Category: Publication Date

Categories
1980s Booker Prize

Hotel du Lac – Anita Brookner

 Winner of the Booker Prize 1984

In my quest to read all the Booker prize winners I was convinced that this tiny book would be one of the quickest, easiest reads. It is only 184 pages, long, but the type and size of the book make it appear even smaller. Unfortunately, the content of the book made it feel as though it would never end. I was bored from page one, and it took enormous effort and determination for me to complete it.

The central character, Edith Hope, is sent to recuperate in a quiet Swiss hotel after becoming involved in a scandal. Whilst staying in the hotel Edith works on her new romance novel and observes the people around her. There is no real plot – this is one of those quiet, reflective books that I don’t enjoy reading.

I found Edith’s character to be slightly odd and I didn’t seem to find the same things amusing as her. The humor was lost on me and I became increasingly irritated by her passive nature. There was far too much thought and hardly anything happened in the entire book.

The pianist, sitting down to play, gave her a brief nod. She nodded back, and thought how limited her means of expression had become: nodding to the pianist or to Mme de Bonneuil, listening to Mrs Pusey, using a disguised voice in the novel she was writing and, with all of this, waiting for a voice that remained silent, hearing very little that meant anything to her at all.

This book reminded me of Home by Marilynne Robinson and I am sure that if you like one, then you will enjoy the other.

I’m afraid this just wasn’t for me.

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I know that a lot of people love the quiet beauty of this book.

Did you enjoy reading it?

Do any of her other books have more plot?

Categories
2009

Corduroy Mansions – Alexander McCall Smith

Earlier in the week I was invited to join the ‘Online Blogger Book Club’ for the sequel to Alexander McCall Smith’s novel Corduroy Mansion’s, The Dog Who Came In From The Cold. I love the opportunity to read along with other people, so I decided to go for it! I hadn’t read the first in the series, so had to find a copy and read it as quickly as possible!

I have to admit that I have only read one Alexander McCall Smith novel and I wasn’t very impressed. I found The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency to be too light and fluffy for my taste. I am always willing to give authors a second chance though, and was interested to find out what his new series would be like.

Corduroy Mansions is set in London and describes the lives of the people who live in the run-down block of flats that gives the series it’s name. The central characters are father and son, William and Eddie. William is desperate for his adult son to move out, so he can finally have some independence and find some romance. The interactions of the residents of the building with the outside world are observed, but although I enjoyed reading small snippets of their lives, I felt that the book didn’t work well when read quickly over the course of just a few days. Corduroy Mansions was originally published online by the Telegraph, one chapter a day, over several months. I can see that by reading this book slowly, allowing the characters to gradually filter into your life, they would have had much more appeal.

I loved the detailed character observations, but found the plot to be almost non-existent. The large number of characters meant that I didn’t really connect with any of them, but I did enjoy the numerous witty anecdotes.

“You may conclude only one thing from my shelves,” he said, noticing the direction of his guest’s gaze, “and that is that I have not bothered to organise the books according to any accepted patterns.” William accepted the mug of tea offered him. “It’s difficult. I find that – ”  Manfred, lowering himself into a chair opposite the sofa, cut him short. “Alphabetical arrangement is not the only option,” he said. “And I’m always slightly suspicious of people whose books are arranged alphabetically. OCD issues. One isn’t a bookshop, you know. Nor a library.” 

This book reminded me of The Room of Lost Things by Stella Duffy, and I am sure that people who enjoyed one book will love the other.

Here is a short video clip, which gives you a rough idea of where the book is set and Alexander McCall Smith’s thoughts on writing serialised fiction: 

Overall, I found Corduroy Mansions to be mildly entertaining, but I really hope that the sequel builds from the character building of the first book to produce something with a more interesting plot.

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The first chapter of The Dog Who Came In From The Cold will be published tomorrow on the Telegraph website. You can read it for free, but I am more excited about being able to hear the audio book. I think the light, entertaining nature of this series will make it perfect for listening to. I am pleased to see that Andrew Sachs is reading the book, as I think he is an excellent narrator. You can subscribe to the podcast (also free!) from the same page.

