Another review so soon?! Clearly I have nothing better to do than avoid studying for exams – reading is definitely the best way to do this. I picked this up based solely on the fact that it was a pretty Vintage Classic, and it had won the Man Booker Prize. That, and it had been sitting on my shelf for an age. Is that a good way to choose? I don’t know…
Charles Arrowby, that famous playwright, has finally retired, and to celebrate, he’s moved into a dilapidated cottage on the coast of England. Even though he wants a quiet, peaceful time, writing his novel-memoir, a series of events are about to change that. When he meets his first love – his lost love – in the village nearby, his actions thereafter will have consequences not even he could dream of.
The word ‘odious’ does not, I think, get the credit it should these days. For if there is one word to describe Charles Arrowby, this is it. It’s been a long time since I’ve hated a narrator this much. Seriously, this man is an insufferable, pretentious bore, and misogynistic to boot. And yet, you just have to keep reading. Because, as a reader, it’s pretty clearly signposted that Charles’ actions are wrong, and his friends surrounding him keep telling him. You keep reading to see the spectacular fall, to see this man kicked to the ground for being such a douche.
‘Obsession’ is another good word. Charles has retired, so he’s not young. And yet, for the last forty years or so, he has been pining for a girl he went out with for a few years as a teenager, hoping that she would one day return to him, and sweep him away. This image of their relationship in his head drives him to kidnap her, and lock her away in his tower, in the hope that she will eventually come around to his way of thinking, even though she is going through her own stuff. Hartley – the woman in question – has been married to an ex-soldier, Ben, for a long time, and together, they have adopted a son, Titus. This family, while clearly dysfunctional, has somehow managed to survive, and yet Charles is so blinded by his obsession for a memory of something that happened forty years ago, that he cannot see Hartley as anything other than the battered wife, who needs rescuing by a knight-errant. And he thinks he is that knight. He is not.
This question of memory and history, together with obsession, formes the backbone for the novel, with Charles’ past coming to haunt him again and again. When his ‘old crowd’ from London come down to visit him – it seems, at first, a giant coincidence that they manage to arrive together – to see what he has done to himself, he cannot shake his memories of the past to see that people might have changed from what he once knew. He cannot see that Lizzie, for example, might still love him, despite having broken her heart years ago; that Peregrine might still blame him for his marriage’s disintegration’ or that James, his cousin, might actually be a much better person than he once thought. His relationships with women define Charles, and the three or four that are vital to this novel show him to be someone that does just use them for his own purposes, and then never thinks of them again. Unless, of course, they are Hartley.
Of course, everything has its time, and when the kidnapping incident is finally over, Charles finally begins to question his values and his lifestyle. Granted, the murders of a few people, and his own near death experience bring this somewhat to a head, but when he accepts that he must let Hartley go, things begin to turn in his head. Apparently Murdoch was heavily influenced at this time by Buddhist ideals, and this is very clear in the latter parts of the novel. And it’s not subtle, I should warn you – the Buddhist messages are rather like being hit over the head with a baseball bat. And for a while, you wonder where on Earth this has come from. And then, it begins to make sense – questions of reincarnation, of renewal, of moving forward, are very important in this conclusion, and I do think that, in the end Charles has learnt something from his experiences. But is this enough at this late stage? Personally, I don’t think so. But we’ll never know.
The Sea, The Sea, I must warn you, does have the most irritating narrator known to man. He’s not exactly unreliable, but after a while, you know exactly what is actually going on, and what he’s trying to tell you. This interplay alone makes for fascinating reading, but on the whole, this is an excellent novel that does deal with a lot, for the most part, quite successfully.
When I read Salley Vickers’ entry into the Myths series, I was expecting some kind of topsy turvy postmodern reconstruction of old tales. I was disappointed. So when I picked up The Penelopiad, I wasn’t sure what to expect. And it’s been a long time since I’ve read any Atwood, so I had no idea what might happen as I started reading.
