The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx

Had I read this book when my mum suggested it to me a dozen years ago, I would have probably understood my classmates from Newfoundland a lot better… I always thought this was going to be a nice read but little more. Man was I wrong…

There are new layers to Quoyle’s personality and new hidden aspects of his family history in every chapter (and I do realize that this sounds like a trite comment given by a mediocre reader to an average book, but I swear it isn’t the case – at least for the latter part of the statement). The blatant disrespect for the English grammar of most of the novel’s characters (even the journalists) makes their dialogues realistic and, for want of a better term, absolutely sea-worthy (although the “yarrs” made me think of The Simpsons a bit too much…). And the anecdotes disseminated throughout the book are of the kind that can only be told in the wildest parts of Canada.

However, knowing that Julianne Moore portrayed Wavey in the movie taken from the book (which I haven’t seen yet, and probably will not in all honesty) I had her incredible freckled face in my mind all the time, and I just couldn’t understand why Quoyle wouldn’t fall in love with her sooner…

The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene

Greene considered this to be one of his best works (at least according to Wikipedia – and who am I to question this claim?). However, in all honesty, I disagree: The Honorary Consul is enjoyable, but doesn’t have the suspense of The Quiet American or the hilarious turns of Our Man in Havana.

To me, Dr Plarr is simply too British to have spent his entire life in Latin America, and his constant remarks on “machismo” seem like those of an outsider rather than those of a self-critical local. Also, in a novel in which so many characters are fighting for their lives, I found it weird that not a single one of them was actually bad: Plarr and the desperadoes have their heart in the right place – although the latter have no methods – Fortnum is just a poor nobody, Colonel Perez is a good policemen who knows his people, and hell, even the British diplomats and politicians seem to be sensible. Only the General is probably bad, but he is only mentioned and doesn’t appear in the novel…

The book does pick up from the moment of the attempted creation of an Anglo-Argentine club, but to me it was too little too late.

And for someone who doesn’t really go to church, the lengthy discussions on God are just fairly painful and trite (and a reminder of high-school philosophy debates…)

Cat and Mouse - Günter Grass

It was rather surprising to read such a short – and fundamentally simple and linear – novella by Grass after powering through the hefty (yet absolutely wonderful) The Tin Drum. The links between the two are many: clearly the setting, but also the unreliability of the narrator (Pilenz is not as unruly as Oskar, yet his desire to justify himself makes the reader question whether or not he is telling the whole truth, or just his own) not to mention the fact that Oskar himself does make a couple of appearances in the book (something I could have done without, as I saw little need for such explicit tribute).

The intimacy of the novella is very touching, as well as the narrator’s decision to directly address Mahlke time and again. The innocence of the two main characters is lost in the 140 pages of the book, but, given the setting, no reader could – or should – make a moral judgement (even when Pilenz writes that he hopes not to have said anything that might have damaged his freemason teacher, or when Mahlke takes his dramatic decisions in the last few pages).

Throughout the book the reader knows perfectly well that things are going to take a turn for the worse, but the sadness of the last couple of pages is something that is absolutely lacerating for a book about teenagers growing up together. 

Cosmopolis – Don DeLillo

Yet another book from what is essentially an unending stock of novels that I either got for close to nothing from Fopp or actually for nothing at the good old Books for Free shop.

I loved DeLillo’s White Noise, had mixed feelings about Underworld, and saw Cosmopolis as a “DeLillo meets absurdist Paul Auster, meets Joyce, meets Minority Report” kind of pastiche. There is clearly nothing wrong with any of those four ingredients, but this mix just doesn’t work for me.

The novel, despite its shortness, ends up being crammed with ideas that are potentially interesting but surely overwhelming, and Eric’s frequent meetings with his wife are just too dreamlike for me (so much so that I was afraid they would turn into something like the bathroom scene in The Shining). There is also too much death around (including that of his bodyguard which is, honestly, absolutely gratuitous).

This is not to say that the novel is uninspiring – there are plenty of interesting points raised about our expectations from society and about human nature (why does Eric ultimately hope that the rap star he idolizes died in a gunfight and not of a common heart attack? Why does he confront Benno Levin when he tries to kill him instead of running away from him?) – but it’s just, well, a bit much (ado about nothing). 

American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis

Firstly a sad note: the Books for Free space in Stratford, which gave me faith in mankind just a week ago, is now about to close down. Needless to say, my faith in mankind is vacillating (probably also because the rules for my application for British naturalization are changing, and that means that I have to again start the process essentially from zero).

