80 - 'A Wild Sheep Chase' by Haruki Murakami

So now we come to Murakami's first 'real' book, his first real novel, and the first one available in English without resorting to Amazon and internet searches for pirated PDFs. 'A Wild Sheep Chase' is the third book in 'The Trilogy of the Rat' and marks the first time that Murakami painted his views, themes and slightly bizarre imagination on a wider canvas. The first time I read this book, I think I must have been suffering from Murakami overload as I remember the story dragging a little. On a second reading, this was a superb story.

Our old nameless friend (whom, as regular readers will know, I decided to nickname 'Toru' - for the sake of convenience...) is now approaching thirty and is still working with his friend in their company, which has branched out from translation into advertising. In the five years which have elapsed since 'Pinball, 1973', Toru has married (possibly the secretary introduced in the previous book) and recently divorced, leaving him at a crossroads in his life. His good friend The Rat has recently made contact by letter for the first time since leaving their hometown five years ago and has sent Toru, amongst other things, a picture of a sheep farm, asking him to use it at some point. And then, one day, things take a turn for the... well, the only word for it would be weird.

Without giving too much away, the rest of the book involves a girl with the most beautiful ears in the world, a henchman of one of the most successful businessmen (and exerters of political influence) in the country, a strange hotel (where sheep are the main topic of discussion) and the enigmatic Sheepman (whotalkslikethisfornoapparentreasonthaticanthinkof). And that's without mentioning the sheep who may be looking to control the world...

It sounds crazy, and it quite possibly is, but the whole scenario is grounded by the everyman central character arbitrarily known as Toru. As a reader, we experience the events of the novel, the mundane and the extraordinary, through the eyes of an average Japanese man, disillusioned by life and the modern world. While the things that happen to him seem incredible, the reality is that, presented in the way they are, any of us would probably approach them in the same way.

Toru, in effect, has nothing to lose. As he says, once he makes the decision to quit his company, he has nothing to hold him down: no wife, no job, no hometown. His decision to go on, what is literally, a wild-sheep chase, is unsurprising given his situation in life and could even be a very attractive proposition for those of us who have left the globetrotting days of our twenties behind us. This quest for the sheep with the star on its back is also a search for a way to return to the carefree days of his youth, an attempt (an excuse even) to find The Rat again and go back to the good old days where the two of them sat for nights at a time at the counter of J's bar, talking about nothing and drinking way too much.

The search for the sheep is also a reaction against the modern world and its obsession with consumerism. Since taking on the added work in advertising, Toru has felt unhappy, and his partner has started drinking too much. The world has moved on from the simpler times of Toru's childhood (indeed, in his hometown, even the beach has moved on as the town has reclaimed land from the sea!), leaving him feeling at odds with the world he is now living in. Several scenes in the book, including his musical tastes, show that Toru has a strong sense of nostalgia and struggles to adapt to a modern, commercial environment.

One example of this is the way he interacts with the smooth-talking, highly-educated, well-dressed sidekick of the big boss. This is the classic encounter of capitalist success versus suburban mediocrity (and any casual Murakami fan will know which one the great man prefers...). The man in the suit represents everything which is bad with capitalism, everything which renders the common man paralysed in his dealings and comfortably numb in his everyday life. By standing up to him and taking him on, even at the expense of his livelihood, Toru represents all of us in our struggles to be more than just a statistic contributing to GDP (especially poignant to many readers and bloggers who are more concerned about quality of life than quality of furniture).

And the sheep (yes, there is a sheep)? Don't quote me on this, but I feel the sheep represents ambition and a drive to be as successful (as opposed to happy) as one can be. I'm not going to expand on this (I don't want to spoil the book for you); I just think that the sheep represents the driving force behind the ideology which Toru and The Rat are obviously so uncomfortable with.

But, of course, there is no Toru; this is just a name I chose (not entirely randomly) to represent a character whose name we never learn. This trick of generalising his characters, either by a lack of names or by spelling their names in the katakana syllabary (usually reserved for foreign loanwords), is a deliberate attempt on Murakami's part to make his 'heroes' as universal as possible. Our main man makes this quite clear himself in 'A Wild Sheep Chase': in a conversation with his girlfriend, he claims not to really need names - he, you, they, are all you really need. Before you scoff - how often do you actually use your partner's name (at least in their presence)...

'The Trilogy of the Rat' technically ends with this book (which, in case you hadn't realised, I now think is brilliant), but Murakami obviously wasn't quite finished with his first group of characters. Our friend returns one more time in 'Dance, Dance, Dance', a novel which I enjoyed immensely the first time I read it and one which I am planning to read before the end of the year. So here's an idea: why don't you come back in a month or so, and I'll tell you all about it? Agreed? See you then...

79 - 'The Temple of Dawn' by Yukio Mishima

Well, we're three-quarters of the way through 'The Sea of Fertility' series; the end is in sight. Whether there's an answer in sight is another question altogether. 'The Temple of Dawn' is a very different book to its predecessors ('Spring Snow' and 'Runaway Horses'), not only in its settings but also in the focus on character and Buddhist theology. Let me explain further...

The third book of the series begins in 1940 in Bangkok, where our old friend, Shigekuni Honda, is working on behalf of a Japanese trading company. Either side of a mystical trip to India (where he visits a couple of the locations described in 'A Suitable Boy' - only a decade or so earlier!), Honda is taken to meet a Thai Princess, the daughter of one of the Princes he knew during his school days. Of course, it's not as simple as all that; you see, Princess Chantrapa, or 'Ying Chan', claims to be the reincarnation of a Japanese man...

After his return to Japan (and glossing nicely over the war years), Honda is disturbed in his relaxed and successful life by a further encounter with Ying Chan, now a seductive nineteen-year-old exchange student who has forgotten about her youthful claims of former lives. He struggles to balance two counteracting emotions in his life: his desire for the young woman's body and his belief in reincarnation coupled with his link to Kiyoake and Isao. Is Ying Chan really who she once claimed to be?

As mentioned, one of the major differences in this book is the focus on Honda. Where, in the first two parts, he was the foil to Kiyoaki and Isao and a sort of entry point for the reader, in 'The Temple of Dawn' he is drawn out as a major character, and the results are not always flattering. His success in his work has allowed him to indulge in his hobby of reading Buddhist tracts, and a later stroke of fortune enables him to retreat into his private world. However, the more he steps back into his cocoon, the more his energies start to go in other directions. We are told of (and shown) his penchant for voyeurism, and his pursuit of the young Thai princess, while starting innocently enough, becomes increasingly desperate as the novel progresses.

The timescale of the story, stretching from 1940 to 1953 (with a postscript in 1967), also contributes to the change Mishima makes his subject undergo. His financial success seems inversely linked to his physical appearance; as Honda passes through the autumn of his life, we are exposed to his growing stomach, his shrinking muscles, his troublesome teeth. In this context, the nubile, lithe, tanned body of his obsession stands out all the more.

Honda's obsession is all the more consuming as it is linked to his past. He swings between his lust and his desire to find out whether or not Ying Chan is the reincarnation of his friends. In fact, this fact is to be the deciding factor in his decision as to whether or not to sleep with the Princess (a decision which is not really his to make).

It is a little unfair to compare 'The Temple of Dawn' with the first two books, but I never claimed to be fair. This book does not have the poetic beauty of 'Spring Snow' or the fiery anger and passion of 'Runaway Horses', and there are some issues with the story. As you will read in any review of this book, the long section on reincarnation tends to stop the reader dead in their tracks; the theological discussions act like a giant pool of quicksand, sucking the reader down and draining them of their reading energy. Yes, reincarnation is the central theme of the tetralogy, but a quick summary here and there would have sufficed...

Once past this (looooooong) discussion, however, the story does pick up, Once you realise that Honda is the star of the show and that Ying Chan is merely the foil for his character development, the book becomes much more enjoyable. We experience with him the frustrations of his life and his regrets for the conventional way he has lived it so far. Unlike Kiyoaki and Isao, his actions are not underpinned by the beauty and dynamism of youth, and, therefore, seem tawdry and out of place. Nevertheless, the reader stays with him to the fiery and (in some ways) unexpected crescendo, an ending which sets up the final part of the series. And, of course, Mishima's life. Drop by in December for the conclusion...

78 - 'The Twyborn Affair' by Patrick White

What's 1474 divided by 10? What is 432 divided by 6? Answers (and relevance) later...

Anyway, I 'm here to review my latest read, 'The Twyborn Affair', a 1979 novel by the only Australian winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Patrick White (oh, alright, two if you count Coetzee). This book was nominated for the Booker Prize, but White insisted it be removed from the shortlist to allow younger writers the chance to win - which says something about him (but I'm not sure what). A brief warning: don't read this if you are planning to read the book as it's difficult to review without giving away information which could impair your enjoyment of the text.

As if any of you could tear yourselves away. Anyway, White's novel is centred on the life of a confused creature who takes on several names and identitites in a search for peace and satisfaction. We meet our hero(ine) at three different points in his/her life: in provincial France, shortly before the outbreak of World War I; in rural New South Wales in 1920; and in London around the start of the Second World War. So far, so 'normal'. However, the reality is that in the body and mind of the Sydney-born son of a Judge and a socialite, multiple personalities and sexualities are to be found.

