Reading Matters

'Quartet' by Jean Rhys

 Fiction - paperback; Penguin Modern Classics; 144 pages; 2000.

It seems ironic or pre-determined (or something), because no sooner than I write a post about bleak books and ask you to submit your suggestions, than I pick up Jean Rhys' debut novel, Quartet. Ms Rhys doesn't necessarily have a monopoly on bleakness, but boy, she does an exquisite line in melancholy and hopelessness.

This book, first published in 1928, brings bohemian Paris in the 1920s to life. It's set in the neighborhood of Montparnasse, where people lived in hotels and passed their time in smoke-filled cafes and ate out every night because they simply didn't have the facilities to cook at home. Women were generally seen and not heard, and relied on men to support them.

Living in this dark, seedy world is Marya, who left England four years earlier to marry a Pole called Stephan. Despite the fact Stephan, an art dealer, "disliked being questioned and, when closely pressed, he lied", she feels safe and "strangely peaceful" when she is with him. But then he is imprisoned, and she's left penniless and alone.

An older sophisticated couple, Mr and Mrs Heidler, come to her rescue, offering her the spare room in their apartment. Although the idea of living with them fills her with "extraordinary dismay", she is left with little choice and moves in. 

It works out well in the beginning, but Marya, a deep thinker, soon finds herself being manipulated and it all goes down hill from there.

I can't say much more than that, because I don't want to ruin the story for those yet to read it. But it's melancholy and rather glum and poor Marya seems unable to get herself out of the hole she's created. She comes across as being rather young and naive, but also slightly weak, as if she feels that because she is trapped there's no use fighting and that it would be simply easier to succumb to other's desires and needs. Even when her husband is finally released from jail, she seems unable to stand up to his devious ways and just lets him get on with it.

This is a beautifully written book, and I love that Rhys doesn't explain everything, so it's up to you, the reader, to fill in the gaps. It's only 145 pages long, but I did have to re-read certain sections because I felt that I'd missed a subtlety that was crucial to the plot. I think there's so much going on here, between characters, even within certain character's heads, that it's the type of book that would benefit from two or more readings and you'd come away from it with a whole new perspective and appreciation of Rhys' talent. (Remember this is her first novel.)

Quartet is incredibly evocative of another time and place, and as I read it I kept thinking it would make a wonderful film. So I was delighted to discover that Merchant Ivory have beaten me to it. It was made into a movie in 1981 and that it can be watched in its entirety on YouTube.

'Leadbelly' by Andrew Rule and John Silvester

  Non-fiction - paperback; Blake Publishing; 288 pages; 2005.

Between 1995 and 2004 there were 34 underworld killings in Melbourne, Australia. Yes, 34. I don't think there were that many deaths in six-and-a-half series of The Sopranos and that has to be one of the most violent TV shows ever broadcast.

According to the authors "the size of the death toll varies from source to source because opinions vary about when the 'war' began and who are casualties and who are not". Even the concept of 'war' is disputed, because not all the murders are related, some are simply one-off hits to settle old scores. But police did establish that the bulk of the killings were part of a deadly feud between two rival gangs: the New Boys and the Carlton Crew.

Having followed this string of brutal and bloody murders from afar (I left Australia in mid-1998) via Melbourne's The Age website, I was anxious to read this book to piece all the crimes together in my head as one long narrative. Unfortunately, the book's structure doesn't work like that. Instead, what you get is 29 self-contained chapters that look at each crime in isolation. I imagine they were written like this for newspaper publication, but even so, I found it annoyingly repetitive in places -- explaining who characters are and how they are linked to each other and what terrible crimes they have committed -- which wears very thin very quickly.

And the prose style is terribly tabloid, surprising given that it's written by two journalists for whom I have the utmost respect (Andrew Rule's Strict Rules, a non-fiction account of his time touring the outback and staying with aboriginal communities, is extraordinarily good and worth tracking down if you get a chance, while Silvester's day-to-day reporting for The Age on the crimes covered in Leadbelly has been thorough, tenacious and imminently readable over the course of this ongoing gangland feud). Still, I wonder how much of this "dumbed down" style is simply a reflection of the market to which this book is aimed. It's not so much sloppily written, but it's riddled with unwarranted editorialising that I found patronising.

