Evie Reads

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a window into human nature by Steven Pinker

2010-11-25T06:37:00.001+11:00

I have always had an appetite for linguistics, and words have always fascinated me beyond their simple meanings or double-meanings, beyond syntax and grammar to a deeper level of comprehension. Stupidly, I have read little on the subject before (but found myself inexplicably titillated by the tiny linguistics section of my local library and always left wanting by the light, comedic books I have picked up about etymology or grammar). The Stuff of Thought takes a deeper, more investigative look into the way we use language, and what the subsequent discoveries say about human nature.

Pinker is not ‘light and comedic’ although he can be witty and sometimes wry. He subscribes to the school of linguistic thought which asserts that language is a window into human nature, rather than a controlling force that dictates how we are (his is a common assumption in modern linguistics – and the book does give us some background for reference). In The Stuff of Thought he attempts to show why that is true – presumably to a wider readership who aren’t linguists and therefore familiar with the conclusion already.

Pinker elaborates on many assertions to that end – such as how it is possible that two people can view the same event in two entirely different ways, the ‘zooming in’ of the microscope on verbs and verb structures which provides answers to seemingly unsolvable questions about semantics and ‘learning the unlearnable’, an entire chapter on taboo language (swear words etc.) and what makes them so powerful (my favourite example of this being the posited “what does the ‘fuck’ in ‘fuck you’ actually mean?”), and the negotiation of relationships through language – the motions of which we go through every day, in one way or another.

It is tempting to simply fill this post with exciting linguistic discoveries I made as a result of reading this book, but that would be silly. There isn’t much to say apart from if you get the amount of delight from semantics and verb forms that I do, this is a must-read. Pinker makes this kind of science accessible (hence this made the New York Times Bestseller list) to a wide audience of enthusiastic word-fondlers, and for that I am eternally grateful to him. I am determined to read his four other books on the subject of cognitive science, and probe further into the wonders of linguistic learning.

EXTRA: Here is a video from 2005 of Pinker doing a TED talk about the ideas he was working on for this very book.

Kraken by China Miéville

2010-11-23T03:55:00.000+11:00

Something is happening in London – in its skin, in its soul, in the nooks and crannies of its many secret subsections. Something is … coming. And even the most intuitive, clued-in ‘knackers’ don’t know what it is… except that it involves the end of everything.

Museum curator Billy Harrow is also unaware of the impending apocalypse until his prize specimen, the Architeuthis (or Kraken, or giant squid) totally vanishes from its display room (giant specimen jar and all). After a visit from a bizarre and shady division of the Metropolitan Police – the FSRC (Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crimes unit) – he is flung into the clutches of a London he has never seen before; filled with stone-spirits and murderous talking tattoos and ocean-worshippers and Londonmancers. When Billy discovers that the pickled Architeuthis can (and likely will) destroy the world, his life becomes a race against the approaching disaster in which all parties want the same thing but everyone is pulling in different directions to get it.

Miéville’s famed and acclaimed imagination shakes its tail feathers cheekily throughout Kraken – here he gives us all the barmy-ness and creative ingenuity we have come to love about his books, but with a Pratchett-esque playful irony and a plethora of subculture references we’ve not seen from him before. When I met him just after the release of Kraken, he told me that “it’s a comedy. It’s a toilet book – you should read it on the toilet.” I probably just blushed and blathered like I normally do in his presence, but I thought of that remark often later when I read the book (and no, not because I read it on the toilet!)

All right, I’m going to say it: I don’t think this is his best work. I think this is a flirt with genre and with subculture; perhaps a way to lighten the mood a little for him as so many of his novels deal with dark political subjects or the mass corruption of morals, and are genre-defining in and of themselves. Kraken - whilst being funny and witty and having a fantastic array of characters, themes and scenescapes - doesn’t have the pace or clarity of vision that shines so brilliantly through the bizarre realms of his other books. It is overflowing with metaphor, which I sometimes found tedious because they seemed to be present for nothing other than to be ironic or self-parodying. The characters are not very well-realised, and sometimes it seems as though their actions occur for no reason other than plot convenience. Maybe my perception wasn't nuanced enough to "get it" but I know there are other Miéville fans out there who felt the same way.

Kraken is good fun, but requires dedication. As a huge fangirl it was easy for me to still love this book for what it was, but if you’re not a patient reader the first 150 pages or so might get you down. I really enjoyed the ‘magical’ London, the monsters and mythology, the nudges and winks sprinkled throughout for us nerdy elite to giggle knowingly at... but I do think if you want to make a light-hearted laugh-a-thon it might be done better at a few hundred pages less. Even so, sections of it are riveting and utterly entertaining - it is really hard for me to be in any way critical in NORMAL LIFE, let alone of one of my favourite writers of all time. China, I still love you!

Audiobook: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

2010-10-26T02:04:00.000+11:00

Due to the loss of my 2 hours a day of commute time (read: reading time) this poor little corner of the blogosphere has been severely neglected of late. Nowadays I walk to work, 40 minutes each way. I decided to stop using that as an excuse not to absorb books in the sponge-like fashion of my commuting days; so downloaded the audiobook version of Eat, Pray, Love (if you’ve never heard of it, welcome back to Earth! We missed you!) read by the author Elizabeth Gilbert.

This was a perfect introduction to the world of audiobooks. Eat, Pray, Love is the personal story of Gilbert’s emotional journey over one year of travel, food and finding god, so it was only fitting that it was read by her and luckily, very well. She imbues all of her speech with the same passion, insight, wit and honesty that is so evident in her writing (and one of the reasons she is an international bestselling author now), creating a conversational, convivial feel which makes you giggle with her and share her heartaches, confusions and bliss as if they were your own.

After a traumatic divorce and a long battle with depression, Gilbert extracts herself from her life to spend four months in Rome in pursuit of pleasure, four months in India in pursuit of god, and four months in Bali in pursuit of the balance between the two. The exact thing she is searching for throughout the book is what makes her writing so lovely – the combination of opulence and indulgence and raw emotional honesty gives the story real balance. It is not a frivolous romp of lavishness, nor is it a demented self-help guide for chakra-cleansing hippies. Gilbert makes spirituality appealing by being honest about who she is and how she got to be where she is. It helps that she is hilarious, sweet and modest, with a very cheeky sense of humour.

I loved the voices she did for different characters, and how expressive she was in general. Every implication of wry sarcasm, stifled laughter, bitterness, pain and everything else was there to be heard in her intonation and lilt, making a very personal journey an easily shared one. Honestly I’d recommend having a listen to the audiobook even if you’ve read the book, maybe if you’re planning on re-reading it. It is a true delight, adding another dimension of personality to a story already packed with punch and vitality and love.

Back From The Dead: The Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror Stories by Johnny Mains

2010-09-07T01:03:00.000+10:00

The Pan Book of Horror Stories was an iconic and long-running literary institution in Britain for some decades from the 1960s through to the 1980s; to such an extent that I had actually heard of it despite having been born in Australia in 1986! Publishing short horror stories by little-known writers in yearly volumes, it tingled the spines and inspired the nightmares of thousands in its heyday. Back From The Dead is anthologist Johnny Mains’ love letter to the series. He has devotedly selected and compiled these stories along with author anecdotes, a look into the influence of the series and a biography of Herbert Van Thal, the Pan Horrors’ infamous editor.

The stories contained in Back From The Dead are sometimes tame, sometimes gruesome, but all have the haunting quality of eeriness for which the Pan Book of Horror gained its infamy. They are written by authors featured, at some point or other, in the Pan Horror series - sixteen of them are new, previously unpublished tales, and five are classics. The nostalgic format – each story starting off with an author’s anecdote about their experience with the series and with Van Thal, was a real pleasure to read.

Not being much of a genre-reader I have never really delved into horror before and it was an interesting experience. Sometimes I was actually delighted by the types of things that really scared me; such as birds, or children, or deserted islands, or very subtle implications of the macabre. Quiet omens. My favourite stories and the ones which left the biggest impact on me were ones that asked more questions than they answered. Camera Obscura, about a greedy money-lender who visits one of his debtors (an old man who lives in a mysteriously large house on a hill) and peers into his strange, homemade ‘camera obscura’ only to leave the house into a world that isn’t the same one he came from, was one of my favourites. I also loved Mr Smyth, which tells of a policeman investigating the murder of a beautiful young girl who seemed, by all witness accounts, to have been fawning all over a decrepit and penniless old man. But every story selected by Johnny Mains is worth its salt as a soul-chilling, goosebump-inducing tale and if you like a good creep-out then this volume is a decent dose!

I found the 'anthology' format fascinating because the selection of content gives you a little peek into the personality of the anthologist –which is also why the story of Herbert “Bertie” Van Thal contained within is so interesting and deeply explored in Back From The Dead. In this case the selection is devlishly mischievous, somewhat sentimental and just the right balance between gory and charming. In my opinion this dark homage is a love letter, sealed with a scream, to Van Thal and the Pan Horror Series - and couldn’t have been, ahem, executed better.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

2010-07-23T02:18:00.001+10:00

It is unsurprising that I found this book a true delight, if you are aware of my love for David Mitchell. I find his style of writing to be so innovative, exciting, enchanting and delightful that I can rarely put a book of his down once I’ve started it. Despite the fact that the subject isn’t one I originally thought would invigorate me, I found the little bit of Japanese/Dutch history lesson a fascinating journey.

In the eighteenth century, Dejima was an established Dutch trading post (and artificial island) in the bay of Nagasaki, Japan. In The Thousand Autumns, a young clerk arrives in Dejima with the naïve notion of assisting his chief in the abolition of corruption amongst the Dutch officials there residing. Clerk Jacob de Zoet is a pious and good-willed man, making him instantly likeable and comical among his otherwise crude and dodgy peers. Although it is his intention to leave Dejima as quickly as possible and pick up his Dutch life where he left it off, his fate becomes intrinsically intertwined with Japan when he meets (and subsequently falls for) Aibagawa Orito, a Japanese midwife studying on the island under the resident Doctor, Marinus (incidentally one of my favourite characters). Her enlistment by the mysterious Abbot Enomoto to join his Shiranui Shrine – through no desire of her own – sets off a series of events which change de Zoet’s life forever.

Mitchell flexes his imaginative muscle with prowess throughout the novel, with different sections of it taking place on Dutch Dejima, Japanese Nagasaki, the Shrine of Shiranui (a monastery/convent shrouded in rumour and mystery), aboard an English trading ship, and in the minds, hearts and memories of many of the book’s endearing characters. It is a tale rife with colour and culture, atmosphere and ambience.

What I liked best about The Thousand Autumns was the rhythmic nature of its prose. Mitchell has employed a very subtle and structured poeticism in the writing of this book which made me feel that it would be quite fun and interesting to read aloud. There is a distinct rhythm which runs all the way through, especially in the dialogue, which gives it a Shakespearean, stage-play feel. There is also a fantastic section which is written in rhyming prose; look out for that, it’ll make your linguistic antennas tingle (a symptom of Mitchell’s usual stylistic genius)! He plays with language; moulding and manipulating words into new and exciting shapes, making you notice and, in turn, think about his choice of wording.

The Thousand Autumns is a beautifully well-rounded novel, sharing with its readers the incredible wisdom of David Mitchell’s imagination, while being elusive and enigmatic enough to give your mind an imaginative workout, too. If you’re an established Mitchell fan (comme moi), it’s a must-read. If you were bored/annoyed by Cloud Atlas (as I know some of you were), probably don’t try to improve your Mitchell-affection with this one – turn your eyes to Number9Dream or Black Swan Green!

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

2010-07-16T02:12:00.004+10:00

Patrick Bateman is a designer suit wearing, Zagat guide toting, cigar clenching Wall Street banker with a bloodlust so furious it causes him to chop people up (to put it tamely). He lives in a world full of vacant, vapid and vacuous characters who constantly mistake him for other Wall Street suits (and whom he can barely tell apart) and no matter how many useless designer things he buys, episodes of The Patty Winters Show he watches, reservations he makes at trendy restaurants or girls he tortures and kills, he remains totally unsatisfied and restless. His voice is that of a frantic madman in a soulless void (and often reminded me of one of Hunter s Thompson’s characters; i.e. insane, on drugs, constantly becoming anxious and fretful as a result of ‘normal’ social interactions).

Ellis uses tedious repetition, adsurdism and extreme juxtaposition to illustrate this satire of early 1990s New York. His detailed and ridiculous descriptions of food, music and clothing create a pretentious world full of superficial clowns and court jesters, none of whom are ever listening to one another (as evidenced by the constant admissions of psychopathic thoughts and urges by Bateman, which his peers ignore/don’t hear). Yes, the violence is maddening but it is my opinion that any book which inspires emotion, raw & deeply moving, serves its purpose. Ellis obviously has a pretty dark mind but even though he described the book as being an ‘exorcism’ of his own feelings and frustrations, I don’t think it is entirely gratuitous. A very bleak and serious point is being made about consumerism and ‘yuppie’ culture, and human beings’ stifled ability to connect with one another in the modern world.

