Christopher Frayling [Saturday Guardian 05.05.12 Review], in discussing Bram Stoker, claims that 'it has .... become fashionable to reclaim Stoker as an Irish author - just as Francis Bacon has been reclaimed as an Irish painter and Wilde as an Irish playwright'.
It is news to me that one's birthplace is a question of 'fashion'! Or does Frayling resent the literary success of the Irish? Maybe he also considers Joyce and Beckett French?
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Update
It was a sad day last week when I read that Antonio Tabucchi died on 25 March. Tabucchi was the author of Pereira Maintains, a beautifully written captivating novel set in Lisbon in August 1938, which tells the story of a journalist who resolutely and with great cunning opposes Salazar's dictatorship. You can see my review published 8 November last year. This is an author you must not miss.
In case any of you missed it, the shortlist for the Orange Prize has been announced as follows: Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright, Half Blood Blues [Esi Edugyan], Painter of Silence [Georgina Harding], The Song of Achilles [Madeline Miller], Foreign Bodies [Cynthia Ozick] and State of Wonder [Ann Patchett]. So get reading! The award ceremony will take place on 30th May. I can certainly recommend Half Blood Blues which I reviewed on 10 December last and, also, Forgotten Waltz which I reviewed last June.
For anyone of a 'certain age', you might like to know that Cynthia Ozick is 80 years old [or young!] so there is an alternative to atrophy out there.
In case any of you missed it, the shortlist for the Orange Prize has been announced as follows: Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright, Half Blood Blues [Esi Edugyan], Painter of Silence [Georgina Harding], The Song of Achilles [Madeline Miller], Foreign Bodies [Cynthia Ozick] and State of Wonder [Ann Patchett]. So get reading! The award ceremony will take place on 30th May. I can certainly recommend Half Blood Blues which I reviewed on 10 December last and, also, Forgotten Waltz which I reviewed last June.
For anyone of a 'certain age', you might like to know that Cynthia Ozick is 80 years old [or young!] so there is an alternative to atrophy out there.
Monday, March 12, 2012
The Art of Living by Chad Harbach
I did a live review of this book for LMFM last week so I thought I should blog my thoughts on it too!
Once again, the Great American Novel is upon us, hot on the heels of Freedom, and with similar great expectations. Its reception in the States has been amazing with all the critics rushing to acclaim it while on this side of the Atlantic, it has even been reviewed in advance of sales! So, undaunted by its 500+ pages, I bought it and read it. Followers of my blog will know that I have lamented the increasing trend for block busters that seem - with few exceptions - to encourage lazy writing and even lazier editing. And The Art of Living is not an exceptional block buster and would benefit from some blue pencilling. And this surprised me as Chad Harbach has been working on this for ten years while being co-editor and co-founder with Keith Gessen of a very high brow and literary journal N+1.
However, that being said, the appeal of this book is obvious. This is an old fashioned story of family, friendship and love, a book of becoming and, being a 'sports' book, it has of course a critical moment, a 'Disney' moment in a crucial match that will alter lives. Harbach writes fluently producing edgy dialogue and likeable characters with whom one can easily identify. Though the backdrop of the book is baseball, ignorance of the game is no handicap to understanding the story. I was reminded somewhat of Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, but Harbach eschews the thought and depth of characterization of O'Neill's writing.
The story itself involves five characters: Henry Skrimshander, a country boy with an enormous talent for catching and throwing balls, is spotted by Mike Schwartz, a baseball player for the University of Westish, a fictional liberal arts college on the shores of Lake Michigan, and given a scholarship. At the University, he rooms with Owen, a sophisticated, stylish gay student also a member of the baseball team, and he quickly makes his mark bringing the University baseball team to unheard of victories. The College President, Affenlight, takes an interest in sports while his daughter, Pella, comes back to Westish following the failure of her marriage to an older man and promptly falls in love with Mike. So far so good. Halfway through the book, the story reaches a critical moment and I wondered where it would go from there but Harbach goes on effortlessly drawing us with him.
As I say, this is a book of becoming - all the characters seem to be searching and changing their lives and interacting in a way that reflects the game they are all centred on. In many ways, Harbach is reminiscent of Franzen and Freedom, and the search for the American dream. It is a fairytale.