But if the objective of Leadbelly is to take the "glamour" out of the underworld and to expose these criminals for the violent sociopaths that they are, then perhaps the authors have achieved their aim. Here's what they say about the underworld,

 ...that loose collection of individuals who live outside the law and associate with fellow criminals both in and out of prison. Myths have been built up about this antisocial sub-class, mainly because there is a perceived glamour about being on the wrong side of the law. Some people think gangsters are masterminds with the brains and the nerve to beat the system, 'anti-heroes' and 'rebels' who snub conformity to 'live their own lives'.

The truth is most are too stupid, too lazy and too immoral to make a mark in the mainstream community. They don't decide to opt out of orthodox, law-abiding society so much as drift into crime because it seems easy and smart compared with working for a living. Others, of course, are born into ciminal families, condemned by breeding and circumstances to a lifetime cycle of crime and punishment.

Many criminals are 'stupid' by conventional standards -- in reading, writing and comprehension, for instance -- but some survive and prosper, at least until the law or even more predatory criminals catch up with them. Some develop a rat cunning, which trumps 'normal' intelligence in their bleak and brutal world. They can't read, yet can spy a police surveillance car a kilometre away. Others can barely count, yet can organise a bank robbery with split-second, military precision.

Rule and Silvester don't pull their punches -- they make it exceedingly clear throughout the 288 pages that make up this book that they do not have any sympathy whatsoever for the criminals. But by the same token they don't necessarily hold the Victoria Police in great esteem either, a much-maligned force that has been accused, at one time or another, of being reactionary, trigger-happy* and corrupt.

When two young police constables were ambushed and fatally shot one early morning in 1988 -- ten years before the 'war' began, mind you -- as payback for the police shooting of a well-known armed robber 13 hours earlier, Rule and Silvester claim that some police "were so desperate to 'get a result' they wanted to use illegal tactics to get evidence before a court". They add:

A huge investigation began within hours. Emotions ran high. Some police virtually declared war on the underworld. They wanted to mount raid after raid on known criminals and their relatives and associates. Many in the force saw this reaction as justified. Others saw it as blind rage, which would do nothing to gain evidence admitted in court.

This, essentially, is just the tip of the iceberg. The police's handling of certain investigations, their surveillance methods and their sting operations come in for some serious questioning -- and not just by the authors, there have been several public inquiries into specific incidents over the years which has resulted in changes to police working practices.

If you can forgive the slightly patronising Cops Vs Robbers tone of the book, what emerges is a fascinating account of Melbourne's dark underbelly and the ongoing rivalry that exists between a police force under siege and the street savvy crims who think they can do what they like, when they like.

I am reliably informed that the 13-part drama series Underbelly, which is based on these true-life crimes and comes out on DVD in the UK next February, is better value than the book. I will keep you posted once I have watched it!

* In the ten years after 1986, police killed 30 people in Victoria, whilst NSW police killed 10 in the same period. I remember it well, because it seemed like every time you turned on the TV news there'd be another report of a citizen gunned down. But this book explains the roots of that trigger-happy situation. Apparently, in 1985, two police pulled over a panel van on the Hume Highway just north of Melbourne. They knew it was being driven by a known criminal who was likely to be armed and dangerous -- in fact, they were tailing him at the time -- but what they didn't expect when they approached the car was the speed with which 'Mad Max' pulled out his pistol and fired off several shots. Rule and Silvester believe this random attack wormed its way into the collective psyche of the force, describing it as "the first milestone on a grim journey into hostile territory where almost every police officer felt threatened by unknown assailants who could be lurking in any car, any doorway, any hotel".

'Silent in the Grave' by Deanna Raybourn

Fiction - paperback; Mira Books; 544 pages; 2008. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Deanna Raybourn's debut novel, Silent in the Grave, kicks off with one of the more memorable opening lines I've ever had the pleasure of reading:

To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.

The "I" in question is Lady Julia Grey, who turns out to be the wonderfully feisty late-20-something heroine of this extraordinarily fun novel, which is set in Victorian London. Together with private investigator Nicholas Brisbane, a tall, dark and handsome man, she sets out to discover who murdered her husband, although she is initially sceptical that his death was caused by anything other than natural causes.

The ensuing investigation is hampered from the outset, not the least because Julia is from a rich family where she is expected to play the part of a bereaved widow for at least a year, closeted from the world in her large London townhouse. But also because Nicholas Brisbane isn't exactly the easiest person to work with, riddled as he is by a mysterious illness and an equally mysterious past.

Determined to seek justice before beginning her life afresh, Julia sets about interviewing her servants and searching their rooms for clues. What she discovers isn't pleasant -- and before the story ends she must confront everything from gypsies to prostitutes in a bid to find her husband's killer.