The book follows him/her on their quest to find a place in a world which, while well aware of differences in sexual orientation, forces people to suppress them - or, at least, keep them hidden. Whether as Eudoxia, the young Australian 'wife' of an ageing Greek aristocrat, as Eddie, the supposed 'real' identity, who attracts both genders, or the middle-aged Eadith, the chaste matron of a house of ill repute, peace of mind is hard to come by.

Gender identity is far from being the only conflict in this novel. Another major theme is the cultural difficulties felt by Australians at the time vis-a vis their colonial masters. The 'cultural cringe' felt in the past has largely subsided (or may merely have moved on to idolising American culture, rather than British); however, in 'The Twyborn Affair', the Australian characters are keen to tone down their boisterous personalities - and their broad accents - in seeking the approval of the English they meet.

Another area of interest is the relationships between parents and children. Eddie/Eadith's link to their mother is strongly felt, first in the background, then more strongly foregrounded, and the issue of parental influence and relationships crops up in other characters (including a strong hint of incest in one case). In fact, it is tempting to link Eadith's issues to his mother and her youthful bedroom indiscretions (tempting, but wrong).

From what I have read about White, there is a lot of the writer in this novel. He too was tortured by his homosexuality and spent time in the outback as a Jackaroo (his parents were trying to drive out literary, not sexual, tendencies) before finding success as a writer. At the time of writing this book, his health was in steep decline, and the language of this book, especially the first two parts, is steeped in the language of entropy and decay. The reader is constantly confronted by descriptions of pungent smells, bodily emissions, decaying objects and people. Oh, and there are farts a-plenty.

Time to come back to my maths questions. 1474/10 = 147.4 while 432/6 = 72. Yes, I may have a bit of a hangover from 'The Housekeeper and the Professor', but the sums posed actually show how difficult this book was to get into. The first shows the number of pages of my previous book (Vikram Seth's 'A Suitable Boy') divided by the number of days I read it in. The second... well, I'm sure you've got it now. Basically, I read Seth's book twice as fast as White's novel, and while that can be put down largely to the difference in complexity, it must also be attributed to my investment in the story.

In addition to the rather unpleasantly descriptive nature of certain parts of this novel, I felt that the second of the three parts dragged unnecessarily. It was about forty pages longer than the other two (and felt about 140 pages longer). I'm not quite sure why this section failed to grab me; perhaps Eddie just wasn't as interesting as his female alter-egos. I would also have liked some hints, if not the full story, as to how Eddie became Eadith. The change is presented as a fait-accompli, which is, for me at least, rather unsatisfying.

'The Twyborn Affair' is, obviously, an excellent piece of writing, unique even, from an extremely famous and talented writer. I did enjoy it, but it was a bit of a slog, and, at times, I wasn't convinced that I would actually get there. As an analysis of the problems faced by those who slip between society's neat gender divide (and a critique of the hypocritical society which attempts to maintain that distinction), it's a very powerful work. As an entertaining way to spend your time, I'd take 'A Suitable Boy' any day. However, life would be much duller if books only followed the pattern of one of these books; asking the difficult questions is just as important in literature as answering them nicely with a wedding.

77 - 'A Suitable Boy' by Vikram Seth

On the front cover of my copy of 'A Suitable Boy', there is a quote from 'The Times' saying:

"Make time for it. It will keep you company for the rest of your life".

I'm sure it's meant as praise, but, with this book running to 1474 pages, it could just as easily be a warning to slow readers that this will not be a quick one. This book is very much an epic.

'A Suitable Boy' is storytelling at its best, the kind of novel not often seen since the rise of post-modernism and the demise of the great Victorian novel. The book is peopled with a whole cast of characters intermingling across the length and breadth of post-independence India. Through these connected stories, over the space of eighteen months, Seth explores the life of his home country and examines the political, social and religious institutions which existed after the departure of the English.

The story begins and ends with a wedding, and, in that sense, nods just as much in the direction of Jane Austen (who receives a few mentions throughout the book) as of Bollywood. However, despite the frequent allusions to British literature, it is Russian novels which come to mind; the multiple strands with characters appearing in several different cities and households is strongly reminiscent of the way 'Anna Karenina' makes use of its characters to broaden the reader's horizons.

Of the major plot-lines, the foremost one is, as you would expect from the title, a search for 'a suitable boy'. At the wedding of her elder daughter, Savita, in the (fictional) city of Brahmpur, Mrs. Rupa Mehra (or 'Ma', as she is known to one and all) decides that it is time to find a husband for her younger daughter, Lata. This 19-year-old student is, understandably, not overly pleased at the prospect of an arranged marriage and becomes even more obstinate when she falls in love with a fellow student she meets in a bookshop. However, as the story progresses, Lata's character develops, and she comes to see the importance of family and the necessity of pleasing everyone, not just oneself, when choosing a life partner. Eventually, she is faced with the choice of three men, each of whom wishes to make her his wife...

Each of the men has his good (and bad) points, and, predictably, each of them is connected to the main families of the story somehow. Kabir, a young Muslim student (and cricketer) who crosses paths with the Mehras at several points; Haresh, the English-educated shoe manufacturer whom Ma puts forward as her candidate for an arranged marriage; and Amit, the brother of Lata's sister-in-law and a published poet. Despite the great size of India, and its vast population, the mischievous Seth even manages to create a casual meeting for Lata's three suitors, of whom only Amit knows the intentions of the others (the fact that the meeting of Lata's three lovers occurs in Calcutta on the third day of the third cricket test between England and India is especially cheeky!).

The other main strand is the 1952 general election, the first 'real' election, after the rubber-stamping of Congress at India's first (restricted) election. The reader follows Mahesh Kapoor, the State Minister of Revenue, in his struggles of both power and conscience. While he is initially concerned merely with the passing of a law transferring land ownership from powerful local barons to the peasants who have tilled the land for generations, he gradually becomes disillusioned with the Congress party (which is being taken over by a right-wing Hindu element) and considers leaving the party.

Of course, in post-partition India, politics cannot be separated from religion, and the unprejudiced Kapoor becomes more and more dismayed by the increasingly heated nature of the political scene. Matters are not helped by the plans of the Hindu community to rebuild a Hindu shrine to the west of the local mosque - and install a giant statue of a phallus inside... This religious tension comes to a head when the festivals of Dusserah (Hindu) and Moharram (Muslim), taking place simultaneously by chance due to the Muslim use of the lunar calendar, cause blood to be shed in the streets of Brahmpur, events which will continue to have repercussions for the main characters.

The third main story concerns Kapoor's younger son, Maan, and his relationship with the courtesan, Saeeda Bai. His passionate love for the famed songstress and their subsequent affair lead to a break with his family and exile to the countryside while he sorts himself out (a move which, as with everything else in this book, has much wider ramifications than first expected). This forbidden love causes tension not only with Maan's family but also with their friends - especially the family of Nawab Khan of Baitar, which has its own links to the alluring Saeeda...

While I have outlined a few of the main plot strands, it would be impossible to discuss every sub-plot of this gargantuan book. I haven't touched on Pran's (Savita's husband) struggles with his health and his promotion prospects, Haresh's attempts to find a suitable position in the shoe-making industry, Mrs. Kapoor's ongoing attempt to win Brahmpur's best garden prize... All minor tales, yet inextricably linked to the main strands and, once the reader has immersed themself in the book, just as important.

For such a long novel, 'A Suitable Boy' is very easy to read. The story comes together as a whole so well, its structure so masterly, that the reader is compelled to press on as quickly as possible, desperate to find out what happens next. Like life itself, long sections seem to move on slowly with no real drama, only to be interrupted suddenly by chilling, unforeseen events. Good as the book is, however, there are a couple of criticisms that could be levelled at it. Firstly, this is not really a book which concentrates on characterisation (and if it had, it probably would have been a few thousand pages longer): with a few exceptions, most of the characters are described rather than felt, and the books stands on its storytelling rather than on the complexity of the psychology of its protagonists. It's also true that, as with many 'big' books, characters can go missing in action at times. With so many parallel settings to deal with, Seth handles this side of the writing well, but the reader can feel a few seconds of confusion when a character is reintroduced 300 pages after their last appearance. Amit, especially, is treated in a very cavalier way for such a major character.

However, these are minor quibbles, and the fact is that 'A Suitable Boy' is an incredible achievement. It is little wonder that Seth spent over a decade working on what was originally to be a short tale about Indian marriages. Anyone who reads it will quickly get caught up in the intricate web of interconnected lives, turning page after page in the hope of finding out how the election results will fall, whether Pran will get his promotion, who Lata will eventually choose...

As mentioned, the book finishes as it started, with a wedding, and we are able to compare the two scenes and the people present at both. Some are better off, some have loved and lost; there are some new faces, and some loved ones are no longer with us; some friends have fallen out while others have reconciled old differences. It seems as if all the loose ends have been tied up neatly for us by the end of the novel. And yet... The final scene, with Lata moving away on the train, looking back from the window but unable to see what is happening behind, is a metaphor for the reader's experience. Despite the apparently 'clean' ending, life goes on, and the characters we have come to love will continue their lives after we (finally) put the book down. Which is, in a way, slightly depressing :(

But there is good news in sight! According to Vikram Seth's wikipedia page, the novellist is tentatively planning to revisit his most famous novel, skipping a generation to look at Lata's attempts to find a good wife for her grandson; yay! This book is scheduled to be released in mid-2013 (by which time, any slow readers should have finally finished the original!). And the proposed name? 'A Suitable Girl', of course. I, for one, am counting the days...

