Reading matters

'The Summer Before the Dark' by Doris Lessing

Fiction - paperback; Flamingo; 236 pages; 2002.

Having recently got over my fear of reading Doris Lessing, I decided to try another book by this Nobel Prize-winning author.

The Summer Before the Dark was first published in 1970. At the time it must have been a very contemporary novel, and perhaps a little controversial, because its central theme is the role of women in society. The main character, Kate Brown, is a domestic goddess who spends one summer rediscovering herself and her place in the world after some 20 years of marriage and motherhood.

It might sound like a relatively dull premise for a novel, but in Lessing's hands the book sings with great story-telling, intellectual insight and drama. Kate Brown is no dull housewife: she's a complex woman suffering what can be best described as empty-nest syndrome. Her grown up children are getting on with their lives and her husband is working in America for an extended period, leaving her to her own devices for a summer.

Good at languages -- Italian, French and Portuguese -- she accepts a temporary translator job at a conference in London for an organisation called Global Food. She does so well and enjoys the work so much, her stint is extended and she is promoted. Before she knows it she is one of the main organisers of another conference, this time in Istanbul, and it is here that she embarks on an illicit affair with a younger man and goes on a European road trip with him.

'The Fifth Child' by Doris Lessing

  Fiction - paperback; Flamingo; 160 pages; 2001.

Doris Lessing is one of those authors you know you ought to read but never do. A case in point: I've had both The Golden Notebook and The Good Terrorist in my possession for more than three years and never once cracked them open. The sheer size of the books and the weight of the subjects contained within, combined with Lessing's awesome literary reputation, have made me doubt my ability to understand and enjoy her work. Easier, then, to leave well alone.

That was until I read John Self's review of The Fifth Child followed in due course by another review of the same book by Isabel from Books and Other Stuff. Maybe it was time to take the plunge? A slim book -- just 160 pages -- seemed the perfect introduction to her work.

And so this is how I came to read my first Doris Lessing last week.

The Fifth Child is billed as a horror story but it's not from the Stephen King school of horror -- it's slightly more subtle but oodles more menacing because of it.

'The Vienna Woods Killer: A Writer's Double Life' by John Leake

Non-fiction - hardcover; Granta Books; 347 pages; 2007.

Truth is stranger than fiction, and no more so than in the case of Jack Unterweger, a convicted murderer hailed as Austria's greatest example of criminal rehabilitation. While serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of 18-year-old Margaret Schäfer in 1976, Jack developed a flair for writing poetry, fiction and non-fiction. His work was so well received he became the darling of the literary elite who campaigned, successfully, for his early release in 1990.

But despite his apparent reform, everything was not quite as it seemed. When four prostitutes disappeared from Vienna's red light district in the first year of Jack's release he was one of the first to write about the crimes. He ingratiated himself with the local police chief and interviewed many of the city's street workers for articles that were published in the press.

'Venice: Tales of the City' edited by Michelle Lovric

Fiction & non-fiction - hardcover; Little, Brown; 448 pages; 2003.

Venice is one of those wonderfully intriguing cities that has inspired artists and writers alike for centuries. London-based author Michelle Lovric is no exception. She has penned several novels set in the watery Italian city, including Carnevale and The Floating Book, but this time around she leaves the writing to others and selects some of her favourite poetry, fiction pieces and non-fiction extracts and brings them together in this varied collection.

"In this anthology," she writes, "the voices of today's Venetians mingle with those of their ancestors, just as they still do on the streets of the city". And she is right: some of the writings included here date back centuries (several have been translated in English here for the first time) and others were written as recently as the late Twentieth Century.

'Ghost Story' by Toby Litt

Fiction - paperback; Penguin; 226  pages; 2004.

Agatha and Paddy move into a new house on the south coast. They have a two-year-old son called Max, but Max doesn't live with them. Instead, he is being cared for by Agatha's mother. Why? Because Agatha is grieving for the loss of her daughter Rose, who died in-utero, and is having trouble coping with day-to-day life.

While Paddy commutes to London each day to work, Agatha stays at home and begins to go slightly mad. The bereavement, which is a kind of unspoken pain between the couple, is the cause of Agatha's mental anguish. And in a Yellow Wallpaper type of way, she begins to think that the house is breathing...

