Reading Matters

Triple Choice Tuesday: Magnificent Octopus

Welcome to Triple Choice Tuesday. This is where I ask some of my favourite bloggers and other bookish bods to share the names of three books that mean a lot to them. The idea is that it might raise the profile of certain books and introduce you to new titles and new bloggers.

Today's guest is (yet another) Canadian, Isabella from Magnificent Octopus.

I've been following Isabella's blog for at least five years. In fact, we once embarked on a group reading project together -- George Eliot's Middlemarch -- although I bailed early due to lack of time. I've always been impressed -- and a little bit intimidated -- by her tastes in books. Who else, for instance, reads Don Quixote for fun? But I've always enjoyed following Isabella's bookish adventures and am really delighted that she's agreed to share her selections with us today.

Isabella has actually been blogging since 2003 -- yes, even longer than me! "Blogging for me at first was mostly an oasis of sanity amid stay-at-home motherhood," she tells me. "But it was always pretty clear that I loved writing about books." 

Isabella also deals with words in her working life. After years of copy editing medical journals, she made the switch to the for-profit sector and edits multimedia "educational" promotional programs for pharmaceutical companies. She jokes that this is just another way of saying she's a drug pusher!

Anyway, without further ado, here's Isabella's Triple Choice Tuesday selection:

A favourite book: The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

A minor classic, but an underrated one. I read this for the first time when I was about 15, and it opened my eyes in a way the books I studied at school never did.

It's about Larry Darrell, who's on a kind of spiritual quest. He passes up a good job opportunity and doesn't put much value in the things society expects of him (in particular the upper-crust Chicago society from which he comes and the Parisian society with which it intersects). Larry's life ambition is to loaf, he tells other people, but it's clear that his definition of "loafing" is much richer than most people understand. Larry's something of an autodidact and he pursues a meaningful experience of the world in his own unconventional way.

I recently read it fairly closely (as part of an annotation project) and it gave me a much deeper appreciation of Maugham's skill as a writer. The novel is brimming with details regarding its characters — the labels they wear, the restaurants they frequent, the art on their walls, the books they read — that speak volumes about the people they are. Plus it's marvellously evocative of 1920s-30s Paris.

This book is a comfort read for me. It covers some pretty basic moral philosophy, the stuff we all know deep down, but sometimes I like to be reminded that it's not what you do, or who you know, or the stuff that you own, or the places you're seen that bring fulfilment — it's a question of character.

A book that changed my world: The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf

Lots of books have changed my world, every book changes my world, but it's hard to pin down any book as having changed me in an earth-shattering kind of way. I don't think any book has ever done that (but then, I'm the kind of person who never "strongly agrees" on a Likert scale). That said, I'll choose The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf.

Maalouf is a marvellous storyteller, who excels at evoking faraway times and places (check out his Samarkand for a history of Omar Khayyam, or Ports of Call for a cross-cultural love story amid the political upheaval of the Arab world in the mid-20th century).

The First Century is a bit of a dystopia, and, frankly, I think it's one of his weaker novels. But! It had such a profound effect on me when I read it in the mid-90s, because it made me sit up and look at the world around me. Since I tend to look to fiction as an escape from the world, even as it gives me a framework through which to understand it, this is quite a feat. Indeed, every few months a story pops up in the back pages of newspapers about the disparate gender ratio in birth rates in India, and I think about this book, and how this issue is so easily dismissed.

Basically, the book follows this premise, of some cultures preferring male offspring, to a grim conclusion. It covers a lot of gender politics, innate (versus culturally learned) gender roles, and genetic manipulation. So I give this book credit for making me a little bit political.

A book that deserves a wider audience: The Dodecahedron, or A Frame for Frames by Paul Glennon

A couple years ago, I would have said (and did say) anything by Patrick Hamilton. But I think he's been rescued (again) from (relative) obscurity by the timely reissue of a couple of his key books (most recently by NYBR). Today, I'm reading Life A User's Manual, by Georges Perec, a classic of Oulipo literature, which has tremendous cult standing. Because I'm loving it so much, I'll recommend a recent book written in the same vein: The Dodecahedron, or A Frame for Frames, by Paul Glennon.

This is a collection of 12 interconnected stories, each written in a different genre, in its own voice. Admittedly, some of these work better than others. But they're full of a wonder and magic and adventure and golems and bibliophagia and things.

The Dodecahedron was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Fiction in English in 2006, which puts it in the fine company of Canada's best literature, but I'm afraid that it may have been tarnished by being branded "experimental". The book has a pretty rigid mathematical basis for its structure and the way the stories relate to each other, but that shouldn't intimidate anyone. Books like this are so much more accessible than their reputation would have you believe.

I'll champion this book on the basis that it wasn't written by some dead French guy and because you probably haven't read anything like it before. I posted an excerpt and some initial thoughts about The Dodecahedron here.

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Thanks, Isabella, for taking part in my Triple Choice Tuesday!

What do you think of Isabella's choices? Have you read any of these books? I'll admit that I've not heard of any of them, but they all sound worthy additions to my wishlist!

Not The TV Book Group - Session Six: 'The Boys in the Trees' by Mary Swan

Today's scheduled Not The TV Book Group discussion is for The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan.

I'll admit that I struggled with this one, so I'm keen to see what everyone else thought of it. The discussion is being hosted by Lynne at Dovegreyreader, so do pop by and have your say.

Note that I'm unlikely to have internet access today (this post has been scheduled in advance), so I may not be able to participate. I will, of course, throw my two bits worth in at a later date.

Saturday links

The Irish Times interviews marathon runner cum Irish author Michael Collins. Swoon. (I've reviewed a few of his books here.)

The Miles Franklin Award shortlist has been announced. Sonya Hartnett's Butterfly, which I reviewed earlier in the week, has made the cut. Ditto for Craig Silvey's Jasper Jones, which I read last week but am yet to review. (By the way, Penguin is giving away 10 copies of Butterfly. The closing date is April 30.)

The Times interviews David Mitchell.

Canongate has published an extract of one of my reviews on its Meet At The Gate website. The independent publisher has also named RobAroundBooks as its Site of the Week. Yay, Rob!

We're in the midst of election fever here in the UK, so I'm loving Waterstone's Politician's Table, if only to wonder how many of the books have been personally selected by the MPs involved and how many have been selected by their spin doctors to push a certain message! Me? Cynical? Never!

Have you seen the Penguin Decades website? I've been drooling over it for a week or two. How I'd love to own the entire set, but £143.80 is pushing it a little!

The Desmond Elliott Prize 2010 longlist has been announced. The award is for a first novel published in the UK. I've read Simon Lelic's Rupture and Ali Shaw's The Girl With Glass Feet. A shortlist of three books will be announced on Wednesday 26 May.

The shortlist for the Orange New Writers' Award has been unveiled, and I'm delighted to see Evie Wyld's After the Fire, A Still Small Voice is on it. The winner will be announced on June 9.

'The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault' by Angela Carter

 

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Modern Classics; 78 pages; 2008. Translated from the French by Angela Carter.

