Review: THE NARROW ROAD TO THE DEEP NORTH, by Richard Flanagan

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Richard Flanagan. Published 2014 by Knopf. Literary Fiction.

This year's Man Booker Prize winner is a tough, tough read, but a very rewarding one. Australian novelist Richard Flanagan tells the fictional story of Dorrigo Evans, a doctor and survivor of the Japanese POW camp that built the Burma Railway between Bangkok and Rangoon in 1943. The railway was built using forced and slave labor; thousands of people died constructing it under unimaginable conditions. The novel documents the experiences of Dorrigo, several ordinary soldiers on the line including Darky Gardiner, a young man who tries to find the good in every day even when circumstances are at their bleakest.

And there always seems to be a new low. Flanagan gives us excruciating detail on the privations and suffering the men endured- the starvation, the long long miles of walking, the arduous work done without proper tools, the ever-increasing demands of the soldiers directing the work, and the brutal beatings and humiliations inflicted by the guards. He also gives his characters startling humanity, including the guards and taskmasters who regard suffering as a matter of course and the POWs as less than human, because they are prisoners, alive and not dead.

The cruelties of the Burma Railway have been documented in other books and films- The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Pierre Boulle's 1952 novel that became the David Lean film being the most famous example- but what Narrow Road brings to mind for me is the more recent nonfiction Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand's recounting of the Louis Zamperini story, particularly his time as a POW in Japan. Zamperini was not involved in the Burma Railway but Flanagan's story echoes some of the the same themes and particulars, especially the POWs' living conditions. Hillenbrand's book also explains in historical terms why the United States ceased prosecuting Japanese war criminals, which I found very helpful in understanding those parts of Flanagan's book in which the story moves to the guards' post-war experiences.

Because Flanagan does try to tell the story of the railway from their perspective too, a choice I think is brave and challenging. Those passages were also hard to read, the rationalizing of torture and cruelty, and Flanagan, without justifying anything, I think is trying to talk about how someone can be capable of violence, and comfortable with it. I think he's trying to talk about how a culture of violence perpetuates itself, showing the whole life cycle of it, from earliest humiliation to its effects far downstream, on people on whom a hand was never laid.

In this book, those people are the women in Dorrigo's life, particularly his wife Ella and his many mistresses. Dorrigo marries Ella out of social expectation; he's deeply in love with his estranged uncle's young wife Amy, whom he believes has died while he was at war. He spends the rest of his life trying to bury his grief and his post-war trauma in affairs and in his public life. In his post-war life he becomes a kind of spokesman for the POWs on the railway and becomes a very well-known public figure. At some point, he has to reconcile all these parts of himself, find a way to move forward.

There is a beautiful, terrible poetry to The Narrow Road and I found the book very hard to put down. I would read short passages at a time, take breaks, come back, read more, come back. It's disturbing, sometimes terrifying, sometimes bleak and almost impossibly sad, and yet I didn't want it to end. Flanagan has written a wonderful and difficult book that I would recommend to just about anyone, a classic deserving of the recognition it's received.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: THE LINE OF BEAUTY, by Alan Hollinghurst

The Line of Beauty, by Alan Hollinghurst. Originally published 2005 by Bloomsbury USA. 2004 winner of the Man Booker Prize. Literary Fiction.

Reading a book like Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty really spoils you for other books, and no matter when you read it, you wonder what took you so long to get around to this luminous, sad and melancholy treasure.

Set in the 1980s among the political and social elite of London, it's basically a coming of age story about a character named Nick Guest, a gay man living in the home of his Oxford friend Toby Fedden. The Feddens are the epitome of political and social elite; father Gerald is a Tory MP whose star is on the rise, and it's the heyday of the Thatcher era. Toby and his friends are rich and carefree; they party, do drugs, have sex. Nick's background is more modest but he seems to fit right in. He's closeted, which in this time and place goes without saying, and coming out during the first flush of the AIDS crisis. But he's also anxious to be part of the gay life of London and begins a relationship with a man whom he meets through a personal ad. Later he and a member of the Feddens' set have a relationship too.

Nick is at the Feddens' because during college he was enamored of Toby and the two were friends, though nowadays it's Toby's sister Catherine to whom Nick is closest, and she's the only one who knows he's gay. She is also unstable and will cause the avalanche that brings everything down in the end.

Reading other reviews, the biggest problem other readers seem to have with the book is how unlikeable the characters are, and this is not a book to read if you're looking to meet your next literary best friend. But that consideration is as shallow as some of the characters in the book. This is a book in which the characters are just who they are, flawed and imperfect, just trying to make the best of things. Nick's boyfriends are the most sympathetic characters, to the extent anyone is. The Feddens are pretty much terrible people, with paper-thin loyalty and wholly beholden to public opinion, not the least because Gerald's career is that of an elected official. Nick is alienated from himself, trying to keep up a front while also trying to figure out who he is in the world.

What makes the book is Hollinghurst's incredibly beautiful writing, his detailed characterizations and his command of psychological nuances. It's like a Victorian novel set among 80s party kids. I can't pull out individual quotes because it's such a whole, every sentence flowing into the next. Reading it I just felt like, why can't every book be this good? It's definitely going to be among my favorites for the year and it's one of my favorites among the Booker winners, too. The story is tragic and sad, a love letter to an era that had its share of joy and pain, but it's that writing that will get you hooked and move you and make you feel for these deluded and difficult characters. It's so worth your time to read.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: STAYING ON, by Paul Scott

Staying On, by Paul Scott. Originally published 1977. This edition 1998 by the University of Chicago Press.

