Category: 2000 – 2007

Categories
2000 - 2007

The Portrait by Iain Pears

The Portrait

Five words from the blurb: art, critic, sitting, power, canvas

I loved Stone’s Fall when I read it a few years ago and so was excited about trying one of his other books. Unfortunately, although it was written just as skillfully, The Portrait wasn’t to my taste.

The Portrait is set at the beginning of the 20th century and the entire book takes the form of a monologue given by portrait painter, Henry Morris MacAlpine. Henry has summoned William Naysmith, a highly-influential art critic, to his home in order to paint his portrait. The pair used to be friends, but as the book progresses the reader learns the truth about their history together.

The writing quality was excellent throughout, but the style grated on me. It sounds odd to say this, but it felt a bit impolite to have someone speaking non-stop at me. I longed to hear the other side of the conversation, or a description, or anything other than his endless musings.

If you want to break with the past, exterminate history beyond all hope of recovery, there is no better way of accomplishing it than a good conversation, I find. I think it was the discipline of it which attracted me. I was, after all, living in this house on my own, without any attachments, and I needed to give some form to the week. You’ll see that it has influenced my painting considerably.

The fact I’m not an art fan probably didn’t help. References to famous painters went over my head and discussions of painting techniques bored me. I only made it to the end because it was a short book and because I’d heard about the surprising ending. Unfortunately I didn’t find the ending surprising – it had been hinted at from the beginning.

If you aren’t put off by the sound of a 200 page monologue on portrait painting then you’ll probably love this, but I’m going to put this experience to the back of my mind and look forward to reading An Instance Of The Fingerpost.

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The thoughts of other bloggers

The Portrait is an easy novel to underrate. Winged Centaur

No doubt it is probably more pretentious than some people will care for, but I rather enjoyed it nonetheless. A Librarian’s Life in Books

…..an entertaining little book! Bibliolatry

Categories
2000 - 2007

The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall

The Carhullan Army Note: This book is also known as Daughters of the North

Five words from the blurb: escape, repressive, world, women, remote

I loved Haweswater and How to Paint a Dead Man, so have been keen to try some of Sarah Hall’s other books. The Carhullan Army is a dystopian novel, set in the near future. Like her other novels it is set in Cumbria and follows a young women as she decides to leave her home town of Rith (Penrith) and seek out a group of women living outside the controls of the repressive government, on the Lake District Fells.

I loved the beginning of this book. As usual Sarah Hall’s writing was of a very high standard, creating a vivid world packed with oppressive atmosphere.

It was hard to imagine all the people behind the bricks, sleeping two and three to a room, or lying awake, talking softly so as not to disturb the other families. Some of them crying, being comforted or ignored. Some not caring who heard them through the walls, pushing away from a sore body as the hits of cheap ephedrine began to wear off. Each time I had ventured out in preparation, these dawns seemed to have an atmosphere of reduction, as if there had been a cull, not a condensing of the people.

Unfortunately things went downhill as the book progressed. Once the women on the fells had been found the plot died and I lost interest in what was happening. The focus of the book turned to the relationships of the women, but they hadn’t been introduced in enough depth for me to care about them. Some sex scenes (both lesbian and straight) were thrown in, but they added nothing to the plot.

The ending of the book was very strange. Some fantastic plot elements were reduced to a single paragraph when they would have benefited from being developed into entire chapters. It all felt rushed and a bit of an anticlimax after all the build up.

I’m afraid that this book didn’t add any original ideas to the dystopian genre and although it contained a few fantastic scenes I’d recommend reading Sarah Hall’s other novels instead.

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

…gripping from the beginning to the end. Vishy’s Blog

With a bit of a polish it would make a good TV series. The Marple Leaf

Carhullan Army is a quietly powerful novel that lives long in the mind. Follow the Thread

 

 

Categories
2000 - 2007

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

(Still Alice) By Genova, Lisa (Author) Paperback on 06-Jan-2009

Five words from the blurb: Alzheimer’s, memories, harrowing, family, loving

Still Alice is one of those books that seems to receive universal praise. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a negative review for it and so I expected to fall in love with Alice, ending the book in an emotional heap. Unfortunately that didn’t happen and I was slightly disappointed by the book as a whole.