I've spent much of my adult life convinced that I had grown out of fairy tales. But then, last year, I read Kelly Link's Pretty Monsters, a wonderful collection of modern and slightly twisted fairy tales for young adults, followed not long later by Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and I had to reassess my opinion. I found both books enormously enjoyable.

By sheer co-incidence this year I've read several novels that have been heavily influenced by the fairy tale tradition, all of them selected for the Not The TV Book Group: Philippe Claudel's Brodeck's Report, Ali Shaw's The Girl With Glass Feet and Jennifer Johnston's The Illusionist (a reworking of Bluebeard).

And then, last week, partly inspired by the lovely cover of the Penguin Modern Classics edition and Paperback Reader's Angela Carter month, I picked up The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault in Foyles. At just 79 pages in length I couldn't really go wrong, could I?

Carter, who died from cancer aged 51 in 1992, was a fairy-tale writer (among other specialisms). This slim volume features 10 of Charles Perrault's fairy tales, translated from French (in 1977), to which Carter has added her own distinct twists and tongue-in-cheek morals.

The introduction by Jack Zipes, a professor of German at the University of Minnesota (and worth the cover price alone), and Carter's own Afterword explains the fairy tale tradition and Perrault's role in it. Perrault, a 17th century French writer who died in 1703, wrote some of the most well-known fairy tales, including Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, which were based on oral folklore.

Zipes argues that Perrault was fairly progressive in his thinking and that much of his work, including his poetry, "stressed the necessity of assuming an enlightened moral attitude towards women and exercising just authority". He adds that all his fairy tales

feature women, in particular, the comportment of women in desperate situations, and how their qualities enable them to triumph and find their proper place in society under masculine domination.

Given that Carter was a feminist, it's probably no surprise that she was drawn to these works, although she appears to take a broader view, describing Perrault's fairy tales as "little parables of experience from which children can learn the way of the world and how to come to no harm in it".

The collection features Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, The Fairies, Cinderella, Ricky with the Tuft, Hop o' my Thumb [Tom Thumb], The Foolish Wishes, and Donkey Skin. The last two were originally tales told in verse but Carter has translated them into prose. Each comes with a moral at the end, and it it these which I found most enjoyable, particularly as Carter likes to interpret them using her rather wicked feminist eye. For instance, here's what Carter says about Little Red Riding Hood:

Children, especially pretty, nicely brought-up young ladies, ought never to talk to strangers; if they are foolish enough to do so, they should not be surprised if some greedy wolf consumes them, elegant red riding hoods and all.
Now, there are real wolves, with hairy pelts and enormous teeth; but also wolves who seem perfectly charming, sweet natured and obliging, who pursue young girls in the street and pay them the most flattering attentions.
Unfortunately, these smooth-tongued, smooth-pelted wolves are the most dangerous beasts of all.

Dare I say that never a truer word were spoken! 

This is a lovely collection, and one that has definitely made me think twice about all those seemingly innocent fairy tales I read as a child. There are some deep, dark messages going on here. But, in Carter's hands, there's plenty of fun, too.

Triple Choice Tuesday: Emma Young

Welcome to Triple Choice Tuesday. This is where I ask some of my favourite bloggers and other bookish bods to share the names of three books that mean a lot to them. The idea is that it might raise the profile of certain books and introduce you to new titles and new bloggers.

Today's guest is Emma Young, who does publicity and online marketing for London-based indie publisher To Hell with Publishing. But she also has her own (very new) blog, Young, Literary London, which lists literary events coming up in London and documents events Emma's attended.

We met very briefly at the David Vann reading last month, but I tend to follow Emma's movements on Twitter, where she posts under the name @tohellwithemma

Emma lives in London's East End (Whitechapel) but is originally from Bristol. She read English at university and spent two years studying texts from the late 14th Century up to the end of the 19th Century before finally hitting the 20th Century in her final year.  "These days, working in literary publishing, I spend a lot of my time reading literary fiction that's just been published or is about to be," she says.

Here's Emma's Triple Choice Tuesday selections:

A favourite book: The Cuckoo Boy by Grant Gillespie

This is actually the first novel from our To Hell with First Novels imprint, so it holds huge sentimental value to me, but it's also, genuinely, a wonderful book. It's possibly cheating a little bit [to choose this one], but it really is the book I'm pressing on everyone, personally as well as professionally. It's the story of a charming, captivating, adopted little boy, his imaginary friend, and the devastating consequences when they fall in with the wrong crowd. It's beautifully written but also very funny: a really exciting, original debut.

Evie Wyld, author of After the Fire A Still Small Voice, has just given us a quote for it, so I'll finish with her words rather than boasting about it myself: "A dark and elegant story of childhood, The Cuckoo Boy is horrifying and disarmingly funny. A book to keep you awake at night."

A book that changed my world: Lottery by Patricia Wood

Patricia Wood asks what happens when a sweet guy with an IQ of 76 wins the lottery. If you answered a) someone writes a twee account of simple people + lots of dosh x overcomes twist = deserved happiness, you failed. The set up is commercial but Lottery is so much more than a pretty face...

Perry, our hero, is a character you don't mind loving, not because he's an idiot savant but because he's not. And while there are the predictable perils such as Perry's evil money-grabbing family, there are many more unexpected ones. It's well written - funny and dark, with smart prose juxtaposed with Perry's thoughts, largely: 'that is so cool', which you'll want to say for ever. It's thoughtful, clever, it'll change the way you'll think about money, people, relationships, and what a novel can be.

A book that deserves a wider audience: Direct Red by Gabriel Weston

This no-holes-barred story of a young surgeon's daily, um, grind, deserves to be read by everybody, squeamish and not squeamish. It's as simple as that. Although there's a section in a mortuary when the junior doctors have to get creative with a saw that still scares me more than pigeons and spiders. Which is a huge amount. I don't think the work of a surgeon has ever been so honestly recounted and the stories are, of course, unbearable to read and yet obscenely compelling. But what really makes this book special is the writing, which is as original and stylish as anything I've read. Not bad for a first novel.

Direct Red got great reviews when it came out but was, I think, overlooked for prizes, perhaps because it's fiction that reads like non-fiction, and didn't attain that most-talked-about status it should have. I forced it on my medical student sister (who didn't change career paths) and would love to force it on you, too.

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Thanks, Emma, for taking part in my Triple Choice Tuesday!

What do you think of Emma's choices? Have you read any of these books? I'll admit that I've had Direct Red on my wishlist for awhile, and this has only made me want to read it even more.

'Skin Lane' by Neil Bartlett

 

Fiction - paperback; Serpent's Tail; 320 pages; 2008.

Sometimes you pick up a book that takes you on such a wonderfully atmospheric journey that when you get to the end, the feeling stays with you like a dream. Everything else you read in its wake suffers by comparison. This is how I felt when I finished Neil Bartlett's Skin Lane. 