Turning Japanese

I am now on page 850 of my current book, which means I have just over 600 pages to go - so no surprise that I haven't been quite as regular in my reviews as I usually am. Rest assured, I should be back on reviewing duties by the end of next week at the latest (provided that my wretched back doesn't take another turn for the worse).

Instead, of the aforementioned non-existent review, I thought I'd start a little series in which I look at what I'm reading and why. All of us have our own preferences and reading niches (both literal and metaphorical), so today I'll talk a little about one of mine. Are you sitting comfortably? No? Well, what do you expect me to do about it? Some people...

The observant among you (if there are any) will have already noticed the picture above, which gives away the theme of today's post - if the title hadn't given you enough of a hint. Yes, I'd like to talk about Japanese Literature and how I came to like it, even if I haven't really read enough so far to really be able to talk about the whole 'genre' in any depth. Those of you who have great eyesight (or know how to click on a photo) will have spotted that my Japanese shelf, soon to overflow and start a territorial war with the Chinese and Russian shelf just over the border (which is, historically, both apt and very unfortunate), consists of Yoko Ogawa's 'The Housekeeper and the Professor', a few Banana Yoshimoto books, three works by Yukio Mishima and every novel by Haruki Murakami which has so far appeared in English (even if one of them is a print-off of a bootleg PDF floating in cyberspace). But why?

Let's go back in time (cue Scooby Doo-type sound effects). My first experience with Japanese was back in sixth form when it was offered as an elective. For six weeks, twenty seventeen-year-old boys went through the first few chapters of the seminal (and highly boring) 'Japanese for Busy People', struggling to copy out hiragana and laughing ourselves silly at the American man on the tape (especially the way he said 'vocabulary' - it just cracked us up for some reason). After six weeks, the teacher got fed up and changed to something else which was so tedious that I no longer remember it. However, that short time was the seed for later experiences...

The next brush with Japanese occurred when I was at university. I was in my final year, an Arts student with no idea what to do after graduation, when I heard about the JET programme and applied to go and teach in Japan. In order to do well at the interview, I bought a few books and even looked up some stuff on something called 'the internet', a new invention which some computers could access (simpler times). After the interview, I was put on the waiting list, but, by the time I was offered a position, I had already accepted a job in Germany...

I stayed in Germany for two years, and it was great: I played football every weekend, got drunk with my team-mates, taught English (first in a grammar school and then in a private language school) and generally lazed around. Unfortunately, lazing around paid little (my job not much more), and I had a sizeable overdraft which my bank, somewhat unreasonably, seemed to want paid back. Then, one day, I got a letter from my mum with an advert for teaching in Japan inserted (either she knew I was interested in Japan, or she really wanted to get rid of me). Anyway, a couple of trips to London later, and it was Tschüss to Deutschland and Konnichi-Wa to Nihon!

I stayed in Japan for three years, mainly because I met my wife there and thought it would be a good idea to hang around. We both worked for a well-known company which first shafted me royally and then went bankrupt (I'm claiming a connection), but I worked for another language school in the final two of my three years there. So this is where I learned to love Japanese literature, right? Uh, no. In fact, if you're an English speaker and interested in reading Japanese books, Japan is the last place you would go as they're pretty expensive and ALL IN JAPANESE! In fact, the author I got into most during my time in Japan was Anthony Trollope as the English second-hand bookshop in Kobe had most of the Barchester Chronicles in stock. How bizarre...

In 2002, my wife and I moved to Australia (mainly because that's where she lived), and, one day, my wife went to the library and came back with a book of short stories by a Japanese writer (Haruki Murakami's 'After the Quake') because she was feeling 'natsukashii' for Japan. She hated it, I loved it, and you can imagine the rest. Since then, I've read all the fiction he's had translated into English and started branching out into the works of other authors (in part, thanks to Bellezza's 'Japanese Literature Challenge').

And that's it: me and Japanese books. The floor is now open for questions.

76 - 'Stasiland' by Anna Funder

After finishing 'Gruppenbild mit Dame', it was time to choose a new book (I described this lengthy process in an earlier post). Eventually, my eye was caught by the book you see to the left, and I decided to keep to my German theme with a switch to the other side of the wall. 'Stasiland', of course, is not a communist-era travel guide, but a non-fiction book telling of life in the part of Germany which, for forty-four years, was trapped behind the Iron Curtain.

The Staatssicherheitsdienst (or Stasi for short) was ostensibly responsible for 'state security' in the now defunct German Democratic Republic. In reality, it was the largest tool of mass suppression the world has ever known. Some sources estimate that at its height it had an informer to population ration of 1:6.5, and these informers were used to keep control of anyone who was an enemy of the state. How did you become an enemy of the state? They decided that you were one...

The writer, Anna Funder, is an Australian who lived and worked in Berlin for many years before deciding to find out a bit more about life in the former GDR and, especially, about the Stasi. She decided to interview people on both sides of the ideological divide, seeking talks with victims of Stasi interrogation and surveillance as well as with former Stasi operatives, informers and propagandists. Funder writes in a very involved, personal way and brings the stories of the previous decades alive, all the while trying to get her head around how it was possible for her to have had such a relatively free and easy upbringing while the people around her were deprived of basic human rights.

Some of the stories are heartbreaking. One woman gave birth to a baby boy with severe health problems which could only be treated at a hospital in West Berlin. After a few visits, she woke up one morning to discover a wall dividing her house from West Berlin and the hospital her son needed to visit. The son was smuggled over to the West by doctors at an East Berlin hospital, but the mother and father were not allowed to go over and join him. One day, the woman was summoned to an interview where she was offered the chance to visit her son. The price? Arranging a walk in the park with a young West Berlin student friend of the family who was known to help East Germans escape to the West - in the course of which he was to be kidnapped and transported to a Russian prison...

Another interviewee was a poster boy for the GDR regime and eventually joined the Stasi, only to find out that his father had been jailed by the secret police shortly after the war in order to stop him from becoming the mayor. When the son, on hearing his father's story, decided to quit, he was arrested on trumped-up charges of producing pornography, held in a cell for weeks and presented with a signed divorce document from his wife. The Stasi then said that he could be released and continue in his job if he signed the document too...

As well as the horrifying stories gleaned from the interviews, Funder also looks at what happened after the wall fell. This was a truly historical event, and one which was totally unexpected. My wife's family left Poland about a month before it happened, and an East German member of the football team I played in when I lived in Germany had a similar experience. Shortly before the wall came down, Hungary opened its border with Austria, creating the first gap in the Iron Curtain. Fearing that this expression of freedom would be crushed by the Russians within a short time (as had happened in the past in other places where uprisings had occurred) he set off, with his wife, son and father-in-law(!) on the long trek from the north of the GDR, down to Hungary, across the border to Austria and then back north to Westfalen (in the North-West of the Federal Republic of Germany - FRG). As it happened, he was waiting in a queue to cross the Austro-Hungarian border when the news came through that it was all over: now that's bad timing.

Of course, at the time, there was a huge feeling of joy, relief, vindication... the list of emotions is endless. However, once the dust (literally) had settled, it was not quite as clear that what had happened was exactly what the people had wanted. While some top Stasi members were prosecuted, many continued happily on their way, claiming (in scenes reminiscent of the Nazis) that they were just doing their job. Meanwhile, the ordinary people found life in the new unified German Republic not to their liking. Capitalism saw some of them fall by the wayside; rents, food and alcohol (!) were no longer subsidised, and crime, kept to incredibly low levels by the Stasi (one of the undeniable advantages of a police state is that there's little chance of criminals getting away with it...), had become an everyday part of their lives.

Like the September 11th terrorist attacks, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a genuinely historic (and historical) event. I remember having a history lesson the next day at school where our teacher almost screamed at us, "This is it! This is history happening before your very eyes!". Of course, being a fifteen-year-old boy, I had other things on my mind at the time, but even we schoolkids could connect the events happening on our television screens with the lessons on post-war Germany we happened to be having (of course, it wasn't so good for the German department who had just bought hundreds of editions of a brand-new book which gave heaps of background information on both the FRG and the GDR. In hindsight, calling the book 'Deutsch Heute' was probably tempting fate...).

To finish this review, which has turned into a bit of a trip down memory lane, I'd like you to look back at the picture and, especially, the text in the middle. The Samuel Johnson Prize is a prize for non-fiction books, and 'Stasiland' was the 2004 winner. One of the beaten short-listed works was none other than Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'. For those of you wondering what I thought of 'Stasiland', I think that says it all better than I ever could. I'm not going to tell you what happened to the people whose stories I told you about (you'll just have to read the book), but before you judge them, just think about what you would do in their position. It's very easy to be tough and confrontational when you're reading; not quite so easy when your whole life is at play...

75 - 'Gruppenbild mit Dame' by Heinrich Böll

I'm feeling a little washed out at the moment; reading in a foreign language does that to you. Although my German is fairly good, reading German books in the original version is always a more difficult task than reading anything in English, so getting through this 374-page novel of wartime Cologne was a big task (and I'm very happy, and relieved, to have managed it in just under a week - although my continued absence from work may have had something to do with that...). I apologise, however, dear reader, if I have led you to believe that I didn't enjoy the week; this book is definitely worth the time spent on it.