Tusker and Lucy Smalley are an elderly English couple living out their last days in the rural town of Pankot in India of the early 1970s. The novel opens: "When Tusker Smalley died of a massive coronary at approximately 9.30 a.m. on the last Monday in April 1972 his wife Lucy was out, having her white hair blue-rinsed and set in the Seraglio Room on the ground floor of Pankot's new five-storey glass and concrete hotel, the Shiraz."

 This opening tells you everything and nothing. Tusker is dead, but we won't return to the reasons for his death until almost the very end of the novel. Right now we're seeing events through the eyes of Mr. Bhoolabhoy, manager of the Smith's Hotel, on whose property the Smalleys have lived for years. Minor figures in the British raj, the Smalleys decided to "stay on" in India after independence because they figured their meager means would afford them a better standard of living there than back home in England. By 1972 they have become stranded. Mr. Bhoolabhoy is another kind of post-independence figure, a figure of the rising Indian middle class. His wife owns the hotel and has bigger ambitions too. And those ambitions are about to clash with the Smalleys.

From this opening chapter the story goes back in time, to the events leading up to Tusker's death. We see the couple's deteriorating relationship, Lucy's weak striving for an independence of her own, Tusker's guilt over staying in India despite her, and their shrinking world of fellow British. Lucy gets a letter from a woman named Sarah (who figured prominently in Scott's Raj Quartet, to which this book is a kind of coda) asking would she, Lucy, agree to host a friend of hers who will be traveling in the area? Lucy is excited to have some connection to the old days, to England, to someone who remembers her, but the visit will lead to all kinds of problems, too.

I really loved this book. It's quiet and character-driven and the Smalleys aren't people you will necessary like (they are stodgy, stubborn and hold antiquated political and social beliefs) but they are also very human and real, and I felt compassion for them. The ending is nothing short of perfect as the circumstances around Tusker's death are revealed and Lucy finally gets that independence she wanted so badly. Just not the way she wanted. The book ends on a beautiful meditation on grief and loss and what comes after. It made the whole thing worthwhile. Staying On won the Booker Prize in 1977 and is a book I highly recommend, whether or not you've read the Raj Quartet.

It counts for the Complete Booker Challenge.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. Published 2004 by Random House. Literary Fiction.

Cloud Atlas is a weird and intriguing book. Encompassing large ranges of time and space, and arranged in a matryoshka-doll format, it's composed of a series of short stories that nestle inside each other, connected in ways subtle and overt. The stories also represent different literary styles, and show evolution in the human condition as well as in language and expression.

The first story, "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing," which begins and ends the book, is a historical fiction about a man and his adventures in New Zealand of the early colonial period (I think). The next is an epistolary tale set in the early 20th century, then a crime story, then a first-person contemporary narrative, then a futuristic dystopia, then a far-future post-apocalypse. The stories go 1-2-3-4-5-6-5-4-3-2-1 and each first part ends on a cliffhanger that the second part picks up immediately where the first part leaves off.

And how are they connected? That's for you to find out when you read it. I picked it up because it's been selling like crazy at the bookstore, and I wanted to be able to talk to my customers about it and recommend what to read next when they come back. I can do that now, and I'm glad that I read it. And I really enjoyed it. It's heavier lifting in literary terms than I'd been doing for a while, and it felt good to read a hard book again- a change from the fluffy crime fiction and homeworky new releases I read too much of. The stories are delightful, and a couple are quite wonderful. I particularly enjoyed the dystopic "Orison of Somni-451," about the rebellion of a sentient robot, and "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish," a flat-out hilarious adventure of what happens to an elderly and particularly myopic publisher when he runs afoul of some thugs.

I'd recommend Cloud Atlas to readers not afraid of doing that heavy lifting but I'll say I found the book a lot more accessible than I thought it would be. If you're wondering if you should read it, I say give it a shot. Stretch yourself if it's not normally your thing, and just try it. You might even like it. "'Catch you all next time.'" Luisa is going. "'It's a small world. It keeps recrossing itself.'" Just like the book.

Shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize, this book also counts towards The Complete Booker Challenge.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: In a Strange Room, by Damon Galgut

In a Strange Room, by Damon Galgut. Published 2010 by Europa Editions. Short Stories. Literary Fiction.

"There is a moment when any real journey begins. Sometimes it happens as you leave your house, sometimes it's a long way from home."

I've been reading Roger Ebert's memoir Life Itself lately, and Ebert describes his early days as a film critic and his education in the art of film- time spent visiting sets, talking to stars and directors, etc., learning how to understand and evaluate a film on technical grounds. But in the end, what he had to talk about was what did the film do to him. It's something I'm trying to think about more consciously as I read and review books. What did this book do to me?

