Category: Publication Date

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2010 2011 Books in Translation Chick Lit Mystery

Rendezvous – Esther Verhoef

Rendezvous Translated from the Dutch by Alexander Smith

Five words from the blurb: mother, life, unravels, tension, twists

Iris is holding A Month of Dutch Literature on her blog. I wanted to join in, but had nothing to hand. I then spotted this book in a little independent book shop and was drawn towards the following sentence in the blurb:

Rendezvous is an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish and an extremely powerful story about how dangerous getting what you want can be.

That is a bit of an exaggeration, but it was a gripping read with some degree of emotional tension throughout.

The book begins with Simone, a young mother, being arrested. Over the course of the book we see how she goes from being a caring wife and mother, to being at risk of losing everything.

Simone and her family move from Holland to a rural village in the south of France. They have to cope with living in the confines of a caravan whilst their house is being renovated, but also learn the numerous differences between their culture and French etiquette.

Simone’s character is very well developed and I had a great deal of sympathy for her, despite her flaws.

Unbelievable how I was able to lie to everyone, how naturally and easily it came to me. All my life I’ve hated that so intensely, that scheming, lying and deceit. Women who cheat on their husbands with their best friends, men who say they have to work late and are actually carrying on with their secretaries – there’s a reason those kinds of clichés are clichés; they’re far too commonplace, they seem to make the world go round.

This book could almost be described as chick-lit, but the mystery surrounding Simone’s imprisonment also gives it a crime/thriller edge.

I found the entire book to be very entertaining. It isn’t groundbreaking or particularly original, but it is perfect for when you need to read something a bit lighter.

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Categories
2011 Memoirs

The Possessed – Elif Batuman

Five words from the blurb: funny, thoughtful, Russian, writers, travels

I love the idea of Russian literature, but I have to admit that it scares me and so I have yet to try any (apart from The Master And Margarita, which scared me even more!) This book appealed to me because it allows the reader to glimpse into the world of Russian literature in an entertaining and less imposing way.

The Possessed is part memoir, part travelogue and follows Batuman through her Russian studies at Stanford University, to her adventures travelling through California, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Hungary and Russia. The book is littered with interesting little snippets of information about Russian authors and their texts.

On the third day of the Tolstoy conference, a professor from Yale read a paper on tennis. In Anna Karenina, he began, Tolstoy represents tennis in a very negative light. Anna and Vronsky swat futilely at the tiny ball, poised on the edge of a vast spiritual and moral abyss. When he wrote that scene, Tolstoy himself had never played tennis, which he only knew as an English fad. At the age of sixty-eight, Tolstoy was given a tennis racket and taught the rules of the game. He became an instant tennis addict.

But unfortunately I was less keen on the travelogue aspects of the book and frequently found my mind drifting from the page. There were too many unnecessary details and I felt that these detracted from the more insightful sections about Russian literature.

A few days after visiting Gur-i-Amir, we went to the old Soviet department store in the Russian part of the city to buy Eric some pants.

I’m pleased that I read The Possessed because it has inspired me to pick up some of the Russian classics, but I wish that the book had concentrated on the books rather than the travelling. check this out for more about travelling.

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Categories
2011

Pigeon English – Stephen Kelman

Pigeon English

Pigeon English was selected as one of the Waterstone’s 11 and I loved the sample section that I tried.

The book is set in London where 11-year-old Harri has recently arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister. A boy is stabbed to death on their estate, but police enquiries meet a wall of silence so Harri decides to start his own investigation into the murder.

Pigeon English has been compared to Room, but the only similarity is that they both have a child narrator. The difference between the innocence of a five-year-old and the insecurities of a pre-teen means that the two narrators are worlds apart.

Harri was an engaing character and I loved some of his observations about our society, but unfortunately the writing style began to grate on me as I progressed further into the book. The play-like layout of the text ruined the flow of the narrative for me, giving it a jumpy feel.

I also found that the mind of an eleven-year-old boy held little interest for me. I’m sure that it is all very realistic, but the immature banter made me cringe.

Connor Green: ‘Have you got happiness?’
Me: ‘Yes.’
Connor Green: ‘But are you really sure?’
Me: ‘I think so.’ He kept asking me if I had happiness. He wouldn’t stop. In the end it just vexed me. Then I wasn’t sure. Connor Green was laughing, I didn’t even know why. Then Manik told me it was a trick.
Manik: ‘He’s not asking if you’ve got happiness, he’s asking if you’ve got a penis. He says it to everyone. It’s just a trick.’
It only sounds like happiness but really it means a penis.
Ha-penis.
Connor Green: ‘Got ya! Hook, line and sinker!’
Connor Green is always making tricks. He’s just a confusionist. That’s the first thing you learn about him. At least I didn’t lose. I do have a penis. The trick doesn’t work if it’s true.

I’m afraid that the book went even further downhill with the introduction of the talking pigeon. I’m sure that fans of magical realism will love this touch, but I’m afraid that it didn’t work for me.

Pigeon English is a realistic portrayal of a confused young boy learning to live in a new country. It’s an original take on the usual tales of immigration and I loved some of the comic elements, but I’m afraid that the negatives outweighed the positives on this occasion.

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

…a decent, contemporary and original report on innocence and its loss. Asylum

…as the story advanced it became more confused, and it became difficult to pick out the important things from the more mundane. Fleur Fisher in her World

I just found it unrealistic for him to be so repetitive, simple-minded and was often frustrated by the lack of direction in the story. Monniblog

Categories
2011

The Illumination – Kevin Brockmeier

The Illumination

Five words from the blurb: pain, manifesting, light, human, phenomenon

The Illumination has a fantastically original premise: What would happen if we could see pain? Would our interactions with other people change if we could see exactly how painful our colleague’s toothache was, spot tumors inside strangers on the street, or see the continual suffering of the elderly?