Penelope – Odysseus’ wife – is dead. But she lives on in the underworld, and wants to tell us her story. The story of what she did while her husband went to fight the Trojan War, and took a twenty year detour to get home. This is the story of a young girls trying to grow up quickly as the world around her becomes nothing. More than that, though, it is the story of those twelve maids who are killed as soon as Odysseus returns from his rather extended holiday.
It’s a very postmodern thing, this filling in the gaps of famous stories – looking for gaps in the grand narratives, and trying to fill them up with smaller mini narratives that tell stories of those people to whom history did not give a voice. And what a voice Penelope has been given. She is unbelievably average, and I think that’s her weakness. She is the everywoman, the best kind of narrator, because we feel for her. Her cousin, Helen, is not necessarily unlikeable, but she certainly is annoyingly beautiful, and the somewhat sarcastic tone Penelope takes with her is quite funny, particularly since Helen causes no small amount of trouble in her life.
Also important, though, are the twelve voices of the maids. I must confess, I haven’t read The Odyssey, but I do know what happens (who doesn’t?). But I didn’t know about the maids – when Odysseus finally comes home, after killing all the suitors banging on Penelope’s door, he also kills twelve of her closest, and youngest, maids. This is never explained by Homer, but here, Atwood goes out of her way to give these maids a voice. They become the chorus of this Greek tragedy, interrupting the flow of Penelope’s story with their own songs and skits, some of which are excellent. I particularly like the court scene, which is their last aside – with a modern judge trying to rule over a courthouse full of Greek gods and mythical creatures, Penelope trying to give her evidence. It’s funny, but more than that, it’s wickedly good satire.
Is this a feminist novel? Atwood herself has claimed that it is not, citing the only reason people label it feminist is the fact that a woman is the protagonist. And I think in many ways she is correct. This is not a tale of a strong, independent woman in charge of everything around her, but of a woman who is constantly being attacked emotionally from every angle – and she does spend a fair amount of time crying. Not that strong women don’t cry, but, you know.
But if we define feminism as a framework for highlighting the stories of women in history – no matter what they are – then we can definitely take The Penelopiad as a feminist text. Because that is almost all this novel focuses on. Instead of the manly battles of ancient Greece to which we have become accustomed, Atwood gives us the stories of Penelope, of Helen, of Anticlea, of Eurycleia – these sidelined women of history that do have stories to tell.
Even here, Atwood’s penchant for science fiction-ish ideas does not go unassauged. Penelope is telling us this story from beyond the grave, in the underworld of Greek myth. And it’s not much, but it is nicely done, with her meeting people who are already dead, including Helen, and Eurycleia, and even manages some interaction with the present time.
There is quite a lot going on here, and in some ways that works to Atwood’s advantage. But the time shifting that takes place means that you can’t settle into one period for very long, and the whole thing moves along at something of a breakneck speed – particularly the beginning, which doesn’t help set up the growth of Penelope into a young woman, from the timid girl she once was. But this is my only complaint, which I think stems from my wanting more. Because this is a short novel, but it left me wanting much more. If there were more, though, I feel it might drag. So there’s a conundrum for you.
Actually, interestingly enough, there is almost no plot to speak of here. Everyone already knows the conditions under which this story is to take place, so all Atwood has to do is colour by numbers. It’s the way she does it – with such verve, such sympathy for Penelope – that makes this an excellent retelling of The Odyssey, and a good novel in its own right.
I read this weeks ago! This is, I think, the first time I’ve reviewed a book so long after the fact. I blame the fact that uni has stared again (only to end this week – yay!), and so I haven’t had time to scratch myself. So if this review seems a little off, I apologise in advance.
When Molly Lane dies, her friends come to pay their respects. In particular, two old friends meet again – Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday. Clive is a famous composer, having been commissioned to write the symphony for the next millennium. Vernon is the editor of a newspaper struggling to survive. As these two lives begin to once again intertwine, a pact they make will have disastrous consequences.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read Ian McEwan – clearly, I’ve never reviewed him here. But I do like him a lot. There seems to the this stigma surrounding his work because he manages to straddle that line between populism and literature so very well – I would totally class his stuff as literature, but it has a somewhat broader appeal than most. There seems to be some ‘conventional wisdom’ that Amsterdam shouldn’t have won the Booker, but he got it because he was short-changed with Enduring Love. I don’t know about that, though. This is pretty good.