I went to see Bret Easton Ellis do a bit of a talk and Q&A about American Psycho last night, in association with the Guardian Book Club. It was really enlightening to hear him speak about such a harrowing work – about his writing process, the motivations behind his novels, and the fact that he has only recently (20 odd years after its publication) been able to come to terms with what the book was about (himself) and lower the barrier of constant defensiveness which he’s barricaded himself behind for a long time. A lot of people asked him ‘why’ questions: “why did you write it this way?” “Why did you decide to have him do that?” etc., which I found somewhat tedious and which poor Ellis simply couldn’t answer apart from with a repeated “it just felt right that way”. I think one of the great things about American Psycho is its ambiguity. Is Patrick Bateman as attractive as he claims? Does he really commit all these heinous acts, or is it simply a nightmare going on inside his head? I want these questions to remain unanswered: that’s the intrigue of it.

While American Psycho is by no means for the faint-hearted, it is a comedy of the blackest degree and a literary force to be reckoned with.

Learning & sharing knowledge

2010-07-01T23:55:00.004+10:00

I'm sitting in a 'social networking crash course' which I am primarily attending for work, trying to decide what my 'core purpose' is. For the sake of this blog post (and the course), I'm going to talk about how my core purpose is learning & sharing knowledge.

For me, learning is life's ultimate purpose: it IS the journey, it IS growth. I would like to think of myself as "interested in everything". Nothing is boring when you are constantly learning. All information is new and conversely, being able to share knowledge, ideas & opinions is one of the most gratifying things in life. Books are obviously one of my favourite facilities to do this - but I also love using the internet as a platform to connect with people & share information on a real-time basis.

I'm an optimist and like to get the best out of everything. (I'm seriously thinking of getting a tattoo which says 'make lemonade', though some part of my brain keeps telling me it's ridiculous. Perhaps I should be telling myself to embrace the ridiculous - jump forward! ACT! LIFE IS SHORT!) Social networking is no different. I'm using these tools to have fun, to make connections, to share & to learn. And these are the same values I apply to my life.

What would you say is your 'core purpose'?

How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton

2010-05-15T03:27:00.004+10:00

The lovely Alain de Botton has done it again: he’s taken a huge multidimensional subject that scholars spend years dissecting and digesting (and casual readers shy away from) and pared it down into a handy 200-odd page volume that is delightful to read and makes for much more easily digestible food-for-thought.

How Proust Can Change Your Life is a pretty self-explanatory title, but I’m a fan of unnecessary elaboration and want to share with you some of the chapter titles, such as How To Be A Good Friend (including lessons on listening), How To Take Your Time (featuring a foray into Pascal’s Pensées), How To Express Your Emotions (giving your loved ones nicknames like plouplou & le flagorneur [the toady] is a good start) and my personal favourite, How To Suffer Successfully. If we follow his train of thought, de Botton compares so many common, modern modes of behaviour to those of early 20th century French characters it is really quite astonishing – and even made me wonder about the nature of human behaviour and how much (or little) it is affected by generational differences. De Botton clearly knows his stuff; his understanding not only of Proust’s work but of his personality, lifestyle and personal relationships resounds clearly throughout the book, giving it a much broader feel than simply a narrow exploration of In Search of Lost Time. He uses humour & irony so subtly but with such aptitude that it really creeps up on you – de Botton has a real gift; he is able to trick you into learning something and enjoying it, which if you ask me is the only real way to learn. (This coming from a girl with no tertiary education to speak of, who still believes herself an intelligent & valid person!)

Above all else this sweet little book provides a fantastic introduction to a man my impatient 21st century mind might have otherwise overlooked. De Botton emphasises that while Proust was no flawless genius or impeccable literary mastermind, he was sensitive, deeply intelligent and had a weighty understanding of what it means to be human – all traits that make him a worthy read even today.

Beautiful Exile: The Life of Martha Gellhorn by Carl Rollyson

2010-04-13T23:07:00.000+10:00

If you've never heard of Martha Gellhorn, then you have something in common with me before I picked up this book. It now seems strange to me that I had no idea who she was, knowing what I now know about her life, her work & her spirit.

Beautiful Exile is worth a read just for the discovery of such a punchy, ambitious & headstrong woman, who found the term 'feminist' offensive. I would have to agree with the book jacket quote deeming her 'plucky'. Martha Gellhorn was compassionate & perpetually outraged, and you certainly wouldn't have wanted to mess with her. Rollyson explores Gellhorn's mother Edna's life in a brief but interesting first chapter, which I felt set the scene for her entry into the world perfectly. Born in St Louis in 1908, Gellhorn had a childhood set by her mother's example; Edna being one of St Louis' prominent community servers. It therefore comes as no surprise that one of Gellhorn's main concerns throughout her life was endeavoring to ease the suffering of others.

In her teenage years, Martha Gellhorn married the french novelist Colette's stepson (and also, ahem, her lover), Bertrand Jouvenel. In her twenties she had an affair with H.G. Wells, before meeting, living with and eventually marrying writer Ernest Hemingway (she was his third wife, and they stayed married for 4 years). Gellhorn dropped out of college to pursue a career in journalism. She traveled to Paris & joined the pacifist movement. She reported about the humane issues all across the USA during the Depression. She stayed with the Roosevelts in the White House & struck up a lifelong friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt before she was 20. She reported practically from the front line during the Spanish Civil War, and then reported on World War II from all over Europe. By the time things started to sour in her marriage to Hemingway, he used his fame & connections to 'beat' her and maneuver himself closer to the D-Day landings at Normandy. To best him, she impersonated a nurse and managed to get right into the thick of things - even more than he was.

If all that isn't enough, she went snorkeling in her 80s, lived in a tiny cottage on a Kenyan mountaintop, adopted a boy from an Italian orphanage, traveled to more than 200 countries, either charmed the pants off or annoyed the hell out of everyone she met, and lived to be 89. Apart from the lack of compelling, page-turning narrative you find in a novel, this biography has it all. It is thorough, sympathetic, dramatic and contextual. It really was a pleasure getting to know the talented, contrary and utterly human Martha Gellhorn.

The City & The City by China Miéville

2010-03-27T00:20:00.000+11:00

Forgive me for reviewing yet another China Miéville novel; he is just one of my favourite authors & I read anything of his I can! The City & The City is a deviation from most of his previous work; its a murder-mystery set against a realistic eastern European backdrop populated by human beings rather than in the fantastical monster-ridden realm of Bas Lag, the setting of three of his previous books.

Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Beszel Extreme Crime Squad is called to a derelict estate in a corner of greying Beszel when a young girl's murdered body is discovered under a mattress. Borlu may have thought he'd been in the force long enough to have seen it all, but his investigation into this murder gets more complicated with every followed lead, and eventually takes him on a journey to another city. Ul Qoma: a modern, brightly-lit metropolis gaining international trade despite its somewhat vagabond status. It has been a long time since Inspector Borlu has visited Ul Qoma, even though he has walked past many of its streets & sights every day for his whole life. As alibis unravel and anonymous tip-offs result in successful interrogations, Borlu realises that rather than getting closer to solving the case, he is unearthing a deeper conspiracy that could affect the fates of both cities, and whatever the force is that binds them together (or keeps them apart).

In this shadowy tale of seeing & unseeing, politics & revolution, murder & police procedure; Miéville exaggerates the human need to cling on to illusions in order to see their desired social reality. His experiment is riveting and complete, his cityscapes deliciously fleshed-out and their cultural dynamics scrutinized. Not usually being a crime reader myself, I found The City & The City a real noire delight - it has just the right balance of crafty Miéville imagination & traditional Kafka-esque detective story to be a unique, exciting book that YOU SHOULD READ!

In advance: you're welcome!

Wonders of a Godless World by Andrew McGahan

2010-03-25T02:10:00.000+11:00

Wonders of a Godless World tells the story of a mute orphan girl living and working in a run-down mental hospital on an unnamed tropical island dominated by a volcano. Despite having a strong affinity with the earth and an inexplicable ability to predict the weather, the orphan has little competence with language. The narrative shows the world through her eyes; how she struggles to comprehend the things that go on around her, or to make any sense out of her existence.

Late one night an ambulance pulls up and delivers the hospital's newest patient. Obviously a foreigner, the mystery man is comatose and his skin is badly charred all over. The doctors try everything they can to revive or animate him, but to no avail; he remains a vegetable. Out of all the mad, delusional, destructive & profane patients resident at the hospital, the foreigner is allocated lodgings with a dapper duke, a waifish virgin, a tragically beautiful archangel and a malicious witch. When the orphan starts to fancy that she hears the foreigner communicating with her in her head, all manner of strange phenomena begin to occur. The patients are in turmoil, the volcano erupts and everyone begins behaving strangely, leading to a series of unexpected and brutal deaths. The orphan, however, has connected with someone for the first time in her life - and he is taking her to places she had never even dreamed of. With the foreigner's guidance, she is learning about geography, outer space, science and self-love. What ensues is an exploration of the psyche, a journey into madness and an examination of the hidden realms of consciousness.

McGahan's style is strangely straightforward. I read an interview with him where he explained that the idea for this novel came initially from his desire to write a book with no dialogue; the character of the mute orphan who is barely able to communicate crafted out of this desire. I think it is the lack of dialogue and the innocence of the orphan's mind that makes for such easily flowing prose, allowing him to depict man and nature in this bizarre interplay with one another in a clear, energetic way. However, behind the lucid wording lurk the shadows of bigger concepts, like religion, death, sex and love; and while I enjoyed the strange plot twists and exciting pace of the story, I did feel that McGahan only just scraped the surface of the ideas he could have explored with this book.

From what I understand Wonders of a Godless World is a stylistic about-turn for McGahan, which makes me curious to read some of his other work. He has won many awards (including the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for his novel The White Earth) and is considered one of Australia's finest modern authors. If you're looking for a riveting story about identity, madness and the forces of nature, this one's for you.

A literary birthday: Anaïs Nin

2010-02-22T10:25:00.003+11:00

Anaïs Nin is one of my favourite writers of all time. And not for her erotica, for which she is most famous. The first time I picked up Anaïs Nin's diaries, it changed me. I don't think I've ever been the same since.

Nin shifted my perspectives, opened me up like a flower & taught me sensitivity, poetry in all things, sensuality, and self-analysis. Yes, I'll admit the woman was a little nuts (at the time of her death she had 2 husbands who knew nothing of one another, in different parts of the country; not to mention her weird relationship with her father) but aside from that I know I'm not the only one her writing, and her spirit, touched. She was an intoxicating muse, a financial aid to artists she thought needed her help (though she had no real money herself), and a true disciple of art & beauty.

I encourage anyone to pick up one of her journals & discover this demon-chaser, this wild woman, this poetess, this creature of undulating sensuality, still today ablaze with life.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

2010-02-16T14:06:00.003+11:00

Shadow is about to finish a three-year prison sentence when he is informed his wife has been killed in an accident. He is released a couple of days early in order to fly home for the funeral, but on the plane he meets a mysterious man named Mr. Wednesday, who offers him a job. Shadow, with nothing left to lose, accepts.

Working for Mr. Wednesday takes Shadow on a crazy, hazy road trip around America, meeting all manner of people & creatures, being kidnapped, haunted by his dead wife & seduced in his dreams. He must come to terms with the fact that he doesn't really know who he is, and he might have been chosen for this job for a reason. "A storm is coming..." they continuously tell him, and Shadow must find a way to stop it. But first, he needs to work out exactly who, and what, he is dealing with.

Another fantastic concept from Mr Gaiman - where does he come up with these things?: America is a country mostly made up of immigrants. People from all over the world have come & settled there, bringing with them their ideals, cultural identities, social structures and... their gods. But what happens when gods are transported to a new land and some generations later, forgotten about? Gaiman explores the psyche of American gods, from the forgotten (Anubis, Anansi, Odin et al) to the gods of a more modern society, such as gods of the internet, television and cars. Leprechauns with coin tricks, the murderous black god Czernobog, old ladies in nightdresses who pluck the moon from the sky, the walking dead and television figures that come to life are just some of the enthralling and delightful characters this book explores. I am once again dazzled and deeply impressed with Gaiman's imaginative prose. Really, this book is a mythology geek's dream-come-true; it is packed full of myths, legends, fables and folklore cleverly tucked into its every nook. If, like me, you're not so well-versed in mythological stories, this might be of some help.