Moving on to American Psycho: I was reading this book on the tube and feeling really rather ashamed (not embarrassed, ashamed). One thing is the glorification and  aestheticization of violence, but this is just gratuitous (and fairly disgusting). And when the author isn’t talking about chopped limbs and tortured people, he is talking about matching his Fratelli Rossetti shoes with Ermenegildo Zegna trousers – not exactly the most exciting topic of discussion for a guy who would love to spend his life in jeans and t-shirt. Bateman is meant to be Psycho’s Norman Bates's heir, but falls so very short (and also lacks any kind of self-criticism: how can a guy who despises homeless people so much love Phil Collins, the author of Another Day in Paradise?!?)…

Most of all, I am not quite sure if Ellis meant to highlight the protagonist’s mental self-destruction or if he just has no idea what he is talking about, but reading about the Beatles’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want is just too painful to describe. Because of The Big Chill I often say I’d like that song played at my funeral, but I’d like to think that, no matter how old and senile I will get, I will never think that Lennon and McCartney wrote the song. 

The Music of Chance – Paul Auster

Last Saturday I crossed the Thames and went to Stratford for my Life in the UK test (which I passed, by the way – meaning that there is now nothing stopping me from becoming a British citizen, hopefully). I had to walk through the Shopping Centre on my way and found this wonderful place (https://www.facebook.com/BooksforFreeStratford/) where they give away up to three free books for every visitor – no strings attached and no catches! In terms of maintaining my faith in mankind, this place ranks right up there with Parkrun. Visit it, pick up books, donate books, and prevent them from essentially going to landfill…

Moving on to the actual book, I have now read most of Auster’s works and, as far as absurdist novels go, this is one of my favourites (I liked it a lot more, for instance, than the stories of the New York Trilogy). It’s deeply disturbing and the reader knows from the start that everything is spiralling out of control but doesn’t know how it will all end (Will the wall close in on Nashe like it used to do on Roger Waters and David Gilmour after the first half of The Wall? Will Stone and Flower create a tiny little replica of Nashe and run his life for him through the “City of the World”? Will he get killed as he tries to escape?). Yet, there is always a sense of hope: maybe Nashe’s sister, his daughter, Pozzi, or maybe even Tiffany, the prostitute from Atlantic City, can help the guy survive in one way or another.

The one thing that annoyed me, though, is that I am sure I didn’t manage to pick up on tons of the novel’s insightful remarks and metaphors – the links to the myth of Sisyphus are clear, but there are surely millions more…

Us – David Nicholls

And with this I have now officially read all the books by David Nicholls. Hardly an accomplishment, considering he has written four and that reading them is so effortless. A bit too effortless to be honest…

Us is a great read when you are bored during a long journey between a Northern Italy warm enough to still swim in the Mediterranean in November and a windy and rainy South-East England, but little more than that. Just as One Day and The Understudy, Us is about the dynamics of a mismatched couple – something whose novelty wears off after a (short?) while. And, much like One Day, the book is saved from being excessively trite and banal by a plot twist in the end (in One Day this came with Emma’s bike-ride, in Us with an added piece of information on the life of the couple’s son). I also have the feeling that Nicholls just had a lot of travel notes that he felt like cramming in a book (although at times this are quite interesting – like comparing the glorious Champs-Élysées to the much-less glorious Oxford Street).

While Starter for Ten was at times hilarious, and The Understudy was ultimately quite funny, both Us and One Day appear more ambitious and seem to attempt to tackle deeper issues and problems. To me, however, they fail and end up being fairly entertaining, but not as much as their two predecessors. 

Harriett Said… – Beryl Bainbridge

Another book that my mother bought from Fopp for an offensively low price. Having read a couple of Bainbridge novels already, I was familiar with her love for stories of troubled girls and the differences between reality and their perceptions of it. However, I was fooled by the colorful cover of this edition and approached the novel believing it would have been short (which it was) and sweet (far from it).

Even without taking in consideration the incipit, it’s quite clear that the two main characters of Harriett Said… are trapped in a downward spiral. That said, I was expecting something milder (really bad, but somehow milder) to be at the bottom of that spiral – the actual turn of events over the last few pages caught me completely by surprise.

It’s absolutely remarkable that this novel can still shock and sicken the reader after 50 years. And by the time the reader stops justifying the two main characters saying that they are just two little girls playing around and discovering themselves, it’s too late.  

Capital – John Lanchester

A book that my mom read in translation, than found among the remainders in a London bookshop and bought for me. I rarely read contemporary best-sellers – partly because I enjoy feeling different, partly because when they are good (as in this case) they can be captivating, entertaining, and pleasant enough to read, but very rarely great.