What I like most about McEwan’s work is the fact that it is just so very English. Well, a very specific type of English, to be fair – the middle-aged, upper-middle-class white man. But he just does it so well. These two men – Clive and Vernon – are so caught up in their own problems, they cannot see anything else. And when they realise that a woman they both dated has died, they also realise just how short their lives are. And so, the wheels begin to turn. Their legacy becomes of vital importance – who will remember these two men after they have died? What should they do to ensure their names live on?
The lengths they go to in order to ensure this become so great, you cannot quite believe that they are actually happening. Clive is willing to let a woman be attacked and raped just to ensure his muse isn’t interrupted, while Vernon is happy to destroy another man’s career – and probably family – to ensure he is remembered. And yet, this backfires so spectacularly on both of them. Both of them become so self-destructive, the ending seems almost like high farce.
Indeed, this is a very funny novel. McEwan keeps it light – and short – but I do think it works to the novel’s advantage. There is something very darkly funny about watching these two self-important, insignificant men run around trying desperately to make themselves relevant. And (don’t worry, I won’t spoil it for you), the ending is absolutely perfect. There is no other way this book could have ended, and McEwan times it perfectly. There could have been a tendency to drag had he let their machinations play our terribly much longer, but the final scenes are so perfectly written and timed, I had to laugh. It’s pretty epic.
Amsterdam is an intelligent novel – and I think people tend to forget that sometimes. Partially because it’s surrounded by Enduring Love and Atonement in McEwan’s oeuvre, and the fact that it’s McEwan at all. There’s quite a lot at work here, and if you like your characters white, middle-aged, middle-class, with just a hint of insanity, then this just might be for you.
Ah, accidently buying books. Is there anything greater? I picked this off the shelf at work, to see what it was like. I made the mistake of eating pizza for lunch while I did so, and spilled tomato on it. As such, I couldn’t put it back on the shelf. So I had to buy it. At least it’s been shortlisted for this year’s Booker, so it can’t be that bad. Right?
The Landauers are just married. To celebrate, they want to build the most modern, most exciting house they can. And when they succeed in this, they put a family in it. But, of course, this is Czechoslovakia in the 30s. And Mr Landauer is Jewish. The Nazis are on their way, and the only way to escape is to leave their dream home. A life in exile is not what they’d planned, but it’s what they will have to get used to.
Well, there you go. That’s not really the story of the novel, which is a bit of a shame. Well, it’s the plot of the beginning of the novel. And it’s quite good. I like the two Landauers – Liesel and Viktor – and their relationship. As with so many new marriages, they are very excited by each other, but as the children start arriving, Viktor’s eye begins to wander. To a lovely lady – Kata. His mistress soon becomes, by a curious twist of fate, the nanny to his children, and close friends with his wife. This interesting threesome lasts quite a long time, and the relationship between Liesel and Kata is probably the most interesting in the novel. Even though they know that both of them are sleeping with Viktor, they try not to talk about it. Liesel comes out of it a bit worse for wear, when it finally becomes clear that he does care more for Kata than his wife
Also interesting is Liesel’s other best friend, Hana. Another woman with a Jewish husband, it turns out she actually has a crush on Liesel herself. This could have been an excellent opportunity to do something, but alas, Mawer does nothing with it. It’s like he ran out of steam halfway through, then decided to put some more bits on at the end. Weird.
Oddly enough, it is Hana on which the rest of the novel is hung. Once the Landauers are forced to leave their house, with its eponymous Glass Room, Mawer chooses to follow the history of the room itself as the plot. Which is a bit unfortunate, because the Landauers are the most interesting part of this novel. Once they leave, the house is turned into a Nazi science laboratory – which, again, could have been far more interesting than it turned out to be. Hana seduces the lead scientist, which leads to some interesting scenes (even though the Glass Room is a living room, made out of concrete and glass, there’s a lot of sex that takes place there. Weird). After this brief stint as a lab, it becomes a hospice for children needing physiotherapy, and that’s just not very interesting, so I’m not going to get into it here.