The only thing that bothered me about this hefty novel (the edition I read was around 650 pages) was how many mystery-doors were opened in the first half or three-quarters of the book that subsequently then had to be closed & tied up towards the end. It made me feel somewhat as though the book was never going to come to an end (although it could be argued that is a good thing!). Gaiman's novels are always exciting, crazy, and imaginative, and this is no exception. American Gods made me re-appreciate the value of stories, old and new. People tend to reflect themselves in their fables, which is why fables are timeless and those who can tell compelling, illuminating, humorous or fascinating stories just should.

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

2010-01-15T16:32:00.005+11:00

Perdido Street Station is set in the jumbled, ramshackle, festering metropolis of New Crobuzon. Situated at the cross section of three major rivers, New Crobuzon is run by fascistic militia-influenced government and crime lords alike. It's conglomeration of species, classes and criminals makes it a vast, cosmopolitan melting pot full of humans, cactus people, amphibious people, scarab-headed women, and Remade: people with various animal or mechanical parts grafted onto their bodies as punishment for their crimes.

Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, an 'outlaw scientist' as he likes to think of himself, receives a visitor one day in his cramped laboratory; Yagharek, a great bird-man from the desert. Yagharek seeks Isaac's help, because his wings have been mercilessly severed from his body in punishment for crimes against his people. He wants only one thing: to be returned to the air. To fly again.

Unbeknownst to them, Isaac and Yagharek's meeting has triggered a series of events that lead to a city-wide nightmare plague, the emergence of dream-eating monster moths, an other-worldy giant spider with human hands and a terrifying insanity, an enormous trash heap with a brain, and various other ghouls from the deep, cavernous pits of Miéville's mind. New Crobuzon feels authentically like a city; a whole and complete place in your imagination - I almost felt that I could buy a ticket to Perdido Street Station and wind up right in the middle of it. Miéville is a complete poet. His language is convoluted and multi-layered, but worth every re-read sentence.

I oddly find Miéville's characters completely unrelatable - I tend to find his protagonists annoying, and in this case it was no different. I felt more sympathy towards Yagharek, until right at the end. I can't decide if my inability to really like Miéville's heroes is a personal thing, or if it's down to poor writing or actual intent. I doubt it's poor writing - but I have to speak to some other Miéville-ites in order to tell if it's just me, or if the characters are written that way. Despite them though, once again, the story - the great and fantastic story - outweighs anything else, and I was drawn in to the last word. I marvel and wonder at the immensity of the imagination of the man who writes these incredible settings, unbelieveably complex cultures and languages and physiques. China Miéville, I salute you.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T20:30:00.003+11:00

Merry Christmas bookworms. :)

Hope there is a giant pile of delicious books under your tree this year!

P.S. Sorry for the hiatus here, I have been travelling and things have been a bit hectic. I promise posts will pick up in the new year. Happy holidays!

Evie~
xx

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

2009-11-24T02:42:00.003+11:00

This highly acclaimed book is nothing short of a delightful, truly American little quip of a read. Weighing in at just 100 pages, it manages to illustrate a host of characters, places and situations between so few pieces of paper it actually almost reads the way a movie feels: like a brief but very detailed... tangible glimpse into another person's world.

The novella's narrator is an incomplete character; his real name is ambiguous (I thought) and he seems to serve mainly as a voyeur of Holly Golightly's life. However there is more to him, for example in the opening line of the book: "I am always drawn back to places I have lived; the houses and their neighbourhoods." – we immediately start to build a sense of him, and that sense is pieced together throughout the novella in bits, though never quite making a whole. It is through this hazy character's eyes that the reader sees Miss Golightly, though in a slightly rose-tinted hue.

Holly Golightly is a young woman living alone in New York - hosting parties at her tiny (largely unfurnished) apartment, dancing in exclusive clubs with sailors, horse-riding in Central Park, and yes, dreaming of breakfast at Tiffany's. She is remarkable because, as this story was written in 1958, she lives in a time when women are not usually so outlandish. She is bold, smart, independent, beautiful and talented, although, like all the best characters, she is largely flawed and lost. She is on the run from a guilty past and, it seems, is quite trapped by the life and identity she has built herself in New York. She is secretive, even secretly secretive. She doesn't want to let on who she really is, and as such wears the many masks of the social butterfly (but wears them gloriously).

Truman Capote is arguably one of the best American writers of the latter 20th century, and in this - probably his most famous - novella, he demonstrates why with style, sensitivity and a precision of character betraying his astuteness. He maintains a great balance between aesthetics (which are a delight) and intellectual intrigue. The edition I picked up (above) also contained three of his short stories: House of Flowers, Diamond Guitar and A Christmas Memory, all of which adhere to what I've said about his writing and left an excellent impression on me – and a deep burning desire to read In Cold Blood, the praises of which I have heard sung endlessly by many friends! One for the bookshop amnesia list, methinks.

World's End by T. Coraghessan Boyle

2009-11-12T01:37:00.003+11:00

This expansive novel is a great demonstration of Boyle's literary prowess. Despite the fact that at times I found it hard to chew, World's End taught me lots of things, broadened my perspectives and took me to places in my thoughtscape I hadn't previously ventured. Spanning three historical eras in New York's Hudson Valley area, it tells a moving tale of family lost & found, consequences, history's relevance & the human need to act on beliefs.

Walter Van Brunt is a despondent kid looking for trouble; or at least his real father, a selfish traitor by all accounts and solely responsible for his mother's death. Walter's father, Truman, starts appearing to him in visions one fateful night which culminates in a motorbike accident. The accident sets Walter on a journey in search of truth – truth about his family, the past and himself. Along the way he meets Mardi Van Wart, a sexy, rebellious drifter, & her father Depeyster, a hugely rich businessman and conservative who knew Truman in the days before the catalytic 1949 riots.

In the late 1600s, the Van Brunts and the Van Warts were already involved in one another's lives – and in similar circumstances. Boyle evokes colonial New York with a master's skill. The farms, rolling hills, Indian tribes and sugarloaf hats of the Dutch settlers jump from the page into your mind's eye automatically; thus is the power of Boyle's command of language. He employs a playful exaggeration and cleverly constructed symbolism to demonstrate the extraordinary that can be found in the seemingly insignificant things.

While this novel is huge in that it spans generations, it doesn't spread its spindly fingers further than the grip of the few families involved in the story, and as such feels much more personal. I suppose you could even say it was a family saga of sorts, speckled with the odd curse, ghost or convenient coincidence. Labels aside, World's End is a compelling, tragic story unlike any I've read before which makes you question whether history is destined to repeat itself, or whether perhaps we have more choice in the matter. Is like father really like son?

Number9Dream by David Mitchell

2009-11-11T02:43:00.003+11:00

Although Number9dream differs from Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas in that it is the telling of one story throughout - that being the story of Eiji Miyake, a 19-year-old Japanese boy who comes to Tokyo from his small island home in search of his long-lost father - it is just as all-encompassing, if not more so, than Mitchell's preceding and following novels. Number9dream is structurally defined by eight chapters, nine if you include the final, blank one. Each chapter flits between two narratives, Eiji's story and in each chapter something else - whether it be Eiji's fantasy-world, dreams, children's stories, a wartime journal, or letters. Basically it is as full and rich as any of Mitchell's others, taking you up, down, through and welding you to his character - Eiji - in the most captivating and interesting way.

I of course loved every word of it, am at a loss to describe how it made me feel, and the impressions of Tokyo I felt from it. All the hysterical, fantastical, violent and euphoric experiences Eiji has subsequent to his few weeks in Tokyo, real or imagined, broaden the understanding of him and fling you into a deep sympathy with him. His story is many-layered, full of coincidence, adventure, romance, daring, misfortune and friendship... and in the end, even though he claims that he feels "sad that I found what I searched for, but no longer want what I found”, it is his journey that is the most important thing - and it's stories like that which I like best... probably because they are cohesive with my own life theories.

I adore Mitchell's writing, and I've read everything he's published. He's one of my favourite authors & if you haven't read anything by him before, this one would be a great place to start. Go get lost in his surprising metaphors, riveting plots & turn of phrase that makes you gasp in delight. You can thank me later!

Holiday Reading

2009-11-07T00:37:00.001+11:00

Holiday reading is the best. Especially if you're fortunate enough to find a hammock to do it in!

What's your favourite holiday read?

The Naked Drinking Club by Rhona Cameron

2009-11-06T23:50:00.005+11:00

Ok, I'll be honest. I picked up this book for three superficial reasons:

1) It is set in Australia
2) The title (and sub-title, which reads: "drunk, disorderly & down under")
3) Russell Brand's endorsement on the front.

Lame, I know. But there is a bit more to this book than meets the eye, although I'm going to say right now that it didn't meet the potential I thought it had. There were some really insightful moments and some truly tragic scenes, and some scarily precise depictions of destructive and hedonistic behaviour. At times, though, Cameron's writing brought the whole thing down, and it occasionally read like a piece of chick-lit fluff.

Kerry arrives in Sydney plastered and with her tongue down a stranger's throat. She has drunk sex with him for a few days before wandering off to Glebe to find a job and start on her 'mission' - the reason she left Edinburgh. When she starts working for a company called ART, selling mass-produced paintings door-to-door (flogging them as originals), the path of her destiny seems to lead her into increasingly more bizarre circumstances. Day-long binges of alcohol and drugs, sex with strangers, drunk phone calls to her grandfather in Scotland, and the intriguing banter with her boss, Anaya, keep Kerry on her toes and in a confusing whirlwind - and, seemingly, away from her ultimate goal.

Just underneath the surface of all this partying and promiscuity is real heart: Kerry is a broken girl, and she's looking for something to heal her. The characters are touching and true, the setting of Sydney sizzles with its unique vivacity, and the emotional desperation and tenseness builds well throughout the story. There was just a little - I don't know. Something held this book back from being the moving, imprint-leaving novel it had all the ingredients to be. Having said that, it is Cameron's debut - and by day she is a comedienne... so perhaps that's why it felt so light at times. I enjoyed it - there were some really hilarious moments and it maintained a level of frankness that would make the bluntest comedians blush.

Maybe it didn't come to be what I thought it could be. But as it is, The Naked Drinking Club interesting, fun, tragic and outrageous with subtle, dark tones. Weightier than your average beach read.

Notes from a Big Country by Bill Bryson

2009-11-06T23:25:00.005+11:00

Hilarious. I can't say much else about this book. It speaks for itself just to say that I convinced Uri (my fiancé, who makes up for my overzealous approach to reading with his laxness) to read one chapter and he is now hooked and reading (and re-reading!) the whole thing. Really it is a collection of columns that Bryson wrote for the Mail on Sunday when he picked up and moved his family and his whole life back to his home country after living in England for 25 years or so. It's a strange dynamic, having an American who is almost an Englishman reporting about America's quirks and attributes, trying to re-adjust to life in the USA. But Bryson is just too funny - turning a simple trip to the post office into an hilarious anecdote and sometimes letting his taste for the British outrageous humour ride a long wave, becoming somewhat rant-like, but never losing its edge and wit. The short, sharp injections of humour make it all the more enjoyable, as there is never much downtime. It's just about laugh after laugh.

Bryson's thoughts and rantings are also well-researched. Although these columns were published in the late 90s and therefore some of his statistics and facts might be a little stale now, reading them in his context keeps them relevant. And funny! Some of the information he uncovers and brings to light is shocking, some ridiculous, some unbelievable. But it gets you thinking about things you otherwise probably wouldn't have noticed or looked in to. And while there might be some light jeering, there is no America-bashing at all - Bryson makes it clear he is very fond of his homeland. If you look, you can find things to jeer at anywhere! Actually, that might just be one of Bill Bryson's life theories.

Warning: do not read in public places, unless you don't mind being that weirdo on the bus giggling hysterically into a book.

Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter

2009-10-28T11:20:00.003+11:00

Sophie Fevvers: Flight or Fancy? Fevvers (as she is affectionately called) is a celebrated aerialiste, a larger-than-life trapeze artist of the most unique kind: she has wings. The public adore her, madmen want to make a human(?) sacrifice of her, Grand Dukes attempt seduction. Who is she, though? And more importantly - is she real? Such are the questions on the lips of American journalist Jack Walser, who decides to depart from his familiar territory of war & disaster reporting, and concentrate on a more 'human interest' angle. Initially, he interviews Fevvers simply for her 'thus far' story, but decides it is not enough and, thinly disguised as a clown, joins the circus of which she is a star performer and follows her to Petersburg and beyond. I'd like to say "hilarious consequences ensue", but in Nights At The Circus the hilariousness of the events that unfold (and there ARE moments of extreme hilarity) is outweighed, for the most part, by shock, gruesomeness, and all-too-serious ridiculousness.

A book that seems at first glance to be a bit of a fancy turns into a much more serious look at psyche, tribalism, cruelty, endurance, love, and the absurd. From what I gleaned from the intro by Sarah Waters that preceded the edition I read, Carter's writing is often like this. She is spoken of as a 'magical realist', and I can see why - but I think this novel is a bit like an ocean - sparkly and wondrous on top but with dark, hidden depths of endless foreboding possibility. The 'magical' element is more of an enchantment, and certainly not a flimsy, Potter-esque sorcery. Waters opines in her intro that Nights At The Circus is Carter's masterpiece; and also the most 'engaging and accessible' of her fictions, which very much intrigues me to read some of Carter's other work.