The book is set in the present day, but the world has been changed by the arrival of a new phenomenon in which all pain and suffering, both physical and emotional, manifests itself as light.

A moment later, when she saw the light shining out of her incision, she thought she was hallucinating. It was steady and uniform, a silvery-white disk that showed even through her thumbnail, as bright and finely edged as the light in a Hopper painting. Through the haze of drugs, it seemed to her that the light was not falling over her wound or even infusing it from the inside but radiating through it from another world.

This simple change alters many aspects of life and I found myself thinking about the way our society tends to hide its suffering, particularly the emotional kind. It made me wish that we could see the pain of others, and be able to offer support and help to those who need it.

My only problem with this book was that it didn’t contain a compelling plot. It was more like a series of short stories, moving from one character the next in a random, unpredictable fashion. It was impossible to know whether the character you’d just been introduced to would appear again, or would go on to play a more dominant role in the next chapter. Questions were left unanswered and wonderful plot snippets were left dangling without any conclusion. This fractured style frustrated me on one level, but on another it allowed me to think clearly about attitudes to pain without being distracted by character and plot.

The writing quality was excellent and I’m sure I’ll remember scenes from this book for a long time to come. It is a wonderfully unique novel. Recommended.

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

… a beautifully rendered and deeply touching meditation on pain. The Book Lady’s Blog

…it was uneven and there were times when I just wanted to put the book down and walk away. Amy’s Book Obsession

 It is one of those novels with a simple concept like Saramago’s Blindness where a universal change to human experience suddenly appears and alters perception. Just William’s Luck

Categories
2011

Anatomy of a Disappearance – Hisham Matar

Anatomy of a Disappearance

Five words from the blurb: boy, mother, dies, father, disappears

I have had a run of disappointing books recently and so I was craving something special. Anatomy of a Disappearance had everything I was looking for and so I’m pleased to report that my reading slump is now officially over.

The book grabbed my attention from the very first line:

There are times when my father’s absence is as heavy as a child sitting on my chest. Other times I can barely recall the exact features of his face and must bring out the photographs I keep in an old envelope in the drawer of my bedside table. There has not been a day since his sudden and mysterious vanishing that I have not been searching for him, looking in the most unlikely places. 

The central character, Nuri, was a young boy when his mother died, but his father failed to adequately fill the gap created by her death. This book could be described as a coming-of-age story, showing the difficulties Nuri faced growing up without his mother, but it is so much more than that – there is a touching love story and compelling mystery contained in this book too.

The plot is further complicated by the fact that his father is a political activist in constant fear for his life. One day all their fears come true when he vanishes in the middle of the night. The book is based upon the author’s own experiences (Hisham Matar’s father was abducted by Egyptian secret service agents in 1990) and this creates a realistic narrative, filled with subtle emotion.  It also gives an insight in the life of families living in limbo, not knowing if their loved ones are dead or alive.

Anatomy of a Disappearance is short and easy to read. I finished it in a single sitting, compelled to continue by the engaging plot. I was impressed by the number of different issues convincingly covered in such a small number of pages. The simplicity of the prose means that this book will have broad appeal, but it also has a subtle depth that will keep fans of literary fiction happy too.

Highly recommended.

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Categories
1980s Booker Prize Classics Other Prizes

Empire of the Sun – JG Ballard

Empire Of The Sun :

Winner of 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Shortlisted for 1984 Booker Prize

Five words from the blurb: Shanghai, British, boy, lost, war

It is funny how we sometimes build up a picture of a book before we’ve read it, only to have all those expectations shattered once we begin. For some reason I expected Empire of the Sun to be a dense book, describing vicious fighting between the Chinese and Japanese in the Second World War. I expected it to be dark and tough going and so was therefore surprised to discover that it was actually very easy to read – the tone was quite light (at least initially) and the central character was not a soldier, but a small boy who finds himself alone on the streets of Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. In fact, the young protagonist and the simple prose could even result in this being classed as a young adult book if it were released today.

The central character, Jim, is a boy who has lived the life of luxury. His rich British parents paid for him to go to a good school and for servants to provide for his every need. But then war breaks out and Jim becomes separated from his parents. He learns to fend for himself in the abandoned mansions of Shanghai, but his situations deteriorates as the war progresses. The fact that the book is based on the author’s own experiences during WWII makes the story all the more poignant.

I loved the simple, but effective way that the surroundings were described:

Jim fidgeted in his seat as the sun pricked his skin. He could see the smallest detail of everything around him, the flakes of rust on the railway lines, the saw-teeth of the nettles beside the truck, the white soil bearing the imprint of its worn tyres. Jim counted the blue bristles around the lips of the Japanese soldier guarding them, and the globes of mucus which this bored sentry sucked in and out of his nostrils. He watched the damp stain spreading around the buttocks of one of the missionary women on the floor, and the flames that fingered the cooking pot on the station platform, reflected in the polished breeches of the stacked rifles.

My only problem with the book was the detached writing style. Jim let all the problems wash over him and failed to show any of the fear I’d expect from someone in his situation – in fact Jim seemed to enjoy seeing the planes and soldiers. This is probably a realistic way for a child to cope with war, but it meant that the book failed to have any emotional impact on me. Some people probably prefer this lighter writing style, but I like to have a strong emotional connection to the characters.

I haven’t read any other books set in China during WWII and so it was nice to learn a bit more about this lesser known piece of history. This is clearly a very important novel and there were times when I both loved and hated this book for its subtlety, but I think this is one of those books that grows on you after you’ve turned the last page. I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy the reading experience that much, but I am still thinking about Jim and I am sure that I will continue to do so for some time to come.

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This is my first experience of Ballard’s writing.

Do you think I’d enjoy his other books?