Silent in the Grave is a rollicking good story that ploughs along at a furious pace, ably assisted by page-turning cliff hangers at the end of each chapter, so that you begin to wonder whether you will ever put the book down! The plot is terrific, with enough red herrings to keep you guessing, right up until the dark and somewhat unexpected denouement.

The setting feels authentic, rich in historical detail, so that you can almost hear the clamour of horses hooves on London's cobbled streets or the swish of silk as the heroine scuttles down darkened corridors in pursuit of her quarry. And Lady Julia Grey is a brilliant creation. A tough, intelligent woman -- probably a century before her time -- who doesn't take any prisoners but still knows when to be polite and gracious. I loved her.

The effortless writing style, which has a touch of the Jane Austens about it, is littered with cracking one-liners, too, so that I found myself tittering all the way through the book.

Apparently Silent in the Grave is the first in a new series featuring Lady Julia Grey and Nicholas Brisbane. Naturally, I will be keeping my eye out for the second book, although I'm afraid it has a lot to live up to if it is to be anything half as brilliant as this one. Let's just hope Raybourne doesn't suffer from second novel nerves!

'The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl' by Shauna Reid

Non-fiction - paperback; Corgi; 400 pages; 2008.

"I've got the biggest knickers in Australia."

So begins Shauna Reid's refreshingly candid, often humorous and hugely inspirational The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, which charts her seven-year battle with the bulge.

Shauna's story, which first appeared in blog form, is an entertaining read reminiscent of Bridget Jones Diary. It is not a typical diet book. There are no recipes, no quick-and-easy solutions to fighting the flab. Instead it's an enthralling novel-like narrative that follows Shauna's ups and downs as she struggles to lose 12-and-a-half stone.

She battles depression, curbs her secret food binges and learns to love the gym. Along the way she finds the courage to backpack to the other side of the world and nabs herself a Scottish husband in the process.

I loved this book and kept turning the pages well into the early hours of the morning. It's enormously moving in places, but any sense of self-pity is tempered by a self-deprecating sense of humour which had me laughing out loud more than once.

The beauty of this book is that it shows how it is possible to achieve anything if you set your mind to it.  Shauna's steely determination to succeed and years of hard work paid off handsomely in the end. For that reason alone The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl should be required reading for anyone wanting to change any aspect of their life who lacks the courage to do so. It's already made me want to cut my caffeine intake and ride my bicycle more often!

'Between Two Rivers' by Nicholas Rinaldi

 

Fiction - paperback; Harper Perennial; 464 pages; 2005.

Between Two Rivers is one of those rare novels that takes a simple premise -- the lives of the residents in a tower block in downtown Manhattan -- and turns it into something truly special, in prose that is, by turn, elegant and shocking, eerie and mesmerising.

We meet a cast of eccentric characters -- cancer-ridden industrialist Harry Falcon, retired Luftwaffe pilot Karl Vogel, housemaid Yesenia, Iraqi spice merchant Muhta Saad and his son Abdul (who is studying to become a mortician), actress Angela Crespi, eccentric animal-lover and widower Nora Abernooth and plastic surgeon Theo Tattafruge -- and intertwines their stories in a series of beautifully written vignettes. These are linked via alternate chapters told from the point of view of the building's Romanian concierge, the ever watchful Farro Fescu.

Using this clever plot device, Rinaldi demonstrates the interconnectedness of peoples' lives and loves. He reveals each character's personal history, their secrets, their hopes and dreams. Much of this occurs against a backdrop of major events from the Twentieth Century, especially World War II, Vietnam and other wars.

The city of New York also plays a central role. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that Between Two Rivers is a love letter to New York City: its streets, buildings and citizens come alive within its pages so that you can smell the garbage-strewn alleyways, hear the blaring of taxi horns, see the towering skyscrapers touching the sky every time you emerge yourself in the story.

Perhaps it's no surprise then, that the terrorist attacks of September 11 play a key role in the book. That said I must say that the final chapters, which are set in the World Trade Centre, caught me completely off guard because the first 377 pages focused on the early 1990s. Rinaldi says he had pretty much finished the story when 9/11 happened but felt that incorporating the event would "bring my characters, through the pressures of that crisis, to new levels of purpose and understanding". He achieves this with grace and aplomb; the restrained unsentimental prose is incredibly moving and conveys so much of the shock and horror of that terrible day that it may, in fact, be too painful for many to read. It certainly made this hardened reader have a little sob!