Just as with my previous Böll novel, 'Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum', 'Gruppenbild mit Dame' (translated, rather clumsily, as 'Group Portrait with Lady' - sometimes translation can be an inexact science) concentrates on a female central character, whose life is laid out for the reader through interviews and documents. However, the treatment of Leni Pfeiffer, the heroine of this novel, differs in several important ways from that of the charming (and deadly) Katharina B. Where the reason for the interest in Ms. Blum's life is clear from the start, the reader is mainly left in the dark as to why Leni's life is important enough to be reconstructed. In addition, while 'Gruppenbild mit Dame' is at least three times as long as 'Die Verlorene Ehre...', the enigmatic Leni is seldom to be seen or heard.

Of course, this is part of Böll's plan (and a very good one it is too). Through interviews with a couple of dozen friends, colleagues and family members, not only Leni's life is described; Böll also paints a picture of life in Cologne as lived by ordinary people before, during and shortly after World War II. The supposed objectivity, which gives the story a semi-historical feel, is enhanced by the use of an intermediary to gather the facts and conduct interviews. This man, known only as Der Verf. (the 'Verf.', presumably short for Verfasser, or editor) acts as a guide through the tangled web of relationships which need to be uncovered in order to find the truth about Leni's life.

At first, the book appears to drag a little. The constant interviews, the lengthy monologues (some of which go on for dozens of pages with relatively few paragraph breaks), the constant referral to sources; for the reader who is looking for an answer as to why this research is being carried out, frustration slowly sets in. However, it soon becomes clear that this research is being done to tell us about everyone - not just Leni, but all the people in her life - and how they made it through this awful time in history (and what became of them afterwards).

The main thread of the book, Leni's story, is a simple one, and we know most of it right from the start. A young German girl loses a lover at the start of the war, marries (and then loses) another soldier and then falls hopelessly in love with Boris, a Russian POW working with her in her wartime job making wreaths for funerals. It sound a little far-fetched, but Böll sets the situation up meticulously so that there is not the slightest bit of doubt as to the authenticity of the situation. Of course, this relationship would have cost both of them their lives if it had been discovered (especially with some Nazi co-workers on the lookout for any seditious activity), so it progresses slowly and in great secrecy until normal life starts to unravel in 1945.

The story makes it quite clear that the war was lost by 1945, and the fearsome air attack on Cologne on the 2nd of March (described near the end of the book in several accounts) was followed closely by the Americans' entry into the city. However, the line between war and peace was not as defined as we may expect; there was a long period where defeat was certain, but there was no telling how long the war would drag on for, and this is perhaps the most fascinating part of the book. Each of the characters interviewed had to think about both how to get through their day alive and how they would avoid punishment once the Allies had taken over. For women and children, this wasn't such a great concern, but anyone who had been heavily involved in the war effort had to make contingency plans and gather proof of their relative 'cleanliness' to use in peace time - all the while hiding this from the military who would have shot them for defeatism...

What happens after the war is even more interesting. Some of the characters come out of their ducking and diving smelling of roses while others, generally the quieter and more honest ones, struggle to make ends meet. Those who have profited from their war-time experiences stress, in their interviews with Verf., the efforts they took to help other people and the work they put in (and the risks they took) to build their fortunes. However, thanks to the multitude of sources available to the reader, we are able to hear the other side of the story, and the way the less fortunate describe events does not always tally with the description the winners give.

One of the central themes running through this book is the success of capitalism and survival of the fittest; by 1970, when Verf. is carrying out his research, the political pendulum seemed to be swinging back to the conservative side of the spectrum (if not quite to the Nazi side...). Two scenes towards the end of the novel illustrate this. In the first, two businessmen (who have known Leni since they were babies) explain why they are going to throw her out on the street, using debts she has run up as an excuse to cancel her lease (frozen at a price well below the market rate). In their eyes, Leni is failing the market system by refusing to work, even though she is only in her forties, and sub-letting rooms at the same price to foreign workers, thus perverting the market and ensuring that the workers send their money home rather than spending it in Germany!

The second involves a psychological report on Leni's son, Lev, who is in prison for deliberate falsification of documents. The report, while generally positive and well meant, criticises Lev for what it describes as his 'Leistungsverweigerung' (a refusal to perform to his full potential). That may seem a little harsh, but you need the full background to understand how harsh. Lev has always done his job well, but in his refusal to make an effort at school and his disinclination to use his talents to the full at work and move up to a managerial position, he is deemed to be offending against his employers - and his society. Capitalism gone mad...

In all this madness, we, like the characters in the book, are forced to make decisions and take a stand. It is very clear where Böll's sympathies lie, and this is shown in the way Verf.'s attitude changes as the novel nears its close, from a fully detached objective chronicler, to a more involved relater of tales until he finally (like the reader) becomes emotionally involved in the story, to the extent that he begins to be a part of the events he is supposed to be recording.

This is a very good book (as you would expect from a work which gave the Nobel Prize committee a final gentle nudge), but it's also very different. It requires a lot of patience, a fair amount of interest in the history behind it and an ability to critically engage with the text. Coming from a country on the other side of the front line, I found many of the details in this book new and surprising. Obviously, I don't know quite as much about the war as I'd thought... As the Second World War recedes into history, it's important to look back, as Böll does, to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated in the future.

Serious Issues with Libraries

Here is a lovely picture of the plum tree in my garden in full bloom a couple of weeks ago. Not for any real reason; I merely thought that my random posts deserved a picture just as much as my review posts. Very pretty, no?

Anyway, while I am tearing through another German monster as quickly as possible (a book, not some Yeti-like creature from the Bavarian Alps), I thought I'd relate a little story about something that happened to me last week. Are you sitting comfortably? Tough; I'm starting anyway...

Last week, in an attempt to ease the pain, I went off to Casey Aquatic Centre, where I whiled away an hour in the swimming pool (good for the back) and the sauna (good for the soul). On leaving the centre, on my way back to the car (a tiny, bottle-green Suzuki Baleno; I have the girl's car while my wife has a larger car, which is red - and which my daughter calls 'The Big Red Car' for obvious reasons), I noticed the local library across the road, and, avoiding the hordes of schoolkids who had just piled out of a coach on their way to tormenting the poor people who had arrived at the pool a little later than I had, I decided to pop inside (the library, not the coach) and see what I could find.

My primary aim was actually to see if they had any Julian Barnes in stock as I had expressed a desire in an earlier post to read some of his more famous works after finishing 'The Lemon Table'. They had one of his books; guess which one it was...

Anyway, I didn't give up there (obviously;otherwise, this would be a really pointless post) and decided to browse the shelves to see what goodies I could find amongst the piles of Potter and the newly-opened Dan Brown extension (with room left for his latest pile of... I mean, bestseller). As I walked past 'G' (and not 'M', strangely enough), I caught sight of some familiarly pastel-coloured books lurking on the bottom shelf, and, bending at the knees as all Catholics and bad back victims must, I had a closer look. Sure enough, just six inches above the carpet covering the floor of Narre Warren library, there were three or four books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (author of 'Love in the Time of Cholera' and 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'), none of which I'd read before.

And then, as I was stretching out my hand to pluck them from their nesting place, it happened. I froze, and a voice in my head said, "But wouldn't you rather buy these books?". I got back to my feet and stood there for about five minutes, trying to ignore what had just happened, but it was no good. The little voice had struck again, and I was forced to move on. You see, ever since I started earning enough money to buy books, even second hand, I've been loath to borrow a book which I suspect I may like because, if I do like it, I know I'll want to buy it. However, the prudent, sensible, financial side of my persona (the one who pays bills the moment it gets them and has nice spreadsheets to prove it) will then veto the purchase as there's no point buying a book you've already read. Therefore, every time I step into one of these places, I fall into the classic library Catch-22: the books are either not worth reading or too good not to buy. It's the best catch there is...

OK, I'm exaggerating slightly, but I do tend to leave libraries with books which I'm not altogether sure about rather than ones I've been wanting to read for ages. On this occasion, I eventually managed to stroll up to the desk with 'Saturday' by Ian McEwan (he's not quite up there on my must-read list yet, despite my review of 'Atonement'), 'Ignorance' by Milan Kundera (too short for me to buy full price) and some big yellow book by Martin Amis (if I can't remember the name, it's obviously not something I was planning to buy). Relieved to have run the gauntlet and come out relatively unscathed, I handed my books over, only to discover that I had left my library card in my other wallet (well, why would I need it when I was only going swimming?). As the librarian was politely, but firmly, explaining that I would be unable to take the books home with me on this particular day, I felt (and this may not surprise you) quite relieved. Obviously, it just wasn't meant to be.

As I turned to walk away, the librarian glanced at my books and said, "Good choice, though". While it's always nice to have your taste in books validated by someone who won't let you have them, I did feel that this was a little below the belt. I walked back to the little green car, lost in thought and submersed in my memories of the whole traumatic event. I'm sure I'll get over it, and I may even go back next week (I've even moved my library card into my swimming wallet - not that it swims, it's just... oh, you know what I mean), but there's one thing that bothers me about the whole experience. It's not the book choosing dilemma, uncomfortable as that was: it's the fact that despite man being able to send telescopes into space to look for evidence of life in other galaxies, Narre Warren library is unable to lend a member with three different forms of photo ID any books because he has left a tiny square of plastic at home. I think there's a moral in that for all of us.

Please let me know if you find it.