I know I haven’t really said much about this book, but there’s not really very much to say. It’s not a bad book – far from it. It’s just boring. And by that, I mean that it’s all been done before. It’s easy to read, and somewhat diverting, but there are better books doing the same thing. Like The Zookeeper’s War, for example, which covers similar territories of people having affairs in war torn part of Europe in World War 2, but does it better. The Glass Room tries to skate along on the fact that the room is a ‘character’, but it’s not enough. The Landauers are the most interesting part of the book, and they barely appear in the second half. Which is just stupid. This is generic World War 2 historical fiction at its most bland, which is nice for some, but I’m really looking for something with a bit more oomph in my literature.
With my reading dry spell finally broken (avast, Orham Pamuk!), I treated myself to a new novel. To be fair, though, I borrowed it from work. No splurging here – I’m a poor uni student, after all. But Andrew McGahan’s new novel looked fascinating, so I thought I’d give it a go.
A young orphan lives in a mental institution on a remote island. She cannot talk to anyone, or understand what they are saying, but she manages to get along, and performs menial tasks at the hospital. One day, when a foreigner arrives at the hospital, though, her life is turned upside-down, and the boundary between reality and memory becomes irrevocably damaged.
Andrew McGahan has, in the past, written a crime novel, a grunge novel, the Great Australian Novel, and a political satire. His ability to take a tired genre and turn it into something new is his best skill, and in Wonders of a Godless World, he turns his hand to magical realism – something almost untouched by the Australian literary landscape.
And by God, I think it’s probably his best work to date. The magical realism frame he works in seems to lend itself perfectly to his style of writing, and there is almost a fairytale tone throughout the whole thing – helped, no doubt, by the distinct lack of proper nouns, mainly because the orphan cannot remember names. There are none in the whole book – the characters are named for what the orphan thinks they are – the foreigner, the duke, the witch, the archangel, and the virgin all make an appearance. And despite their names, they are fully formed and fleshed out characters, and each one is beautifully unique. The latter four I mention here are all high risk patients in the hospital, and they are, oddly enough, perfectly charming. Granted, this is partially because they all become victims of horrible crimes, but the tragedy of their impossible situations is truly moving. Each of them has suffered so much in the past, their mind has snapped, and they are now forced to live out their lives as a shadow of their former selves. The magical realism also dovetails nicely with these themes of mental instability and the questions of reality and imagination – something magical realism focuses on, anyway – and this helps to strengthen the novel.
The foreigner is, though, the most interesting character. It is he who provides the catalyst for most of the action, and he is almost like a god to the orphan. The title of the novel is very clever, because actually, this is a very pro-science, pro-knowledge novel, and the titular wonders are the amazing things the natural world has achieved without any help. It is also an environmental cry for help, where Earth itself is a vitally important character in what is going on here. There are some lovely touches that tie in this timeless tale with both the contemporary sciences of space itself, and the medieval concepts of the four basic elements. To name but a few. I’m hesitant to tell you more, because I really want you all to discover it for yourself, but this kind of environmentalism/science-y theme actually becomes the most vital part of the novel, rising above that of questions of reality.
There’s also a lot of symbolism going on in Wonders, and I’m not sure I understood it all. Yet. I’m getting there. But there is a lot to take in here, and even though this is not a long novel, it is packed with ideas and concepts that slowly make themselves clear, and each chapter adds to the last in a way that creates tension and suspense not usually seen in what we might call a ‘literary novel’. Don’t be put off by this – McGahan has a lot to say here, and while I didn’t pick it all up the first time around, I hope to give it another go so I can marvel once more at this man’s amazing intelligence.