It is a huge novel; geographically spanning from London to Siberia but also the characters emotional journeys are diverse and all-encompassing. Carter's writing has an odd and unique style - she is a queen of metaphor, a lover of detail and a master of significance; foretelling; symbolism. Some paragraphs are so lush they hook you right in to their seams, some are so bland they reel you out to their perimeters. At times I was smiling, laughing, wincing, gasping, praying - eyes glued to the page, willing them with all my might not to skip ahead in anticipation... I mean, not every chapter was compelling, some were downright listless, but once again, I am loath to criticise as when you reach the end of a good book, you realise even the bits you didn't like reading at the time were just necessary elements of the incredible whole.

The characters are colourful and sometimes astounding - I suppose that almost automatically comes with the setting of a circus. I remember (like most kids?) wanting to run away with the circus when I was little, after I read a book set in one, but Carter did not glamourise or romanticise the circus in that way. It became appealing seeing it through Walser's eyes, (he DID run away with the circus) - the dirt, the animosity, chimps wearing clothes, tigers dancing, elephants stamping their chained feet, clowns endlessly tumbling and playing, music everywhere, the wondrous and spectacular becoming the 'norm', the extreme characters, the buzz and frivolity of the routine... all rolled up into one bright, bustling, vibrant, multicoloured mass of molecular dazzle - a Circus. Although Fevvers, her foster-mother Lizzie, and Walser are all intensely interesting characters - it was the Circus itself which stole my attention the whole way through making the rest fall under its brilliant light. I liked Nights At The Circus, even though the plot sometimes disagreed with me, and I was occasionally confused. I like that it was different, exciting, weird and wonderful. I like what I came to know of Angela Carter, and hope to explore her work further. I recommend it if you're looking for something a little different, with plenty of rich language and stories within stories; bizarre characters and iridescent settings. I think it is essentially feminist: Fevvers comes into her own and kicks off all labels and categories, to finally speak for herself.... which, of course, resonated with me.

Complete Prose by Woody Allen

2009-10-23T01:11:00.002+11:00

This collection of Woody Allen's prose consists of three books: Without Feathers, Getting Even and Side Effects. If ever a collection of words made me laugh out loud (or, more accurately, guffaw) it's this. Allen's prose sometimes reads like lots of one-liners strung together, sometimes farcical and sometimes outrageous, sometimes insightful and mostly absurd; but always hilarious. He has a real knack for characters (as we know from his films) and highlights with ease the absurdity of people, institutions and situations. With over 50 short stories brought together in this volume, it's difficult to choose a favourite. If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists (which you can read here if you're interested) was up there, but the detective story with God as the missing person was a classic, as was the Chess by correspondence, or Hitler's hairdresser's journal. Allen cracks his satirical whip over many aspects of society with such sharp wit and decadence you actually feel fuelled by his words - or at least I did. The extent of his absurdism (which I understand is quite Groucho Marx-esque, although I have never read any of Groucho's work) is such that, while laughing hysterically you are simultaneously a little outraged by the clarity that the ridiculousness unveils… or perhaps it was meant to be read a little lighter than that and I just got carried away, hehe.

In any case, an excellent read, probably something normal readers would enjoy picking up, reading a chapter of and putting down again every so often - although I've never been good at that (plus it was a library loan). I'm such a ridiculously straight reader; I have to read each page in succession until the end! If you're a Groucho fan, or an Allen fan, or an absurdism fan - definitely pick this one up.

No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July

2009-10-21T01:32:00.003+11:00

This enchanting collection of short stories (many of them previously published elsewhere) show Miranda July's fascinating perspective, sensitivity, wit and scope of understanding with edginess and vivacity. It confirms what I already thought of her from seeing her film Me and You and Everyone We Know - that she has incredible insight and comprehension of human psyche - and a unique creative voice in her writing.

Every story is touching, deeply personal and often heart-wrenching or hilarious. She always writes in the first person, I notice - possibly a habit carried over from acting? Anyway, her characters tend to delve into fantasy realms in their heads, to avoid the harsh brunt of reality. In one story, a middle-aged man ignores the gay come-on of a colleague by fantasising about said colleague's (non-existant) underage sister. In another, a woman constructs a romance in her head with her epileptic Korean neighbour. One of my favourites tells the story of a girl who is "fucked" by a "dark shape" as a teenager, develops a relationship with the shape and is therefore unable to date actual men. When the dark shape stops visiting her in the night, she breaks her silence and people think she was sexually abused by a family member. She then recognises her 'shape' in the eyes of one of her teenage special needs pupils, and they develop a relationship. All of the stories broke my heart in one way or another - July has a way of delving into the deepest darkest recesses of her characters' minds, and pulling out such profundity it's sometimes scary.

Overall, it made me question our classifications of 'sane' and 'normal' - from reading her narratives it seems everyone is a little bit freaky, everyone has their neurosis... and from this stems the idea that the public world is just one huge mask behind which we all sit twitching with our individual personality tics. I love July for setting me on this train of thought - it's so interesting and one she explores so fearlessly in her work - film, writing, performance or otherwise. This is a gem of book, I urge you to read it and laugh and cry and laugh.

The Lollipop Shoes* by Joanne Harris

2009-10-21T00:16:00.003+11:00

If I have one major complaint about Joanne Harris, it's that all her books are a bit same-ish, thus making her work somewhat predictable. Then again, this could be a favourable quality – you know what you're going to get with her and in my opinion, the standard is high.

Obviously I loved Chocolat; full of delicious, cocoa-dusted confectionary and Harris' own brand of magic. And all the other books of hers I've read (Holy Fools, Coastliners, Blackberry Wine) have had that same mystical quality that makes her work just… scrumptious. The Lollipop Shoes is no exception, with all the sensitivity, sensuality and spice of a Joanne Harris book and a little dollop of black magic to boot.

Picking up four years after Chocolat ends, we find Vianne & Anouk in very different circumstances. Now known as Yanne and Annie, they live a quiet life above a dusty chocolaterie in Montmartre, attempting normalcy and anonymity. They even succeed for a time, Yanne wearing black shoes and Pantoufle just a vague shadow at Annie's heels. But the wind never stays quiet for long, and one afternoon in late autumn Zozie de l'Alba comes blowing into their lives on it. Vibrant, exciting & mysterious, she's a hard package to ignore, and Annie (now 12) is especially taken with her vivacious shoe collection.

Helping Yanne with the shop and Annie with her school troubles, Zozie seems like a godsend. But Zozie, with her knowledge of voodoo and Aztec magic, has a hidden agenda, and her sinister plans will shake their quiet new world to its fragile core.

It is written from three different perspectives in alternating chapters: Zozie's, Yanne's and Annie's. While I love Harris' style of writing which she imbues with such flavour, I don't think she quite got the hang of the shifting narratives. Their voices didn't change much – it was like the same actor reading three parts in the same way. That said, it was her usual high quality of emotive and fragrant prose which made The Lollipop Shoes pleasurable for me. And I think it's accurate to say that if you love one of Harris' books, you'll love them all.

*published in the US as The Girl With No Shadow

East Of The Sun by Julia Gregson

2009-10-21T00:10:00.002+11:00

Another novel set in India, and I never get bored of them. Ridiculous, I know; having never been to India it is bizarre that I should love it and even miss it when I don't dive into another fictional world set in its tumultuous, richly-coloured landscape. But I do!

This one is a little different than some I've read recently - it is set in the late 1920s - when India was still under British rule, but only just. Three young English women are venturing to Bombay, each for their own reasons. Rose is the young naive bride-to-be of Captain Jack Chandler of the British army; Victoria (Tor) is her best friend in the world, accompanying Rose not only to help her with the wedding and be a bridesmaid, but also to escape her overbearing mother & hopefully snag a husband for herself.

Viva, their chaperone - is another story altogether. An independent woman in an age when that is unusual, she is mysterious & vague about her past. She has no family to speak of but is on the way to a remote part of India where she grew up to retrieve a trunk left to her in her parents' will; and her aloofness makes her strangely alluring to everyone she meets - especially Guy, her other charge: a moody, pimply teenager prone to getting in trouble and with an increasingly dark side.

Gregson delivers another richly illustrated and dramatic portrait of India in a tense political period. On the one hand, there is Tor's 'British India' with the 'season' and parties at the Bombay Yacht Club; luxurious estate houses with servants & exotic fruits & drinks at one's disposal. Then there's Rose's new life as a military wife, bundled off to Poona & coping with heat, flies, isolation and talk of baby-thieving monkeys. Viva's Bombay life is something else; much more immersed in the political & social agitation of the time, and the smiling, hopeful faces of children amongst all the poverty & crime & dirt. Though the three women move in very different directions, they attempt to maintain their friendship and when things come to a head with Guy & his obsessive behaviour, they need each other more than ever.

A great read, full of all the near-palpable sights & smells I love about India novels, and with the quaint, sweet finesse of a book about Englishwomen. Add a bit of mystery to the mix & you have East Of The Sun. Thanks to my dear friend Kate, who recommended this book to me & thus put it on my radar.

Love All The People by Bill Hicks

2009-09-23T04:21:00.002+10:00

It was, to put it simply: invigorating to read this book.

To anyone who isn't familiar with the work of Mr Hicks: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!? YouTube him STAT.

Born in 1961 and dying an untimely death from cancer at just 32 years old, Bill Hicks was a significant American comedian in the 80s and early 90s. He didn't really achieve recognition in his home country until close to the end of his life, and even then he wasn't celebrated as much as he was in Britain, where they seemed to 'get' his unique irony & savage style from the start.

Love All The People is a collection of his transcribed routines, letters, production proposals & interviews; sequenced by date. It takes you on a journey through his mind, really. Despite there being a lot of repetition (in that lots of his shows he repeated the same jokes he had previously used) it worked only to cement his progression into my mind from angry, hilarious boy into spiritual, hilarious man. In 1993, shortly before his death, Hicks was scheduled to appear on David Letterman's late night show, but after having recorded his bit (to a very receptive audience, by all accounts) he was cut out completely at the last minute before the show went to air. It was the first time a comedian's entire routine had been censored after taping, and Hicks was outraged. It was supposedly due to the controversial nature of his religious jokes (which funnily enough, by today's standards, are mostly quite tame), although both the producers of the Letterman show & the CBS Network officials denied responsibility for the censorship, pointing the finger at one another.

I felt as though this collection of writing helped me get to know Hicks and where he was coming from. Sure, some of his material was harsh, brash, crass & savage – but his aim was always to make people laugh, and to make them think. To bring the Truth to light: that our world is an illusion, that our governments are false, and that if we used our collective resources to educate the poor & feed the hungry, there need never be another war again. His vision of what the world could be was beautiful, and he used comedy & laughter to show his audiences that. Get to know him, you won't regret it!

"I left in love, in laughter, and in truth and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit." - Bill Hicks

Iron Council by China Miéville

2009-09-23T03:37:00.003+10:00

Lost somewhere between Western, political thought experiment and steampunk love story, I would call Iron Council genreless, despite its fantastical Bas Lag setting - the complex world of Miéville's two previous 'weird fiction' books.

Picking up in the seething metropolis of New Crobuzon a vague number of years after Perdido Street Station's time, Iron Council opens with the urgent chase of a fleeing Judah Low (whose namesake, I have recently discovered having been in Prague & seen the cemetery where he is buried, is Rabbi Loewe - the man who, according to legend, made the first golem), a master golemist who leaves New Crobuzon in a time of political upheaval to find the legendary renegades known as the Iron Council. Judah's lover Cutter and a small devoted following set out through Rudewood to help him, pursued by a mysterious government agent.

Back in New Crobuzon things are heating up - the war with neighbouring Tesh ploughs on and the human, insectoid, cactoid and amphibian inhabitants of the city are falling into a deeper state of unrest. A young rebel named Ori is being sucked further & further into the gangland underbelly of New Crobuzon and its own special brand of justice. Miéville really gets under the collective psychological skin of the city this time around, which I know annoyed some readers due to its heavily political nature, but which I was very pleased by. He explores romantic revolutionaries, the sometime hypocrisy of revolt, selfish extremism and the drive for rightness in a confusing, realistic world. I think the thing I like most about it (and I guess this is what I like about all well-written science fiction) is how much it mirrors our world, and yet is at the same time a huge leap of the writer's imagination.

Running alongside these narratives is a third, set in the dusty memories of Judah Low. In a classic Western-style story we learn how the Iron Council came to be. These chapters are full of clinking metal, steam engines, unchartered wilderness & even a visit from a familiar arachnid character. What bothered me at first about this story was the same thing I loved it for by the end: its dustiness, its old-fashioned vibe, its melancholia.

