Category: 2009

Categories
2009 Fantasy

Tender Morsels – Margo Lanagan

Winner of The World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, 2009

I first saw Tender Morsels on Nymeth’s blog. Her passionate review was enough for me to add it straight to the wish list.

Tender Morsels is a beautiful, but dark, fairy tale. The book begins with one of the best pieces of writing I’ve seen in 2009. In the first few chapters we learn about Liga, a young woman living with her abusive father in the woods. Abused and raped, Liga finds herself pregnant and ends up alone in the world with two daughters. I loved this section so much that I thought this book would become one of my all time favourites. The scenes were vivid, without being graphic, and were packed with emotion.

Unfortunately, everything started to go wrong at about the hundred page mark, when, to make up for the terrible suffering that she had endured, Liga was transported to another world – one in which she was safe from harm.

I struggled to empathise with Liga at this point. The introduction of talking bears and other fairy-tale characters meant that all the tension and emotion just vanished for me. I found my reaction to be summed up really well by one of Liga’s daughters:

‘All the people do at home is smile and smile, and be kind. They have no opinions, and never want to go anywhere or do anything new. It is terribly dull.’

The writing was beautiful throughout and I can see why so many people love this book, but I’m afraid that the alternate world section just didn’t work for me. The book picked up a bit towards the end, but never regained the magic of the first few chapters.

I’m pleased that I read it, and recommend it to everyone, but I think you just need to be warned that it might not be for those who like their books to be based on reality.

stars41

 

Have you read Tender Morsels?

Do you have a problem with talking bears?!

Categories
2009 Memoirs Orange Prize

An Equal Stillness – Francesca Kay

< ?php echo amazonim('0297855492'); ?>

Winner of the Orange Award for New Writers, 2009

< ?php echo amazon('0297855492','An Equal Stillness ‘); ?>is the biography of a fictional artist. It is a simple book about the life of a painter, her family and her passion for art.

Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me – I’m not a big art lover and rarely read biographies. If this had been a real biography then it would have been OK, but I just don’t see the point of a fictional one – I was bored throughout. Very little happened and her life seemed very ordinary to me.

The fact it was written in the style of a biography meant that I was distanced from the character and so failed to develop any emotional connection with her. Any attempt to guess at her feelings just annoyed me, as I don’t think it is really possible to know what someone else is thinking and so I’m afraid this book went further downhill, the more I read.

It was a quick, easy read and the writing was poetic in places, but I’m afraid I just didn’t care.

The final years of Jennet Mallow’s life were fruitful. After the colour blocks she returned to the more nearly monochrome, making seven large pictures which are untitled, but again evocative of air and water.

If you love art and gentle prose then I’m sure you’ll love this book, but it was just too ‘still’ for me.

stars21

 

I have seen lots of positive reviews for this book, so if you’ve read it:

Why did you love it?

Do you enjoy fictional biographies?

Categories
2009 Crime

The Brutal Telling – Louise Penny

 

The Brutal Telling‘); ?> is set in a remote, artistic community surrounded by the forests of Quebec. The book begins with the discovery of an unknown hermit’s body in the town’s bistro. Chief Inspector Gamache is called in to investigate the crime, in this, the fifth book in the series.

I haven’t read any books written by Loiuse Penny before, but I am always on the look out for a great new crime series to follow. Unfortunately this book failed to live up to my expectations.

The pace of the book was very fast, as a high percentage of it was dialogue. I wanted to know what the characters were thinking and feeling, but instead I only witnessed a string of events.

I found the writing to be quite passive and the characters failed to engage me. My problem in connecting with the characters could be due to the fact that this is the fifth in the series, but I was assured that this book would work as a stand alone novel, and many other people have enjoyed it with out having read the first four books.

The title implies that this will be a very dark novel, but it felt more like a cozy mystery to me, with very little menace. The plot itself was quite basic and lacked the cunning twists and turns that I love in crime fiction. I guessed the murderer quite early on and was disappointed to discover that I was correct.

The writing was of a high standard and there were many good sections in the book, but overall it failed to impress me.

Recommended to people who enjoy fast paced, simple cozy mysteries.

stars3

I seem to be one of the only people who didn’t enjoy with this book though: Kittling Books, Ms Bookish and Bibliophile by the Sea all loved it.

Did you enjoy The Brutal Telling?