Alice is a world-renowned expert in linguistics, but she begins to forget things and is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, she needs Home Care Assistance. The book follows her decline, showing how rapidly this terrible disease takes hold of its victim.

The book is very easy to read – it is dominated by dialogue and so I whizzed through it in a couple of sittings. The problem is that this lead to the plot being superficial. I longed to know what was going through their heads instead of just hearing their words. Everything in the book happened too quickly – the diagnosis was almost instantaneous and her decline relentless. I would have preferred things to have happened more slowly, or at least been allowed some time to reflect on events. Instead I was whisked through everything so quickly that it was hard to develop an emotional response.

I also found the majority of the characters, especially Alice’s children, to be one-dimensional and so I struggled to bond with them.

The book improved in the final chapters and there were a few more interesting sections:

“My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I’ll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I’ll forget it tomorrow doesn’t mean that I didn’t live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn’t mean that today didn’t matter.”

I also found a few of the final scenes touching, but I didn’t need to get the tissues out.

Overall, this book was too light for my tastes. I preferred learning about early-onset Alzheimer’s through reading The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block and I highly recommend The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey, which moved me deeply. But I’m in the minority: 97% of people on goodreads enjoyed this book, so the odds are that you will too.

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

I struggled to read the last 65 pages or so because I was crying so hard I could barely see the words. Life….With Books

It’s really good, but it could have been amazing. “Had a Dad” Alzheimer’s Blog

It is haunting, heartbreaking, and frightening. A Bit Bookish

Categories
2000 - 2007 Non Fiction

Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson

Animals in Translation: The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow

Five words from the blurb: autism, animal, behaviour, welfare, research

I hadn’t heard of Temple Grandin until I started doing research into autism, but it is almost impossible to go to an autism seminar without her name being mentioned several times. Her autism has given her a special insight into the way animals think and she has probably done more to improve the lives of farm animals than anyone else. Although I had heard a lot about her life and inventions I hadn’t read any of her books and so I decided it was time to change that.

Animals in Translation was her first book on animal behaviour. She has gone on to write several other books about more specific areas, but I think this is the perfect introduction to her work.

The book begins with a brief introduction to Grandin’s life and an explanation as to why animals and autistic people have a similar outlook on the world. It goes on to explain why animals behave in certain ways and how we can help them to be happier. If you’d like to know why pigs are scared of yellow things, how roosters can become rapists, and why autistic people enjoy being in a squeeze machine, this is the book for you!

Animals in Translation is interesting to both animal lovers and those wishing to learn more about autism. There are lots of little tips about dog training and this book will be especially useful to farmers who own several different species of livestock. I occasionally became bored by the focus on farm animals, longing for the odd mention of a monkey or a crocodile, but as cows and pigs are Grandin’s area of expertise I suppose this focus is understandable.

The explanations of the way autistic people see the world were insightful. It can be hard for us neurotypical people to comprehend, but this book explained the autistic outlook more clearly than any other book I’ve read on the subject.

Brief summaries of many pieces of scientific research were included, but most of the book was made up of Grandin’s own observations.

The single worst thing you can do to an animal emotionally is to make it feel afraid. Fear is so bad for animals that I think it is worse than pain……I’m sure that’s why I relate to prey animals like cattle as strongly as I do: because my emotional makeup is similar. Fear is a horrible problem for people with autism – fear and anxiety.

I didn’t agree with everything (eg. dog pack theory and the use of shock collars), but as this book was first published 12 years ago it is possible that Grandin has changed her mind on these issues too.

Temple Grandin has a special perspective on the animal kingdom and I’m looking forward to reading more of her work.

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Temple Grandin is talking in the UK on 18th June. Members of the National Autistic Society can book tickets here. I’ve just booked a ticket and am looking forward to hearing her speak.

Have you read any of Temple Grandin’s books?

Have you ever heard her speak?