I have not read anything quite as haunting as this strangely beautiful book. It's a novel that is full of contradictions: it brims with sexual tension, and yet contains no sex; it is filled with death, and yet no one is murdered; it's repetitious to the point of being dull, and yet features some of the most exciting and heart-hammering scenes you will ever read.

It has a kind of fairy tale quality to it, both in the way in which it is told (by an omnipresent narrator in quiet, stripped back prose) and the subject matter (an older man falling for a younger colleague that he cannot have, with parallels to Beauty and the Beast).

It is also a wonderful portrait of London, in particular the area sandwiched between Cannon Street and the Thames, which is written so lovingly it feels like a tribute to the city. You can hear your feet echoing on the cobbled streets, feel the crush of bodies streaming over London Bridge every morning, see the spires of churches huddled together in the Square Mile.

And it's a fascinating account of the fur trade, in all its grim glory. 

The story itself is set in 1967, about the time when two key legislative acts were being passed by British Parliament: the Sexual Offences Act (which decriminalised homosexual acts for those over the age of 21) and the Abortion Act (which legalised abortion on a number of grounds, including to save the woman's life or to avoid mental and physical damage to the woman). While Bartlett only mentions these Acts in passing it helps to have a kind of overview, because it explains how the times were a-changing and why this story particularly resonates.

The protagonist, Mr F, is 46 years old and lives alone. He has no friends or living relatives. His life is dominated by his work at a furriers, where he is the head cutter, crafting very fine fur coats from all kinds of animals skins. Everything he does, whether at work or at home, is regimented with military-like precision. There is nothing spontaneous or exciting about him.

Then, out of the blue, Mr F begins to have weird dreams in which a young naked man, his face obscured by his hair, is found hanging upside in his bathroom. These dreams become so disturbing that Mr F begins to lose his focus at work. Indeed, he becomes rather obsessed with determining who the man in his dream might be, and spends an awful amount of time behaving in what can only be described as a rather stalkerish manner -- checking out men on the train and in the street, eyeing up the skin of their hands and the hair on their head. It all feels rather creepy.

The creepiness factor goes up a few notches when he is given a new apprentice at work. The apprentice is the boss's 16-year-old nephew, whom the girls in the office have dubbed Beauty, because of his good looks. This takes Mr F, who is used to working alone and in a regimented fashion, out of his comfort zone, even more so when he begins to wonder whether Beauty might, in fact, be the boy of his dreams...

I'd be lying if I said this was a light and fluffy read. It's not. It's very dark, very disturbing and, at times, shocking. But Bartlett writes with a considerable amount of restraint, and just when you think the book's going to become too violent to read, he pulls things back and reminds you that he's telling a story and there's no real need to be afraid. While the narrative is taut and will, occasionally, have your heart beating in your throat, there's no gratuitous sex or violence. It's almost what Bartlett doesn't say, rather than what he does say, that makes this book such a heightened melodrama. 

And just when you come to terms with the terror and anger of it all, you will find yourself deeply moved and close to tears. Is it any wonder that this is one of the most profound pieces of fiction I've read in recent times. More please.

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Skin Lane was the fifth novel up for discussion in the Not The TV Book Group. Hosted by Simon at Savidge Reads, the discussion remains open, so do pop by to read the comments and add your thoughts if you've read the book.

'Butterfly' by Sonya Hartnett

 

Fiction - paperback; Hamish Hamilton; 215 pages; 2009.

Sonya Hartnett is an Australian author who writes largely for the Young Adult audience. Butterfly, her latest novel, falls somewhere between two stools -- it feels like a teenage novel, filled with typical teenage angst, but it also deals with subjects, including extra-marital affairs, that are surely a little more adult. Given it has been longlisted for this year's Miles Franklin Award, I suspect the judges feel it's one of those crossover books that deserves some attention. I'm not sure I agree.

Without wishing to damn Butterfly with faint praise, this is a highly readable book and one that I hungrily devoured in a day. And while I very much enjoyed spending time with Plum, a lonely 13-year-old girl with body-image and self-esteem issues, there were elements of this story that irritated me.

For a start, we don't really get to know the full cast of characters that people this book. Plum has two 50-something parents, whom are mentioned only in passing, and even her brothers, Justin and the preposterously named Cydar, seem thinly veiled sketches. Indeed, it's not until you are almost a-third of the way through the book that you find out that Justin, whom Plum adores, is 24 years old, and Cydar, 22. This revelation came as somewhat of a shock, because I'd assumed both were teenagers.

Ditto for the time period in which the book is set. It's not until one of Plum's school friends mentions that her father has secured tickets to the Moscow Olympics that you realise it's 1980. Although I suspect I should have picked up on earlier clues, because Plum has a poster of David Bowie on her wall, wishes her bedroom was carpeted in white shag and hankers after a miniature television "set inside a sphere of chrome, with three stumpy legs and a rapier-like aerial". There's even a reference to a cricket match in which (Allan) Border is not out for 90, and Imran (Khan) is caught out by (Greg, or maybe Ian?) Chappell for nine. Where's Wisden when you need it, right?

The first chapter is also riddled with metaphors and similes, to the point of distraction. For instance, Plum's brother Justin is "as rangy as a tall ship, handsome as ship's portrait", Plum's cheeks "are the pasty yellow of cereal left to float all day in milk" and when Cydar teases her she feels like a "deer in a huntsmen's forest". Later she "pounds through the house like a rock down a cliffside, storming up the stairs like a centurion".

But if you can forgive the trying-too-hard prose there's quite an interesting story here, one in which Hartnett has perfectly nailed the pain and confusion of being a 13-year-old girl, desperate to be liked and respected. The mood swings, the temper tantrums and the tears are all here in full unadulterated shameless glory, as evidenced by this outburst at the dinner table:

"You always laugh at me! I'm a person, I have feelings, I'm not a joke! Why can't you all leave me alone?"

Her depiction of the petty bitchiness of school girls and the god-awful aspects of peer pressure are also superbly done. And while Plum is clearly not the angel she first appears to be, you can't help but empathise with her plight.

But the story just doesn't revolve around Plum. There's a second, interwoven narrative strand, in which Maureen Wilks, Plum's neighbour, plays a significant role. Maureen is a 36-year-old housewife, with a four-year-old son, who befriends Plum. As well as telling Plum things to boost her self-confidence ("You're exactly the type of girl who could become a fashion model" and "I'm so glad we're friends. I'll learn a lot from you"), she convinces Plum to reinvent herself by changing her name to Aria. What you don't realise is that Maureen has her own secret agenda. It is only when Plum figures out this agenda that the book comes to a head. But, even then, the conclusion feels somehow half-hearted, and not nearly as melodramatic as it could have been.

An interesting, entertaining book, but a Miles Franklin award winner? Probably not.

This is all your fault

 

So... despite the review copies flooding through the doors unsolicited... and despite the fact I have enough books in the TBR pile to keep me happily occupied for at least five years...I still find myself buying books. And I'm blaming most of you for this unquenchable need to read all these wonderful books you keep recommending and writing about. Honestly, the worst thing about reading so many fabulous book blogs is the impact it has on my bank account!