Once again, the Great American Novel is upon us, hot on the heels of Freedom, and with similar great expectations. Its reception in the States has been amazing with all the critics rushing to acclaim it while on this side of the Atlantic, it has even been reviewed in advance of sales! So, undaunted by its 500+ pages, I bought it and read it. Followers of my blog will know that I have lamented the increasing trend for block busters that seem - with few exceptions - to encourage lazy writing and even lazier editing. And The Art of Living is not an exceptional block buster and would benefit from some blue pencilling. And this surprised me as Chad Harbach has been working on this for ten years while being co-editor and co-founder with Keith Gessen of a very high brow and literary journal N+1.
However, that being said, the appeal of this book is obvious. This is an old fashioned story of family, friendship and love, a book of becoming and, being a 'sports' book, it has of course a critical moment, a 'Disney' moment in a crucial match that will alter lives. Harbach writes fluently producing edgy dialogue and likeable characters with whom one can easily identify. Though the backdrop of the book is baseball, ignorance of the game is no handicap to understanding the story. I was reminded somewhat of Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, but Harbach eschews the thought and depth of characterization of O'Neill's writing.
The story itself involves five characters: Henry Skrimshander, a country boy with an enormous talent for catching and throwing balls, is spotted by Mike Schwartz, a baseball player for the University of Westish, a fictional liberal arts college on the shores of Lake Michigan, and given a scholarship. At the University, he rooms with Owen, a sophisticated, stylish gay student also a member of the baseball team, and he quickly makes his mark bringing the University baseball team to unheard of victories. The College President, Affenlight, takes an interest in sports while his daughter, Pella, comes back to Westish following the failure of her marriage to an older man and promptly falls in love with Mike. So far so good. Halfway through the book, the story reaches a critical moment and I wondered where it would go from there but Harbach goes on effortlessly drawing us with him.
As I say, this is a book of becoming - all the characters seem to be searching and changing their lives and interacting in a way that reflects the game they are all centred on. In many ways, Harbach is reminiscent of Franzen and Freedom, and the search for the American dream. It is a fairytale.
Orange Prize 2012
In case any of you have missed the long list for the Orange Prize, here it is! It includes three Irish authors - Aifric Campbell who has been listed for her current novel On The Floor, which centres around a female trader in the City of London; Emma Donoghue for The Sealed Letter, a historical novel about a divorce in London in the 1860s, and Anne Enright who has been listed for The Forgotten Waltz.
Karin Alternberg, Island of Wings (Quercus, Swedish)
Aifric Campbell, On the Floor (Serpent's Tail, Irish)
Leah Hager Cohen, The Grief of Others (The Clerkenwell Press, American)
Emma Donoghue, The Sealed Letter (Picador, Irish)
Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail, Canadian)
Anne Enright, The Forgotten Waltz (Jonathan Cape, Irish)
Roopa Farooki, The Flying Man (Headline, Review British)
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (Quercus, American)
Georgina Harding, Painter of Silence (Bloomsbury, British)
Jane Harris, Gillespie & I (Bloomsbury, British)
Francesca Kay, The Translation of the Bones (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, British)
A.L. Kennedy, The Blue Book (Jonathan Cape, British)
Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus (Harvill Secker, American)
Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (Bloomsbury, American)
Cynthia Ozick, Foreign Bodies (Atlantic Books, American)
Ann Pratchett, State of Wonder (Bloomsbury, American)
Ali Smith, There but for the (Hamish Hamilton, British)
Anna Stothard, The Pink Hotel (Alma Books, British)
Stella Tillyard, Tides of War (Chatto & Windus, British)
Amy Waldman, The Submission (William Heinemann, American)
Aifric Campbell, On the Floor (Serpent's Tail, Irish)
Leah Hager Cohen, The Grief of Others (The Clerkenwell Press, American)
Emma Donoghue, The Sealed Letter (Picador, Irish)
Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail, Canadian)
Anne Enright, The Forgotten Waltz (Jonathan Cape, Irish)
Roopa Farooki, The Flying Man (Headline, Review British)
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule (Quercus, American)
Georgina Harding, Painter of Silence (Bloomsbury, British)
Jane Harris, Gillespie & I (Bloomsbury, British)
Francesca Kay, The Translation of the Bones (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, British)
A.L. Kennedy, The Blue Book (Jonathan Cape, British)
Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus (Harvill Secker, American)
Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (Bloomsbury, American)
Cynthia Ozick, Foreign Bodies (Atlantic Books, American)
Ann Pratchett, State of Wonder (Bloomsbury, American)
Ali Smith, There but for the (Hamish Hamilton, British)
Anna Stothard, The Pink Hotel (Alma Books, British)
Stella Tillyard, Tides of War (Chatto & Windus, British)
Amy Waldman, The Submission (William Heinemann, American)
The shortlist is out on 17 April and the winner will be revealed on 30 May. The heavy hitters would be Anne Enright, Esi Edugyan, A.L. Kennedy, Cynthia |Ozick and Ali Smith. I reviewed Anne Enright's book last Jjne and Edugyan's in October!