Have you read any of Louise Penny’s other books?

Categories
2009

Indignation – Philip Roth

I loved The Human Stain when I read it a few years ago, so have been wanting to read another one of his books for a while.  When I saw that his latest book had just arrived at my library I decided to take the opportunity to be the first person to borrow the copy.

Indignation is a coming of age story. It is set in the early 1950s, when the possibility of being enlisted as a soldier in the Korean War was on the mind of every teenage boy in America. The central character, Marcus, struggles to cope with an over-protective father, and so leaves the family home to study at a college away from his father’s constant gaze. Once there he encounters all the dangers and temptations he has previously been sheltered from and has to learn to cope in the adult world.

I think it was unfortunate that I read this book so soon after reading The Bell Jar and Norwegian Wood, as all three books share many common themes. Indignation was well written, but I felt it was the weakest of the three books. It seemed to be covering old territory and had nothing new to add. The emotions in Indignation were less intense than Norwegian Wood and the plot was more mundane than that of The Bell Jar.

It was a short, easy read, but this was a negative for me. It felt as though many issues were being skimmed over and the side characters lacked depth.

There were some good sections, but overall it was quite disappointing.

stars3h

Have you read any Philip Roth books?

Which one is your favourite?

Categories
2008 2009 Books in Translation Historical Fiction

Equator – Miguel Sousa Tavares

Translated from the Portuguese by Peter Bush

I received a lovely email from Raquel, a Portuguese reader of my blog, enquiring as the whether I’d read any Portuguese fiction. Saramago and Bolano have both impressed me, but I haven’t read any other Portuguese books. Raquel said that Equator left her ‘breathless’ and so I was very excited when she offered to send a copy to me.

Equator begins in Portugal in 1905. King Dom Carlos is worried about British reports that slavery still exists on São Tomé and Príncipe and summons Luís Bernardo Valença, an intellectual who writes papers on the civilising effect Portugal has on it’s colonies, to his court. The King sends Luís Bernardo Valença to assess the situation, forcing him to leave his shipping business and live on the remote island near the equator for three years. Here you will get fastest way to transport ship Singapore to Australia.

Luís Bernardo Valença arrives on São Tomé and Príncipe to discover that the cocoa plantation owners have shipped people from Angola and employed them on a fixed term contract, meaning that they are not free to leave at the present time. This means that it is almost impossible to decide whether slavery exists or not.

Equator is a beautifully written piece of historical fiction, which brings up a complex discussion as to what constitutes slavery. I loved the brief glimpse of Portuguese court, and learning about it’s colonies. This book has inspired me to read more about the history of Portugal, as I know very little about it.

I got slightly bored in the middle of the book when the British Consul arrived, and the book went into a bit too much political discussion for my taste, but the plot picked up again towards the end.

Overall, I found it to be a very interesting look at a period of history that I knew nothing about. Recommended to anyone who loves historical fiction.

stars41

What is your favourite Portuguese book?

Categories
2009

The Magicians – Lev Grossman

I wanted to read The Magicians the moment I saw Diane’s review. An adult version of Narnia really appealed and further comparisons with Harry Potter made it all the more interesting to me. I then started to see some more negative and mixed reviews and began to suspect that I might not love this book as much as I first thought.

The Magicians begins with a boy turning up for a Princeton University entrance exam. He finds his interviewer dead and then a mysterious note leads him to into a strange new world, where he finds himself studying magic at Brakebills University. 

Unfortunately I quickly realised that this book wasn’t going to live up to my expectations. It lacked emotion and the plot felt like Harry Potter with the sparkle removed. There was none of the humor or imaginative detail that made Hogworts special and I quickly became bored with the book. The plot was slow moving and I felt there was too much waffling and unnecessary information.

That August the Physical Kids straggled back from summer vacation early. They spent the week before classes camping out in the Cottage, playing pool and not studying and making a project out of drinking their way jigger by jigger through an old and viscous and thoroughly disgusting decanter of port Eliot had found at the back of a cabinet in the kitchen. But the mood was sober and subdued.

I waded through the first 200 pages before finally deciding that life was too short to finish it. This book has been very popular this year, so I’m pleased that I picked it up and am able to join in the conversations about it, but it is a shame that a book with such a promising premise failed to contain any magical writing.

stars1 (DNF)

Did you enjoy The Magicians?

Does the premise appeal to you?