Here's what's in the pile above:

Deborah Foster's The Book of Emmett
This one is on the 2010 Miles Franklin longlist, and I have Lisa Hill's perceptive review to thank for making me really want to purchase it. Not many of the books on the list are available outside of Australia, but this one was listed on the Book Depository website, so I didn't think twice about snapping it up.

Frank Huyler's Right of Thirst
I  recently spent two hours -- yes TWO HOURS -- in Waterstone's Picadilly flagship store filling in some time while half-the-world's water got dumped out of a London sky. Despite all that browsing and all those books, the only one that piqued by interest was this one, which is about a doctor volunteering at a refugee camp following a devastating earthquake. It sounds quite brilliant...

MJ Hyland's This Is How
I've wanted to read this for the longest time, because Hyland is one of my favourite authors, but I thought I'd wait for the release of the small format paperback. In the meantime it's been longlisted for this year's Orange Prize.

Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance
This is all Kevin's fault.

Vikram Seth's An Equal Music
This is also Kevin's fault, particularly as he told me the book was set in and around parts of London I know well (I was always under the impression it was set in India). But I think I can also blame Claire (Paperback Reader) and Isabella for recommending it as part of this post in which I sought suggestions for books that feature music. 

Friedrich Christian Delius' Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman
Maria Barbal's Stone in a Landslide
Veronique Olmi's Beside the Sea
All three are published by Peirene Press, and I bought them as part of a package deal, after I saw Beside the Sea reviewed on Simon's blog. They are beautifully designed and feel lovely to hold. I just hope the contents -- all European novels in translation -- are just as wonderful.

Richard Bausch's Peace
I picked this up while browsing in Foyle's a couple of months ago purely on the basis that I liked the sound of it: three American soldiers, trekking up an Italian mountain in the final days of the Second World War, are haunted by their sergeant's cold-blooded murder of a young girl. Colm Toibin is quoted on the cover, describing it as "a small masterpiece with the same emotional force and moral complexity as Conrad's Heart of Darkness."

Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man
Lots of bloggers are to blame for me purchasing this one, including John Self and Whispering Gums. It's true crime, but it seems to have taken forever to be released in small format paperback, hence the delay in me getting this one.

Markus Zusak's I Am the Messenger
This is our next selection for Riverside Readers, so I've got Simon (again) to blame for this purchase.

Anyone read any of these books? Thoughts on where to start?

Oh, and as an aside, this is my 1,500th post on Reading Matters. And recently I attracted my 10,000th comment. So thank you to everyone for your lovely support -- it is very much appreciated.

'The Weight of a Mustard Seed' by Wendell Steavenson

 

Non-fiction - paperback; Atlantic Books; 320 pages; 2010.

When it comes to non-fiction I seem to have made a career out of reading books that explore moral culpability*, and this book, which explores the life and times of one of Saddam Hussein's generals, is no exception.

The author, an American born British journalist, never met the subject of her book, Kamel Sachet, but she brings him to life by interviewing an extensive cast of colleagues, family and associates. What emerges is a man conflicted by loyalty to his country and loyalty to his own individual faith, and, in turn, his conscience.

Using the techniques of literary fiction, Steavenson weaves a narrative that jumps backwards and forwards in time as she traces Sachet's rise to power -- and his later fall from grace. But, of course, she cannot tell Sachet's story without also telling the story of Iraq, and, in particular, its recent bloody history, from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Often in this telling there are so many different battles and violent incidents recounted that it's hard to keep track of exactly which war Steavenson is making reference to, until it becomes clear that it doesn't really matter: this is a country with a bloody history and never more so under Saddam Hussein's rule. (In fact, Saddam's soldiers were in a lose-lose situation: they could be killed in battle, but if they lost a battle they could be executed under military order. It was up to them to decide which was the easier way to die.)

The book also explores what it is like to live under tyrannical rule, albeit from the point of view of Saddam's inner circle, and how the all-pervasive fear turns good upstanding citizens into quivering wrecks who make poor moral judgements.

I'd like to argue that The Weight of a Mustard Seed is a sympathetic portrait of a man who chose to carry out Saddam's orders instead of quietly resisting them, but I'm not so sure that is the case. While Steavenson develops a close friendship with Sachet's wife and children, she refrains from making any overt judgement about the man. Ultimately it is up to you, the reader, to determine exactly how you feel about him. All I know is that I came to the end of this book feeling such a deeply profound wave of sadness, even writing this tears me up.

This is a powerful, well-written and moving account of the legacy left by Saddam Hussein and the American invasion of Iraq. Anyone interested in the so-called War on Terror will find plenty here to intrigue, outrage and shame you.

* Some of my favourite non-fiction books include Gitta Sereny's incredibly powerful biography of Hitler's architect, Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth, and Sereny's equally compelling book on Treblinka commandant Franz Stangl, Into That Darkness. I can also recommend Sereny's The Case of Mary Bell: A Portrait of a Child Who Murdered (can you tell I love Gitta Sereny?), Blake Morrison's As If (about the Bulger murder trial) and Norman Mailer's Executioner's Song (about murderer Gary Gilmore's wish to be executed for his crimes). And that's just for starters...

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This book was chosen by me as part of our Riverside Readers book group. Here are some other posts written about the book by fellow members:

• Simon's review

• Polly's review

Shortlist for the Irish Book of the Decade unveiled

Ummm... if you ever needed confirmation that I read far too much Irish literary fiction, then this is it. The Irish Book Awards has just unveiled the shortlist for the Book of the Decade and I've read almost every single literary fiction title on it. 

The list comprises a mixed bag of 50 titles, including literary fiction, chick lit, crime fiction, kids fiction and non-fiction. Here's the list in its entirety -- hyperlinks take you to my reviews.

1. The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
2. Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor
3. Winterwood by Patrick McCabe 
4. Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle (read pre-blog)
5. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne 
6. Tenderwire by Claire Kilroy 
7. The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry 
8. Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy 
9. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín 
10. Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden 
11. Stepping Stones by Dennis O'Driscoll and Seamus Heaney 
12. Let The Great World Spin by Colm McCann 
13. The Builders by Frank McDonald and Kathy Sheridan
14. This Charming Man by Marian Keyes 
15. The Speckled People by Hugo Hamilton 
16. The New Policeman by Kate Thompson 
17. Memoir by John McGahern
18. A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry 
19. The Pope's Children by David McWilliams 
20. Back From The Brink by Paul McGrath 
21. The Gathering by Anne Enright 
22. Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan 
23. Should Have Got Off at Sydney Parade by Ross O'Carroll Kelly 
24. The Truth Commissioner by David Parks 
25. The Parish by Alice Taylor 
26. Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd 
27. Lessons in Heartbreak by Cathy Kelly 
28. Forgive and Forget by Patricia Scanlan
29. The Lovers by John Connolly 
30. It's a Long Way from Penny Apples by Bill Cullen 
31. The Stolen Village by Des Ekin 
32. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer 
33. Yours, Faithfully by Sheila O'Flanagan 
34. The Sea by John Banville 
35. With My Lazy Eye by Julia Kelly 
36. Connemara: Listening to the Wind by Tim Robinson
    