I have a new favourite novel, and this is it.I’ll admit something here, now. I have been known to sometimes gloss over the tiny nit-picky things in Australian novels in the hope people will go and pick them up. And I don’t feel bad about it. But this is not what I’m doing here, I promise. In fact, I’ve barely covered half of what I want to talk about. But I’m going to stop so you can go and read it, then come back and talk to you about it. This is a legitimately good novel, and I really hope it finds not just an Australian audience, but an international one, too. It really is that good, and has so much to tell us all, you need to go and tell all your overseas (and Australian) friends about it.
So I started reading this novel three months ago – in the last uni holidays. For me, that’s a really long time ago. The problem is, I kept picking it up and putting it down. But finally, I have finished it. That’s the greatest thing I’ve done this year, I think. And if this review smells of Stockholm Syndrome, I apologise in advance.
Ka, a Turkish poet living in Germany, returns to his home country to investigate a spate of suicides in the small town of Kars. There, he finds an interesting cast of characters, each with a unique take on what is going on in the village. Of particular interest to Ka, though, is his old flame, Ipek. But as the snow falls around the town, they are closed in, and something terrible is coming.
Ok, first things first. This book is legitimately interesting. It’s one of the few contemporary novels (The Reluctant Fundamentalist is another good one) that actually faces one of the central tenants of Western society at the moment: the problem of Islam. Because, let’s face it, we do have one. Pamuk, as an exiled Turk, has an interesting perspective on the problem, and his ability to discuss and dissect both sides of the argument make for interesting reading.
There’s quite a bit of symbolism going on in the novel, and after a while, it’s pretty clear what the symbols are. Or what I think they are. Kars is a synecdoche for Turkey, and Ka the poet is Pamuk the author. His return to his hometown (read: homeland) means people question him and what he stands for – and he gets a lot of criticism for not being religious. There is definitely an anti-atheism theme to many of the characters who populate Kars, and they constantly question Ka’s beliefs. I don’t truly believe him to be an atheist – I think he attributes the poems he writes to God, or someone higher, at least – but because he is not as sure in his beliefs as many other people in the town, he is a site for attack. Which is interesting in its own right.
What is more interesting, though, is the idea of ‘political Islam’, and the people behind the concept. These people are so determined to return Turkey from its current fate as a secular Islamic state, that they will do anything to ensure this goal. This ties into the girls committing suicide – questions of removing their hijab become vital to their suicides as the pressure from both sides becomes too much. Women committing suicide to make a political point is an old technique, but Pamuk uses it to great effect here.
Pamuk is also an excellent writer. particularly the opening chapter, which is genuinely beautiful. And the descriptions of snow throughout the book are lovely.
Ok, so here’s the caveat. Snow is perhaps one of the most boring, tedious books I’ve ever read.
Well, that’s not totally true. Here’s the problem. Pamuk clearly had a message/issue he wanted to talk about. That’s fine. What he didn’t realise (and clearly his editor didn’t either) is that you don’t need to have huge tracts of circular dialogue between characters going on and on and on for 400 odd pages. Readers are not stupid. We get it. Again and again, Ka and Blue (the leader of the political Islamists) discuss the problems facing modern Islam and Turkey. The problem is, they talk about the same issues each and every time they talk. And there’s no finality to it. Not that I’m expecting a solution to every problem – but most authors have the decency to show even their own viewpoint. But, no – that’s too good for Pamuk. He sits on the fence the entire time. So what’s the point?!
It’s not just Ka and Blue that face this problem. Each time Ka talks to someone, it’s like he’s having the same conversation again and again. And there’s a lot of reported dialogue in this novel. It’s not bad dialogue – it’s just that sometimes, I wonder if this wouldn’t work better as a play. Or a film. Or anything but the written word. Well, maybe an extended essay would be ok. Each conversation just tears at you, until you have to throw Snow at the wall in frustration, and wander off to find something else to read. Anything else.
This novel has an interesting central premise. But everything else is as boring as batshit.
In my desperation to avoid writing an essay in a foreign language late at night, I thought I’d write this review instead. Having read most of this in a doctor’s waiting room this morning, I feel that it’s fresh enough in my mind to justify this. Or not. I just really don’t want to write that essay.