Another beautifully written book with a huge & well-realised story. I can't recommend Miéville's novels enough to those of you who appreciate science fiction, weird fiction, or just good fiction. Go forth & absorb.

Plus - my copy is signed!!! :D

The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

2009-09-07T20:15:00.004+10:00

Once I really sunk my teeth into this book, I adored it.

At first it felt like another boring fantasy novel, with magic & ye olde taverns & ignorant townsfolk who gossip about demons. And granted, all those things are there. But what is also there is a great story; a fantastic adventure with heart, humour & tragedy.

Kvothe is introduced as a quiet, lonely nondescript innkeeper, but when Chronicler (the chronicler) shows up at his doorstep and begs for his story, Kvothe is unable to resist and begins to tell it. What we have in The Name of the Wind is a beginning. A huge, sprawling beginning that lets us know that Kvothe is a legendary character whose journey is one we really want to read. Raised by a travelling entertainment troupe, he was a whizz-kid trained in serious alchemy and sciences by the time he was twelve. All he can think about is studying at The University, where they have a collection of thousands and thousands of precious books. When tragedy slices into his life, he is left broken and directionless, and this first part of the story follows him through grieving and lute-playing; living rough on the streets of Tarbean, a big urban smokestain of a city; university enrolment and frisky schoolboy mischief; discovering love; dragons, bullies, music-halls and trouble. Everything, I have to say, is made more intense by Rothfuss’ habit of build-ups and over-telling. But I didn’t mind, after the first chapter or two I was hooked and drank it all up with interest and dedication.

This is Patrick Rothfuss’ first novel; and he obviously spent a long time figuring out its logistics. The only problem with it is that when you get to the end, so many things have been ‘set up’ or alluded to that you feel like you want to dive straight in to the next book in the series. Then you discover that it is, as yet, unpublished! Rothfuss is still tweaking it. I’m betting, however, it’ll be worth the wait.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2009-09-07T20:08:00.004+10:00

Written as a long, rambling letter from a 76 year old pastor to his 7 year old son, Gilead is touching, subtle and sweet. It is sprinkled with gentle philosophy; as John Ames writes his son this sort of memoir-letter, he depicts tender family moments, the joy of parenthood, and the confusion and concrete beliefs of childhood.

As far as plot goes, there isn’t much. John Ames is old, and dying, we learn on the first page. His wife and son are much younger than him, and he writes so his son will have something to remember him by (other than the hundreds of dusty sermons that lie untouched since their delivery in his attic). Slowly paced, bit by bit, we learn about the town of Gilead, where they live. Ames tells of its history – how it is intermingled with his own family’s history – and its people; their minutiae and their skeletons. Ames is likeable and pitiable; a man that came to life too late, who wishes things had been different but knows that if they had, he wouldn’t have what he now has. He writes sometimes with the calm of a religious man, other times with the anger of one who knows his life will end and rages against his own mortality. The voice is distinct and the character well-shaped, for which I think Robinson deserves all the praise she got for this novel.

I enjoyed the rambling religious philosophising that occurred repeatedly, some of which was really very interesting and thought-provoking. However, overall I found Gilead lacking. Lacking in plot, in depth, in all-consuming fire. I like my books to eat me up from inside out, and I them, and this one was too gentle for my tastes. Perhaps it's just my atheism rearing its cynical head, but most of what Robinson wrote didn’t resonate with me. It’s a popular book that lots of people say touched them and moved them - but as for me, I closed the final page and just kind of …shrugged. Sweet, temperate and mild; not riveting, and not mind-blowing. A disappointment.

Restoration by Rose Tremain

2009-07-19T19:17:00.002+10:00

Studying to be a physician, Robert Merivel wins the favour of King Charles II when he accidentally cures one of the King’s spaniels. Merivel is employed at court as a veterinarian; but with his flamboyant behavior, rambunctious appetite and habit of spilling food all over himself, he ends up playing the part of court fool more naturally than anything else. Merivel loves his King, but Charles marries him off to one of his mistresses (that he might continue to see her without incurring the jealousy of his other mistress), and sends Merivel to live at Bidnold, a large estate in Norfolk. Merivel is told explicitly not to ever touch her or feel for her any more than as a friend – though of course he cannot help but fall in love with her, causing the King to scorn him and cast him out from court; losing his house and of course his wife too.

With nowhere else to go Merivel travels to Whittlesea to see his old friend Pearce, who is a Quaker working at a small mental asylum. Merivel joins the Quakers in their work and for a time, fits in there and feels as though maybe he has found where he belongs. Unfortunately Merivel breaks their rules too, and is once again cast out back to London where the Great Plague has begun.

I love stories in which people’s lives undergo many transformations, and this is such a story. Robert Merivel goes from court fool to Lord of his manor to penniless Quaker warden to physician and father, and Tremain explores his internal journey with as much finesse, focus and sensitivity as she does his external. I’m not usually a reader of historical fiction, but Tremain’s 17th Century England was a joy to discover, especially through the eyes of such a gaudy, ostentatious character as Robert Merivel, who one cannot help but find endearing. Tremain has perfected the difficult art of writing an historical novel that is totally relatable to a reader today. Merivel is a materialist, and we are definitely still living in a material world. When he comes to Whittlesea and sees the contrast of the peace and meager living of the Quakers, Merviel begins to realise an internal struggle between his selfish impulses and his conscience, and his desire to be good and do good things for others. In rich and diverse settings, Tremain highlights for us our own struggles and flaws, but shows us that restoration to joy is possible, too.

Fangirl

2009-07-10T19:49:00.002+10:00

On Tuesday night I went to Kentish Town (in the pouring rain and got soaked) and met my friend Pat in the Pineapple. She subtly pointed out Suggs from Madness sitting at the next table, which was quite giggle-worthy. Apparently it's his local!

China Miéville was doing a reading from The City & The City and beforehand Pat had a long chat with him and got him to doodle her an octopus which was pretty cool. I was all goofy and ridiculous as usual, although not as much as last time I met him. If I was a cartoon, I would've had hearts in my eyes.

The reading was fantastic - less than 20 people in the room, very casual, then a kind of 'Q&A' which was more of a conversation, really. I was too shy to say anything but lots of people asked questions and China answered them well and with wit and alacrity. He's so dreamy...

I wish I could've bought a copy of The City & The City but didn't have any money for it... oh, I can't wait to read it! Plus I've already got a signed copy of Iron Council so I guess that will have to do. And now, I have the above photo!!! All thanks to Pat, to whom I am eternally indebted.

My favourite China quotes of the night:

"There's a China Miéville fan community on LiveJournal??" (after Pat and I told how we met)

"Dude, if I wanted to say something about Israel, I would just say it! I wouldn't have to smuggle it in through a crime novel."

♥

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

2009-07-10T19:36:00.003+10:00

“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections — sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent — that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death brought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life.”

At just 14, a hopeful and happy girl, Susie Salmon is raped, murdered and dismembered by a psychopathic neighbor. She ascends to heaven, or rather, her heaven, where she watches her family and friends struggle to cope with their loss; and constantly tries to push into the gaps she left in their lives.

This book was a massive bestseller, which often seems to mean that it is complete tripe (viz: the Da Vinci Code), but in the case of The Lovely Bones it deserves all the praise it gets. It’s harrowing and beautiful in equal measure. Sebold explores the concept of an afterlife with all the imagination and tenderness that comes from not having experienced it: it’s a very human, very real exploration in which the afterlife is strongly tied to the physical world, and the dead can ‘watch’ the goings-on of their loved ones (and, as in Susie’s case, their killers) and conjure up material comforts for themselves in their realm.

Susie keeps an eye on her killer, who isn’t captured, and watches as her family is torn apart by her murder and the consequent grief and guilt and madness. I found the book to be mostly devastating, and only a little cathartic – but the catharsis owes entirely to the excellent balance of Sebold’s writing and her ability to shine a spotlight through bleak emotional fog; to guide the reader through their own grief and to their own acceptance and understanding. Sebold is a rape victim herself and as such it is astounding that she can write about these things with clarity, emotion, and a certain sense of clinical detachment. She depicts the character of Susie’s killer in a very human, very realistic and therefore very chilling way. Your instinct is to class someone like that as a monster – the last thing you want to do is understand them or relate to them. And yet Sebold explores that side of death, too: understanding.

I love the title of this novel, which evokes that beautiful morbidity that underlines every word. The Lovely Bones is not light-hearted, but it is full of heart. It will make you think, and possibly even reassess your spiritual beliefs. And of course, have tissues at the ready.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

2009-07-10T19:17:00.004+10:00

In the late 1950s, an ageing ‘real English’ butler decides to take a motoring tour of the English countryside. Stevens, as he is known, provides a sprawling, train-of-thought style narrative, wherein at first he talks simply about his menial day to day life; but as his journey unfolds, so too do the stories of his life.

The entire picture of Stevens is evoked mainly through his ridiculously English way of speaking (using lots of ‘rather’s, ‘indeed’s, and plenty of over-polite beating about the bush). His voice is strong and the rest of his demeanor just follows naturally from it. Stevens’ thoughts are sometimes hilarious, sometimes pitiful and sometimes philosophical – but never boring. He is so reserved and uptight, in fact, that it is sometimes difficult to tell if he is simply avoiding talking about his feelings or does not recognize them in himself. Stevens is preoccupied with the discovery of a true definition of the word ‘dignity’, and through this obsession comes to justify his decisions and actions in his life. But will he, or does he ever understand and accept his emotions?

I found this little book vastly entertaining, and delighted in reading certain passages aloud in a posh English voice. It is a little sigh of a novel really – quiet, restrained and sensitive but fleshing out such a whole and accurate portrait of a man who has come to a time in his life where he is questioning everything, and looking backwards rather than looking forwards. I am too young to know truly what that feels like, but I can only assume that such a period will grip us all at one stage in our lives. Stevens can’t be sure he’s made the right choices in his life – and neither can any of us, for how would we ever know? But eventually we must all decide what to do with the remains of our days. Live them in grey nostalgic comas? Or make the most of everything we do have…?

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

2009-07-10T19:14:00.001+10:00

This tragic and beautiful story centers around Iris Chase, its protagonist, and her younger sister Laura, who, we discover in the novel’s opening line, commits suicide shortly after the end of World War II. Iris, now well into her 80s, recalls the events and relationships of her childhood and youth with Laura, and everything leading up to her death. Iris’ narrative is punctuated by a story within a story – Laura’s novel The Blind Assassin (published post mortem) about a couple and their illicit affair. The couple in the story are referred to simply as ‘he’ and ‘she’, but over the course of the book it becomes clear that their story mirrors closely the real lives of Iris and Laura.

Laura was always an odd child: taking everything literally, deeply religious, curious and innocent. Iris as the eldest was charged with keeping an eye on her after their mother died, and eventually charged with looking after the family when she was married off into new money (and unhappiness) with Richard Griffen, an industrialist and factory-owner in Toronto, where much of the book is set. As things unfold it becomes clear that there is more to Iris than would seem – she is a full of secrets and untold stories.

I am at a loss as to what to write about this book. Atwood’s writing is delectable – her words are gourmet: sweet, tangy, rich, savory, full-bodied and flavorsome. The characters are so deeply-plumbed you feel the reverberations of them long after turning the last page. Iris’ tragedy, Laura’s blind innocence, and Richard’s inner demons are still haunting my mind days after I finished it. It is a devastating story, but at the same time it is devastatingly beautiful. If you’re looking for something to chew over and become deeply involved in, this is it. It will transport you to other worlds and other times, and it will illuminate your inner reality. I simply can’t think of how else to describe it – The Blind Assassin is like eating a 5-star meal in front of an astounding painting, while listening to the most moving piece of music you’ve ever heard.

Gobbledygook by Don Watson

2009-07-10T19:09:00.003+10:00

(Subtitle: How sludge and management speak are strangling our public language.)

Don Watson is an Australian writer who is fed up with words like ‘closure’, ‘key strategies’, ‘enhance’ and ‘commitment’ – words he terms ‘weasel words’. Unfortunately they make up most of our current public language – in the media, in politics, and in business. They are words which mean nothing; they are clichés, they are defense systems, they are empty fluff designed to confuse and to be ambiguous, leaving the most ‘wriggle-room’ for the speaker to mean anything at all.

Gobbledygook (also published as Death Sentence) is a sort of book-long essay (or rant) about the decay of public language, how it arose and became this rotten – and how to recognize and reject it. Watson makes the interesting point that this ‘management-speak’ has almost always been used in businesses; this is not exactly news. But he points out that business language is now infiltrating politics, educational institutions, libraries, and all sorts of other public service areas so that one can scarcely walk out the door without encountering a ‘commitment to enhancement of key customer values’, of one sort or another.