37. In the Woods by Tana French 
38. Tatty by Christine Dwyer Hickey 
39. A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney (read pre-blog)
40. The Master by Colm Tóibín 
41. There Are Little Kingdoms by Kevin Barry 
42. In the Forest by Edna O'Brien 
43. Keane by Roy Keane 
44. Havoc in Its Third Year by Ronan Bennett
45. Judging Dev by Diarmaid Ferriter 
46. Netherland by Joseph O'Neill 
47. That They May Face The Rising Sun by John McGahern 
48. PS I Love You by Cecelia Ahern 
49. Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
50. Foolish Mortals by Jennifer Johnston

Out of those I've read, I'd have to say I'd be really happy to see either of McGahern's nominations take the top prize. But I'd also love to see Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way win it, and ditto for Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea. I'm surprised to see Jennifer Johnston's Foolish Mortals on the list, as I think The Gingerbread Woman, published in 2000 and therefore eligible, is a far stronger novel.

I believe the award will be decided through a combination of public vote (the facility to vote via the website doesn't seem to be currently active) and the votes of the Irish Literary Academy. The winner will be named in November.

UPDATE: Since writing this post, the awards website has been completely redesigned! You can vote for the Book of the Decade here.

Triple Choice Tuesday: KevinfromCanada

Welcome to Triple Choice Tuesday. This is where I ask some of my favourite bloggers and other bookish bods to share the names of three books that mean a lot to them. The idea is that it might raise the profile of certain books and introduce you to new titles and new bloggers.

Today's guest is erudite blogger KevinfromCanada.

I first noticed Kevin's comments appearing on many of the same book blogs I was visiting in 2008. At the time he didn't have a blog of his own, but I was itching to know more about this chap because he sounded so knowledgeable -- and opinionated -- about literature.

When he did start his own blog, in 2009, I admit I didn't exactly leap in and leave comments; I lurked for quite some time. And then one day Kevin emailed me (and a handful of other British-based book bloggers) out of the blue to discuss the ethics of reviewing free books. And a correspondence ensued. Which is how I found out he had once been a journalist and therefore we had quite a bit in common...

In fact, Kevin spent his career in newspapers. As well as being a journalist, he had been editor (of various departments), editor-in-chief and later publisher of the Calgary Herald in Canada. He left the Herald at the end of 1995, because, he jokes, "Conrad Black and I got sick of each other at about the same time."

He then did some communications consulting work, lived in Pittsburgh for three years and then returned to Calgary in 2005.

"Since then, reading has been my main (pre)occupation and I started blogging as KevinfromCanada in January 2009 when I realised I was cluttering up a lot of other people’s blogs with comments," he tells me.

Here's Kevin's Triple Choice Tuesday selections:

A favourite book: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

The novel is set in the India of Indira Ghandi and contrasts the terror of her repression with the joy and hope of two tailors (and a host of supporting characters) who somehow find their way through the morass that surrounds them. It is a long book, some 600-plus pages, but rewards that with an extensive cast of fully-developed characters and almost as long a list of equally well-done sub-plots.

The novel was the second winner of Canada’s Giller Prize (in 1995) and shortlisted for the Booker in 1996.


A book that changed my world

So many books have changed me that I would not even try to name a handful, let alone any single title. A couple of years ago, I did do a list of 10 “books for the island” for the Chapters.ca website that is probably as close as anything to a short list.


A book that deserves a wider audience: Two Strand River by Keith Maillard

A haunting, short novel, set in British Columbia, it features a pair of androgynous central characters who, understandably, are alienated from the world around them and then takes off (literally) into a shaman-led experience. The book is out of print, but versions are available on most of the second-hand websites (including Abebooks).

Actually, I’d put Maillard forward as “most overlooked author”. Born in Wheeling, West Virginia, he came to Canada in 1970 and has been here ever since (I’ve always assumed that was Vietnam War-related). He is best known for his Raysburg books, set in and around a fictional community that is a thinly-veiled Wheeling (which is an industrial steel mill town in the rust belt, if you don’t know it). For my money, I can think of no author who did a better job of detailing the generation that grew up in the America of the post-War period (most of his novels do centre on younger people). A number are available at the Book Depository.

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Thanks, Kevin, for taking part in my Triple Choice Tuesday!

What do you think of Kevin's choices? Have you read any of these books? I've made a mental note to read A Fine Balance very soon, because I've heard so many great recommendations about this book in the past couple of years. Oh, and don't forget to visit Kevin's blog for further good reading recommendations if you haven't already visited before...

Pulitzer Prize Winner for fiction announced

Paul Harding's Tinkers has won this year's Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

The judges said the book was "a powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend their imprisoning lives and offer new ways of perceiving the world and mortality".

You can find our more about this book via the publisher's website.

(Via @mookse)

This week I will mostly...

 

... be trying to finish off books I've made a start on but abandoned mid-way through.

I'm normally a one-book-at-a-time kind of girl, but recently I've had three or four books on the go at once. And I've decided I really don't like that. I'd rather just read one book and get fully immersed in it, mull it over for a week or two, then write a review. But at the moment I'm all over the place, reading things willy nilly and losing track of what I'm reading and why I'm reading it in the first place.

This week I'm going to make a good stab at trying to complete the three books you see pictured above:

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique.
This ground-breaking feminist book was first published in 1963, but it's recently been reissued by Penguin Modern Classics, with a rather biting introduction from Lionel Shriver (who quotes Mad Men and Desperate Housewives). I started reading this one a month or so ago, having received a complimentary copy from the publisher. It's fascinating reading, especially as I began it on the back of Natasha Walter's Living Dolls (which I loved but still haven't got around to reviewing), but it's not something to race through in a matter of days. While it's easy to read (Friedan used to write a lot of magazine articles, and it shows, her prose is accessible and down-to-earth), there's lots here to mull over and think about and cogitate on. As a result, I can only read it in small chunks, otherwise my brain might explode. I'm not sure I will finish the book this week, but I would like to read enough to feel the end point is in sight!

Craig Silvey's Jasper Jones
I was lucky enough to receive a proof copy of this Australian novel, which is due for publication in the UK later this month. The book has already been a bit of a hit in Oz and has been longlisted for this year's Miles Franklin Award. I was looking forward to reading it. However, despite two goes at getting beyond the first 100 pages, I've struggled with the prose style and the storyline. It's told from the point of view of a 13-year-old boy living in a mining town in the late 1960s and, to me, the voice just doesn't seem to ring true. He's a bookish kid, but does he really need to use words like "spectate" when he means "watch"?. The prose itself feels incredibly overwritten and I keep wanting to get my red pen out and slash entire paragraphs from the copy. And yet... I don't want to give up on this one, because I know it could get better. In fact, I desperately want it to get better. I want to love this book, but I'm not pinning my hopes on it.

Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin
I had such high expectations for this novel, which was first written in 1945 and has been described as "the greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis". It's a great premise for a story: an ordinary German man living in Berlin in 1940 begins dropping anonymous postcards, attacking Hitler, across the city as a means of resistance to the Third Reich. But if he is caught he will, undoubtedly, be executed. There's all the ingredients of a powerful psychological thriller here, but the book seems to lose momentum because there are far too many subsidiary characters of which to keep track. And the man and his postcards almost seems to fade into the background. I've come to the conclusion this is a book to read in large chunks rather than small bits and pieces, which is where I have probably being going wrong. I've put it aside and a month or more has now passed, so when I pick it up again this week I hope to have more success gelling with the book second time round.

Not the TV Book Group - Session Five: 'Skin Lane' by Neil Bartlett

Today's scheduled Not The TV Book Group discussion is for Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett. I read the book earlier in the week and found it incredibly atmospheric and mood-altering. I haven't really wanted to read anything since, because I've wanted to hold onto the mood that the book left me in, a bit like when you are woken in the middle of an amazing dream and you then spend the rest of the day trying to recapture the feeling of that dream.

I can't wait to hear what everyone else thought about the book. The discussion is being hosted by Simon at Savidge Reads, so do pop by and have your say. See you there!

Weekend links

It's been busy, busy, busy around here this week... and there doesn't look like being any let up this weekend. Here's a few links to keep you occupied...

• I love this idea: A train company here in London has set up its own book club for commuters. This month's read is MJ Hyland's Orange-longlisted This is How -- and there's a voucher for a £1 discount if you buy the book at participating WH Smith railway station stores.

• Looking for some world literature inspiration? Meet At The Gate (the Canongate website) has been conducting a Literature World Tour since early last year. This month it's heading to one of my favourite destinations -- Ireland -- and I'm pleased to reveal one of my Jennifer Johnston reviews will be featured shortly. I'll post a link when it's published.

• I've just discovered that Faber and Faber has a rather lovely blog called The Thought Fox.

• Evie Wyld is the new writer in residence at the Book Trust, where she's writing a great blog. I quite like this rant.

• The shortlist for the New South Wales Premier’s Award for Fiction 2010 (also know as the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction) has been unveiled. The titles are J.M. Coetzee's Summertime; Richard Flanagan's Wanting (which I reviewed last year); Cate Kennedy's The World Beneath (which is on my TBR); Steven Lang's 88 Lines about 44 Women; David Malouf's Ransom; and Craig Silvey's Jasper Jones (which I am reading now). (Via ANZ Litlovers Litblog.)

• The UK's first quarter book sales are the lowest they've been since 2006, according to Nielsen BookScan. The figures show a year-on-year decline of 5.9%, the highest since records began in 2001. This Bookseller.com article blames the weather, but I suspect it's because all the publishers are giving free copies to their target audience: book bloggers. (I jest, but only a little.)

• Finally, don't forget to join the Not The TV Book Group's discussion about Neil Bartlett's Skin Lane on Sunday. The discussion will be hosted by Simon at Savidge Reads. I'm already itching to talk about the book, because it had such a powerful effect on me...

Rediscovering the joy of essays, or how 'The Best Australian Essays 2009' taught me to appreciate essays once again

Once-upon-a-time I used to hear the word "essay" and run a mile. I blame this on six years of university study. I read too many dull essays. I wrote too many dull essays. And I've avoided them ever since.

But then last year I discovered some of the essays that George Orwell wrote and having very much enjoyed them, I have done a bit of a U-turn and now actively seek essays out.

When in Australia at Christmas I bought The Best Australian Essays 2009, edited by Robyn Davidson and published by Black Inc., and during a mild spell of insomnia a couple of weeks back I pulled it from the shelves and began to read.

I've only read a three or four essays so far (there's 34 in total), but I have very much enjoyed reading them. These aren't the laboriously dull essays that formed the backbone of my university studies; these are beautifully crafted, insightful and rewarding reads, more akin to high-quality feature-length magazine articles than anything else. And some of them have been damn funny, too.

Take David Sedaris' Laugh, Kookaburra for instance. Now, obviously Sedaris is not Australian, but in this short essay he recounts a visit to Melbourne and a day trip to Daylesford, a former gold-mining town that is now better known for its natural mineral springs. In fact, I've been to Daylesford a couple of times myself, and it has a kind of upmarket, hippie feel to the place. Everything's organic, everything's handmade, and everything, quite frankly, costs a fortune.

Up until his afternoon trip to Daylesford (which is about two hours' drive north-west of Melbourne), Sedaris hasn't been outside of the main cities on the east coast -- Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne -- and he's not felt as though he's experienced anything particularly foreign. "For an American, though, Australia seems pretty familiar: same wide streets, same office towers," he writes. "It’s Canada in a thong, or that’s the initial impression."

But then he goes to the countryside, accompanied by a Melbourne resident he's befriended, and this is his first impression of the town:

[it] looked, when we arrived, more like a movie set than like an actual working town. The buildings on the main street were two stories tall, and made of wood, like buildings in the Old West, but brightly painted. Here was the shop selling handmade soaps shaped like petit fours. Here was the fudgery, the jammery, your source for moisturizer. If Dodge City had been founded and maintained by homosexuals, this is what it might have looked like.

Then they park the car and Sedaris comes to discover that this isn't America or the wild west after all.

From there we walked down a slight hill, passing a flock of sulfur-crested cockatoos, just milling about, pulling worms from the front lawn of a bed-and-breakfast. This was the moment when familiarity slipped away, and Australia seemed not just distant but impossibly foreign. “Will you look at that,” I said.

And I think that's what truly separates Australia from anywhere else in the world: the unique wildlife. And it's this encounter with the native birdlife that gives Sedaris his first real experience of what most Australians take for granted.

The unreal nature of it all is hammered home when sitting in a restaurant overlooking a wooden deck, and beyond that a small lake, he spies a kookaburra:

On the highest rail of the deck was a wooden platform, and standing upon it, looking directly into my eyes, was what I knew to be a kookaburra. This thing was as big as a seagull, but squatter, squarer, and all done up in earth tones, the complete spectrum from beige to dark walnut. When seen full on, the feathers atop his head looked like brush-cut hair, and that gave him a brutish, almost conservative look. If owls were the professors of the avian kingdom, then kookaburras, I thought, might well be the gym teachers.

This reminds him of the song Kookaburra, which he learnt as a child, and he recalls a time when he drove his father demented singing it over and over again with his younger sister. It's a really funny moment.

The essay was first published in the New Yorker last August and can be read in its entirety on the official website. 

Please note, I hope to share my thoughts on more of these essays from The Best Australian Essays 2009 as I work my way through them, rather than reviewing the book as a whole.

Triple Choice Tuesday: Kinga

Welcome to Triple Choice Tuesday. This is where I ask some of my favourite bloggers and other bookish bods to share the names of three books that mean a lot to them. The idea is that it might raise the profile of certain books and introduce you to new titles and new bloggers.