74 - 'Pinball, 1973' by Haruki Murakami

The first thing which comes to mind as I write this review is that I really should be more organised in future; this really should have been book 73... Oh well, moving along, please have a look at the beautiful cover picture on the left; nice isn't it? I imagine that it's an artist's rendition of J. and the Rat at J.'s bar (although I think I would have made it a lot darker and grimier). Sadly, I do not have that (or any) edition, and I am unlikely to in the near future. Shortly before starting this review, I had a quick look on Amazon to see how much it would set me back. Would you believe that a battered copy is available for US$446.20 while a (nearly) new copy is being offered for a cool US$2000?

The reason for this incredible over-pricing is that while 'Hear the Wind Sing', Murakami's first 'novel', is still readily available in the translation produced to help EFL learners, the English version of the follow-up book went out of print very quickly and is, therefore, now only available to the disgustingly rich. Luckily, a quick web search usually brings up a link to a PDF version - one more reason for book lovers to say hurrah for computers...

This novella takes up the story three years after the conclusion of 'Hear the Wind Sing', with our unnamed hero (who, for the sake of convenience - and for reasons which will be obvious to any true Murakami fans -, I will call Toru) now living on the outskirts of Tokyo and working in a translation agency which he has set up with a friend from university. Meanwhile, the Rat is still living in their home town, watching the sea, hanging out by the graveyard and whiling his hours away at J.'s bar at the end of the day.

As the story progresses, it becomes clear that neither of our old friends are particularly happy with their lot. Toru is stuck in a rut, accomplishing the same tedious translations day after day and spending several hours a day fighting the notoriously soul-destroying Tokyo commute; the Rat, having dropped out of university (and rich enough not to really need to do anything else), is just drifting around, waiting for something, or someone, to give his life some meaning.

The two friends, hundreds of miles apart, find different ways to deal with their existential angst (a pompous expression which, nevertheless, is particularly apt here). Toru reads Kant, spends his spare time with a nameless pair of identical twins who somehow seem to have stumbled into his life, and later goes on a quest in search of the pinball machine he used to spend his money (and time) on. The Rat, struggling to stay interested in life, falls into a convenient, yet unsatisfying, relationship with (yet another) unnamed woman, while mulling over whether or not to leave his town and follow his fate elsewhere...

At only 79 pages, the book is fairly brief, but Murakami packs a lot into his second novel, including many of the features which have won him worldwide fame. Anyone who has watched a lot of French films will be reminded of them by the mood of the book (it may, dare I say it, invoke a sense of deja vu...): the constant rain, the ever-present drinking and smoking... I think you could easily transplant this story to Paris (and the hometown to Brittany) and make a great interpretation. The sense of time passing wastefully and regret for times past are palpable, and the reader senses that something has to give. The lack of names only adds to this sense of disorientation (as do the twins; in a funny way, having two girlfriends - if that's what they are - instead of one, seems to make Toru appear lonelier than he would if he were alone).

Having talked about French films, it's an English one which comes to mind as you ponder the method to Murakami's madness - "What's it all about, Alfie?". Murakami certainly doesn't answer the big questions of life, but his protagonists definitely ponder them. Their respective efforts to shake themselves out of the rut they've fallen into may make many readers reconsider their own lifestyle choices (living in the outer suburbs of Melbourne - which, in England, would be in another county -I definitely sympathise with Toru). The big question, though, is how do the two friends resolve their issues?

Of course, Murakami's first two (short) works set up the third part of 'The Trilogy of the Rat', 'A Wild Sheep Chase', his first full-length novel, and the book where his passion for the bizarre really comes to fruition. Therefore, it's a shame that the great man is unwilling to sanction the publication of his first literary efforts; yes, I know that he probably doesn't need the money, but he'll definitely gain new fans (yes, and a few dollars too; I, for one, would snap them up in a heartbeat). You never know, it may just help him in the quest for that elusive Nobel Prize too...

73 - 'A Room With A View' by E.M. Forster

One of my favourite things in life, up there with a great Shiraz, listening to my favourite music on my (old and battered) i-Pod mini and smashing shots past the keeper from twenty-plus yards, is finding books I've wanted to read for ages in second-hand shops. When I find one by E.M. Forster for just $1.50 Australian, I'm even happier. Mr. Forster is fast shooting up my most-read-author-of-the-year list, having already supplied two of my favourite novels of 2009 ('Howard's End' and 'A Passage to India'), and, after finishing this short and sweet example of understated Edwardian fiction, I am very tempted to go after some more of his books before the end of the year.

The story is divided into two parts: the first (shorter) section is set in Florence and follows young Englishwoman Lucy Honeychurch on her leisurely holiday in Italy, introducing us (and her) to a cast of people at a boarding house, several of whom are to play further roles in the tale. After a couple of chance encounters with one of them, the young George Emerson, Lucy, under the protection of her spinster cousin Charlotte, races off to Rome - at which point the first part ends.

The second part takes place back in Lucy's home village, back in the safe home counties of the south-east of England. Safely engaged to the eligible, if somewhat loveless, Cecil Vyse, Lucy has managed to suppress any disturbing memories from her European adventures: at least, that is, until a vacant cottage is let to a couple of familiar faces...

If the above summary sounds a little bit Mills & Boon-ish, well, it does run that way at times. I haven't seen the film, but I had heard of it, and even if I hadn't seen her young face plastered across the cover of my battered copy of the book, I still might have had Helena Bonham-Carter's elfin face flashing through my mind on reading certain sections of the book. All the sources I've skimmed through agree that this is the lightest, happiest and most accessible of Forster's novels, and there is a distinct hint of chick-lit about it if you skim the surface.

However, books rarely survive past their centenary without having something a little more substantial to offer than a happy ending, and 'A Room with a View' is a lot more complex than it may appear. Lucy's awakening is part of a wider reflection on the role women should play at the start of the twentieth century. Today, it seems absurd that she requires a chaperon to travel abroad and that she acquiesces to some of the restrictive demands of the people around her, but this was the reality for women in the Victorian era, and it is only with the change of monarch and a shift in mentality (as well as the wars just around the corner...) that the first baby steps towards equality were taken. Lucy's eventual rejection of the oppressive, possessive Cecil, who regards her more as a piece of art in his collection than as a real-life, breathing, living human, parallels this wider societal development.

Society at the time of this story was changing in more ways than just the emancipation, if you like, of women; another change, represented in this novel by the Emersons, is the blurring of the lines between the formerly strictly segregated classes. Whereas, in Victorian times, the upwardly mobile were often portrayed as ungentlemanly and unworthy of the attention they sought from the more genteel, Forster reverses the roles, portraying the Emersons as quirky but 'nice' while Cecil Vyse, Reverend Beebe and, even, Lucy's mother are ridiculed for their inability to adapt to rapidly changing times. This distinction between 'static' and 'progressive' characters is an important feature in other Forster works, especially notable in the contrast in 'Howard's End' between the stick-in-the-mud Wilcoxes and the bohemian Schlegels (one of whom was played, in a Merchant-Ivory film - of course - by none other than... well, I'll let you guess...).

Forster's themes were to be drawn on their grandest canvas in 'A Passage to India' (another Merchant-Ivory adaptation), and some of the scenes in his earlier work point to those in the later text. George and Lucy's moment overlooking Florence is comparable (in a light-and-dark kind of way) to Adele Quested's moment in the Marabar caves; the Emerson' effect on the Honeychurches and their circle can be likened to the disastrous attempts to mix the native and Anglo populations in India. However, by Forster's own admission, the later novel must be considered greater as he believed it was wrong for 'modern' writers to contrive a happy ending. In this sense, indeed, 'A Room with a View' would have to be regarded as an 'inferior' novel...

It's a shame it was only mid-week (and mostly daylight) while I was reading this as I think a glass of Shiraz or two would have gone nicely with this book (or, in deference to the setting, a fine Chianti). After the tiring struggle with 'Anna Karenina' (a book which is probably best avoided by someone with back issues), Forster's subtle love story was just what the doctor (or the physio) ordered. However, it does make me think that I may have been overdoing it with the classics if this was my relaxation. Whatever the superficial similarities, this is no chick-lit; 'A Room with a View' is definitely worthy of classic status

72 - 'Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy

So, why is this book called 'Anna Karenina'? No, really, I don't get it. Rich girl marries older man, gets bored, snatches younger man from the marital wishes of a younger girl and then regrets it, just one strand among many in Tolstoy's great novel. 'Anna Karenina' (or 'AK' as I like to call it - it has a certain ring to it) is a wonderful book; Anna Karenina, on the other hand, described on the back of my edition as "one of the most loved and memorable heroines in literature", is a needy whinger who gets what she deserves. Ah, I hear the knives sharpening in the distance already...

The book was written in the mid-1870s and portrayed contemporary Russian life in its three main locations: Moscow, Petersburg (St. Petersburg to you) and elsewhere (which, in a country like Russia, contains a lot of possibilities). The eight books switch back and forth between the settings, following a host of characters interconnected by friendship, family ties or societal relations. There are two main plots (although the idea of a plot is rather loosely used here): Anna Karenina's affair with the dashing young soldier Vronsky and landowner Constantine Levin's search for both happiness and an answer to his questions about the meaning of life. Although the two stories begin with the same pivotal event (Anna's meeting with Vronsky at a ball), the two pivotal strands actually play out quite separately, only loosely tied, as mentioned above, by the fact that the two main protagonists move in the same social circles and, hence, come across the same people at different times and in different settings.