All in all, Between Two Rivers is a compelling portrait of a city and its disparate residents. I don't often use the word masterpiece, but this multi-layered book -- part short-story collection, part novel -- comes pretty damn close to perfection. I loved every word.

'The Butterfly Man' by Heather Rose

Fiction - paperback; University of Queensland Press; 315 pages; 2006.

Some of the best novels take a real life story and turn it into entertaining fiction. Jake Arnott's The Firm particularly springs to mind.

In The Butterfly Man, Heather Rose takes the real life case of Lord Lucan, who disappeared on the night of November 7, 1974 following the brutal murder of the nanny looking after his three children, and poses the question, what if?

She has Lord Lucan reinvent himself as Henry Kennedy, a Scottish man, who emigrates to Australia. Here, he lives a quiet life in a house he built himself on a forest-covered mountain in Hobart, Tasmania. Together with his lover, Lili, a TV presenter, who has secrets of her own to keep, he is far from the gambling upper-class Englishman he once was.

But when Henry is diagnosed with a brain tumour, his illness has an uncanny way of making him say things he does not mean to say. And so he must do all he can to prevent himself from inadvertently confessing the sins of the past as his illness takes a hold.

Rose paints a very convincing portrait of a deeply troubled man not fully able to escape his past.

Her carefully constructed narrative reveals how Lord Lucan transforms himself into a new man, first by having his face "repaired" by a dodgy surgeon, and then slowly but surely losing his posh accent and upper-class manners in the wilds of Africa.

She undercuts this with glimpses of Lord Lucan's previous life in Belgravia, London, as a man heavily in debt and unable to deal with his increasingly demanding wife, Veronica.

And this is further intertwined with Henry's new existence in Tasmania, the peace of which is not only shattered by his terminal illness but the appearance of Lili's estranged and drug-troubled daughter, Suki, and young bubbly grandchild, Charlie.

This is a highly original work of fiction about deception and the ties that bind us to the past. At first, it took me awhile to get used to Rose's staccato style of writing, but I soon learned to enjoy her short, snappy sentences. This stripped back prose allows the story to shine through without the clutter of unnecessary language.

The dialogue is particularly good, and her cast of characters, including Henry's neighbour Jimmy and his business partner Stan, are convincing and give added weight to the narrative.

Unfortunately, the book does not seem to be available outside of Australia, which is a great shame given it is such a fascinating story that would appeal to anyone intrigued by Lord Lucan's disappearance. If you can bear to part with a hefty $20 shipping fee, non-Australian residents can order it from Angus & Robertson's online store.

[You can find out more about the real story of Lord Lucan's disappearance at Lord Lucan.com]

'All Quiet on the Western Front' by Erich Maria Remarque

 

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 224 pages; 1996. Translated from the German by Brian Murdoch.

Described as the classic anti-war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front is a devastatingly emotional read about German soldiers fighting in the Great War.

Told through the eyes of 19-year-old soldier Paul Baumer, it details his experiences fighting in the Flanders' trenches.

Over time Baumer undergoes a complete transformation from naive young schoolboy to hard-bitten soldier. He survives the harsh reality of frontline combat, sees many of his friends get mortally wounded or killed, and suffers serious injuries of his own. Eventually he begins to wonder what he will do when the war is over, because it feels like war is all he has ever known:

I am young, I am twenty years of age; but I know nothing of life except despair, death, fear and the completely mindless superficiality with an abyss of suffering. I see people being driven against one another, and silently, uncomprehendingly, foolishly, obediently and innocently killing one another. I see the best brains in the world inventing weapons and words to make the whole process that much more sophisticated and long-lasting. And watching this with me are all my contemporaries, here and on the other side, all over the world - my whole generation is experiencing this with me. What would our fathers do if one day we rose up and confronted them, and called them to account? What do they expect from us when a time comes in which there is no more war? For years our occupation has been killing - that was the first experience we had. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what can possibly become of us?

The beauty of this book is that this is essentially a first person account of life on the frontline based on Remarque's own wartime experiences. There are no heroics. No homage to the glories of war. Instead we read about the soldiers' all abiding desire to avoid death, to cling on to life for however long it is possible to do so, amid the muddy, bloody, corpse-strewn battlefields of the Western Front.