It is also interesting to see it in print – to understand wholly that it is TRUE that this language simply clouds our minds. It does not clarify anything, and it does not communicate anything. Watson also points out that language is supposed to change and develop; that is not what he is ranting against. Abbreviations, slang and grammatical laxness are one thing, as long as you are able to communicate your ideas which is why we have language in the first place. Telling someone you are “enhancing key strategies” means pretty much nothing at all, and the listener (or reader)’s eyes will simply glaze over, and their mind will register nothing but an empty clichéd phrase.

I wouldn’t put him up there with Bryson or Fry, but Watson’s writing is clever and sometimes witty, and packed full of brain nutrients. I am really glad I read this and can now try to identify rubbish words and slice them out of MY language. If you want to join the fight against weasel words – http://www.weaselwords.com.au/

The Inner Circle by T.C. Boyle

2009-05-22T00:22:00.000+10:00

This novel is based on the real character of Professor Alfred C Kinsey – a name you may recognize from The Kinsey Reports or the movie they made about him in the 2004 I think, entitled Kinsey. Alfred Kinsey was an American biologist and professor of Zoology, who founded the Institute for Sex Research and whose life, professional and personal, was shrouded in controversy and an intense combination of public disapproval and exaltation.

The Inner Circle is T.C. Boyle’s interesting fictional take on what life was like for Kinsey’s “inner circle”; the scholars that helped him and worked closely with him on his ‘project’, and their wives. Kinsey was consumed with a fiery desire for knowledge, and particularly the knowledge of human sexual behavior, which at this time in the 1940s was still considered taboo and about which there was little scientific information. Kinsey wanted to compile statistics based on research tabulated from interviews done with thousands and thousands of men and women from all walks of life. The character of ‘Prok’ – Professor Kinsey – is deeply explored by Boyle, through the first person narrative of John Milk, a fictional scholar that Kinsey takes on to help him conduct his research.

What eventuates is Prok taking over Milk’s life – or rather, ‘the project’ taking over his life, and the life of his wife, and all the other academic helpers Prok eventually takes on. Sympathizing with the book’s protagonist, you can’t help but have deep and mixed feelings for Prok. On the one hand, he is a strong and dangerous force in people’s lives – but on the other, as a reader from this generation; you understand why Prok’s work was SO important, and how it revolutionized people’s attitudes towards human sexual behavior.

T.C. Boyle’s well-constructed character interplay is a delight to read – you really get to know everyone in the book and feel for them and their bizarre situation. Although the work they did and the texts they produced were incredibly important – the overly-clinical view of sex and the sacrificial attitude towards the ‘project’ takes its toll on the lives of everyone involved. The ‘inner circle’ suffer for their work; physically, emotionally and mentally. Boyle has done a fabulous job of bringing this character to life through his fiction – plus there’s loads of sex! The psychological and emotional journey taken by Milk is expressed honestly and eloquently; I am hugely impressed by Boyle’s ability with characterization and flow.

The Girls by Lori Lansens

2009-04-29T05:08:00.003+10:00

Rose & Ruby Darlen are 29 years old. They are the world’s oldest surviving craniopagus twins - which means that they are conjoined at the head. The mesh of veins, muscle and tissue that holds them together means their health has always been precarious, and now Rose learns of a fatal aneurism in her brain which will kill them both, in time.

So she decides to write the story of their lives. Rose is the artistic twin, the physically stronger and more facially deformed, and Ruby is the weaker, prettier one who takes pleasure in television and hunting for ancient Native American relics in their backyard. The two are destined to do everything together, even be considered by the public as one person (which they hate), and yet they've never looked into each others eyes. They grow up being looked after by their 'Aunt' Lovey; the kind and stubborn nurse who delivered them into the world and adopted them when their mother disappeared; and their ‘Uncle’ Stash, Lovey’s Slovakian migrant husband.

Rose’s writing is whimsical and nostalgic; she casts a spell over her life story and enchants it with magic moments and foreshadowing signs. She romanticizes a lot, even though she accuses her sister Ruby of being the one with her head in the clouds. Ruby gets her say too, though – Rose’s chapters are irregularly punctuated by Ruby’s shorter, more to-the-point submissions. Ruby writes on yellow legal paper (as opposed to Rose’s clattering laptop typing), and prefers to write about the present day and what their daily life is like, rather than telling stories of their past.

The girls’ story is tainted with tragedy, loss and misunderstanding; yet there is hope. It is also a story of incomprehensible love, the intense relationship of sisters, and, in short, life. Rose and Ruby Darlen’s ‘life story’ involves very little travel from their small town in Ontario, spans only 30 years and doesn’t include a huge array of characters… yet it is a huge story. Two huge stories. I think Lansens was making the point that every life is a big story. Life itself is the ultimate story; snaking and weaving through existence; and we should all feel the weight of our own value and our own stories. Each molecule of each of us is important. I think that’s what The Girls was getting at, ultimately. And it’s a message that is depicted beautifully by Lansens’ perfect blend of the twee and the raw, finding meaning in the small things and illuminating them with subtle tones.

The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld

2009-04-29T05:04:00.002+10:00

Mystery/crime genre novels are not usually my cup of tea, I have to say. But I was intrigued by this novel because of its premise involving Freud, Jung, and Hamlet. That is not to say that those three characters were stuck on a page together, making some sort of bizarre time-travelling story, though.

Set in New York City in the early 1900s, The Interpretation of Murder follows Freud on his first (and only, I think) visit to America. With Jung and some other psychoanalysts in tow, Freud sets out to give some lectures and discover the American people. This much is true; he did go there at this time and when he got back, bad-mouthed Americans as ‘brutes’ and blamed his own proceeding ailments on his visit there, a puzzle his biographers were never able to solve.

Jed Rubenfeld, however, has written a novel with his own (slightly fantastic) theory. It starts (dramatically) with a blood-curdling scream, and the discovery of a girl’s dead body in a glitzy New York hotel room. When, the following day, another young girl is found similarly brutally wounded in her bedroom and having no memory of the attack, Freud is called upon to analyse her, to see if he can bring up the repressed memories through analysis.

Rubenfeld has included some interesting psychoanalytic theory (including an analysis of Hamlet that’ll make me look at Shakespeare differently forevermore), and the historical setting of New York is well-evoked, too. Most of all I liked the plot – it is everything a mystery should be: suspenseful, peppered with humour and full of surprising twists that’ll keep your eyes glued to the page.

Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be going to the library and making a beeline for the mystery/crime section any time soon. But then, I’m not a huge fan of over-classification and the obsessive genre-fying of everything. I just like a good piece of writing, whatever its merits may be. So perhaps I should let this be a lesson in the timeless “book by its cover” adage. Or, “book by its genre”. Keep that one in mind.

PopCo by Scarlett Thomas

2009-04-18T00:45:00.001+10:00

It is possible that I am now Scarlett Thomas’ biggest fan. After The End of Mr. Y – which really did open my mind and change my perspective about loads of things – I fell in love with her. Now, having read PopCo (which is Mr. Y’s predecessor – though they are completely unrelated novels), my feelings have strengthened to what some might call ‘unhealthy obsession’.

Alice Butler works for PopCo – a global toy corporation with ‘no rules’ (in the “creative corporate” sort of way). PopCo is Fun, Cutting Edge, Youthful. She designs games for kids who like code-cracking, spy toys or survival kits – she’s always been a bit of a loner and relates to that hidden world of codes and secrets. Alice inherited a love of puzzles from her grandfather and a fondness for mathematics from her grandmother; which makes her a productive and commendable employee. But when she is called away from the London office on a special ‘thought camp’ in the countryside, Alice begins to see the darker side of corporate policy. Add to this the inherited treasure map from her grandfather, and you have a story dripping with mystery, philosophy, emotion – and pirates.

The novel is full of ideas – mathematical, scientific, code-cracking, sinister marketing strategy, and so many more. Yes, it can be a little zeitgeist-y, but Thomas is careful not to be too pushy with her ‘message’. She is always informative and never condescending. I love her writing because, although she has something to say, she lets you make up your own mind. For me, PopCo was a feast of ideas; the plot and characterization was not as developed as it was in Mr. Y, but it didn’t matter to me because it was so packed full of thought-nourishment that I hardly noticed. I actually read a passage from the book at a dinner table recently – I think that has to say something towards how highly I thought of it.

In short, if you liked The End of Mr. Y, you will like this. If you enjoy ‘idea-novels’, or Douglas Coupland, you will probably enjoy this. PopCo is cult-y and rebellious, zesty and robust. It is an absolute delight to absorb – and I will certainly never think about mathematics in the same way again.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

2009-04-18T00:42:00.001+10:00

I have been repeatedly urged to read McEwan; so when this novella fell into my lap I counted it as a sign. I would guess that it doesn’t compare to Atonement, although some have said that On Chesil Beach is McEwan’s most tender work.

It is an exploration of the power of things unsaid and actions misunderstood. A young couple is spending their wedding night at a hotel on the English coast. Both of them, unbeknownst to each other, are virgins. Both are incredibly nervous, for different reasons, but neither wants to give anything away. McEwan explores their respective psyches, all the big and little reasons why they behave the way they do. It is 1962, just short of the age of expression – when repression was still in fashion, and young people were not yet encouraged to be individual or different. Florence and Edward, the main characters, dance around each other in what seems to me, being a product of my over-individualized generation, a ridiculously coy manner. Their privacy and delicate intimacy enraged me, really; I wanted to jump in there and shake them, and yell and cry ‘what is wrong with you people?!’

I am sure McEwan’s aim was to enlighten the reader as to exactly what IS wrong with Edward and Florence; the point of the novella seemed to be to justify their actions (and inactions). Although I thought the writing was tender, and the observations were insightful – I still didn’t really get the characters. I guess I am too much a modern girl; I couldn’t understand them or relate to them in any real way. But if anyone who has read this was able to, then McEwan did a great job. It is a very interesting novella, a quick read that does leave you wondering, and tinged with the tragedy of regret.

Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

2009-04-18T00:38:00.002+10:00

There is a line in this book that, for me, encompasses it’s feeling perfectly: “the only way to tell a tragedy is through humour.” When I first came across that line I questioned it; I wasn’t sure I agreed. But having finished Everything Is Illuminated I think Safran Foer has hit on something there. It is the story of an American man (called, coincidentally, Jonathan Safran Foer) who is searching for his past by following the only real lead he has – a faded photograph of his grandfather with the mysterious ‘Augustine’, and the name of a small town in the Ukrainian countryside: Trachimbrod. With the help of his hired translator, Alex (a nineteen year old whose English comes out of a thesaurus), and Alex’s gruff grandfather (the driver – who claims to be blind) and his ‘seeing-eye dog’, Sammy Davis Junior Junior – they set out on a doomed journey across the Ukrainian landscape in search of Trachimbrod and its history.

The narrative is interspersed with Safran Foer’s “novel” – his fictional interpretation of the history of Trachimbrod, which I think everyone (or at least all the reviews I’ve read) will happily compare to Marquez for its surrealism and take on a town history. As the story unfolds, the tragedy comes to light, and you are left confused by your own emotions. In parts, I was laughing hysterically, only to turn the page and want to choke and weep. I don’t know about other readers, but this juxtaposition induced guilt in me – which in turn induced a deeper sadness and horror at the tragedy that the story centers around. So perhaps the only way to tell a tragedy really is through humour. I’d buy it.

This book is definitely a beauty. Safran Foer writes fluidly, emotively and with a sharp eye – he evokes emotion using surprising techniques, so that you are surprise by your own reaction to his words. I loved his surrealism, and his horrid realism. I cried and hooted. I puzzled and sighed. There were more than a few occasions on which I had to stop reading, sit back and mull over what I had just read. A book that gives insight, that moves and touches, that finds a part of you you weren’t aware of – that is a great book. This one ticks all the boxes. Read it.

Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg

2009-04-18T00:30:00.003+10:00

The sublet apartment shared by four young singles with one of the most enviable views of New York skyline inadvertently becomes a front seat observation point of the horror of September 11 - planes tearing a rift through the clear morning sky. A gay art dealer tries to come to terms with his genius sister's mental illness. A woman visits her grandmother after she's had a stroke, and tries to find some resemblance to the powerful woman she knew as a child. A naive girl flees the fists of the gun dealer who is her boyfriend, and takes his son with her.

These are just some of the premises of the stories in Twilight of The Superheroes. Deborah Eisenberg has a disjointed way of telling them - her structure is unexpected and unconventional. In the title story, the chapters tesselate and bump into each other until finally, each piece finds its place in the whole (although the story still has a ramshackle feel to it). The confusion invoked relfects perfectly the chaos of the 9/11 aftermath - the detail of which I had never fully considered or understood. I mean the immediate, and the personal. The city being covered with ash; floating pieces of who-knows-what settling on every surface. People hurried past one another in the street, not wanting to make eye contact. Eisenberg brings to light in this story a devestating futility - one that she embodies in her main character's comic strip; PassivityMan.