Levin, loosely based on Tolsoy himself, is on a voyage of discovery,wanting nothing more than to marry the woman he loves and, once that has been (eventually) achieved, to find out what exactly he has been put on this earth to do. The reader follows him through his eventful courtship through the great cities of Russia and back to his home territory in the country, where he tries to take out his existential angst on his farming (as good a way as any of dealing with it, I suppose). Through his eyes we see the bureaucratic, staid streets of Moscow and the hedonistic, socialite sets in Petersburg and wonder, with him, whether everyone else knows better or whether his way of life is a good one. Being a Tolstoy creation, fulfilment naturally comes with religious enlightenment, but more in the sense of a belief in a divine entity than in the steadfast committal to the teachings of any church.

The treatment of the church, what little of it there is in this book, led me to compare the background of this novel with that of another great nineteenth-century power, Britain. I've now read a fair bit of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy which allows me to make comparisons between the situation in Russia at the time with what, for example, Trollope was describing in England. In terms of religion, the Russian version seemed more vibrant and personal, but also more separate from everyday life. It would be hard to imagine any of the Shcherbatsky sisters marrying a priest (even were it permitted!), but in the world of the Barchester Chronicles and the Palliser novels, a vicar can be quite an acceptable catch. Even where marrying into the church would be considered a little beneath your standards, the clergy were also considered good company and part of the social setting, especially in the country and the provinces.

Other scenes in 'AK' which led to comparisons with Trollope were the election chapters and the scene in the great club. Obviously, Russia, only having abolished serfdom relatively recently, could not be expected to have attained the levels of Westminster proceedings by this time, but the rowdy events of the elections in 'AK' have more in common with the petty electioneering of paid agents in Dickens, Eliot and Trollope than with the almost sacred precincts of the Houses of Parliament as described in, say, 'Phineas Finn'. Similarly, the contrast between the styles of gentleman's clubs was striking. In 'AK', the London-style small, exclusive home away from home, just for a few dozen like-minded men, is replaced by a cavernous roman-style amphitheatre of luxury for the man about town. While still exclusive, all entertainments appear to be on a much larger scale - and, of course, in place of the claret and port, the drink of choice is vodka...

But, dear friends, let's not beat about the bush any longer; let's talk about old AK herself. What is it about her which people are supposed to love, and why do I just not get it? I promise you, I did try. I went into this vowing that I would forget my prejudices and try to see the positives in poor Anna, and I can see how the poor woman is trapped by circumstances, trying to navigate her way through an affair which would hardly have raised an eyebrow had the roles been reversed. In my previous post, I mentioned Tolstoy's view on the hypocrisy prevalent in attitudes towards male-female relationships, a view which is fully expanded upon, using Anna as his guinea pig. It's also true that she is written charmingly, leaving the reader in no doubt as to her allure and beauty; you can easily forgive the male characters, including Levin, for hastily revising their judgements of her on making her formal acquaintance. And yet...

Anna goes to a ball and carries on with a young man she knows is heavily involved with another woman (Kitty Shcherbatsky, ironically, the love of Levin's life); she rushes headlong into an affair with little justification other than that her husband doesn't understand her; she voluntarily runs away with her lover, leaving her son behind, choosing her own selfish satisfaction over her duties as a mother (something she admits herself); and as for her fickle, whinging, egotistical behaviour at the end of the novel... well, I had very little sympathy for it at all. I can understand that her position was difficult, but she seems to have made things as awkward as possible for herself at every step; the blame for her plight cannot be shifted onto the shoulders of her indifferent husband or her increasingly bored lover. As with many a character, fictional and real, a tragic end seems to distort our perception of Anna's true worth; certainly, I found her more of a distraction than the most important part of this great work of literature.

Putting Anna to one side though, the sheer size and scale of this piece of writing makes it difficult to compare 'AK' with many other pieces of fiction, contemporary or classical. One which comes to mind, despite the very different spheres in which the two novels are set, is George Eliot's 'Middlemarch', a work which also spends the best part of 800 pages exploring life's big themes (but in a much smaller setting). Like Eliot, Tolstoy uses the novel form to search for the truth behind our beliefs and the reasons we do what we do. That his arguments are still relevant today - and his thoughts on belief, family and society certainly are - is a reflection on how good his writing is.

Sorry. I still don't care much for Anna, though.

Tales of the Wounded

Standing, I salute you all, ready to inform you of... well, not much really. It is now eleven days since the GBC (great back crisis), and I am writing this fortified by red wine and standing with the keyboard precariously balanced on the back of my usual seat. I'm not really sure why I'm writing (although, having read the previous sentence, you may have your own thoughts on this matter), but since when did having very little to say stop anyone from publishing their thoughts (not looking at anyone in particular {cough, Dan Brown})?

Anyway, I'm ploughing through 'Anna Karenina' (again) at a fair rate of knots and will be ready with a review shortly - although you may wish to skip it if you are one of those people that Wordsworth Editions describe as regarding Anna as one of literature's best-loved creations; I don't quite see her that way... Not that I don't like the book (it's great); sometimes it's important to treat the book and the eponymous hero(ine) separately.

Nothing to report on the acquisitions front either. My absence from work (and from a computer which is not riddled with spyware) means that the Book Depository is out of bounds for the moment, and I no longer buy books from so-called 'shops' anymore - although I did get a beautiful Charlie & Lola book entitled 'This is actually MY party' for little Emily last time I ventured out of the house. Of course, I still have a dozen or so unread books snoozing somewhere on my bookcase, so it's not as if I'm going to go hungry anytime soon.

Speaking of unread books, there are a few there which must, nay, WILL be read by the end of 2009. I believe that I have already mentioned my plan to read Vikram Seth's 'A Suitable Boy', but I have a couple more novels which I would file under 'Unfinished Business'. One is 'Don Quixote', a book which I started a couple of years back but shamefully lost interest in after a hundred pages or so. The other is Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged', which I am just as determined to hate as I am to read...

One last piece of news afore ye go: as part of the impressively industrious Dan Holloway's 'Free E-Day', I will be writing a short story (all by myself!) and providing a link, here on my blog, to a free download for anyone foolish enough to wish to read it. I won't say any more about that now, but there are more details on the brochure on Dan's site for those who are interested. Oh yes, have a look at what other people are giving away too (especially Dan) - it all goes down on the 1st of December.

Hmm. Red wine does not dull pain as much as Panadeine Forte, but it definitely makes you sleepier - night, night everyone :)

71 - 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' (and other stories) by Leo Tolstoy

This will be short and sweet (and probably written over several sessions). You see, I have a very poorly back, caused by lots of typing at work (nothing to do with my blog!). On the down side, this means putting just about everything in my life on hold - work, studies, playing with my daughter (even the blog will be affected). On the up side, apart from sleeping and going to the physio, about the only thing I can do is read...

Anyway, I have recently finished the aforementioned Tolstoy collection, consisting of four novellas (or long short stories if you prefer): 'Family Happiness', 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich', 'The Kreutzer Sonata' and 'The Devil'. I can honestly say that these are not stories you should be reading if your marriage is on shaky ground (especially the last one). Let me elaborate...

In 'Family Happiness', a two-part story, a young woman falls in love with an older man, a friend of her late father (very normal for the nineteenth century, so I'm told), and we are led through her experiences - from first love, sweet courtship, marriage and honeymoon... to what comes after. Despite the minor hiccups she experiences, this is by far the cheeriest of the four tales.

Ivan Ilyich, as suggested by the title, ends up dead (and fairly early too). However, the story is concerned with how he dies and the reflection he undertakes on his life while waiting for it to end, leading him to conclude that his life (and marriage) was wasted. The next story, 'The Kreutzer Sonata', also tells us at the start how events are destined to unfold, but the skilful unveiling of the reasons behind a murder keeps the reader's attention until the very last page.

In the final story, 'The Devil', Tolstoy leaves us with two endings, allowing us to choose who (or what) the devil of the title is: is it the alluringly sexy peasant woman; or is it the sexual drive of the married landowner who cannot keep away from her, no matter how hard he tries? Either way, it doesn't end well...

The four stories reflect Tolstoy's views on love and marriage: his dislike of the 'cattle market' that the game of match-making had become; the double standards of wealthy young men sowing their wild oats while searching for a chaste, pure woman to settle down with; the evil, natural necessity of a sex drive, the removal, or repression, of which (according to Count Leo) would lead to the fulfilment of humanity. As you may have guessed, old Tolstoy wasn't very happy in his marriage...

Anyway, I'm going to leave it there: firstly, as it's very difficult to type standing up with a keyboard balanced precariously on the back of a chair; secondly, because, my interest having been piqued by these vignettes of Russian family life, I am going to have another look at the real thing. Book 72 will be Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina', and the post will be appearing... well, let's just just say it will be appearing.

70 - 'The Lemon Table' by Julian Barnes

Funny name, Julian Barnes, very English; it evokes images of Enid Blyton's 'Famous Five' stories and 'Tom Brown's Schooldays', punting on the Thames and running down to London for the weekend during Hilary Term. Unsurprisingly then, he is a very English writer, famous for his sparse, precise prose and an unerring eye for detail. The thing is, having read a few of his books, I'm not convinced. I don't mean that I dislike his writing; I've enjoyed everything of his that has come my way. It's just that I wouldn't exactly go out of my way to find one of his works (how very English of me).

