pressure of a hot water bottle keeping everything all warm and probably infected. Love the holiday flu. Spirits refused to be dampened as we trundled over to my cousin’s for our third, and final, Christmas. It was delightful. The nephew continues to be the funniest little fellow ever. Remember what it was like to just scream for joy at the top of your lungs?

Annnnywaaay, the not-sleeping from the prednisone is working in my favour because I’m getting a lot of reading done. Kate Atkinson’s When Will There Be Good News, the third novel to feature Jackson Brodie, kept me company well into Christmas eve when everyone should have been sleeping while awaiting a visit from ye old guy in the red suit. Another brilliantly paced, densely plotted, utterly readable novel from one of the most refreshing writers working in genre fiction today.

Kate Atkinson has a gift with voice. She manages to keep three distinct and different characters alive within the narrative without falling down once in terms of their particular stories. Jackson Brodie’s still bent, still broken, and still having trouble with women in this novel, but there’s an added tragedy that lands him in Edinburgh. This catastrophic event also causes him to land back into the life of DI Louise Munroe and she encounters him in the oddest of places, stuck in the oddest of situations. Tying them both together is Reggie, a sixteen-year-old girl who hasn’t had the easiest of lives, but she’s plucky, resourceful and kind of reminds me a little of Thebes.

As the story barrels along, their personal lives gets mixed up in the mystery, Reggie’s employer, a doctor who suffered an unspeakable tragedy when she was a young girl, goes missing. Reggie needs to convince DI Munroe that she’s actually been kidnapped and Jackson finds himself right smack in the middle after the young girl tears herself into his life. The central mystery in the novel is coupled with a disaster of epic proportions — a train crash — that muddles up identities, destroys lives and propels the action in ways that one wouldn’t expect. The way its described in the novel conjures up Unbreakable in so much as you can hear the metal as much as the terror in your mind as you read along.

Never trite or contrived, Atkinson’s endings are thought out in ways that ensure they’re as pragmatic as her prose. The characters don’t employ any kind of revolutionary change. They get on with life as life gets on with them and it’s Atkinson’s refreshingly unadorned style of writing that ensures the success of this novel.

READING CHALLENGES: For a moment I had thought that Atkinson was Scottish, which meant I could have added a country to the Around the World in 52 Books challenge. But as she’s British and I’ve already got England covered, that pipe dream gets washed away with the tide (how about a mixed metaphor for a lazy post-holiday Saturday?).

WHAT’S UP NEXT: From a previous post: “Here’s my stack: “A Christmas Carol, The Other Queen, The Given Day, The Plot Against America, Lush Life, Through Black Spruce, The Origin of Species, The Boys in the Trees, The Double, The Almost Moon and Middlemarch.” I’m not sure where I’ll go next, but it’ll be something from the above list.”

STRANGE ASIDES: My RRHB and I watched an old Albert Finney film the other day, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, which is mentioned in the book. Had we not seen it at the exact moment when we did (moments before crawling into bed with the book), I would have missed the reference completely. Thank you universe.

#71 – Middlemarch

What more can I possibly add to decades upon decades of criticism about George Eliot’s masterwork, Middlemarch, one of the best novels ever written? Nothing original, I’d have to say. All I think I can do is comment upon why I enjoyed the novel so very much. Set against the “provincial community” of Middlemarch, England, a group of intertwining stories create a pastoral-like landscape peopled by the (somewhat) upper classes. This isn’t the territory of The Duchess per se, but more an extension of Austen’s kind, good, solid people from good, solid backgrounds trying to better their lives.

Eliot’s broad strokes and epic storylines hold all the characters in check. There’s Dorothea, a beautiful girl with a mind of her own who marries poorly and is then trapped into a terrible codicil by her ridiculous husband, Casaubon. Dorothea’s somewhat silly sister Celia, their Uncle Brooke, a landowner, and his “pet project,” Will Ladislaw, a young man of great curls and not much else, who is a cousin of Dorothea’s husband. There’s the doctor, Lydgate, his wife Rosamund (silly, silly girl), her brother Fred and his beloved, Mary (will she ever accept his hand in marriage; will he ever stop being foolish?). And then all the parents and rectors and other doctors and clergymen and their mothers and aunts and so on and so on. Goodness, their stories intertwine almost as much as their bloodlines, indeed. And it’s amazing to me how the author kept it all straight. The ways in which the novel progresses, the scope of the story, and her consistent and unwavering narrative voice all combine for an utterly delightful (there’s really no other way of putting it) reading experience.

But what I enjoyed most about the book is Eliot’s heightened, almost philosophical prose. Her pages of snappish, witty dialogue, the lovely way she has of creating a character by broad, sweeping strokes and then allows the reader to get to know them even better as the 800+ pages trundle on like a good walk through the countryside. Happiness finds some people, but not all of the characters. Distressing, even traumatic events happen, but it all works out in a way as it ultimately should, with grand love stories and well-intentioned elders making way for the next generation to carry on. Leave many hours in front of you if you want to tackle this book — it’s perfect for long days with nothing to do except read so your imagination can picture the dresses, the landscape, Ladislaw’s curls, the horses, Raffles, and everything else in Eliot’s world. It’s a book for the dreamers among us, that’s for sure.

READING CHALLENGES: Another one for the 1001 Books challenge, of which I am going to come in woefully incomplete before year’s end…

NOTES ON MY EDITION: The physical edition I read was the Penguin classic, but I also read a great deal on my Sony Reader with files from Project Gutenberg.

#69 – A Christmas Carol

Let me first put it out there that I am not necessarily what you would call a fan of Dickens. In fact, all of the Victorians have been giving me trouble ever since second year university. And then I made the colossal mistake of trying them again in grad school. I still haven’t recovered. They are impossible to avoid, these Victorians. Their influence is everywhere. There are a pile of them on the 1001 Books list. They are classics. What can you do except keep trying? Right?

So, “A Christmas Carol.” I know it’s not technically a full book but it’s on the 1001 Books list and I’m trying to at least part-way finish that challenge before the end of the year. The story is so well known, so ingrained in our society, that it’s impossible not to have seen at least one version of it in your lifetime (at least that’s what I think). Of my favourites, I remember watching a very old movie (made in the 50s, I think?) when I was a teenager and adoring it. It’s hard to read the original when it’s been interpreted so many different ways over the years. No matter that you haven’t actually read the story before, you know it so well that when each of the Ghosts show up, I wasn’t really surprised. Except, it’s also interesting to note the differences between the original, classic story and how it’s been interpreted over the years.

The parts that I enjoyed the most were obviously the bits and pieces attributed to the time — the colloquial sayings, the references that firmly represent the day and age that Dickens was writing from. In particular, I thought it interesting how Scrooge kept referring to the prevalent fears of overpopulation. All in all, it’s a delightful, entertaining, lovely story. And not bad at all to be at 158 classics read from the 1001 Books list. Now only 12 more to go until I reach my goals for this year. Ha! As if I’m even going to get there.