In a Strange Room scarred me. Composed of three almost independent novellas, Galgut tells the story of an itinerant South African man named Damon and his travels in Africa and India with various companions. Each of the three chapters is titled after Damon's role in relation to these companions. In one, he's a follower, trailing behind a vain and self-contained German who poses more and more difficult physical challenges as the mens' amiable relationship breaks down. In the second, Damon is the admirer of a man who is part of a boisterous group of tourists he encounters in a neighboring country and follows all the way to Amsterdam. But it's the final story that will haunt me. Here, Damon is companion and caretaker to the mercurial and volatile Anna, mentally ill and suicidal. His time with her, in India, is horrific- a nightmare that challenges his endurance, his patience, his love and his sense of himself.

The first two chapters are luminous, moody and full of description; the third is all action and plot until it quiets down after the maelstrom in India ends and Damon returns to South Africa alone. When I picked it up to start the third chapter, I didn't expect to be unable to put it down. I picked In a Strange Room as my first Europa of 2013 because I'm on a bit of a South Africa bender right now, but most of the book takes place elsewhere. And Galgut has several lovely passages on the traveler's state of mind, the particular kind of alienation and impermanence peculiar to the wanderer:

A journey is a gesture inscribed in space, it vanishes even as it's made. You go from one place to another place, and on to somewhere else again, and already behind you there is no trace that you were ever there. The roads you went down yesterday are full of different people now, none of them knows who you are....Things happen only once and are never repeated, never return. Except in memory.

And in writing. Damon is always alone, even though he is almost always in the company of others. He is alone in crowds, on bus rides and at checkpoints, and most particularly he is alone with Anna, locked in her disease and her manias. Her voracious need fills every available space, every nook and cranny of Damon's consciousness as he struggles to care for her. Her needs give his life a purpose, at least for a time. But it can't go on like this forever.

What a beautiful, heartbreaking book, a study on solitude and relationships and how to coexist with others and the world and sit apart at the same time.

It's my first book for the 2013 Europa Challenge and I loved it! Short listed for the 2010 Booker Prize, it also counts towards The Complete Booker Challenge.

Rating: BUY!

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes

The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes. Published 2011 by Random House.

Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize and latest novel by acclaimed British writer Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending is a must-read for any reader of literary fiction. The book tells the story, in his own words, of middle-aged Tony Webster and his lifetime of regret around his relationship with two people- Veronica, an ex-girlfriend, and Adrian, a close friend from school. Lifetime of regret isn't quite right; he doesn't find out until very late in his story that he has any reason to regret but when he does, it's as though the weight of all of his decisions crashes upon him and he's left to sort through the rubble alone.

The theme of the novel is laid out early, as a high-school-aged Adrian is talking to a teacher about how to write history fairly: "That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that's being put in front of us." And herein lies the central challenge of this book. Tony is telling this story from the future, after the events have taken place; in the opening pages, as we're getting to know the characters, their futures, and Tony's, is hidden from us but not from the man telling the story. He knows things we don't yet, and these things color the way he tells the story. We can't understand anything he's saying until we know everything and we don't know everything until the very end.

Therefore, re-reading The Sense of an Ending is mandatory!

However the book is short enough, and more than wonderful enough, to make a reread easy and worthwhile. Soon after this point in the story, Tony meets Veronica, and their relationship forms the basis of the rest of the book. Even after their romance ends, they continue to interact in meaningful ways; one could say that Tony's relationship with Veronica is the central and defining one of his life, even as he tries to argue that other women were more important. That lie is one of many, maybe not lies exactly but self-deceptions Tony tries to sell the reader. The final secret is revealed obliquely, which tells us something about Tony's ability to process what he's learned and face it.

The Sense of an Ending is a wonderfully, intricately crafted unreliable-narrator story starring a perfectly ordinary man who, through one act of cruelty by whose impact he himself seems baffled, upends four lives for years to come. It's also the story of his reckoning and acceptance of what he's done as well as his ultimate irrelevance. And it is a book that deserves an immediate re-read. But you'll want to- you really will. It's just that good!

This counts towards the Complete Booker Perpetual Challenge.

Rating: BUY

The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes

I'm a Powell's partner and receive a small commission on sales.


FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Bone People, by Keri Hulme

The Bone People, by Keri Hulme. This edition published 1986 by Penguin. Literary Fiction.

Winner of the 1985 Booker Prize, The Bone People is a staggering literary novel. Keri Hulme's long and somewhat experimental novel focuses on an idiosyncratic family-by-choice in roughly modern-day rural New Zealand. Kerewin is an artist, solitary and self-sufficient; she lives in a tower and spends her days alone and working. One day, out fishing, she finds an enigmatic, silent little blond boy named Simon. They form a bond. She meets his father, Joe, a big man with a temper and a fondness for drink, which he shares with Kerewin. But Joe isn't exactly Simon's father, and his story, and the story of his history and his future with Joe make up the plot of this unusual novel.

Hulme's writing is dense and poetic, and her characters live in close contact with the natural world:

And here I am, balanced on the salt-stained rim, watching minute navyblue fringes, gill-fingers of tubeworms, fan the water...put the shadow of a finger near them, and they flick outasight. Eyes in your lungs...neat. The three-fin blenny swirls by.. tena koe, fish. A small bunch of scarlet and gold anemones furl and unfurl their arms, graceful petals, slow and lethal...tickle tickle, and they turn into unterestinglumps of brownish jelly...haven't made sea-anemone soup for a awhile, whaddabout it?...