Monday, February 20, 2012
Why Writers really need to watch their weight
I have unashamedly pinched Robert McCrum's header from his column on books in yesterday's Observer Review [19 February] in which he laments the increasing rarity of the 'slim volume' as this was exactly our moan at the last book group meeting. As McCrum says, 'the covers of books are too far apart'!
The moan arose because everyone had so enjoyed Barnes' Sense of an Ending remarking particularly how much he could say in 150 pages and other similarly brief titles came to mind such as Monsieur Linh and His Child, Saramago's Death at Intervals, Marani's New Finnish Grammar and, of course, the incomparable Point Omega by DeLillo. All titles that are brief in terms of pages but far more complex in emotion, thought and characterization than so many of the block busters one has to wade through nowadays where the lack of the editor's blue pencil is so obvious. Beckett of course was the master of a few words.
Of course, I do not deny that their are some mighty tomes worthy of their length and depth such as War and Peace or A la recherche de temps perdu or Ulysses - one could go on - but then, there is also The Strangers Child and Freedom and, more recently, The Art of Fielding whose lengths are baffling and tedious.
Thank you Robert McCrum for drawing attention to this issue!
The moan arose because everyone had so enjoyed Barnes' Sense of an Ending remarking particularly how much he could say in 150 pages and other similarly brief titles came to mind such as Monsieur Linh and His Child, Saramago's Death at Intervals, Marani's New Finnish Grammar and, of course, the incomparable Point Omega by DeLillo. All titles that are brief in terms of pages but far more complex in emotion, thought and characterization than so many of the block busters one has to wade through nowadays where the lack of the editor's blue pencil is so obvious. Beckett of course was the master of a few words.
Of course, I do not deny that their are some mighty tomes worthy of their length and depth such as War and Peace or A la recherche de temps perdu or Ulysses - one could go on - but then, there is also The Strangers Child and Freedom and, more recently, The Art of Fielding whose lengths are baffling and tedious.
Thank you Robert McCrum for drawing attention to this issue!
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Waterline by Ross Raisin
Raisin's first book, God's Own Country, was a triumph and a delight, full of humour and acute observations of his compatriots and won him among other awards, the Guardian First Book Award. I was therefore excited to see a second book by him in the lists but wary also as second books often disappoint. Not in this case. Waterline is a challenge, a deep study of a man dealing in an extraordinary way with loss. But it is not depressing because Raisin, just when you think you can bear no more, makes you laugh - not just smile but an acknowledgement that to live in this world at all you must have a sense of humour.
The narrative is about Mick, a Glasgow minicab driver, a job he had turned to after the closure of the shipyards where he had been a skilled worker fiercely proud of each ship launched. After a spell in Australia, he, his wife Cathy and their son, Craig, return to Glasgow and rebuild their lives. Robbie the eldest son married and stayed in Australia. The novel opens with the death of Cathy from asbestosis for which Mick blames himself with the grim reminder of the asbestos dust that used to cover his work clothes laundered by Cathy. After the funeral, when all the family have left and Mick is alone, he becomes obsessed by the fact that he cannot picture his wife's face and soon cannot bring himself even to enter the house, preferring to spend his days and nights in the garden shed with increasing amounts of alcohol until finally he ups sticks and takes a bus to London where he changes his name and takes up a job as a pot washer in a hotel in Heathrow. After a short time he is fired and finds himself on the streets, homeless and penniless but too proud to seek help from the 'social'. He meets up with another Glaswegian in a similar predicament, Beans, and together they lurch from night shelters to soup kitchens to park benches in an odyssey told by Raisin with such compassion and love that we can never again look a homeless person in the eye without guilt.