In another story, Window, the sudden appearance of domestic violence is a shock and a rude awakening - once it happens, we can see it was always there, lurking behind the words. Eisenberg had just crafted them so cleverly it was easily overlooked until the moment of revelation. Her characters are not necessarily likeable but always well-voiced, and like all good short stories, these are condensed so that every word resonates and nothing is there accidentally. I loved the modern, poignant tone of each story, and how different each was from the other. I believe Eisenberg is an award-winning writer, and I think she has lots still to offer if these stories are anything to go by.

The Sea by John Banville

2009-03-17T21:30:00.002+11:00

This won the 2005 Man Booker prize, and I understand why.

Banville has a way with wordcraft. His prose sparkles and winks at you; the sentences slide and slither through one another and you begin to feel as though you are buoyant on them, and they are carrying you downstream, onto the Irish coastline on which The Sea is set.

Max returns to this piece of coast that he used to holiday at as a boy, now a much older man. Having suffered a terrible loss, he is escaping to his past – although what he finds when he probes the depths of his own memory is just as traumatic as what he is hiding from. The Grace family shape themselves from Max’s memory and we meet the children: beautiful, cruel Chloe Grace and her mute twin, Myles. The three of them are fast friends; Max is aware even at that stage that Chloe and Myles are of a higher ‘class’ than he, and wears their stature like a flag.

Through Max’s exploration of himself, past and present, we are taken on a journey of the mind more than anything else. How does he come to terms with all that transpires? How does he fit into the grand scheme of everything? Questions of blame and guilt arise, and Max is forced to scratch at memory-scabs that he thought had long scarred and healed.

As mentioned above, Banville’s writing is a sensuous delight. At times I felt overwhelmed by the richness of a sentence, I had to go back and take it in portions. It is just like a delicious dessert – your senses are stimulated to such a degree that you may start to feel slightly ill. The Daily Telegraph's blurb says: “they are like hits of some delicious drug, these sentences.” And perhaps that is a better simile.

Firmin by Sam Savage

2009-03-17T21:25:00.003+11:00

Firmin is a rat. He is also a bourgeois romantic, a Ginger Rogers fan, and – that most woeful of creatures – a reader.

How did this come to be? Well, when you’re the runt of a family with twelve unsympathetic brothers and sisters, fighting for food is difficult (and often, fruitless). Gnawing on your bed, however, is easy. And if your bed just happens to be the shredded pages of Finnegan’s Wake, you might find yourself swapping gnawing for reading; tasting for understanding – and one hunger is born from another.

Firmin’s appetite for literature is insatiable, and soon he ventures out from the dusty bookshop basement in which he was born, and into the bookshop proper. The more books his hungry eyes consume, the more he feels ‘human at heart’, leading him to attempt meaningful connection with humans, despite the fact that he cannot talk, and most people consider him a small, scary vermin. (I only just noticed the resonance between ‘vermin’ and ‘Firmin’. Durr!)

I guess this set-up gives a certain whimsical, Young Adult genre impression; but Firmin is far from it. It’s an adult book about a genius rat, trapped in the confines of his species, and his self-realisation and self-loathing, his failure and his loneliness. Plus, there are sexy bits*. And sweary bits.

I read an interview with Sam Savage in which he said “the voice came first” – he was typing away, and out came Firmin’s “voice”. Oddly, for me, this was where the book fell down. I never heard Firmin’s voice. I couldn’t distinguish it as characteristic, and it left me feeling that the book, while interesting and sweetly quirky, was... incomplete. Unpolished.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed it – I particularly liked the seedy underbelly of Boston that is glimpsed, and the exploration of rat-psyche. Here’s a funny factoid: apparently the book is hugely popular in Italy, where it was renamed Firmino. I like that much better!

*NB: when I say ‘sexy’ here, I mean ‘to do with sex’. Not ‘arousing’!!!!

The Birthday of the World: and other stories by Ursula K. LeGuin

2009-03-05T02:43:00.003+11:00

Up unitl this one, I was a LeGuin virgin. I had heard of her, because of my skirting of the sci-fi genre with Miéville and Gaiman, and various others... but I always thought that I am not "really into science fiction" and would therefore not enjoy a full-blown sci-fi master like LeGuin.

I was wrong.

The Birthday of the World is a collection of 8 short stories; some set on worlds and in universes LeGuin has explored in previous novels, some set in new, strange places. Each story is bizarre in its own way, crafted by an experimental imagination that plumbs the depth of each 'what if'. LeGuin has an uncanny way of delicately creating these stories on near-unthinkable planets, strange and fanciful - while at the same time mirroring the quirks and hypocrisies of our society. It's sci-fi at it's best; and there are no ray guns.

In Coming of Age in Karhide, adolescents of a genderless society reach their sexual maturity and become male or female for the first time. Each time they copulate their gender can change. Going from sexless to multi-sexual is a confusing time, as you can imagine. The Matter of Seggri is set on a planet where women greatly outnumber men, and men are confined to huge castles where all they are permitted to do is fight each other and play sports. The fittest ones are sent to whorehouses... to be whored out to the women and hopefully produce sons (although this is unlikely). Both Unchosen Love and Mountain Ways take place in a society where marriage is a complex four-person knot called a 'sedoretu'. Not all the stories concern gender, though - my favourite of them all was Paradises Lost, which is set on a ship flying through space, between Earth and a possibly-inhabitable planet 200 years away. It explores the 'middle generations'; those that are born and die on the ship, and how they cope with being just a means. Psychologically and socially it is fascinating. The belief systems these people cling to, the 'perfection' of the ship - no diseases, no bacteria, no crime, no money. No open spaces. No animals.

What are science fiction stories but slightly fanciful thought experiments? Take an idea: 'what if ...?' and run with it, as logically as possible. What if robots took over the world? What if there was no such thing as male and female? What if aliens landed? LeGuin is a 'master of the craft' ; her stories are shocking, believable, endearing and thought-provoking. She is a shining beacon of sci-fi writing, and I will definitely be picking her up again.

**EXTRA: For those interested, see what Le Guin has to say about this book here.

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

2009-03-02T04:47:00.003+11:00

Why do we travel? What motivates us? Why do we choose to go to certain places? What should we do once we get there? What is anticipation? These are just some of the questions posed, explored and answered in Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel. Anyone who is familiar with de Botton knows that he has an exceptional way with simplification: of making what normally sounds too big and complex an idea into an attainable understanding. He has done it again with this book about travel, exploring in concise, very readable narrative the psychology behind travelling as we know it today, and how it can enrich our lives, and live up to our expectations.

De Botton's method of using the helpful examples of writers, artists and thinkers such as Gustave Flaubert, Edward Hopper, Vincent Van Gough and William Wordsworth makes the reader relate these people's worlds to our modern one - and draw surprising similarities. In each chapter, a different 'guide' is introduced, and as de Botton talks about the various psychologies, motivations and experiences we have as travellers, he underlines them with the thoughts, experiences and creations of these artists. In doing so, he gives us an art lesson, history lesson, and enlightens us to different passages of thought in a lucid, flowing manner - we become unsuspecting pupils. There is plenty of food for thought here, without the boring convoluted blah of a textbook.

For those who like to travel and appreciate art and literature, I highly recommend this one. At the very least, it will give you a new perspective on travelling and leave you with plenty to think about and refer to next time you sit on a train, or a plane, or a boat. Even if you're not exactly a frequent flyer, de Botton's ideas are interesting and he delves into the emotional side of things too. His voice manages to stay neutral; he doesn't become impassioned although he references poets, artists and writers who are dramatic and passionate. What you get from him is perspective, information, an easy path into bigger ideas. I think it's perfect - I don't necessarily want someone telling me how to live - I want people to show me different ways; broaden my boundaries; and unfurl my imagination.

Of Cats and Men: stories by Nina de Gramont

2009-02-25T00:10:00.003+11:00

This charming book of short stories is not as naff as it's title would have you think - while cats do feature in each of it's 10 stories, they are diverse and not always cutesy characters. The different dynamics of relationships de Gramont explores through her stories is interesting and makes for quirky, touching narratives that are sometimes devastating, sometimes thoughtful and serene, sometimes painful and always quite raw.

My favourite of the stories was about a pregnant woman who has to deal with her mentally ill brother-in-law's presence at a sensitive time in her life. The tension is palpable; de Gramont's style is simple but effective. I had a pure picture in my head of their mountain home, with it's airy rooms and thin walls throughout. I find short story compilations can sometimes be frustrating to read - as I tend to impatiently plough through them as though devouring a novel, rather than taking each story as it's own whole, seeing it in it's own light. De Gramont has made this easier for those like me - her stories are so different and yet meld seamlessly together through the common element of relationships: feline and otherwise. It does help that I am a cat lover because each cat was infused with delightful character; whether it was disdainful, loyal or pretentious. Different breeds and circumstance showed in the stories an understanding of the dynamic a pet can bring to a person's life. The locations also played a large role in the stories' feel: they were often coastal or mountainous and always influenced or mirrored the tone of the story. There are quaint subtleties in de Gramont's simple observations. She evokes a world of beauty and pain in soft tones, easily read and well-remembered.

I guess the best thing about collections of short stories is that you can often pick it up, read a chapter, and put it down again. Personally I am too eager for that, but if you find you don't have time to read whole novels, this is an alternative with my stamp of approval. Of Cats and Men is darling, sweet, entertaining and sits snugly in my memory, curled up like a sleepy, satisfied kitten.

Ripening Seed by Colette

2009-02-04T07:43:00.001+11:00

This short novel is quintessentially Colette. Full of innuendo, implication and subtlety; poetry infused into thoughts, actions and settings. It resonates with salty sea air, the confused emotion of adolesence, and the lingering imagery of suggestion. A big holiday house on the coast of Brittany echoes with the childlike voices of Vinca and Phillipe - friends since birth, but now fast approaching the awkward age where a rift nudges its way between boys and girls - the rift of puberty.

Vinca cannot recognise nor make much sense of her feelings towards Phillipe, and all he recognises is his desire for possession - not quite yet in the physical sense; not so simple as that. Then Phillipe meets an older woman, Mme Dalleray, who takes a shine to him and swiftly manouvers him from the border of childhood and adolesence into full blown young adulthood.

Colette's prose, when describing natural surroundings is evocative and strong on the senses. You can taste the salt in the air. You can see vividly the hues of green and blue in the sea. Her methods of describing the processes of thought and emotion can be somewhat convoluted and coded - although I suspect there is an element of it's magic that is lost in translation. French is a language full of implication - surely some of those coded meanings lost their way on the road to English.

What I loved about this novel was what it left me with: a lasting sense of possibility, a refreshed belief in the romance of eye colour, an endless scope of wonder about the things it didn't tell, and a strong desire to read all the Colette I can get my hot little hands on.

A literary birthday: Virginia Woolf

2009-01-25T12:03:00.002+11:00

Adeline Virginia Woolf (née Stephen) was born on this day in 1882. Happy 127th Birthday, Ms Woolf!

This amazing woman and prolific writer cannot be celebrated enough, in my opinion, for giving us such treasures as Mrs Dalloway and A Room of One's Own. Her entire existence was riddled with controversy, depression, and hardship. She lost her parents and a step-sister quite young, and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her half brothers. She was accused of anti-semitism, snobbery and un-patriotic pacifism, and prone to deep depressions and "moods" (today we would call this bipolar) and was institutionalized more than once.

Her work has been criticised, scrutinised, and honoured; adapted for film, translated into many languages, and is revered, remembered and revised worldwide. For my part, I discovered her through my attraction to 'feminist' writing, and my penchant for second-hand bookshops. A friend of my mum's gave me a bookmark one teen birthday with Ms Woolf's picture on it. I hadn't heard of her, but was told she was a famous feminist writer. Later I saw a battered copy of The Waves in my local second-hand bookshop, and picked it up. I fell in love from page one with Woolf's dramatic, lilting prose that was a feast for my eyes and mind, even though at the time I probably didn't fully understand it.

My favourite Woolf novel so far (I haven't yet read all of them!) is Mrs Dalloway. I recently discovered that you can read the entire book online here. It's worth it - Mrs Dalloway is a charming novel, truly dream-like and fascinating. Lots of it is written in what was at the time an experimental 'stream-of-conciousness' style; it works wonderfully, as Woolf captures wholly the inner monolgue of a woman who, on the surface, is simply organising a party; but the appearance of an old lover stirs up her emotions and has her looking at her life from another angle. Clarissa Dalloway is beautifully portrayed, as are all the characters in Mrs Dalloway. If you've never read anything by Virginia Woolf, I suggest you start here.