The narrative structure is basically linear apart from the first chapter but Hulme changes the point of view often, gives her characters extended internal monologues and peppers their language with Maori words and phrases (both Kerewin and Joe have Maori background). It becomes obvious that Simon and Joe's relationship is not what it seems, and that Simon is being horribly abused. Hulme draws Joe's psychology so realistically that the reader can see how it happens, too. And Simon has troubles of his own, as we learn through his rare moments of internal monologue. Although iconically angelic in appearance, he is a troubled little boy whose troubles only continued when he met Joe and Joe's late wife. Now, ironically, Joe and Kerewin may be the best shot Simon has at a loving family.

Sorting out all those contradictions makes up the demanding work of parsing through this very accomplished and important novel. Hulme creates incredibly rich characters in all three of her leads, even mute Simon. And she sets up a heartbreaking situation out of her characters' complex psychology. She asks the reader some really hard questions about whom it's possible to love, and under what circumstances. Hulme's style means sometimes it's a little hard to know what's going on; I would suggest taking advantage of a cheat sheet if you find yourself having a hard time keeping track of the plot, especially in the latter third of the novel. But I do strongly recommend The Bone People to anyone up for a read that will challenge both intellectually and emotionally.

This book counts toward the 2011 Complete Booker Challenge.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Elected Member, by Bernice Rubens

The Elected Member, by Bernice Rubens. This edition published 2001, Little, Brown Book Group. Literary Fiction. Winner of the Booker Prize.

The Elected Member, by Bernice Rubens, won the second Booker Prize in 1970, and it's a good book but kind of a downer. It's the story of a Jewish family in roughly contemporary London, struggling as Norman, the son and prize of the family, falls deeper and deeper into chronic drug abuse.

When the book opens, Norman is relapsing once again, after the family has tried again to get him to quit. He hallucinates; he's paranoid; he manipulates his father and sister through guilt and love. His father, Rabbi Zweck, is an old man in his declining years still mourning the loss of his wife Sarah and his daughter Esther, although Esther is not dead. His other daughter, Bella, lives with him and Norman and helps take care of them both. She is deeply dysfunctional herself, a kind of overgrown child in ankle socks. As the story progresses and Norman is institutionalized, we learn what lays behind Norman's drug use, Bella's stunted growth and Esther's exile.

Much of the book takes place in the mental hospital where Norman is sent to try once again at recovery, and these scenes have about them the air of a bitter black comedy. Rather than recover here, Norman finds fellow patients to enable him and continues to manipulate Bella as well. Rabbi Zweck and his daughter visit him while Esther comes out from the shadows to try to help, too. It takes a family tragedy to bring the siblings around but even then the future is uncertain, with Norman taking comfort in a most unlikely quarter.

The Elected Member is a beautifully written novel about a deeply troubled family on the brink; it's not a feel-good novel and the ending isn't particularly happy but I found it nonetheless to be a very satisfying read. The characters were very well-drawn and convincing, and I like the way the secret at the core of the book unwinds itself slowly. The issues it raises haven't aged; it's just as relevant as ever and might make an interesting and off-beat book club pick for brave readers. But I think any reader of literary fiction should seriously consider adding it to his or her reading list.

Rating: BUY

I read this book for the 2011 Complete Booker Challenge.

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Moon Tiger, by Penelope Lively

Moon Tiger, by Penelope Lively. This edition published 1989 by Harper Perennial. Booker Prize. Literary Fiction.

Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 1987, Moon Tiger is the bedside confession and life story of Claudia Hampton, writer of popular histories now on her deathbed. She says she will write the history of the world so she tells her own story and that of her family- her brother Gordon and his wife, who knows Claudia to be the most important woman in his life; her daughter Lisa, the doggedly average daughter of the larger-than-life Claudia; Lisa's father, distant and aristocratic; and her lover, Tom, who she meets in Egypt during World War 2 and loses almost as soon as she finds him.

First of all, Lively's writing is incredible. Her descriptions of characters and her eye for detail bring the most everyday situations to life. You know these people; you can feel Lisa's pain especially at growing up in the shadow of her flamboyant mother, a woman who doesn't want her daughter to call her mother because it's just too ordinary, and ordinary is what Claudia can never be. Although Tom is the lover of her life, the man for whom she pines to her dying breath, the real love of her life is her brother Gordon, the only relationship that lasts. 

The segments of the book taking place in Egypt are the most colorful; Lively makes you feel the heat, the crush of crowds, the empty and yet seductive power of the desert. It's also where Claudia experiences the only real love she ever feels and her passion for Tom brings the landscape alive. England, Europe and America feel duller, flat, because she has no emotional ties there- no connective tissue. Tom's journals, which she reads at the end of her life, have about them a quiet tenderness that eases her final days.

At heart Moon Tiger is a character study of a strong and difficult woman; Claudia is a wonderfully, vividly drawn character- as are all the characters in the book. She's not perfect, but the book is, in its way, a perfect, gentle, subtle portrait of an unusual woman and her unusual life. I relished every drop of Lively's beautiful writing and thoroughly enjoyed this fantastic, moving novel.

I read this book for the 2011 Complete Booker Challenge.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Life & Times of Michael K., by J.M. Coetzee

Life & Times of Michael K., by J.M. Coetzee. Published 1985 by Penguin (Non-Classics). Literary Fiction.

Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 1983, Life & Times of Michael K. is a short yet deeply engrossing novel about a young man, Michael K., wandering alone through the deep countryside of South Africa amidst war and chaos. Michael is a youngish man living with his aging mother in the city as the story opens; hare-lipped, under-educated and somewhat simple, he works as a municipal gardener until his mother takes ill and asks him to take her to the countryside farm where she grew up. Along the way she dies, and Michael is left on his own with little money and few resources. He subsists off the land and passes through a prison-like camp for the poor and dispossessed, all the while trying to maintain his independence and dignity despite a society determined to strip these things away.

The book is divided into three main parts. The first is told entirely from Michael's point of view and Coetzee tells his story meticulously, in great detail and without pause. I thought the lack of chapter breaks would exhaust me but I found his story absolutely riveting. One thing follows on the next, day by day, bit by bit, until Michael has shed almost all the trappings of human society. Then the book changes gear, and Coetzee introduces a new voice and provides an altogether different point of view on Michael. Having spent so much time with him and in such intimate circumstances, it's jarring to have him removed so, pulled away if you will, but I loved this new perspective and the information Coetzee shares with the reader in this way. When we return to Michael in the final section, it's with a renewed appreciation for the challenges he faces and his resources to succeed.

I can't say I was as emotionally challenged by Michael K. as I was by Coetzee's later novel Disgrace (also a Booker winner) but I found Michael K. to be just as riveting, and in some ways, just as draining. We spend so much time in such close proximity to this man and his transformation is so gradual as to be almost unnoticeable, and so convincing as to be inevitable. The excellent second part adds another layer of depth and fascination- not to mention suspense. The fact that Michael's race is never mentioned in a country so charged by racial tension adds another challenge for the reader; Coetzee doesn't make it easy for us to place Michael, or judge him, or anticipate how other characters will do the same. I love how Coetzee can challenge us to think about race without handing us an easy answer.  Highly recommended for readers of literary fiction, Coetzee once again proves himself to be a master of it himself.

I read this for the 2011 Complete Booker Challenge.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Troubles, by J.G. Farrell

Troubles, by J.G. Farrell. Originally published 1970; this edition 2002, by NYRB Classics.

A phenomenal work of literary fiction, J.G. Farrell's Troubles has long been hailed as his masterpiece; a change in the rules for Booker Prize eligibility kept it out of consideration at the time it was published but it was resurrected in 2008 and recognized with the Lost Man Booker Prize. (Off-topic, but I love that the Man Booker committee has been recognizing works with hindsight-prizes like this.)

Set in Kilnalough, Ireland, in 1921, in a dilapidated hotel among a motley cast of the equally dilapidated Anglo-Irish upper class, Troubles stars Major Brendan Archer, a veteran of the first World War and fiancé of the elusive Angela Spencer, daughter of the proprietor of the Majestic Hotel, Edward Spencer. The Majestic's name has taken on the quality of bitter irony as the hotel is literally falling to pieces around its owners and residents, a group of elderly ladies left stranded by their own declining fortunes. The Major (as is known throughout the book) arrives to find nothing as he expected. Angela is mysteriously ill, Edward is slowly going mad and the Major finds himself falling hard for caustic Sarah Devlin, who is, of all things, a Catholic.

The novel is on the longish side, and the action is quotidian and slow; there is no powerful central plot driving the narrative but rather a long series of little things- conversations, encounters, minutiae. The Major stays at the hotel for a time, goes away, comes back, and goes away again. Edward becomes increasingly paranoid about the social and political deterioration of British rule in Ireland, and about Sinn Fein (the "Shinners") aggression, and the threat moves closer to home when his son marries a Catholic and runs away. The narrative is punctuated with news items about the state of British rule in Ireland, India and elsewhere in the Empire to underline the sense of instability. Meanwhile, a colony of feral cats slowly takes over and the building continues to fall apart.


But don't think Troubles is just some grim, depressing book. Farrell's writing is razor-sharp and funny and note-perfect; if you like black humor, Troubles is the book for you. A little knowledge of the political situation in Ireland of the 1920s is helpful but not necessary. It reminded me a little of Guiseppe de Lampedusa's wonderful The Leopard, also about a society, and a social class, of the brink of transformation and the end of its useful life; both books culminate in a ball whose consequences echo through the lives of the characters. It's a richly satisfying, beautifully-written, smart, knowing work of historical fiction with just about everything going for it. Highly recommended for literary-fiction readers and readers with a strong interest in Ireland, it's a wonderful, wonderful novel.

Rating: BUY

This book counts towards the Ireland Reading Challenge 2011 and the 2011 Complete Booker Challenge.

Troubles (New York Review Books Classics)
by J G Farrell

I'm a Powell's partner and receive a small commission on sales.


FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

2011 Complete Booker Challenge

 

I'm going to participate in 2011 Complete Booker Challenge at the Booker's Dozen level, with an eye to completing 12 Booker-Prize-winning (or nominated) books this year.