Ghost Story is a harrowing read. It's a dark, brooding novel with little light or joy to be found within its 226 pages. But its perfect prose, it's clear-eyed portrayal of a married couple's relationship and it's realistic analysis of how bereavement can overshadow life, makes it worth the effort.

Coupled with the book's preface -- Litt's non-fiction account of his girlfriend's miscarriages -- this tale of love and loss is a particularly heartfelt one.

I wouldn't, however, recommend this to anyone thinking of starting a family or if you are recently bereaved: the pain in these pages might just be too realistic to bear.

Other Toby Litt books reviewed here: deadkidsongs

'The Atom Station' by Halldór Laxness

Fiction - paperback; The Harvill Press; 180  pages; 2004. (Translated from the Icelandic by Magnus Magnusson.)

The Atom Station was first published in 1948 at a time of great political upheaval in Iceland. The American Military had been resident since 1941 (during World War Two) and was in the process of establishing a permanent military base at Keflavík in the south-west of Iceland. This was considered by many Icelanders to be incredibly controversial, not least because it would make the country a potential nuclear target at a time when the horror of Hiroshima was very much present in people's minds.

This is important background detail for anyone wishing to tackle this novel.

It's also important to realise that Iceland has rich -- and very old -- literary roots. The Icelanders' Sagas from the Middle Ages are constantly name-checked -- and helpfully footnoted -- throughout The Atom Station.

This political and cultural history form the backbone of what is essentially a sharp, often witty and sometimes laborious, satire. The story is told through the eyes of a young peasant girl, Ugla, who moves to Reykjavík to take up the position of a house maid for a politician.

'Acqua Alta' by Donna Leon

Fiction - paperback; Pan Books; 399  pages; 1996.

Acqua Alta is the fifth book in Donna Leon's series of crime novels set in Venice starring Commissario Guido Brunetti.

In this book we are re-acquainted with American art historian Brett Lynch, who appeared in Leon's first book Death at La Fenice, and her lesbian lover, the beautiful operatic diva Flavia Petrelli.

Brett, who organised a recent exhibition of Chinese pottery in Venice, is brutally attacked by two men, who warn her off keeping an appointment with Dottor Semenzato, the director of the museum at the Doges Palace.

While Brett recovers in hospital, Guido Brunetti launches an investigation, seeking a motive for the crime. Amid the winter rains that lead to acqua-alta (high tide), he slowly unravels a network of lies and corruption in the art world...

'An Accidental Terrorist' by Steven Lang

Fiction - paperback; University of Queensland Press; 330  pages; 2006.

An Accidental Terrorist is a debut novel that was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 2006 and has recently earned Stephen Lang the UTS Award for New Writing in the 2006 NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

Even before publication it won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Best Manuscript from an Emerging Queensland Author 2004.

So I had relatively high expectations when I first began reading this story, which is set in a small town on the southern coast of NSW (in Australia).

'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' by Marina Lewycka

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Books; 336  pages; 2006

When 84-year-old British-based Ukrainian widower Nikolai Mayevskyj announces that he is in love with a woman young enough to be his daughter eyebrows are raised. But when he marries the object of his affections - the delightfully eccentric Valentina, a gold-digging Ukrainian with a pair of over-sized breasts, bottle-blonde hair and a rocket-like mission to obtain a British passport - all hell breaks loose.

Nikolai's daughters, the upstanding divorcee Vera and the left-wing sociologist Nadia, put their lifelong differences aside to protect their father from his own stupidity. The pair band together to thwart Valentina's less than honourable schemes - with mixed results.

'Motherless Brooklyn' by Jonathan Lethem

Fiction - paperback; Vintage Books USA; 336  pages; 2000

Motherless Brooklyn opens with a small-time mobster, Frank Minna, dying of fatal gunshot wounds, leaving his limo service cum detective agency rudderless. One of his underlings lands in jail and two others vie for his position.

Lionel Essrog, one of four orphan boys taken in by Frank years earlier to help run the 'agency', feels his world falling apart. Determined to find out who killed Frank - and why - leads him on an unforgettable and highly dangerous adventure involving gangsters, Japanese monks, the victim's angry widow, a giant and a garbage cop.

To complicate matters further, Lionel has Tourette's syndrome, so that he cannot just blend into the background: everything he does is peppered with gunfire verbal barking and annoying repetitive motions (for instance, touching people's collars over and over). Is it any wonder he is known as the Human Freakshow?