How I came to read 'The Lemon Table' is a good example of what I am trying to say. For months, there has been a copy of 'Flaubert's Parrot' floating around the bargain shelves of the campus bookshop (and is it just me, or does 'Flaubert's Parrot' sound like a joke of a book title, a parody even? It always reminds me of the book launch from 'Bridget Jones' Diary' for 'Kafka's Motorbike' - one of the best few dozen books of our time, possibly), but, at only 25% off the cover price, I've never been really tempted to take it off their hands. However, when I saw Mr. Barnes' collection of short stories on offer on the last day of the recent sale, for the bargain price of $2.50 (about the price of a small cup of coffee - although, in keeping with the tone of today's post, let's make that a cup of English Breakfast tea), I had no hesitation in handing over the few sparkly pieces of metal required, even though short stories are not really my cup of tea (more Safeway Select than Earl Grey).

Of course, 'The Lemon Table' is a lovely collection of tales, all centring on old age, how it affects us and what we make of it. Barnes provides eleven differing experiences of the twilight years, which vary not only in protagonist and setting, but also in time and the form of the story itself. Each one examines what's left of life after decades spent chasing the dream of happiness, exploring the role of the 'aged' in society. Should we fade out gracefully, leaving the scene to younger, fitter more attractive players? Must we live up to society's expectations of feeble old fogies needing 24-hour care to eat, sleep and poop? Have old people left all the desires and dreams of the young (and middle-aged) behind?

In 'Knowing French', an old woman who has accepted the inevitable and moved into a nursing home before she is forced to against her will, describes her efforts to hold out and grow old disgracefully in a series of letters (to an author, Mr. Barnes...). The one-sided exchange (the author's replies, although existent, are not included in the story) shows how dull and brain-numbing life can be in the wonderful institutions we have created for the elderly. At the other end of the scale, 'Appetite' is told in the form of a monologue from a woman nursing her husband, a man evidently suffering from Alzheimer's or some similar disease. Her deep care in the face of vicious, unknowing abuse shows why it's sometimes easier for family members to go down the route of packing off elderly relatives to the nursing home.

Another theme is the way our thoughts change over the course of a lifetime, with the ideas we had when young changing slightly in later years. The first story in the collection, 'A Short History of Hairdressing', sees the same person receiving a haircut at three points in his life; as a young boy, a young man and in old age. His attitude towards life (and the way you should behave in the barber's chair) evolves with each 'visit' until, in the last line, we find out the fruits of his mental labours. In 'The Story of Mats Israelson', set in nineteenth-century Sweden, a possible, quasi, imagined, real love affair is the backdrop for a similar progression of feelings. When the two main protagonists meet again late in life, will their love have survived?

Of course, modern English writing (and films, and music...) is well known for peeking behind the suburban net curtains and painstakingly describing what goes on in the private lives of the middle classes, and a couple of these stories carry on this tradition. Both 'Hygiene' and 'The Fruit Cage' deal with the lives of old men who have had, to use the vernacular, a bit-on-the-side for many years, in one case following the fallout of the decision to go public and in the other the realisation that something which you thought would last forever has suddenly gone.

The eleven stories are beautiful to read, elegant and precisely written, wonderful examples of the genre. And yet... As a reader, I have a feeling at the back of my mind that Barnes is too clever for his own good. While all the styles and settings work, and the stories combine to create a magnificent collection of thoughts on a single topic, it does seem at times as if it is done merely to show that it can be done. Is there any real need to set tales in Sweden, Russia and America? Does the time need to bounce from century to century? I am probably comparing this book (somewhat unfairly) to the most recent short-story collection I have read, 'Dubliners', and my obvious preference for the tight-knit set of tales in Joyce's collection may be colouring my judgement.

Another quibble I have is Barnes' tendency to get... well, a little vulgar at times. He seems to delight in using taboo language to shock both his characters and the readers - and he does it very well too. Perhaps (as I'm sure you will have noticed) I'm a delicate little flower, and I need to toughen up; perhaps this type of language is a necessary part of what he is trying to create; perhaps, in forty years time, I'll have a very different opinion about his use of expletives to now...

All in all, 'The Lemon Table' is a great read if you like short stories and well worth the effort even if you don't. However, I'm afraid the jury's still out on Mr. Barnes, probably because I still haven't read any of the books which he is famous for. This leads us to a vicious circle: I probably won't be convinced by old Julian until I read 'Flaubert's Parrot', 'Metroland' or 'Talking it Over', but I'm unlikely to buy any of those books until I'm convinced I'm going to love them. The solution? I suppose there's always the library option, but it's not just a matter of money, it's also a matter of time spent reading, time I don't have enough of. Hmm. Don't expect the jury back with a decision any time soon...

69 - 'Katz und Maus' by Günter Grass

Last week, I attended the 22nd English Australia Conference, the annual meeting for the Australian ESL industry, in Melbourne (which meant that instead of a flight interstate and a stay at a nice hotel, I got to wake up earlier than usual and spend the best part of an hour each way on the train every day), and one of the presentations I attended spent some time outlining the virtues of free reading for language learners. One of the points the speaker stressed was that the students should read voluntarily, should choose something they want to read and should attempt a book which is pitched just above their level (no more than 4-5 unknown lexical items per page). It was an interesting little talk; however, seeing as the topic of the workshop was 'Paraphrasing: The How To Guide', most of the audience was, understandably, fairly annoyed with the presenter for completely ignoring the supposed topic.

The connection, of course, to today's post is that I was thinking about this description of free reading as I was struggling through Nobel Prize Winner Günter Grass' novella, 'Katz und Maus' ('Cat and Mouse'). I haven't really checked, but I think I could probably count on one hand the number of pages where there were fewer than five words whose meaning was completely unknown (although a lot of those were descriptions of plants, trees, types of ships or religious terminology - none of which I'm particularly up-to-speed on in my native language either). The difficulty with vocabulary was not helped by the vagueness I found in the storyline, but at least I wasn't the only one who struggled to follow the plot. The entry for 'Cat and Mouse' in the English version of Wikipedia includes the following passage: "The narrative in the story is often fairly incoherent. For instance, the timeline of the narration is often treated flexibly, moving from the narrator's perspective to different points within his memory of the events." Good to see it's not just me then...

Pilenz, the narrator, relates his memories of life during the war years in his home town of Danzig (now the Polish city of Gdansk), but in reality, he focuses squarely on the character of Joachim Mahlke, later nicknamed 'the Great Mahlke'. Mahlke, a non-descript boy were it not for the huge Adam's Apple which draws everyone's attention, becomes part of Pilenz's group of friends one summer, coming to dominate the scene without really making an effort. The boys spend most of the summer swimming out to a sunken Polish minesweeper, where Mahlke continually dives into the depths of the ship, eventually discovering a room inside above the water level in which he makes himself a hideaway.

Throughout the story's description of the group's schooldays, the realities of war are never far from the surface. The boys mess around on their boat, watching out for Navy vessels in the distance, and their families get by on rations, hoping for news from family members at the front, hoping not to be visited by a man in uniform... Former students come back to school to tell of their experiences in the war, entrancing the crowd of students with stories of aerial fire-fights and sunsets over the Atlantic. One day, when a U-Boat captain returns to talk about his war, Mahlke, whose views on war seem to be less than positive, takes his first step on a path that will lead to tragedy.

'Katz und Maus' is a book which is difficult to pin down; what exactly is the author trying to say? This confusion isn't helped by the deliberately obscure narration which swings between using the second and third person to describe events. Pilenz, while supposedly writing about Mahlke, switches frequently to addressing him directly, and the overall impression is a masterly one of a writer who is trying to get something out but is not quite sure that they actually want to (and is not really sure exactly what they want to say anyway). This memoir, with the focus squarely on his friend, also comes across as an excuse, an apology, an attempt to square up whatever happened in the past.

Belief is an important theme in this novel, both in the conventional sense and in the slightly sinister patriotic sense. Mahlke's almost fanatical church attendance stands out amongst a more apathetic background, yet even this belief is shown to be something different to what it should be. His devotion to the Virgin Mary (and the collection of objects strung around his neck with his crucifix, helping to counterbalance the enormous protuberance nature has already placed there) turns into a type of idolatry, something he later admits to Pilenz. His approach to patriotism runs along similar lines; he only wants to go to war to earn an Iron Cross so that he too can come back to his former school and talk in front of a hall full of students. When this dream is prevented from becoming reality, he has nowhere to go, nothing left to achieve.

The story ends much as it began, out on the old sunken minesweeper, just Pilenz and Mahlke. As the rain lashes down on the Baltic Sea coast, the reader wonders what the future has in store for the two of them, knowing what the future has in store for their city (and country). Pilenz writes this down for us years later, yet he has just as little idea what to make of it all as we have. The story is his way of coming to terms with a past, and a friend, that he doesn't really understand. As for me, I'm not really sure I fully get it either. Perhaps reading the other 'Danzig Trilogy' books will give me more of an idea of what Grass wants to say about the war years. At any rate, it will definitely give me the chance to improve my German...

Another Trip to the Confessional Booth

Let's take a trip back a few weeks to where I talked about buying a couple of books at a book sale. I can see that you're already ahead of me... Anyway, the devious people running the campus book sale decided that the final Friday would see the whole stock up for sale at 50% off the sale price. Now that's just not fair for a poor person trying to live his life right (everything in moderation, including books).