I don't have a complete list yet; I have a stack of Booker winners unread in my TBR pile (more than a dozen for sure!), plus an unknown number of long- and short-listed titles, so this is a great opportunity to work my way through. My goal is to read one winner a month and maybe a nominee or two here and there as time and interest allow. So far in 2011 I've read

• Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively (winner 1987)
  
• Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner (winner 1984)
  
• Heliopolis by James Scudamore (longlist 2009)

Next up for me is probably going to be Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha for March, since I'm doing all Irish books in March. After that I'll pick something each month that I feel like reading.

It's going to be a great year in Booker books! You can visit the Complete Booker Prize Challenge page here.

REVIEW: Offshore, by Penelope Fitzgerald

Offshore, by Penelope Fitzgerald. Published 1979 by Collins. This edition published 2003 by Everyman's Library. Literary Fiction. Winner of the Booker Prize.

Winner of the Booker Prize in 1979, Offshore is quiet, short novel about a group of eccentric characters living in houseboats on the Thames River in London. The main focus is on Nenna and her children, precocious Tilda and milder Martha; Martha longs for normalcy while Tilda embraces the chaos of houseboat river living. Grace is the name of their boat; Nenna's husband, Edward, has left them. Richard is a retired Royal Naval Reserve officer, very comme il faut, who lives on a very nice boat. His wife, the beautiful Laura, is discontented with barge life. Maurice is a small-time criminal and male prostitute.  A pair of minor tragedies upset this delicately poised group and it slowly disintegrates.

Life on the Battersea Reach is a world apart from life on the shore, with its own rules and codes of conduct. Some find it quite suitable, like Nenna and Richard, to whom she is attracted. Others, like Laura and Martha, want a so-called normal life on land. Nenna's husband Edward is harmless and feckless and the two just can't seem to find common ground. Meanwhile their daughters are growing up and involved in little intrigues of their own.

I really enjoyed Offshore. It's a little gem about personalities and lifestyles intersecting and mingling like slow-moving driftwood at the water's edge. While short, Offshore is not a quick read but rather requires a careful and attentive reader. The characters are vivid and detailed; the setting is unusual and fascinating. I re-read it as soon as I finished just to savor its little nuances and details. A tiny masterpiece, Offshore should be on the shelf of every reader of literary fiction.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Hotel du Lac, by Anita Brookner

Hotel du Lac, by Anita Brookner. Originally published 1984. This edition 1995 by Vintage Contemporaries. Literary Fiction. Winner of the Booker Prize.

Hotel du Lac is a quiet novel that nonetheless has a lot to say. Winner of the 1984 Booker Prize, it's the story of Edith Hope, a writer on a self-imposed exile at an out-of-season Swiss hotel, which she shares with a small group of (mostly) women. Mrs. Iris Pusey is a narcissistic grande dame on perpetual holiday with her spinster daughter Jennifer; their primary occupation is consumption- shopping and eating. Monica is a tall, striking woman accompanied by a small dog but otherwise alone, a single middle-aged woman looking for what the Puseys already have, a wealthy man to support her. An older woman also resides at the hotel, staying on until the end of the season, at which time her family will send her elsewhere to be looked after. And then there is Edith, alone for entirely different reasons, who forms slight attachments to each but remains definitively on her own.

What we do know about Edith is that she's desperately in love with David, a married man and art dealer, to whom she writes detailed letters about the people and goings on at the hotel. But David is not the primary scandal she's escaping, and he won't be her redemption, either. That story unfolds slowly as Edith gets to know a Mr. Neville, a single and well-off man also in residence at this placid hotel that nonetheless buzzes with the quiet desperation of its inhabitants.

At the core of this slim novel is character- Brookner's and Edith's sharp character studies of the ladies, especially the Puseys, and Edith's own arc as she makes difficult choices about the next stage of her life. For a long stretch her future is open-ended and uncertain as she steps through each day walking the town, writing and navigating the genteel minefield of the other ladies' own emotional landscapes. The setting reflects Edith's state of mind, perpetually gray and blank. Color comes from the ladies' clothing and conversation. She's recovering from a major trauma, and more than that, has to decide what to do next; uncertainty is the dominant tone. Towards the end decisions agendas are revealed that change that landscape and lead to Edith's final choice, and it feels so right and well-drawn that it's hard to imagine it turning out any other way.

Hotel du Lac is a fine literary read that readers of thoughtful womens' fiction will savor and enjoy. Brookner mixes pathos and humor- her portrait of Mrs. Pusey in particular has moments of real hilarity- in a novel that resembles Jane Austen written in a contemporary style, but with an emphasis on the pathos. She uses the very Austenian theme of women's economic vulnerability but instead of marriage solving life's problems, she asks if the material rewards of dependence engender a kind of complacency or even rot. But the novel is smarter than to be so simple-minded in its message; Brookner also sets up contrasts that ask if being alone is the worth the price it demands as well. Overall thoughtful, thought-provoking and lovely, Hotel du Lac is a beautifully crafted narrative that will reward the careful reader.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson

The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson. Published 2010 by Bloomsbury. Literary Fiction. Winner of the Man Booker Prize.

The upset winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize, The Finkler Question is nonetheless not exactly a crowd-pleaser. A serious, sophisticated novel about emotionally and intellectually challenging problems, focusing on a niche topic (how to be Jewish- and not- in modern day Great Britain) and a satire to boot, it's simply not destined for universal adulation. But that doesn't mean it's not a good book.