Woolfs writing was influenced by (perhaps due to) her confusing and complex emotional inner life. "The beauty of the world ... has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder." (A Room of One's Own). From this alternate perspective came her intuition, her sensitivity to humanity. It is what imbues her writing with beauty and with truth. She also challenged many outdated stereotypes of her time regarding women and gender roles. One of her most famous novels, Orlando, is a fantastical biography, about a person whose life spans three generations and moves between both genders. Woolf once said: "It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly."

Her tragic death by her own hands remains legendary to this day. She filled her coat pockets with stones and drowned herself in the River Ouse. But today we celebrate her birth - and the fact that, so many years on, her work is still appreciated and loved, still touches lives, still generates controversy, still brings people closer to themselves. We could ask no more from a great writer - and that she is. Virginia Woolf, Happy Birthday.

"Beauty is everywhere, and beauty is only two finger's-breadth from goodness." - The Common Reader 'Montaigne'-Ch. 6

1000 novels? Yes, please!

2009-01-24T07:23:00.002+11:00

The Guardian have been posting lists every day this week, in a select range of genres, of 1000 books everyone should read.

The definitive list is now up - here.

Wow. I wouldn't want to tackle all of them... but I have only read 47 out of the 1000!

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

2009-01-23T03:06:00.005+11:00

This book was recommended to me by many people, all of whom gushed lovingly about it’s beauty, emotion and depth. I was put off, however, by the fact that they all told me it was a ‘beautiful novel about love and war’. A genre I don’t usually delve into, nothing aroused my interest by this endorsement. Although, I have also always been one to try different things – and I once read a Tom Clancy and quite liked it (not that it’s anything similar…) so I thought I’d give it a go.

Well, everyone was right. For me, this was a journey into a fleshy, physical world of writing that I have not visited much before. I tend towards fantastical, thought-oriented fiction that has a lot to do with the landscapes of the mind even if it isn’t ‘fantasy’. Birdsong, however, is a largely physical novel. It is full of activity, flesh, corporeality and substance – whether it is in the vivid description of love making, bathing or violence and war. At the same time there are some astounding observations of the human condition, and the existence of the soul. The book is hideous and astonishingly beautiful – much like the human condition itself, I suppose.

Stephen Wraysford comes to a small French town from his native England as a young man to learn about the cloth trade. He stays in a big, angled house occupied by the Azaire family: René, Isabelle, and their children: Lisette and Grégoire. He soon realises that he is in love with Azaire’s wife, Isabelle. They have a passionate affair and run away together, but shortly afterwards Isabelle leaves him abruptly, with seemingly no reason. Skip six years into the future and Wraysford is a sergeant in the English army fighting on the French/Belgian border against the Germans. His journey is a devastating one, and yet somehow imbued with hope – probably because of the appearance of another interwoven storyline set in England in 1978-9, of Wraysford’s grand-daughter. Birdsong beautifully and artistically depicts the horror of war, the tragedy of love, the death of hope and it’s rebirth. It shows that two people’s worlds can be vastly, unbridgeably different, even if they live a few miles apart. It takes you from the realm of peacetime romance to the hell of loss, loneliness and futility that is war. People in our generation just can’t grasp what it must have been like, I suppose, even for all the films and books that are available. Reading some of Faulks’ words I was at a loss as to how to relate to the decrepit state of the minds and souls (and bodies) of his soldier characters. I wanted to be physically affected, to feel the emotion of it with my whole being, but I found my mind instinctively rebelling against the feeling. I wouldn’t allow myself, and I think that is because if I tried too hard I probably would’ve realised that I simply could not do it – I could not put myself in their shoes. Sorry to ramble, but it’s funny that what affected me the most was my inability to feel affected. Don’t get me wrong, I felt it with my thoughts, I recoiled and was horror-struck. But I couldn’t picture it, in a real sense. It was just too horrid.

Having said all of that, this is a powerful and brilliant book, with loveable characters and sufficient catharsis to make it less depressing than my rendering of the story! It is poetic and profound, it stirs deeply and illuminates blindingly, and there is no doubt as to why so many recommend it as one of their favourite modern novels.

Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry

2009-01-23T02:55:00.007+11:00

We all know Stephen Fry is a deliciously entertaining wordsmith, and this memoir just goes to prove it all over again.

Fry recounts his first 20 years with hilarity, touching humility and a dazzling insight into his younger self. From school to school, Fry tells his coming-of-age and the difficulties of being a budding homosexual, a teacher's cheeky nightmare, and terrible at 'games' (sports). When you admire and respect someone, I think it's always interesting to learn about their past - their prides and pitfalls, the things (books, people, music) that influenced them, and the kind of experiences that got them where they now are. Such is why the relatively normal childhood of Stephen Fry makes for such good reading - that, and the fact that he is an astute and sensitive storyteller; talented and full of wit.

I loved reading about his journey into language, his (painfully unrequited) first love, his discovery of lies, music, sex. It's interesting that despite his upper middle class upbringing, he has a well-rounded objective view of the system through which he grew up. He somehow manages to dispell your preconcieved 'English boys boarding school' stereotype, but replace it with an almost identical version in which something somewhere has shifted, and you're not sure what. Moab is my Washpot leaves you intrigued, too - it tells only up to his 20th year, and I am still left wondering how he got from there to today! I will be reading further memoirs of his, certainly.

I am also yet to read any of Fry's fiction. I'm interested to see how that differs from his memoirs and his essays. All I know is, his non-fiction is as rambunctious, rauchy, thrilling, hilarious and daring as any fiction I've ever read.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

2009-01-23T02:23:00.002+11:00

Steeped in controversy since it's publication in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye is a genius little novel, portraying the injustices, hypocrisies and falseness of the human condition through the innocent and somewhat troubled mind of Holden Caulfield, an teenager living in New York.

Written in a monologue style, it follows Holden's escapades when he leaves his school a few days early (he is being expelled from yet another school for failing to keep up his grades) and going on a 'vacation' in his home city before returning to the wrath of his parents. A string of bizarre events occur when he stays in seedy hotels, calls up old accquaintences in the middle of the night, walks all over the city, and his increasing depression and loneliness drive him on to more and more erratic behaviour.

By today's standards, there isn't much that is controversial about it. Much of the superficial details are dated; the heavy smoking, use of 'swear' words like goddam and chrissakes - but the deeper level of the book is just as relevant today as it was then. There is a reason this has been in and out of school curriculums for the past 50 years. Holden's thoughts and attitudes reflect the confused, rebellious, contemptuous raging of adolescence accurately - and this is the timeless plight of the teen. We can all relate to Holden. I physically nodded along with some of his stream-of-conciousness rambling at some points, so moved was I by it's clarity and poignance.

Everyone should read this book, but be warned: it's depiction of the human condition is not a pretty one, for the most part.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

2009-01-13T02:52:00.005+11:00

As the now well-travelled story goes, Gaiman conceived of this novel many years ago, watching his young son ride his tricycle around a graveyard opposite their house. Gaiman was reminded of Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and mused on the possibility of, on that premise, a child being brought up in a graveyard and learning all the things the dead people know. Thus, the idea for The Graveyard Book was born, but it wasn't until 20 years or so later that Gaiman finally decided he was "as good as he was ever going to get" at writing, and put pen to paper to complete it.

I for one am glad he waited, because if, as he claims, he couldn't have written it this way all those years ago, it's readers would have lost out. There is a part of me that shares Garth Nix's sentiments, when he says "I wish my younger self could have had the opportunity to read and reread this wonderful book", but getting the chance to read it as an adult also has its advantages.

Bod (short for Nobody) Owens crawls through the graveyard gates as a tiny child, having luckily escaped the man Jack, who has murdered the rest of his family. The residents of the graveyard take him in and bring him up their way, giving him the 'freedom of the graveyard' and teaching him how to slip and fade from human view, and other important lessons. His adoptive parents, the Owenses, were childless in life and love Bod as their own, and his guardian Sylas, who only comes out and night and sleeps in a crypt, is reserved but caring. But as Bod gets older he starts to feel his difference to the characters of his world, and begins to be uneasy because of it. He is neither here nor there – not living a human life, but not dead. Along the journey of his self-exploration, Bod encounters ghoul gates, werewolves, ancient Sleer, witches and human girls (not to mention a plethora of hilarious ghost characters) as he tries to discover his place amongst it all - and as is to be expected, Gaiman's writing is a pure delight. It sings off the page. I had the pleasure of hearing him read a chapter from The Graveyard Book in London on his recent tour, so perhaps that helped. When reading it I could definitely hear Gaiman’s voice resonating and infusing each word with his intended lilt. You can watch and hear him here, on his video tour.

Gaiman’s prose is perfectly concocted and strung together most magically. I had so much fun and my imagination floated away so powerfully when reading this that I actually cannot wait to read it to my future children! That has to say something, surely?

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

2009-01-09T03:51:00.002+11:00

There is so much I want to say about this book. It is overwhelming, hilarious, tragic, touching, thought-provoking and bursting at the seams with wit, insight, cynicism, wisdom and delectation.

Jasper Dean tells the story of himself, his father (Australia’s most hated man), his uncle (Australia’s most adored man) and the characters surrounding their topsy-turvy lives from the confines of his prison cell. We follow Jasper to his roots, his father’s childhood, and then back to present time – whisked along on their journey from rags to riches, anonymity to fame, nation-wide adoration to nation-wide loathing. Thrown in for good measure are insane asylums, strip clubs, jail-breaks, labyrinths, bushfires, poison, people-smugglers, telepathy, philosophy, The Handbook of Crime, resurrections, deaths and births, and tons more.

Jasper's father Martin is a philosopher who has thought himself into a corner; he is a megalomaniac and a failure - a walking contradiction full of frustrated and unsated compulsion. He lived his youth in the shadow of his rebel-martyr brother Terry Dean: Serial Killer With A Cause. After Terry's untimely death at the hands of a raging bushfire that consumed the prison he was locked up in, Martin travels to Paris in search of his childhood love (who was also in love with his brother Terry). There he meets a strange woman named Astrid and has a child with her (enter Jasper), before Astrid commits innovative suicide and Martin decides to head back to Australia. Jaspers childhood is full to the brim of his father's insanities and frustrations, and even after they take on Anouk: their sexy, meddlesome new-age housekeeper, things just turn more pear-shaped. Martin's compulsion and need for a 'project' lead him from one ridiculous crusade to another - building an almost-impenetrable labyrinth around his house, making everyone in Australia a millionaire, editing The Handbook of Crime, and so on. The effect this has on Jasper's life is considerable, as each day he fears more and more that he is becoming his father...

Every page was a joy to run my eyes over, and some of them I read again and again.

This is a father-and-son story, but one thing I noticed was how all the characters, even the bit-players, were given fully realised humanity (even if sometimes briefly). Everyone has their sense of reality, of truth. The main characters are all so absurd they are completely believable. In that way I found Toltz’s writing a bit Peter Carey-esque, because his plotline spans generations, and gives that feeling of infinity, of infinite stories having unfolded, unfolding, waiting to unfold.

I don’t know what else to say but read it. Aside from occasionally being a bit waffle-y, it is flawlessly invigorating, entertaining, mind-shaping and, possibly, life-altering.
Five hundred stars out of five.

The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas

2009-01-09T02:15:00.004+11:00

The End of Mr Y has everything I look for in a novel - interesting characters, adventure, sex, philosophy, time-travel paradoxes and a dash of fantasy. It is the story of Ariel Manto - a slightly self-destructive woman who is doing a PhD on 'thought experiments'. A few months after her PhD supervisor mysteriously goes missing, she stumbles across a copy of The End of Mr Y in a second-hand bookshop. She knows enough about the book and its Victorian author to know that it is extremely rare and, famously, cursed.

Being in possession of the book whisks Ariel into another dimension, puts her life at risk, exposes her to government secrets, and brings knowledge beyond her expectation. This is really an Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole story - exploring what curiosity and insatiable appetite for knowledge can do to a person; where it will take you and the good and bad consequences. It's an exciting novel, and not just because of the thrilling adventurous plot, but because of the big ideas it explores. Thomas has managed to make science and philosophy riveting by threading them into the rampant storyline. Ariel is interested in relativity, quantum physics, consciousness, fourth dimensions, even religious theory - and on her adventure the reader gets to follow her thoughts and discoveries on all these things and more. She is an independent learner, and sort of forces the unsuspecting reader to become one too, just by trying to understand Ariel's train of thought. But I loved every second of it, even the science-y bits.

It's like I always say - the best books are the ones where your experience of them does not end when you've read the last page. When they take you on to new places, open up doors of interest or understanding, spur stimulating conversation, expand your horizons and bring revelations - that's when they should sit aloft your list of favourites.

Thomas was hugely ambitious with this book, addressing issues one 'little novel' would not normally encompass. But she's pulled it off with panache - I would read Mr Y again and again for its style, humour, racy tempo and clever cocktail of speculation on modern society interweaving with Victorian.