Kien is a veteran of the Vietnam War. He is writing a novel, based on his experiences of the war – but he is still haunted by these events, making it hard for him to concentrate. As he continues to write it down, past and present collide, along with reality and fiction. Everything is mixed up, and soon the most important story he must tell is his love story – the story of Kien and Phuong.
That plot description doesn’t do this book justice. It starts with a graphic and detailed account of skirmishes in the jungle of Vietnam during the war, and then slowly, the present Kien is revealed. The novel switches between past and present with no warning – indeed, the two collide in the same paragraph on occasion. By not using chapters, Ninh has created almost one long short story. But it’s much more than that, and the novel revels in its fractured narrative. Indeed, as he says at the end, you could scatter each incident on the floor, then pick them up again and read them, and it would still make just as much sense. It’s not just a gimmick – by meshing together the history of Kien, there is a great sense of his life as a whole, and not just one small part.
Kien is clearly based on Ninh’s own experiences of fighting during the Vietnam War, and it is beautifully evoked. There is no glory here – the tragedy of war is what this novel focuses on. When we see them fighting in the war, the characters are all young – mostly older teenagers – and while Ninh doesn’t focus on this fact for too long, he doesn’t have to. There is enough inherent tragedy in this for the reader to understand his point. For a ‘war novel’, though, there is ironically very little war in it. Well, that’s not completely true. There’s a lot of war – but that’s not the point of the novel, I don’t think. Again and again, the characters shine as the main attraction of this novel – Kien in particular. What I found more interesting than the war sections were his attempts to reintegrate into society after the war. He locks himself in a bare apartment, and has to write because of some compulsion to do so. Again, there’s clearly some kind of autobiographical element at work here, but it only serves to strengthen the novel. That, and it doesn’t feel like some of those autobiographical novels that tend to get a bit self-indulgent.
It is interesting that the second half of the novel, while still concerned with the war, actually develops into a moving, tragic love story. Kien and his lover, Phuong, seem destined to be apart for all time, and the fact that they keep meeting by chance as the years go on only serves to highlight the fact that they can never be together. One has to wonder for whom Ninh himself is pining. Still, I’m not sure I got a ‘pining’ feeling from the two. To a large extent, they had both resigned themselves to the fact that they were never going to be together, and did their best to move on. Very pragmatic. On a side note, it is interesting that the original Vietnamese title of the novel is loosely translated as The Destiny of Love, perhaps showing us Ninh’s original intention with his work.
The Sorrow of War is truly an excellent novel. I don’t care if you read it just because it’s written by a Vietnamese writer, or because you think you’ll get to hear the other side of the story. You won’t, by the way – the American Army barely feature in the whole thing, and the war is usually referred to as a civil war. This is truly a brilliant character study, and the backdrop of the Vietnamese War, and the fact that it is in translation might give some people the wrong impression. Bảo Ninh has written a universal novel of memory, history, love and loss.
I’ve been looking at the book for a long time – the early reviews were good, and Evie Wyld guest blogged on the Random House Blog for a week. I finally found a copy of it lying in the back room, and have been reading it in the gaps between rehearsals for a play. While the play isn’t over yet, I have finished the novel.
Frank has escaped to the South Coast, running away from his past and his demons. He moves into a shack owned by his grandparents, and begins to become involved in the small town thinking of the locals. Meanwhile, Leon Collard is growing up in 50s Australia, the son of immigrants, his father a baker. His father goes to war, and is never the same, though. And soon enough, he too is called to Vietnam, where nothing will ever be the same again.
This is not a complicated novel. Despite the two discrete storylines, they gel together quite nicely. They are noticeably different, but this simply serves to strengthen the link between them. I don’t know if it’s just me who’s a bit thick, but there is, eventually, a definite link between the two stories that makes everything tie together in a way that definitely makes this novel more than the sum of its parts. I’m going to talk about it here, because I don’t think I can properly talk about the novel without it, so look away if you don’t want to be spoiled.