Capital is, much like so many recent British novels, about the lives of a number of urban individuals and families from the most diverse backgrounds and how they are brought together by an event or another. Problem is: Lanchester is not Zadie Smith and his story – for catching that it is – ultimately lacks the kind of irony and acuteness that Smith normally has.

Capital hits all the right notes in a way that is so perfect that it looks staged: of course the reader feels warmed by Freddy Kamo’s enthusiasm, Smitty’s memories of his youth with his grandmother, or Zbigniew/Bogdan’s pursuit of Matya – but it often reads as if Lanchester is only ticking boxes and going through the motions. Also, to make sure that the majority of the readers feels happy by the end, all stories either have positive finales or at least finales with a significant hint of hope (the possibility of a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe and redemption for former City alpha-male), maybe with the sole exception of Smitty’s former assistant (quite a secondary and dislikable figure anyway). However, I do hate siding with the majority on anything (and books in particular!) so I will say that I have been entertained by Capital, but was left with little more than that.

That said, maybe, my impressions would have been different had I read this book as we were house-hunting last year and trying to understand the market value of the places we were looking at…

Michael Strogoff – Jules Verne

My grandma taught me how to read when I was 4. By the time I was 5 I was a boring kid reading scientific publications on dinosaurs and wild animals. By the time I was 6 and in elementary school most people around me had also learned how to read, so I stopped and, essentially, didn’t open a book until I was 14.

Because of my long literature-free years, I am now often forced to embarrassingly catch up on books that I wish I had read in my early teens, like Michael Strogoff. I half-heartedly read 20.000 Leagues under the Sea when I was 12 (one of the few books that I was forced to read in that period and, because of the mood I was in, I think it’s best if I don’t write anything about how I felt towards Captain Nemo then), I later loved Around the World in 80 Days, but Michael Strogoff was the Jules Verne book that intrigued me the most (that said, I managed to postpone reading it until now although I had asked for it as a Christmas present probably 10 years ago).

It was a delightful read despite the fact that, more than Around the World in 80 Days, the novel is so extremely dated (its national stereotypes, its depiction of women, nationalism, courage, morality etc.) – but my edition still had the old 19^th century illustrations which made me tingly inside, and I must say I actually had goosebumps when Michael carries Nadja towards Irkutsk. It was also interesting to look at how quickly each event was described: with one hit Michael kills a bear, with one jump he runs away and so on and so forth – all those actions are described in one quick line, whereas in a 20^th century adventure they would probably last for a few epic pages.

Also, I’ve probably loved the book because it finally gave me an idea of the geography of some of those mysterious territories in the top-right corner of the Risk board…

The Rotters’ Club – Jonathan Coe

A book that my mom tried to persuade me to read for years. All it took for me to read it was for my boss to recommend it…

There are a number of reasons why I particularly enjoyed this novel: being used to Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureishi, Hari Kunzru, etc. it was refreshing for once to read a (relatively) recent light-hearted and socio-political British novel that wasn’t set in London. Also, despite the fact that my political allegiances lie elsewhere (very much so), it was a welcome change to read a novel about the personal growth and the self-doubts of a little Tory (despite the fact that Ben’s lefty friend Doug is clearly my favourite character).  Lastly, a scene in the final pages is set in the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York, a place that was wonderfully quaint and still oozing – between its cracked walls and leaking pipes – of Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and Patti Smith when my dad took us there 20 years ago (before it got refurbished and very much revamped).

From a stylistic point of view, Coe does a great job of alternating registers and viewpoints. His little plot twists leave you disheartened (at the very end of the first part), warm inside (during a dialogue apparently with himself that Ben has mid-way through the second part), giggly (when you discover who is the actual author of some of the most hysterical letters that the editor of a school journal can ever receive), or give you hope for the future of mankind (with Ben’s decision to go home before the end of a disastrous family holiday in Wales).

It’s been a while since I’ve last expressed this trite idea – The Rotters’ Club is clearly not a masterpiece, but hell it’s a really enjoyable read…

Fontamara – Ignazio Silone

Another book stolen from my granddad’s bookshelf. It must have been sitting there for some 40 years. I’m not someone who sees poetry everywhere in the world, but I really find it kind of neat that it smells just like my grandparents’ flat… Clearly, this is another book about Italian Fascism and it is, surprisingly, the one that seems to be best known abroad. Given the recent new evidence published about Silone’s dealings with the Fascist police, I have the feeling I will struggle to be fully objective, but anyway here it goes.

