Book List Update – April 2011

” ‘Ramblings from someone who just won’t go away’? But she’s always away. In fact, she only writes on this goddamn thing at the end of the year and the start of the next….”

Well this’ll show you! A blog post that appears a mere 3 months after the last one! Kapow!

Yes, the finger has been pretty much pulled out – how else would I be typing – and I’ve even got a few ideas about non-book related matters, from foreign films to public transport networks (admittedly, some are more interesting than others) that I intend to write about here before, well, the end of the year.

Back to the task at hand: here are some reviews, thoughts and overall waffle about the books that I’ve read so far in 2011:

And what better way to welcome in the new year than a compelling, heart-breaking story about human clones? Never Let Me Go was at the top of the list due to the imminent film release, as I naturally wanted to read it first so I could go to the cinema and feel frustrated every time the plot veered away from that of the text. I’ve since read lots of reviews about both film and book and the latter in particular seems to have really divided people. Some readers have found it painfully stilted and emotionless, and they struggled to care about the characters; others have been deeply affected by it, partly due to the careful narration. I am well and truly in the latter camp. Harrowing and helpless, this just left me with a big ache, and I love a book that can do that to you. Admittedly, there isn’t one key scene of (I’m paraphrasing from memory here) “and why shouldn’t I admit it? My heart was breaking”, as in The Remains of the Day, but just the very premise of the story brings a shudder. Highly recommended.

Next up was Under The Volcano. This too is full of a lingering sadness. A story of a doomed man, his alcoholism and his dead marriage. I enjoyed the descriptions of Mexico but found his inevitable descent slightly frustrating – why didn’t he just let Yvonne help him? A cynical side of me wonders if this book has garnered praise because Malcolm Lowry – an alumnus of the boys school round the corner from mine (well, I thought it was interesting) – also struggled with the booze and seems to have written and re-written parts of the story several times, before dying and leaving it for his surviving wife to get it published. This is the sort of book that provides lasting visual images of scenes as opposed to any recollection of the plot; whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you.

Troubles by J.G. Farrell goes one step further and paints a wonderfully vivid portrait of a decrepit hotel full of mangy cats and batty old women. The smell of decay – of the hotel, Ireland and some of the characters’ sanity – lingers throughout, settling awkwardly next to comic caricatures to great effect. Whilst there don’t appear to be any wholly likable characters, and a harsher critic could even describe them as somewhat one-dimensional, you do feel for Major Brendan Archer, who becomes increasingly helpless as everything around him starts to fall apart (sometimes literally), yet he remains the only constant within the ever-changing Majestic, and as such a pillar of strength to many others. I’ve lent the book to my mum and I intend to get my hands on a copy of the Booker prize winning successor, The Siege of Krishnapoor, so I must have liked it a lot, but I’m not really sure why, making this possibly the most useless review ever.

In Cold Blood and Brideshead Revisited came next, and I’m not really sure what I can say about both of these classics that hasn’t been said before. The plot of the former – the real-life murder of a family – is absolutely compelling, and Capote’s writing style is both succinct and lovely, a lot more restrained than in some of his other works. I really think everybody needs to read this book, for the character analysis of the killers and the subsequent moral dilemma of putting them to death, and also just because it is a rightfully important piece of literature, as the original ‘non-fiction novel’. I’m ashamed I’ve waited so long before picking it up.

Brideshead Revisited was a lot more enjoyable than I’d imagined, as I’d assumed it would be pretty stiff, but it was well written and unpredictable, although there were times when I’d have preferred the idolised Sebastian to have taken centre-stage. The narrator, Charles Ryder, is a seemingly attractive but unremarkable man of money, and he reminded me a bit of Richard Papen from The Secret History, as in he’s a bit of a blank canvas waiting to be filled in by other more interesting students. I was impressed by Waugh’s wry observations as they retained a contemporary feel: young Cordelia Flyte’s comments about sponsoring black orphans in Africa – ” ‘I’ve got six black Cordelia’s already. Isn’t it lovely?'” – seem more fitting to a Chris Morris sketch than a 1945 novel. I’ve got Vile Bodies and I’m really looking forward to seeing whether that has more of the same social commentary.

A Fine Balance was next. Is it just me, or are we now a little bit numb to stories about mutilated beggars from India? Is it the Slumdog Millionaire effect? Or is it a watered-down literary form of torture porn, something that we find ourselves strangely intrigued and repelled by? Raise your hands now. Oh, you don’t have any because some horrible man cut them off when you were young. Either way, this weighty novel drowns us in swathes of harrowing tales of torture and suffering, and the whole book is steeped in hopelessness, so much so that you can’t enjoy the happier scenes because you know it’s all going to get a heck of a lot worse. Rohinton Mistry is an admirable storyteller, and the 600-odd pages make for rapid reading, however I must admit that on occasion I didn’t enjoy his writing style: some of the descriptions were crudely drawn, and the language felt too simple or the metaphors too clunky. However, I absolutely loved the character of Beggarman; what an inspired idea to make the man responsible for removing limbs and making money from the resulting deformities both a protector to some of the characters, a comedic figure and actually strangely selfless. The scenes when he speaks to Dina about his feelings towards Shankar are so well executed, I’d recommend the book for them alone.

For light relief, I then moved on to Mark Kermode’s It’s Only A Movie which is a great read. Memoirs are at their best when the writer mocks him or herself. I love the way Kermode takes the reader right to the point when you start to think he’s completely up his own arse, only to then turn around and laugh at his inadequacies. To me, he never reaches the realms of self parody, although I’m sure many would disagree. And he loves Kurt Vonnegut! Another reason to rate him. I read most of this book on a train from Cornwall to London and chuckled loudly on many occasions, especially the bit about the journalist at City Life who kept a list of ‘Top Ten Teas’ – mainly because it’s something I, or some of my friends, would do.

And that’s all so far. Right now I’m at the very beginning of Earthly Pleasures and am yet to settle into it. Do get in touch if you agree or disagree with any of the above. Unlike Mr Kermode, I do not think that I’m always right. Sometimes, but not always.