So it turns out that Leon is Frank’s father, and this really ties into what I believe the main theme of this novel to be – that of fathers and sons, and family relationships. Both men have fathers which have been less than helpful while they were growing up, and so they are forced to rely on themselves for most of their strength. This cycle is handed down from generation to generation, and it’s a bit depressing when you think about it. What makes this better, though, is that Wyld gives us some hope – Frank befriends a young girl whose own family has its own problems, and their relationship is touching.
With two stories next to each other, it’s hard not to pick a favourite. Indeed, it seems to be human nature to compare. And, alas, I am no different. Personally, I thought the Leon half was the better of the two – but not by much. I love Leon as a character, a young man abandoned by his parents trying desperately to salvage their own relationship, with no room for their own son. Even though they constantly beg for him to join them down the coast, I wonder if they knew that he would never act upon these invitations. The Vietnam sections are also nicely done, but it is the post-Vietnam stuff that really makes this novel worth it. As you begin to realise what is happening, and who Frank and Leon really are, the novel really picks up, and the final chapters are beautifully portrayed – the introduction of religion adds something that really forces you to think carefully about the relationship between these two men. Having them not meet is also important, I think – they have nothing to say to each other, and keeping these two stories discreet is the best way to ensure the disconnect is done properly.
A quick note on the writing itself. I love it! Wyld is an excellent writer, and of particular note is the dialogue, which is beautifully done. Frank’s colloquial rhythms, and the colloquialisms of the locals with which he interacts, are perfectly done, and contribute to a uniquely Australian writing style. It’s something that I think only a few Australian authors actually dare to do, and I love that Wyld has done this in her first novel. Hopefully this is a style she will propagate and use in her later work.
After the Fire, A Still Small Voice is a strong, assured debut. It is not a complicated story, but it allows focus onto two excellently drawn men, both flawed in their own way, and somewhat dysfunctional. This is a definite ‘yes’ from me.
In my recent ‘reading less’ period, I’ve been trying to pick short books, in the hope that I will actually get through them at a reasonable rate. I have no idea why I”m not reading as much as I used to, but there you go. And yes, I should have known that, even though Woolf’s books aren’t physically big, they are chock full of heavy ideas, and prose, so it’s taken me a bit longer than I expected…
Six children are playing in a park near the sea. Their thoughts are unordered, random, and noisy – spilling onto the page. As they being to mature, though, their thoughts become more orderly, more concerted. And so, as they begin to grow up, and move into the world, we follow the progress of their lives, and how dependent they have become on each other, and how lonely each one of them is in the modern world.
This is Woolf’s most experimental work, and regarded by many as her greatest. At least, that’s what the blurb says. As experimental works go, it’s pretty good. While The Waves is ostensibly narrated in third person, the only things the narrator says are the names of the six characters, and the word “said”. It reads almost as a script, with the dialogue alternating between each of the six characters, often in the same scene. Until the final section, the characters narrate their surroundings in present tense, providing a somewhat unique experience, as you are fully immersed within this world. The last chapter is narrated in past tense – an old man reflecting on his life, wondering if it was all worth it.
While there are six separate characters in this novel, they are, to some extent, facets of the same person – perhaps Woolf herself. They all share similar thoughts, fears and desires, and for most of them, a reliance on the other characters. Interestingly, these characters are most dissimilar during their formative years – as rowdy children, and as somewhat suppressed schoolkids, they retain some sense of individuality. As their lives slowly inch forward, however, they become more and more like each other, their inner monologues occasionally interlocking, and definitely complementing the others that surround their own.
So, six facets of Woolf’s own personality. We have Bernard, the writer; Louis, the insecure Australian outsider; Neville, the man looking for love in the same sex; Jinny, the socialite; Susan, the woman who finds solace outside the city, searching for motherhood; and Rhoda, always seeking solitude. To some extent, I think the male characters work much better than the female characters here, except perhaps in the school scenes – the women tend to fade into the background as the novel progresses. I love the insecurity of Louis, though, and the measures he resorts to in order to find someone who likes him – not that his friends don’t, but his constant questioning of himself means that he never truly fits in. Bernard is excellently drawn, too – partially because it is he who closes the novel, and muses on life and death in ways that only Woolf can ever do.