Today's guest is former blogger and devoted reader Kinga, a Polish-Canadian who lives in Poland with her husband and two small children (aged 2-and-a-half years old and seven months). Sadly, she no longer has time to blog, but she does update her Goods Read page, which is worth visiting to see the kind of literature she likes: her tastes roughly correspond with mine.

I've known Kinga for years, although we've never met in person. In fact, I first left a comment on her blog six years ago -- although back then she was known as Kinuk (which was short for Kinga in the UK, where she was living at the time). We've been visiting each other's blogs ever since and have even swapped the odd book, via Book Mooch, when I was an active member.

Where does her love of books come from? "In my previous, pre-motherhood life I was a science teacher and an avid reader. What I should have been all along is a librarian and an avid reader," she tells me. "So if anybody has any hints on how to change careers, please feel free to get in touch."

Kinga's tastes head towards 20th and 21st-century fiction, evenly split between male and female authors. She also likes to read non-fiction, mainly history and biology. Her favourite author of all time is Margaret Atwood, but she also likes Paul Auster, Carol Shields, Rose Tremain and Ryszard Kapuscinski.

Here's Kinga's Triple Choice Tuesday selections:

My favourite book of all time - All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

This is a book about a young German soldier, Paul Bäumer, during World War I and his experiences at the front. The book doesn't focus on the historical details of battles and skirmishes. Instead, we get a glimpse into the mentality of a soldier in the trenches, on leave and in battles.

I read this book many, many years ago, in Year 9, and have reread it multiple times since then. In fact, writing about it now has only made me want to go and reread it again. It's by no means a cheery read, but one that has stayed with me for 20 years now.

Here's a quote: "I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another."

A book that changed my world - The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer

This looks like a very innocent, small book of little importance. And it starts off innocently enough: girl meets boy and they become lovers (I can't say that they fall in love because I don't think they do). But that's where the simplicity stops.

The girl, a white young woman, and the boy, an illegal migrant from a Muslim African nation (we never find out which one), find that they're being torn apart by his looming deportation. So, she follows him back to his country, his village, his family home where the two now live in a simple room at the back of his mother's house.

The book stayed with me for a long time after I read it because it challenged my way of thinking. Why would an educated, liberated woman chose to follow her boyfriend/husband to a country that, in my view, restricted her freedoms, her choices? But that's just what Julie does. She follows Abdu/Ibrahim to "this dusty hell of my place" and this has interesting outcomes for her, for him and for their relationship.

A book that deserves a wider audience - Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski

At some point in time, I picked up Ryszard Kapuscinski's Imperium and fell in love with his writing. The book that I feel should be available to a wider audience, however, is his collection of essays called Busz po polsku but it's unfair to suggest a book that's unavailable to most of the people reading this, as there is no English translation available. It's a wonderful set of essays about his experiences in post-war Poland and the lives of people he came across when the country was rebuilding. So I'll talk about the book that made made me want to read more by this man.

Imperium charts the history of Russia in the 20th Century from Kapuscinski's point of view. As a Pole, he finds the Soviet Union fascinating and fearful at the same time. His book starts in 1939, when Russians roll into his town and continues through 1958 when he rides the Trans-Siberian Express; 1967 when he travels through the Caucasus; and finally during the fall of the Soviet Union (1989 - 1991).

Kapuscinski wrote shockingly little about Poland and about the country next door that influenced Poland's history in the 20th Century. There are hints and nudges in his collection of thoughts called Lapidaria (once again, published only in Polish). But most of his work, what he's most famous for, are his experiences in Africa. This is why Imperium needs more attention. It is an excellent book about an Empire, about its people and about the confusion that reigns once the Empire falls.

Here's a quote: "This ethnic /Homo sovieticus/ is a product of the history of the USSR, a significant portion of which comprises unceasing, intense and massive migrations, displacements, transportations and wanderings of the population...As a result, entire nations find themselves in lands foreign to them, in unfamiliar surroundings, in poverty and hunger. One of the goals of these operations is to create the uprooted man, wrenched from his culture, from his environment and landscape and therefore more defenceless and obedient..."

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Thanks, Kinga, for taking part in my Triple Choice Tuesday!

What do you think of Kinga's choices? Have you read any of these books? I can vouch for All Quiet on the Western Front and, indeed, it was Kinga who encouraged me to read it many years ago now. Indeed, if you can check out my review you can see our exchange about the book in the comments!

'Complicit' by Nicci French

 

Fiction - hardcover; Michael Joseph; 384 pages; 2010. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

When it comes to books, everyone has their guilty pleasure -- and mine is Nicci French*. Her novels are not exactly highbrow literature, but each one delivers an entertaining and thrilling read, with plenty of twists and turns in the plot to keep you guessing right until the final page.

I've read each of her 11 novels (although you'll only find six reviewed on this site) and Complicit, her 12th (published last week), was eagerly anticipated by Yours Truly. I saved it for my four-day Easter break and raced through it in a matter of a day, because, as cliched as this sounds, I could not bear to put it down!

The story begins with our narrator, Bonnie Graham, visiting her boyfriend's flat only to find the body of a man laying face down, arms splayed, with a dark stain of blood spreading from under his head. Quite clearly he is dead. But instead of calling the police and doing what you would normally expect someone to do when caught up in such terrible circumstances, Bonnie calls her best friend, Sonia, to help her dispose of the body.

But who is the victim? And did Bonnie murder him? If so, why did she commit the crime? And will Sonia help, or go to the police herself? 

The psychological tension is strengthened by the method in which the story is told. There are no chapters in the book, but the narrative is broken into two threads -- before and after the murder -- which are chopped up into bite-sized chunks and interleaved. This allows you to contrast the events leading up to the murder with those that occur long after the body has been dumped.

It's difficult to flesh out the storyline without giving away crucial plot spoilers, but I can tell you that it's set in London over a six-week period. Bonnie, who is a music teacher, has agreed (against her better judgement) to put together a band to perform at a friend's wedding in September. She assembles a motley crew of musicians, young and old alike, none of whom get on particularly well. This creates its own set of tensions as petty jealousies and old rivalries come to the fore. The more you read, the more you begin to realise that any one of these characters could be the murderer -- or the victim.

But, as ever with a Nicci French book, all is not as it seems. Just when you think you've got a handle on the story and know where it is most likely headed, a new bit of information comes to light that turns everything upside down. I'd got about half-way through the book, convinced that I knew the outcome, only to find I was utterly wrong when I did, at last, reach the end.

Is it plausible? Probably not. But who cares? This is a deliciously fun and genuinely thrilling read. I just wish I didn't have to wait another 12 months for the next one!

UPDATE: This novel is being published in the US under the title The Other Side of the Door.

* Nicci French is a pseudonym for the husband-and-wife writing team of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French.

'The Illusionist' by Jennifer Johnston

 

Fiction - paperback; Headline Review; 288 pages; 2007.

According to the O'Brien Pocket History of Irish Writers, Jennifer Johnston is "skilled in building up and maintaining atmosphere" -- and that couldn't be more true of The Illusionist.