Have you read Corduroy Mansions?

Are you planning to read The Dog Who Came In From The Cold?

Categories
1990s Graphic Novel

The Boy Who Kicked Pigs – Tom Baker

The Boy Who Kicked Pigs wasn’t a book I had ever heard of, but it happened to be in with a box of books I bought, and the title intrigued me. I had a quick flick through and ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting. It is a very short book, containing an illustration on each page. It isn’t quite a graphic novel, but I think it would appeal to people who love to read them. 

The only word to describe this book is bizarre! The title is an accurate description of the plot, as the book follows a young boy who loves kicking pigs. The writing is easy to read and mildly amusing, but I found I was cringing at the puns as often as I was laughing at them:

After that little experience, whenever he saw a pig or a flitch of bacon he used to go quite red in the face and everyone would laugh. But Robert was cured. He never kicked so much as a packet of pork scratchings ever again.

The illustrations are quite cute and add to the charm of the book, but the plot was too basic and weird to appeal to me.

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I think this book would probably appeal to teenage boys who aren’t big readers, or completest Dr. Who fans who want to read everything written by the 4th Doctor! 

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Categories
1990s Other Prizes Science Fiction

To Say Nothing of the Dog – Connie Willis

Winner of the Hugo Award 1999

To Say Nothing of the Dog was the first book I bought as the direct result of a recommendation from a book blogger. Last year I was new to blogging and was overwhelmed by the number of blogs I discovered. I jumped from one to the next, leaving random comments, but never remembering where I’d been or how to get back there.

Beth’s blog was one of the first that I subscribed to and she was the first person I felt I developed a relationship with. When I saw Beth recommend this book in her Best of 2008 post, I bought a copy. I then decided that I’d better read Three Men in Boat first, and so bought that too. Buying two books in quick succession, as a result of a blogger recommendation, quickly became a worryingly common occurrence, but back then it felt very new and strange. Could I really trust the judgement of someone I didn’t really know? It turns out I can!

I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to get round to reading this, but I am really glad that I have. To Say Nothing of the Dog is a lovely, heart warming book which begins with a frantic search for the bishop’s bird stump in the ruins of Coventry cathedral. The bird stump is crucial to the reconstruction of the cathedral in 2057 and is believed to have been lost during bombing raids in WWII. Historian, Ned Henry, is sent back in time to try to recover it before it is lost forever. His hunt is unsuccessful, so he is sent back to the Victorian era to track it down. Unfortunately for Ned, the frequency of his time travel leads him to suffer from time-lag – a condition similar to jet-lag, that leaves him disorientated and confused.  Ned ends up in a boat on the River Thames and begins a mad-cap adventure involving everything from cats to complex time travel phenomenon.

It is based around Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat and shares it’s classic Victorian wit. To understand this book it isn’t necessary to have read Three Men in a Boat beforehand, but if you aren’t familiar with the text then you will miss out on some of the subtle parodies.

The book lost a lot of momentum in the middle section, but picked up again towards the end. Some aspects of the book didn’t work very well – the romance didn’t feel very natural and the characters didn’t behave very realistically in some situations, but as this book is a spoof rather than a serious piece of literature I will forgive it!

Overall, if you pick this book up expecting a light, humorous read then you are sure to enjoy it, just don’t analyse it too much!

Recommended to Jasper Fforde fans.

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Did you enjoy To Say Nothing of the Dog?

Do you recommend any of her other books?

Categories
2009 Books in Translation Other Prizes

Brothers – Yu Hua

Winner of France’s Prix Courrier International 2008, Shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008

Translated from the Chinese by Eileen Cheng-yin Chow and Carlos Rojas

I bought this book after seeing a wonderful review written by Frances from Nonsuch Book on the Lost in Transtaltion Challenge site, and I was very pleased that this book was brought to my attention.