I do realize that Fontamara was published during the “years of consensus” for the Fascist regime  and that Silone’s position was fairly radical and incredibly dangerous at the time (although he published the novel while in exile). However, 80 years on, I am a much bigger fan of Fenoglio’s gritty or Vittorini’s epic anti-fascism than of Silone’s fable-like one.

As I already mentioned a couple of times, I’m not exactly fond of great allegoric portrayals of human nature: I’d be much happier if the evil entrepreneur represented just himself and not the whole of capitalism and its aggressiveness, or if the fickle lawyer was not meant to be a portrayal of the Italian upper-middle class and its acquiescence to Fascism. Also, while the idea of telling the story from the points of view of three members of the same family (a couple and their son) was undoubtedly avant-garde for the period, the fact that the style of the narration doesn’t change when it’s a teenage boy or a middle-aged woman presenting the story makes me question the quality of Silone as a writer.

 

That said, the book is a great display of how in many ways the Fascist revolution was “unrevolutionary”, and how the poor and oppressed remained poor and oppressed. After all that was what my Ph.D. was about, so at least from that point of view I did find the book extremely interesting…

La Tregua – Primo Levi

 

I’ve stolen this book from my granddad’s bookshelf. It was a gift for him by my mom some 20 years ago. His memory is really rather wobbly now, I don’t think he’ll realize it’s gone (or, sadly, that he’s ever read it).

I’ve read it because my mother – rightfully, as is sometimes the case! – scolded me for saying that often Levi’s writing is (understandably, obviously) quite humourless. I stand by what I said in relation to books about the holocaust. But La Tregua is more than that. It’s about the long journey home, about the light at the end of the tunnel, about the desire to live. Also, La Tregua was written in the early 1960s, 15 years after Se Questo E’ un Uomo, and I’m sure that this played an important role in the way in which Levi recalled his turbulent days in 1945 and 1946.

Levi’s self-mocking when describing his lack of street smarts is endearing, the plethora of secondary characters with very often stereotypical national quirks is extremely funny (at times actually hilarious), and the never-ending road back to Turin is of such an epic and heroic kind that I am sure McCarthy would love to have written La Tregua. And, clearly, the anecdotes that Levi magisterially recalls in La Tregua are of the kind which can only be lived and told by the chosen people.

Saturday – Ian McEwan

 

I found an autographed hardback copy of the novel on the second-hand bookshelf at my local urban farm. It was selling for 1£. It says a lot about the value of literature these days...

The book is beautifully written. No wonder, it’s McEwan. The book is about rich people and their perfectly imperfect lives. No wonder, it’s McEwan. The book actually annoyed the hell out of me, which is a shame because, after all, it’s McEwan...

I’m not quite sure whether McEwan depicts a Henry Perowne that is irritatingly detached from reality or if that’s actually a reflection of the author’s outlook on life in London (the autobiographical elements in Saturday are clearly many and at times it’s hard to disentangle pure fiction from McEwan’s experiences).

The book annoyed me because Henry Perowne and McEwan seem to mock those who protested against the invasion of Iraq. I did back in the day, I’m quite proud of that, and I’m happy I carried those signs that he seems to find fairly meaningless. It annoyed me because I had little intention of spending half an hour reading about a stupid squash game. It annoyed me because during the squash game one of those supposedly average athletes in their 50s jumps “two or maybe even three feet into the air” (you’re either a real athlete, or you are delusional if you think you can jump that high with a couple of steps). Similarly, you don’t run a half marathon in less than an hour and a half if you’re little more than a casual jogger (trust me on that).

It annoyed me because the book hates on the student halls in Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia where I lived and worked for years. It annoyed me because, protected by his fancy car on Tottenham Court Road, Henry Perowne/McEwan thinks that everyone around him is fundamentally happy (the guy selling The Big Issue? The old lady diving for reduced to clear sandwiches at Tesco? The underpaid McDonald’s staff?). It annoyed me because, for all the medical research he’s had to do to write this book, Perowne’s mom has the same illness that Briony develops in Atonement (which he wrote four years before, without publishing any other novel in the meantime).

The novel’s greatest merit has been that of arousing something similar to a weird nationalist pride in me (something I’ve never possessed and that I hope I’ll get rid of by tomorrow morning). As an unknown Italian archaeologist impregnates Perowne’s flawless daughter, McEwan allows himself to label the Italians as pueri aeterni (eternal teenagers) and says that Italian men won’t get up in the middle of the night for the cries of their teething children. Screw that, I have a right to say those things if I want to. You, rich and pompous foreigner, don’t.