The center of the novel is the identity crisis of a loser named Julian Treslove. Julian Treslove has failed at just about everything. He's failed at a conventional career with the BBC. He's failed in love; he's failed at being a parent. Now a fairly successful impersonator of the famous, about the only thing he is good at is pretending to be someone else.

One night as Julian comes home after an evening out, he is mugged. He believes that his attacker was a woman, which makes him feel like a failure as a man, and he believes that his attacker called him a Jew. This gets Julian to thinking. He has two close friends- Sam Finkler and Libor Sevcik. Sam is successful and rich, a younger man who's made a career as a writer and Libor is an older emigre from Eastern Europe, recently mourning the death of his wife. Julian admires them both and both Sam and Libor are Jewish. Somewhere in the back of Julian's mind, something takes hold, and, hanging his hat on the belief that his mother may have been of Jewish descent, he decides to be Jewish, too. And things start looking up for Julian. His sons, estranged and contemptuous of their father,  take a little more interest. Julian falls in love with the voluptuous, artistic Earth-mother Hephzibah, who seems to love him back.

But this, too, will probably not work out.  Sam is a lackadaisical activist in an anti-Zionist group and tries, in his personal and public life, to define the boundaries of what gentiles can do and how he will allow or not allow them to participate in Jewish life; he doesn't support Julian on principle. In one scene, Sam excoriates a gentile woman for having an opinion on the Israel/Palestine dispute, saying in effect that because she's not Jewish she has no right to comment. Libor can't figure out why Julian would want to be Jewish in the first place. Julian wants Hephzibah to be a kind of uber-Jewess but she just wants to be herself. The more Julian tries to participate in his friends' Jewish world, the more he's excluded from it and the more bitter he becomes. In the end it's a tragedy that bursts his bubble and forces all of them apart.

Being Jewish, it seems, is not as simple as putting on a kippah and flashing your mother's DNA like a ticket. Ultimately Julian's problem is that it's a pose, like his celebrity impersonation business. It's just not who he is. He idealizes the Jewish world only to be disappointed by the reality as he experiences it. For me, Julian's internal process figuring out his place in this new-to-him world is fascinating to watch. The experience of the gentile in the Jewish world is not a topic often addressed in literature (the only other example I can think of is Chandler Burr's very different novel, You or Someone Like You) and the degree of empathy and insight that Jacobson has into his confused protagonist is pretty impressive. He nails it; he really does, and he does it with some humor, too. This is not an easy thing to talk about- not without sounding like a jerk, anyway, and some people might still think Julian is a jerk. I think he merely allows himself to be mislead by his own failures and weak sense of self into a fight he can't win.

A character-driven novel for the literary reader, I'll admit The Finkler Question is not the most exciting page-turner out there. It's not the right book for the page-turner crowd anyway. And I know there were other Booker nominees that received more universal applause. So what. It's a brave, important book and I'd recommend it for readers who are willing to stretch themselves a little to take on a challenging subject. You're not going to love Julian; you may not even like him. You may think he's dead wrong and in need of a good smack upside the head. And Jacobson's book may make you frustrated and uncomfortable, but it may also make you think, and that's what great literature is really all about.

See also: Melissa's great review at Scuffed Slippers and Wormy Books.

Rating: BUY


FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee

Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee. Published 1999 by Penguin. Literary Fiction. Booker Prize Winner.

Winner of the 1999 Man Booker Prize, Disgrace is a stunner of a novel. It's the second Booker Prize winner by South African author J.M. Coetzee (the first was Life and Times of Michael K, a winner in 1983) and almost as soon as I started it I could see why it won. It's one of the those novels that really has it all- a strong plot, great characters, distinctive style and strong setting. The plot? David Lurie, a Cape Town college professor, ruins his life after an ambiguous affair with a student, then goes to live with his daughter Lucy, a homesteader in rural South Africa. There, they endure an unspeakable tragedy. The rest of the novel is fallout from these two life-changing events.

Also omnipresent in the book are the racial and sexual politics of South Africa as the characters wrestle with guilt and the consequences in this landscape of living the lives they want for themselves. If you read Solar and thought Michael Beard was an unappealing character, you're going to hate David Lurie, a stubborn, difficult man bitter about his diminishing prospects with career and women who refuses to see the reality of every situation he's in. At the same time, though, Coetzee makes the reader care about him first by punishing him and then by showing his slow crawl back to humanity via the growing compassion that builds through his work in a veterinary hospital.

Gender, sexuality and race are but a few of the themes running through this dense, economically written novel. Coetzee races through the affair and Lurie's downfall then lingers over Lurie's new life with Lucy and its brutal fallout. His recreation of life on Lucy's farm was so vivid I felt like I was there; Lurie's ostracism from his academic life is equally vivid and moving. Lucy and Lurie are both unforgettable characters, so entrenched in their points of view and so unwilling to see any but their own way out of their predicaments. I read the book in about two days and couldn't put it down once I started. For the reader of literary fiction who can like an unlikeable protagonist, Disgrace is a must-read. I received the book in a Bookmooch trade and it came with a sticky note on the title page that read "Phenomenal piece of literature. You will not be disappointed!" I couldn't agree more.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review from the publisher.

REVIEW: Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh

Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh. Published 2009 by Picador. Literary Fiction.