Similarly, the story has little historical detail and no political insight. If you did not know that Baumer was German, you could easily mistake the soldiers as being British or French or Australian. This subtle message is perhaps Remarque's greatest gift: All Quiet on the Western Front shows that all men are equal when it comes to war.

Despite being written in 1929, its message still resonates today.

I found this book to be an incredibly sad, lump-in-the-throat read but one that is powerful and life-changing. If you haven't read it, then you must.

'Voyage in the Dark' by Jean Rhys

Fiction - paperback; Penguin Books; 176 pages; 2000.

This is a beautiful, melancholy story about one young woman's voyage from innocence to hard-bitten experience.

Written in 1934, it is, in many respects, before its time, depicting a world in which women are the playthings of men.

Anna Morgan, 18, is a lost ingenue, adrift in a foreign land, exiled from her native West Indies after the death of her father. She has a job as a chorus girl and travels through the dark, dismal towns of Edwardian England, where "everything was always so exactly alike", residing in cold, dank boarding houses, reminiscing about her homeland, where the "light is gold and when you shut your eyes you see fire-colour".

Later, when she "settles" in London, she hooks up with a much older man, Walter Jeffries, to whom she becomes financially and emotionally dependent. She does not know he is married and when, eventually, he calls the affair off, Anna is unexpectedly bereft, unable to understand what she has done wrong.

Lonely and depressed, often ill and curled up in bed, where she "sleeps like the dead", Anna is taken in by Ethel Matthews, an older woman who is a Swedish masseuse ("When I say I'm a masseuse I don't mean like some of these dirty foreigners.").  Living in Ethel's posh flat off Oxford Street, Anna tries to earn a living doing manicures as part of Ethel's business. But she spends most of her time drinking and bringing strange men back to her room instead, unwittingly offending Ethel - who is prone to loud, emotional outbursts - in the process.

Without wishing to reveal the ending, Anna's life slowly unravels and her struggle to become an independent woman in London brings her to her knees, tricked out of money by men and women alike, used, abused and tarnished.

Surprising as this may sound, I loved this book despite its depressing subject matter. The writing is strangely beautiful in its simplicity and sparseness. There is not a shred of sentimentality in it. It is sad and bleak, but there's a lovely naivety to the story which allows some light to illuminate the black despair. I particularly identified with the grey, wet London that Rhys so eloquently describes through the eyes of her immigrant Anna.

This was the first Rhys book I have read. I'm kicking myself that it has taken me so long to discover her! I plan on reading her small back catalogue as soon as I can.

'The Plot Against America' by Philip Roth

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 391 pages; 2005.

Let's cut to the chase. This book has a lot to say. It deals with big themes. But it lacks punch. I had to make myself read it in a couple of hits for fear I'd never pick it up again - and I haven't had to do that with a book for a long time.

Essentially Roth has created a fascinating and wholly believable history that never was: an America that sided with the Nazis during the Second World War. He makes the renowned aviation hero Charles A. Lindbergh the thirty-third president (he defeats Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election), who implements a systematic program to destabilise the Jewish enclaves within the major cities, such as New York. Riots and mayhem ensue, but this doesn't properly happen until the last chapter of the book. Instead, the reader must plough their way through a relatively boring family history, seeing it through the eyes of a young boy, a character who just so happens to be named Philip Roth.

There is no doubt that The Plot Against America is a magnificent story dealing with important and relevant issues. (I had the weight of this on my mind as I turned each page.) It's a very scholarly book, with loads of insightful and interesting footnotes that history buffs will love.

But the emotion and foreboding I had expected to resonate off the page were nowhere to be found. I did not feel for any of the characters. I did not sense their anxiety. I did not sense their fear. If I had have, I'm sure that I would have loved this book.

In short, this book lacks the emotional force that would have elevated it from a good read to a truly brilliant one. Readers looking for a far more menacing read along a similar theme would be best advised to read Robert Harris's excellent Fatherland (1993), which is gripping, thought-provoking and chilling to the core.

'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' by JK Rowling

 

Fiction - paperback; Bloomsbury; 636 pages; 2001.

The fourth instalment of the Harry Potter series is by turns exciting, dramatic, hilarious and frightening. Most of all it is magical.

Once again JK Rowling has written an incredibly entertaining story. The narrative is driven by a cleverly-layered plot line and lively writing which takes the reader from the ordinariness of muggle (human) life to the excitement of the Quidditch World Cup, the spellbinding world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the mysterious dangers of the Triwizard Cup.

A thoroughly entertaining romp for both children and adults alike. But watch out for the frightening ending.