How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.