Woolf’s writing is as impenetrable as any other good modernist stylist, but what she says is written with such beauty, it almost doesn’t matter. As the title might suggest, it is sometimes better to simply let the words wash against you, enjoy the feeling, and pick up the flimsy plot as you go on. Just wait for the next part of the framing story – a lovely little short story about one day at a beach. To some extent, the plot (such that it is) isn’t important. This definitely falls into the character study basket, and that’s ok. We get a thoroughly interesting insight into this one (or six, depending on how you view it) character, and almost every single thought they ever have – from childhood to death.
I’m not sure how I feel about The Waves just yet. I know I’ve just read a work of genius, but I probably couldn’t tell you what it was trying to tell me. So, completely modernist in its style, then. I do love the language, though, and the audacity Woolf has to try and pull something like this off. And pull it off, she does – this novel is not a one trick pony, and beyond its unique structure lies a complex and thought provoking character study into (perhaps) her own mind.
Over at the World Literature Forum, a book group has started up, and this month’s pick (the first one), is this novel. Unfortunately, this novel and I have some history – I first tried to read it about five years ago at school, when we studied postmodernism. I didn’t get past the first chapter though. After several more attempts the same year, it lay on my shelf, abandoned, until now. And I’ve finally finished it. It’s only taken five years, but it’s worth all the pain.
You pick up Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler, and get yourself ready to read this author’s excellent work. As you read, however, you realise that something isn’t right. The first chapter is not of the novel you thought at all. Returning to the bookshop, you realise the wrong pages are in your copy. However, once you read another incorrect novel, you begin to realise that something far bigger is going on here.
The term ‘postmodern’ is bandied around a lot today to describe anything that is even a little bit out of the accepted terms of realism. But here we have a bona fide piece of postmodern literature, commenting on reading and writing as acts of reader and writer, as well as being self-reflexively aware of the stories that are contained within this specific novel. Calvino’s focus is on the act of reading, and how each person approaches it, and how people can come together by reading similar novels, or by investigating the world of the novel as a group. The main character (arguably the person reading the novel at the time) meets the Other Reader, whose world is far more complicated than it appears at first glance, and together they travel across the globe trying to sort out the literary mystery of Ermes Marana, travelling through a whole swathe of literary styles as we go.
There are a lot of sly digs at literary critics in universities and the work they do in relation to telling the public how to read certain novels, and the petty fights they get into about translated and world literature. These caricatures of professors are just one example of something that pervades this novel – humour. With all the literary pyrotechnics going off the background, there was a big chance that this novel could have come off as a giant pretentious waste of time. But it’s not. This is actually a quite funny novel, which is probably for the best, because the premise is so ridiculous and bonkers, that had Calvino tried to treat it as a weighty, serious tome, it wouldn’t have worked. Instead, he is happy to revel in the insanity of his characters and situations, and allow us to remember the reasons we read – for the joy of being able to escape the world, to find out about the world around us, or any one of the many other reasons.
I should make mention of the pieces of text that we read as the story moves along. Some of them are absolutely brilliant short vignettes in their own right, and are playful nods to many literary movements and styles of the twentieth century. Special mentions must go to the first extract, with it’s murky train station and briefcase exchange, as well as the South American one, which I loved for no reason in particular. Of course, these extracts are not just sidesteps from the main narrative – they tie back in, and continue many of the themes that the two main characters are exploring in the real world. Well, in the not fake world. Well, somewhere, anyway. That’s another concern of Calvino’s, by the way, and one that certainly fits in with the postmodern mindset – what is real, what is fake, and can anything be original anymore? Does it even matter? One fictional Irish author had seen someone writing in his style and thought that the end result was better than anything he had ever done.
There’s a lot – and I mean a truckload – of stuff going on in this novel, so I should probably stop now. But this is an excellent, excellent novel. It has so much to say about literature and reading that anyone who calls themself an intelligent reader should read this. Now. I’m sure I’ve missed at least half of what Calvino was trying to tell me, but this is definitely a book that deserves a careful reread.
