The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky

And finally here we are, the book that stayed with me for pretty much a month! In the words of Coldplay “Nobody said it was easy”, but it was in the end so very worth it. I honestly thought this was going to be one of those books that I would read just for the sake of saying that I have done so, but I was wrong.

The Brothers Karamazov ended up being way less philosophical than what I was fearing and just plain enjoyable – every single character is interesting, deep, and troubled in his/her own way and the fact that some of their ideas and feelings remain hidden for hundreds of pages adds to the interest of the novel. Well, I said every single character is interesting, but I actually meant “almost every single character” as I found Alyosha to be simply too saintly (even more so than his own spiritual father).

Maybe I’m just reading too much into it, but since there is a break in the narrative as Karamazov Sr gets killed (sorry for the spoiler, but also my own Wordsworth Classics edition mentioned the event on its back-cover!) are we sure that Dimitri is ultimately innocent and that Smerdyakov did the deed? I mean, can we really trust Smerdyakov’s own confession? Possibly I’m the one who’s being too philosophical now…

And again, speaking of me reading a bit too much into it, I actually wonder whether the fairly open finale means that Dostoevsky actually thought that at some point he might write something on the lives of the Karamazovs and their women after Dimitri’s “departure”. 

Mother’s Milk – Edward St Aubyn

I had never heard of this author until my mom just forced me to invest 50p in this book of his at Surrey Docks Farm. As we all know, my mom is very rarely wrong (at least when it comes to literature, when it comes to playing cards with me that’s an entirely different story).

The first section of the book details extremely well a number of feelings that I undeniably felt right after the birth of my daughter (minus the borderline psychic older son, and some of Patrick’s self-destructive tendencies), but what is just great is seeing the odd dilapidation of an impressive family fortune in the following sections (one dedicated to every summer holiday of the main character, which I found to be a wonderful idea).

If Patrick’s complex family situation at first runs the risk of reminding the reader a bit too much of the kind of McEwan novels that have come to bore me, its spiralling out of control is actually closer to a more serious version of Jonathan Coe’s Winshaws – and that’s one of the reason why this novel is ultimately so enjoyable. The other reason, although this is far from being politically correct, is its shrewd treatment of people who age badly – not something I necessarily disagree with. 

The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna

I’ve only really read this book because my wife found a copy of it looking for a good home in our building’s lobby. Having read another book by Paasilinna (meh…) I decided to give his magnum opus a chance (and for once I use a Latin term, just because I find it funny to refer to a book like this in pseudo highbrow words).

This book somehow managed to be a best-seller in both Finland and the rest of Europe. And I really struggle to see why. As a funny book, it’s not funny (or at least not funny for me, but then again maybe I lack a sense of humour). As a deep book about discovering one’s true self, it’s really not deep. At most I can see it being reasonably cute for a cute book. But that’s about it. And I really don’t do cute.

And I am worried about the state of world literature if books like this are hailed as something that “will have you laughing and gasping by turns. . . . The writing is as spare and clean as the lines of Scandinavian design. . . . Of the many lines in this book that I cherished, the last is one of the most delicious: ‘Vatanen is a man to be reckoned with.’ So is this book.” The review came from Lonely Planet – I am afraid backpackers might be too worried about expanding their horizons to bother actually expanding their culture. 

Fragrant Harbour – John Lanchester

A book that I got from the book swap shelf at Stratford Station – the only one I’ve ever managed to pick up from there, but it was worth it! I originally grabbed it for my mom, as she had liked Capital more than I did, and only read it after she did and because of her very strong recommendations.

Fragrant Harbour has many of the traits of the standard best-seller: an “unusual” love story, international intrigue, a look at the blurred lines between orgranized crime and top-level impresarios and plenty of others. The thing for me was that, being set in Hong Kong, it was both interesting from an historical point of view and very different from a standard best-seller.

Predictably, the book’s bottom line is that there are colonialists with a heart (and also a sense of humour and self-criticism) and entrepreneurs who are far from being evil capitalists. This is not exactly the most unusual of messages, but it is delivered with grace. And the appearance of Tom’s nephew is something that really makes one hopeful that good people can overcome drunken British hooligans…

With Capital I had the feeling that Lanchester could have made so much more given the rough material he had at his disposal, but I think that with Fragrant Harbour he managed to get the most out of his plot and research – or maybe I’m just way less familiar with Hong Kong that I am with London!

The First Forty-Nine Stories – Ernest Hemingway

It is officially time to go back to blogging, at least a little bit, after almost two months. There are a number of reasons behind my disappearing acts: changing jobs, my daughter starting nursery (and me taking care of pick-ups and drop-offs in an attempt not to feel completely useless) and also the fact that I have been genuinely reading less, with most of my last month spent reading The Brothers Karamazov at a time that wasn’t ideal.

The First Forty-Nine Stories is a book that I actually read months ago, after it was given to my wife as a gift more than a decade ago. Much like other Hemingway books that I’ve read after my teenage years, some passages left me quite untouched, others made me positively shudder at their “manly man-ness”, and some just kind of blew my mind.

My two favourites were easily “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” – because in it I saw more than the standard Hemingway macho hunting story (for once I thought there was more than a hint of self-criticism and dark irony in the finale) – and “My Old Man” – a story that is often neglected but that I truly loved, possibly because that’s the way an only child is bound to feel about his father if he is perceived as being mistreated.