Initially the story appears to be a rather soft, gentle one, but there's a fiercely dark heart beating at the centre of it and it doesn't take long before you are enveloped in a fug of disquiet and brooding intensity.

It's essentially a portrait of a dysfunctional marriage between two strangers that initially meet on a train in the early 1960s. While career-minded Stella, still living in the shadow of her domineering mother, is at first wary of Martyn, an illusionist, she realises that he offers her escape and adventure.

The story is told retrospectively from Stella's point-of-view after Martyn has died in an IRA bomb attack in London "in a station wagon with a hundred and fifty white doves neatly caged in the back". (The very image of a "magician" being blown up with his birds has a blackly comic edge to it, don't you think?)

Her adult daughter, Robin, with whom she has a difficult relationship, comes to visit after the funeral, and it is through their conversations (or should I say arguments and tiffs?) that Stella looks back on her life with a man she did not know very well and eventually left.

From the outset, it's pretty clear that Martyn is a little odd. Even just the way he spells his name is unusual, and despite warnings from her mother that perhaps he wasn't the right chap to marry, Stella goes ahead anyway. And yet, it doesn't take long for her to suspect that all is not well. She barely knows her husband, indeed she doesn't even know what he does for a living! And when he's at home it's not much better: he has a locked room where he claims to be working on a show-stopping illusion but she doesn't know what he really gets up to and why he is visited by strange men at odd hours.

When they move to the country, albeit against Stella's wishes, she's expected to give up her job, tend the house and produce children. She's expected to become a doting wife, to put her interests aside in order to look after his. She's expected not to ask her husband any questions about the mysterious and secretive life he leads. And she's expected to put up with his long absences and unexplained trips abroad.

Stella's only escape from this one-sided relationship comes in the form of glorious new typewriter, gifted to her by a friend and former colleague. This gives her the chance to establish a new career as a novelist, even though Martyn laughs at the idea ("A writer? What on earth do you have to write about?")

I'm only skimming the surface of this novel, really, because there's all kinds of issues -- emotional abuse, the relationship between mothers and daughters, the right of a woman to be seen as more than just a wife and mother -- and motifs -- foxes, doves and illusions -- that I haven't even touched on. But in the grand canon of Jennifer Johnston's work, this is a rather extraordinary novel dealing with important themes in a subtle and beautifully understated manner. If you've not read anything by Ms Johnston before, this may well be the place to start.

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The Illusionist was the fourth novel up for discussion in the Not The TV Book Group. Hosted by Yours Truly, the discussion remains open, so do pop by to read the comments and add your thoughts if you've read the book.

'My Turn to Make the Tea' by Monica Dickens

 

Fiction - paperback; Penguin; 222 pages; 1977.

For two-and-a-half years, in the mid 1990s, I was a reporter on a provincial weekly newspaper in Australia. It was my first job as a journalist -- and I loved it. So many interesting and off-the-wall things happened during that time that I often thought one day I'm going to write a book about this*.  Alas, Ms Monica Dickens has beaten me to it!

My Turn to Make the Tea was first published in 1951. It has a distinctly autobiographical feel to it (Dickens, who just so happens to be Charles Dickens' great grand-daughter, did work as a newspaper reporter for a short time and later became a columnist for Woman's Own magazine) and reads very much like the diary of a young reporter learning the ropes. There's no real plot of which to speak, but it doesn't seem to matter, because this is a witty and wholly entertaining story in its own right. Dickens expertly conveys all the petty drama of working in a newsroom, but she's a dab hand at revealing the ups and downs of living in a boarding house populated by a cast of wonderful characters and ruled by a strict take-no-prisoners landlady.

The book opens with our narrator (dubbed Poppy by her colleagues "for no better reason than that a Sunday paper was running a crude cartoon about a blonde called Poppy Pink") apologising to a disgruntled reader who's turned up in the reception of the Downingham Post complaining "you've made a libel of me. [...] I could sue, you know." The gut-wrenching fear that this evokes in a rookie reporter is palpable, and not helped when she confesses to her fellow reporters that she needs to print an apology in the next edition.

"Apology?" said Vic. "You're for it. The old man [the editor] hates putting them in. Says it's the hallmark of second-rate journalism." He imitated Mr Pellet's crusted accents to the life.
"Well, but surely, if it saves a libel action --"
"I said, he hates putting in apologies," repeated Vic, who could be annoying when he liked.
"Perhaps I might get it in without him seeing."
They laughed scornfully. The editor saw every word of copy that was written.

Indeed the editor, Mr Pellet, is the quintessential newspaper editor of the time, prone to high blood pressure, a raging temper and very strong views about journalism. But to Poppy he doesn't look like she expects an editor to look. She describes him as looking like "a man who prods pigs with a stick on market day" and later goes on to confess that he is the "most unliterary-looking person I had ever seen" .

Journalism is not literature, he was always telling me.  I thought it ought to be, although the others downstairs told me that when I had been there as long as they had, I wouldn't waste my time thinking up original adjectives which the old man always replaced with some of the tried favourites from stock.

The book largely works by showing how Poppy's misconceptions about journalism fall by the wayside as the practicalities of producing a weekly newspaper fall into place. This was in the day when reporters carried out all their reporting in person -- not by telephone or email -- and everything was written up by hand or using the office's sole clunky manual typewriter.

Later, Poppy has grand ideas about introducing a woman's column or making up letters to the editor that would be of interest to a female readership. But these are shot down by Mr Pellet before they even get off the ground.

"Everyone who comes here," he said, "starts off by thinking this is a lousy old rag and they must have been sent from Heaven to bring it up to date. Victor, Mike, even Murray -- they all started like that. It didn't last, when they rumbled what the job was. Do you know why people read this paper? Because they've been reading it for umpteen years, and it's still more or less the same as the first copy they ever read. It's safe. They know where they are. In Downingham they've been eating meat pie and chips on Saturday nights since the world began, and if they were suddenly asked to eat their joint on Saturday and their pie on Sunday they'd think the bottom had dropped out of life."

Oh, how very true this all sounds!

My Turn to Make the Tea is fairly light and fluffy stuff, but its packed with terrific characters and a lot of humour. Despite being set in the early 1950s, it reminded me of my own stint working on a similar type of newspaper, and later, of training graduates who thought they were journalists because they could write well, not realising that journalism is less about writing and more about fact gathering. I reckon anyone considering a career as a reporter should read this novel first -- it will entertain and enlighten more than any text book about the media.

* Cue that time I spent hours tracking down a family in the rain sodden hills of South Gippsland whose dog had given birth to 14 puppies and then got virtually kidnapped when the chap realised my dad was the local school principal with whom he had a major beef; cue that other time I got savaged by a pack of emus on an emu farm while the farmer stood by and laughed at me; cue that time my boss wanted to know why I was always the first to the scene of a fire -- he hadn't clocked, and I kept it very much secret, that I had buttered up the fire captain's wife and all I had to do was call her at the first hint of smoke or sirens and she'd tell me the location before anyone else knew; I could go on...