Raisin has a skill in writing about the overlooked in society. He is a Yorkshireman and set his first novel in Yorkshire but this time has moved to Glasgow where he has never lived and yet he handles the colourful Weegie slang with ease. His description of and insights into the relationships Mick has with his sons, Craig and Robbie, and with Beans are profound and moving. Mick's feelings are deep but like many men from his background, he is not articulate in voicing them. Craig resents his father and blames him for his mother's death and, in an effort to improve their relationship, Mick goes for a pint with Craig and in the pub, the pair sit in silence with desultory glances at a football match on TV but nevertheless, afterwards, Mick feels closer to his son. Here Raisin is dealing with those on the 'waterline' of society, just barely keeping their heads afloat. In one of his recollections, Mick remembers the painters of the great ships he help build and how they used to leave their nicknames scrawled along the waterline, just barely visible. And Mick becomes, for a time, one of those on the margins of society, just barely visible.
Without wanting to introduce a spoiler, the ending might be thought, as Anthony Cummins from the Observer did, 'schmaltzy' and 'sun-kissed' but it has a certain inevitability and in no way detracts from the impact and poignancy of the story. In an interview, Ross Raisin, on commenting about the level of society that he writes about, said 'I'm interested in how responsible society is for someone like Mick, and how much someone like Mick chooses to detach themselves from society like that, and how a person might become, bit by bit, day by day, a bit detached from the world, to the point where the world no longer recognises that person as an individual.’
Read it and weep!
The narrative is about Mick, a Glasgow minicab driver, a job he had turned to after the closure of the shipyards where he had been a skilled worker fiercely proud of each ship launched. After a spell in Australia, he, his wife Cathy and their son, Craig, return to Glasgow and rebuild their lives. Robbie the eldest son married and stayed in Australia. The novel opens with the death of Cathy from asbestosis for which Mick blames himself with the grim reminder of the asbestos dust that used to cover his work clothes laundered by Cathy. After the funeral, when all the family have left and Mick is alone, he becomes obsessed by the fact that he cannot picture his wife's face and soon cannot bring himself even to enter the house, preferring to spend his days and nights in the garden shed with increasing amounts of alcohol until finally he ups sticks and takes a bus to London where he changes his name and takes up a job as a pot washer in a hotel in Heathrow. After a short time he is fired and finds himself on the streets, homeless and penniless but too proud to seek help from the 'social'. He meets up with another Glaswegian in a similar predicament, Beans, and together they lurch from night shelters to soup kitchens to park benches in an odyssey told by Raisin with such compassion and love that we can never again look a homeless person in the eye without guilt.
Raisin has a skill in writing about the overlooked in society. He is a Yorkshireman and set his first novel in Yorkshire but this time has moved to Glasgow where he has never lived and yet he handles the colourful Weegie slang with ease. His description of and insights into the relationships Mick has with his sons, Craig and Robbie, and with Beans are profound and moving. Mick's feelings are deep but like many men from his background, he is not articulate in voicing them. Craig resents his father and blames him for his mother's death and, in an effort to improve their relationship, Mick goes for a pint with Craig and in the pub, the pair sit in silence with desultory glances at a football match on TV but nevertheless, afterwards, Mick feels closer to his son. Here Raisin is dealing with those on the 'waterline' of society, just barely keeping their heads afloat. In one of his recollections, Mick remembers the painters of the great ships he help build and how they used to leave their nicknames scrawled along the waterline, just barely visible. And Mick becomes, for a time, one of those on the margins of society, just barely visible.
Without wanting to introduce a spoiler, the ending might be thought, as Anthony Cummins from the Observer did, 'schmaltzy' and 'sun-kissed' but it has a certain inevitability and in no way detracts from the impact and poignancy of the story. In an interview, Ross Raisin, on commenting about the level of society that he writes about, said 'I'm interested in how responsible society is for someone like Mick, and how much someone like Mick chooses to detach themselves from society like that, and how a person might become, bit by bit, day by day, a bit detached from the world, to the point where the world no longer recognises that person as an individual.’
Read it and weep!
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Death Comes to Pemberley
Out book club last night discussed The Sense of an Ending and in the course of the discussion, P.D. James' new title, Pemberley came up. James, one of our members - none of whom are ever stuck for the mot juste - delivered the most pithy and conclusive review of a book I have ever heard, viz;
If you like Jane Austen and enjoy detective novels, you will hate this.
What more can one say?
If you like Jane Austen and enjoy detective novels, you will hate this.
What more can one say?
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