I read this book courtesy of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.

Shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies is a dense, difficult novel that started slow for me but built to a riveting cliffhanger by the closing pages. It's the first of a planned trilogy and a great literary read.

Set in India just prior to the Opium Wars (1839 and 1856) Ghosh's novel follows a panoply of characters- Deeti, the widow of an opium worker who marries a lower-caste man and flees her family; Paulette, a French orphan who wants more out of life than learning Bible verses and making idle conversation; her childhood friend Jodu; Neel, an upper-caste man who finds himself disgraced and degraded; and Zachary, a sailor trying to navigate more than just his way across the sea. All of these characters- and others- are in some way connected to the opium trade, which Ghosh shows as a pervasive and insidious fact of life. Issues of gender, race, caste and colonialism conspire with the drug trade to shape the characters' lives, but Ghosh's people are not pawns in some political manifesto but willful and active doers who strive to make their own destiny.

I will admit I almost gave up on Sea of Poppies in the first few chapters. Ghosh's language is a vibrant stew of English and Indian dialects and the seadog vernacular aboardship reminded me of reading (or trying to read) Patrick O'Brian's seafaring classic Master and Commander- rig the topmastforesail and hoist the petards, or something, only half in a language I don't understand and with no real explanation. Even the glossary at the back is very little help. And the use of dialect continues throughout the book but I found I could understand most things in context.

I'm glad I stuck with it, though, because after a while with Ghosh's musical medley of languages, a kind of harmony develops and you'll find yourself fluent before you even realize it- and you'll find yourself engrossed in the story as his characters come together aboard a rickety vessel lurching towards an uncertain future. I felt for Neel's compounding humiliations and admired Deeti and Paulette for their tough determination in the face of cultural forces that would willingly crush them. Once the drama starts, it doesn't let up till the very last sentence- and then if you're like me, you'll find yourself flipping the back pages to make absolutely sure it's the end because you'll want it to keep going and going.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review from the publisher.

REVIEW: The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy

The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy. Published 1997 by Random House. Literary Fiction. Winner of the Booker Prize.

Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things is the story of a Indian family destroyed by love and death. The family is that of children Rahel and Estha, fraternal twins who live with their mother Ammu, their aunt Baby Kochamma and their uncle Chacko. They are the prosperous owners of Paradise Pickle. The death is that of Sophie Mol, a little girl and Chacko's daughter, visiting from England with her mother Margaret. The love is between Ammu and Velutha, a lower-caste neighbor.

Themes explored include race, caste, class and identity; the novel travels back and forth in time between Rahel and Estha's childhood in India and their separate destinies as adults. Tragedy and sadness are interwoven everywhere as the reader is reminded via foreshadowing and repetition of the inevitable forces shaping and reshaping their lives at every turn. The love story between Ammu and Velutha is particularly poignant as Roy shows the cost of the caste system on the lives of the people who live under it.

It sounds like it might be a little depressing, and it is, but I liked it nonetheless. Roy doesn't tell us exactly what happened to Sophie Mol until the very end, and by that time we can see how her death and its consequences are about more than just Sophie. Her fate determines that of every other character and tears back the thin dressing of civility in this troubled community like a bandage from a wound. Roy does a brilliant job of sewing up this patchwork of relationships and lives so that when trouble comes, it rips right along the lines.

The God of Small Things is definitely not the book for every reader; it's slow and it struck me as a dense study of character and culture. It fits well within the tradition of moody Booker Prize winners and would be a fine choice for the literary fiction reader interested in books about India. It's not a lively book but Roy kept me going with the suspense over what happens to Sophie and the other rich, detailed characters. She also evokes the setting beautifully and vividly; you'll fall in love with these characters and live the story along with them.

Rating: BUY
FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review from the publisher.

Sunday Salon

So with the start of the New Year, the holiday season is officially over, and I'm
sort of glad. I had a great time over the past couple of weeks but I can't deny that 2009 was a difficult year for all kinds of reasons and on New Year's Eve I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with the Twitter hashtag #2009mustdie.

Now on to bigger and better things!

First of all, I've decided to join a reading challenge for 2010, something I rarely do. I chose the Complete Booker 2010 Challenge:

This is not so much a reading challenge, but a long-term project in which the participants aim to read all winners of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. There is no time limit, and members read short- and long-listed nominees as well.

I've already read a number of winners and nominated books but lately I've been actively collecting past winners I haven't read. I think the challenge will be a great way to motivate myself to put those books on the top of the TBR pile and an opportunity to share views and reviews with like-minded readers. Like I've said before, 2010 is going to be a different kind of reading year for me than those in the recent past, one focused much more on pursuing interests I've let slide with the avalanche of ARCs I've been digging myself out from under for a while now. Which is not to say I won't be reading new releases but I'll be much pickier about it this year.

Last night was the highlight of the past week or so; after seeing the very fun "Sherlock Holmes" movie, my husband and I went out for a great dinner and a beautiful walk in the snow. We even visited our favorite bookstores. Today? A few things going on- a trip the gym, brunch out with friends and probably some hanging out at home. But you know what? I've been doing a lot of hanging out lately and I'm actually really looking forward to getting back to real life on Monday. I've got work, personal projects and of course- reading.

What are you looking forward to today?

More Sunday Salon here.