Brothers is an epic story of life in modern China. At over 600 pages it was a daunting book to read, and took me over 6 weeks to reach the end, but it was well worth the effort.

Baldy Li and Song Gang are step-brothers, living in poverty in a small Chinese town. The book follows them as they grow up together, striving to make the most of their lives and bring themselves out of the cycle of poverty. I loved Baldy Li’s character – his entrepreneurial spirit warmed my heart and I was rooting for him throughout. As with all great characters he exhibited some flaws – his childish obsession with looking at women’s bottoms was very strange for me to read about, but I think it accurately reflected the thoughts of a teenage boy and so I felt that I understood him more as a result.

This book had many strange moments and contained things that you would never find in a typical western novel. One of the most enjoyable aspects of reading books from other cultures, especially Asian ones – is that you never know what is going to happen next! I don’t want to say too much about the plot, as I don’t want to spoil anything, but Brothers has it all: tragedy, comedy and a touching, complex plot.

Baldy Li lay on the floor like a dead pig, then crawled and sat in the entrance like a sick dog. His hunger made him let out a few wails, but crying made him feel even hungrier, so he immediately stopped. Baldy Li could hear the sound of the wind blowing through the tree branches and could see the sunlight shining on his toes. He thought to himself, If I could munch the rays of sunlight like stir-fried pork and drink the wind like a bowl of meat broth, then I’d be set.

It is easy to read, but it’s length means that I would only recommend it to those who have already fallen in love with Asian literature and are looking for something with a bit more depth.

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Note: This book isn’t for the prudish – it contained many sexually explicit scenes (including a very unusual section concentrating on hymens!) and some graphic violence.

I have never looked at the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008 before, but after the success of this book I am very intrigued.

Have you read any books shortlisted for this prize?

Do you love Asian literature?

Categories
2009 Books in Translation Chunkster Other Prizes

2666 – Roberto Bolaño. Part 4: The Part About the Crimes

Steph and Claire are hosting a read-along for the highly acclaimed book, 2666, by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. The novel is 900 pages long, and divided into 5 parts. We are reading one part a month.

Here are my thoughts on Part 4: The Part About the Crimes

I loved Part 3, I felt that all the random, seemingly unconnected events of the first two parts were finally coming together. The end of the third section was such a cliffhanger that for the first time in this read-along I was tempted to dive straight into the fourth part. I had also read many reviews for 2666 which stated that all the action finally occurred in Part 4.

Unfortunately, Part 4 did not live up to my expectations, and I found it to be the weakest section so far.

As suggested by the title, this section focuses on the crimes. Throughout the first three sections we had heard snippets of information about the chain of women murdered in the town of Santa Teresa, but no specific facts. This section corrects that by giving detailed information about every victim. Almost every paragraph introduces us to a new victim, noting the month they were murdered, their physical appearance and the way in which they were killed. Instead of giving a voice to each of these unfortunate woman I felt that the repetition distanced me from each of them. The continual jumping from one person to the next meant that I didn’t connect with any of them, and they became of blur of names, dates and physical attributes.

I had been worried about the violence in this section, as several people had warned me about the graphic detail, but because I felt no emotional connection to the victims the violence did not bother me at all. Some of the descriptions were more brutal than others, but none of them affected me at all. In fact this entire section left me cold. It felt more like police notes than a novel and I gained little enjoyment from reading it at all.

I made a note of several quotes that I thought would be representative of this chapter and was interested to discover that they all sounded more beautiful and profound when taken out of context:

I’m talking about visions that would take away the breath of the bravest of brave men. In dreams I see the crimes and it’s as if a television set has exploded and I keep seeing, in the little shards of screen scattered around my bedroom, horrible scenes, endless tears.

It seemed as though being surrounded by the details of the crimes reduced the beauty of everything.

I am now apprehensive about reading the final section. I am really hoping that everything comes together in a complex and impressive way, as otherwise I think I will be disappointed by the book as a whole.

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Were you affected by the graphic violence in this section?

Are you looking forward to reading the final part?