 

 

Categories
2000 - 2007 Books in Translation

Autofiction by Hitomi Kanehara

Autofiction Translated from the Japanese by David James Karashima

Five words from the blurb: love, disturbed, woman, sinister, meaning

I love Japanese fiction and so snapped up this book when I saw it in my local library. The title refers to the practice of writing fictional autobiographies and so it is hard not to think about how much of this book has been experienced by the author. I’m hoping that Rin and Shin, the couple described in this book, are entirely fictional and that the meta-fictional elements are clever plot devices rather than descriptions of real events.

Rin is deeply in love with her husband, but she is paranoid that something will destroy their happiness. On the way home from their honeymoon she begins to suspect that her husband is flirting with a flight attendant. Her thoughts quickly escalate until she is certain her blissful life is over. The book then travels backwards in time, revealing the reasons for her overactive imagination.

I often imagine that people are trying to kill me. And by doing so, I can turn every day into a fight for survival. Nobody has a time or place where they are free from the danger of death. People forget that. People live their lives with the basic assumption that they will still be alive the day after. I can’t live like that. A plane might come crashing into me at any moment and kill me. A truck might smash into me or I might suffer a heart attack, a stroke or even a subarachnoid haemorrhage. So I’m always standing face to face with the prospect of imminent death.

I had mixed feelings about this book. I found the first and last chapters to be totally engrossing. It was fascinating to see inside Rin’s disturbed mind and by the end I understood why she had these feelings.

The central chapters were less appealing. I found her meandering thoughts difficult to engage with and felt that whole sections added nothing to the reading experience.

The writing was easy to read and, unlike a lot of similar Japanese fiction, wasn’t unnecessarily dark or scary. Some scenes could be described as emotionally disturbing, but there wasn’t any gore or graphic violence.

This is a short book, but it is an interesting addition to the field of literature that looks into the paranoid mind.

Recommended to fans of Japanese literature.

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Have you read anything written by Hitomi Kanehara?

Is her debut novel, Snakes and Earrings, similar to this?

Categories
2000 - 2007 Books in Translation Chunkster Other Prizes

The Half Brother by Lars Saaybye Christensen

The Half Brother  Translated from the Norwegian by Kenneth Steven

Winner of the 2002 Nordic Prize for Literature
Longlisted for the 2004 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the 2005 IMPAC Award

Five words from the blurb: Norway, epic, family, brothers, life

The Half Brother is an epic, multi-generational story from Norway. The book begins shortly after the end of WWII and follows one family over several decades, concentrating on Barnum and his older brother, Fred, who was conceived during a rape. The brothers are very different in terms of both personality and stature; we see them grow up, learning to cope with their problems.

It is impossible not to develop an emotional attachment to all the characters in this book. They are distinct and realistic – a fantastic achievement given that this involves both sexes and four different generations. But it is the relationship between the two brothers that is the real attraction of this book. It is rare to find a fraternal relationship described with such accuracy and compassion.

The story was simple and easy to read, giving a wonderful glimpse into Norwegian life after the war. Many of the historical events were new to me and I was especially interested to see how the population reacted to the death of their king:

Some of the girls stood in a huddle by the fountain supporting each other. I envied them because they could cry. They were good. I wasn’t. I was bad. I had never seen the playground so quiet before. Nobody laughed. No one threw chestnuts at me. No one called my name. It was a fine morning. It should have been like that every day. It was just the way I wanted the world to be – slow, quiet, and with no jagged edges.

At over 750 pages this is a daunting book to start, but I quickly became hooked. Every page was necessary to the plot and it never dragged. It could be argued that too many tragic events affected this one family, but although the method of death was occasionally a bit unusual, I thought this book was realistic. Light humour was present at the darkest moments, so it never felt depressing.

Details of the family’s secrets were revealed slowly and, although most plot threads were tied up by the end, the reader never knows the whole truth. The atmosphere can be summarised by this quote:

And I remembered what Dad had once said, that it was necessary to sow doubt, because the whole truth was dull and made people lazy and forgetful, whereas doubt never loses its hold.

This is story telling at its best. Highly recommended.

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