So, what did I end up with after searching through the dregs of the season to find some rough (but cheap) diamonds? Well, surprisingly, I found three of Roddy Doyle's finest - 'The Van', 'Paula Spencer' and 'Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha' -, and I also dredged up Julian Barnes' 'The Lemon Table' and 'The Twyborn Affair', a novel by the famed Australian author Patrick White. Don't worry though; I also bought my daughter a rather lovely Pocoyo book (which I was forced to read to her six times in a row when I got home, leading me to regret buying it in the first place). All in all twenty Australian dollars well spent :)

But the book frenzy doesn't end there, oh no. Courtesy of those fine people at the Book Depository, who must have a really close relationship with Royal Mail to be able to send the books out with no charge for postage (either that or they have an inside man who sneaks the parcels into the sorting room in the wee hours of the morning when no-one's looking), I have just received another couple of books. Wanting to brush up on my classics, I ordered a copy of Homer's 'Iliad' (with not a mention of Brad Pitt in sight); I'm not much of an epic poem type of person, but I am a 'want-to-have-read-everything-literary-under-the-sun' kind of person, so I'm sure I'll get around to perusing it at some point. However, the other recent purchase is a monster, a Godzilla of a book, a novel so big it makes 'The Brothers Karamazov' look like my daughter's Pocoyo book (with fewer pictures); it's even longer than 'War and Peace'...

What is this lump of a book, I hear you ask (yes, my hearing is that good; very annoying when the cats outside are on heat)? I'll end the suspense here (don't laugh). In the very near future, and ending, once and for all, any chance I had of making it to a century of books this year (proving that I'm in it for the quality, not the quantity), I will be reading the humongous, best-part-of-1500 pages epic, Vikram Seth's 'A Suitable Boy'. Did I mention that it's very long? I'll probably start once my MTESOL assignment has been submitted in a couple of weeks - which means that it will probably take up the rest of October. Moving on...

In other book-related news, I was browsing the Book Depository today (and, yes, I am considering an approach to the company for a books-per-mention deal) after reading Clare of Paperback Reader's review of a Katherine Mansfield story, and, funnily enough, the Wordsworth Editions collection (688 pages for about 3 pounds 49 pence - one day I must find out where those Australians have hidden the pound symbol on my keyboard) was out of stock. Coincidence? I think not - behold the power of the blogger!

Finally, a big thanks to Dan Holloway for my copy of 'Songs from the Other Side of the Wall' (which may be waiting a while to be reread - see above). You can download a free copy of this marvellous book at Dan's web-site, or you can follow the links to buy a more tangible copy (with a rather wonderful cover and various added extras!). What are you waiting for? Check it out now!!! :)

P.S. It is now an hour after the original post was, well, posted, and I have just discovered another book which had slipped my mind, cunningly integrated as it is into my collection. After lunch with a friend a couple of weeks ago, we went into an Op shop (UK - second-hand shop, US - thrift store?) where she looked around for pretty pottery (which she could buy cheap from the old ladies in the shop and sell dear on e-Bay), I just happened to stumble across a copy of 'A Room with a View' for $1.50. OK, I didn't stumble as such; my feet were perfectly positioned at all times, and there was no swearing, but you get the general idea. This is very worrying (the forgetting, not the stumbling. Which didn't happen); what if I've actually bought lots more books AND FORGOTTEN ABOUT IT?! I'll be sure to let you all know if I come across the complete works of Virginia Woolf hidden in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom...

68 - 'Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha' by Roddy Doyle

Those of you who have seen the film 'The Commitments' will already be well aware of Barrytown, the fictional suburb chosen as the setting of Roddy Doyle's first trilogy of novels (the above-mentioned book, 'The Snapper' and 'The Van'). 'Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha' is also set in Barrytown, but this time further in the past. The story focuses on the life of a young boy in a small village slowly being linked to the city by urban spread and follows him through his daily life. There's no singing though (well, not much, anyway).

Barrytown in 1968 is a very far away place for most of us today. Paddy and his friends roam around in acres of fields, annoying the locals with their antics, fighting, playing football and generally getting into the kinds of mischief young boys (used to) get into. In a small place like Barrytown, everyone knows everyone else, which makes the trouble the boys get into more exciting with the risk of being seen by someone who will tell their parents (which brings back a couple of painful childhood memories for me!). There's no phone, no internet (!) and very little for the boys to do except wander the streets and fields looking for fun and trouble.

Paddy talks about his daily life in the illogical, non-sequential style of a young boy, constantly going off at tangents and coming up with non sequiturs which make you stop reading and check that you haven't turned a couple of pages by mistake. However, this deceptively simple style, for a while at least, masks the real story here, which is Paddy's home troubles. As the eldest of four children, he starts to feel responsible for the tension he feels at home and the arguments he hears more and more often. At first, the story appears to be a simple recount of a young boy's life, but the tale become more and more serious as it progresses.

At the start of the novel, Paddy is a fairly innocent (if slightly rough and ready) young lad; he picks on his little brother Francis (or 'Sinbad'), he hangs around with his best friend Kevin and he tries not to fall foul of his teacher. Over the course of the 282 pages, however, his relationship with each changes. Paddy realises that his brother is not just a young punchbag, but a fellow sufferer in the tense home environment, and tries to reach out and become friends. His voracious reading spills over into his schoolwork, leading to improvements at school and a perception that his teacher is not quite as bad as he thought. He becomes tired of pandering to the bullying Kevin and looks for other friends, trying to change his life. For a young boy, that's quite a lot of progress...

Doyle is a master at using simple, funny, up-beat prose to describe lives which are anything but. He manages to create a confused character who is completely real, neither an angelic, hard-done-to urchin like Oliver Twist or a tough, good-for-nothing street boy. Every time Paddy appears to have matured a little, he'll do something completely random or lash out at his poor brother. In fact, at times, his thoughts and actions are at odds, as he acts tough to cover the doubt and worry he carries inside. The impression we get from events is that despite being decent at core, Paddy is vulnerable, and his future could be affected enormously by his disturbed home life.

My childhood was spent about twenty years after Paddy's, and, although there were many differences, it was recognisably similar to the one described in the book. I remember playing football in the street, charging around in fields, hurdling hedges in gardens, fighting with friends and strangers, snooping around in abandoned houses and sheds, setting fire to the grass and then fleeing when it got out of control... Now, twenty years on, I don't think that kind of childhood is possible any more. Parents today (and I include myself in this) are much more cautious and would be loath to allow their kids to wander far from home without supervision. Urbanisation has swallowed up a lot of the land children used to mess around in, and technology has provided more interesting ways for kids to spend their free time. In a society of risk-aversion, it's rarely possible to grow up in the trial-and-error way of previous generations.

So what is this book? What can you expect from it? I would settle on two main ideas. The first is the effect trouble at home can have on a young child just discovering how the world works and expanding his thoughts outside his personal space (something to remember the next time you're about to have a row with your partner). The second is the passing of the free childhood that most of us remember, and this may not even be something that the writer meant (at least, not to the extent that I have interpreted it). 'Paddy Clarke...' was written in 1993. In terms of generational change in today's society, that really is a long, long time ago; the past can indeed seem like a different country.

67 - 'Runaway Horses' by Yukio Mishima

Music and literature have always been entwined in my head, even before I started listening to my i-Pod on the train while reading to drown out the obnoxious schoolkids and depressingly loud bogans in the vicinity. I still remember listening to certain CDs (actually, probably tapes) while perusing serious (Dürrenmatt's 'Der Besuch der Alten Dame' to the accompaniment of REM's 'Automatic for the People') and not-so-serious (some Pern dragon books with a background of 'ABBA Gold') literature, so it will come as no surprise to learn that, even during this year's blogfest, certain songs have been going around in my head.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Franz Ferdinand released 'Ulysses' at a very inopportune time for me, and Haruki Murakami's 'Sputnik Sweetheart' will forever inspire a chorus of Doves' 'Satellites' inside my tiny brain. Even in the last two reviews, 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Molly Malone' have come up (not completely logically, but when did that ever stop me?). The point is, as someone who grew up in the eighties, what chance did I have of keeping my head free of music when reading a book entitled 'Runaway Horses'?

Sadly, Belinda Carlisle did not follow the example set by Kate Bush, and her song has no connection with the second of Yukio Mishima's four 'The Sea of Fertility' novels (and has absolutely no mention of seppuku that I'm aware of). Disappointingly, the book has absolutely nothing to do with horses, errant or not, instead reintroducing us to Shigekuni Honda, one of the major characters of 'Spring Snow', who, in the eighteen years separating the two novels, has become a high court judge. During a business trip to a kendo tournament held at a sacred shinto shrine (the kind of business trip I am rarely asked to go on), a young swordsman catches his eye, and his solid, successful life, eighteen years in the making, again becomes caught up in a turbulent whirlwind of intrigue and emotion.

The young Isao Iinuma, the son of the retainer of the first novel's main protagonist, Kiyoake Matsugae, is a young man filled with a longing to reverse the trend of the past decades of foreign-influenced rule. Through a short book relating the (true) exploits of a group of samurai loyal to the emperor, 'The League of the Divine Wind', Isao discovers something worth living, fighting and dying for. His natural energy and his incredible passion attract a group of like-minded students, and together they plan an incredible assault on the pillars of the modern Japanese economy, which they consider to be a corrupt betrayal of the true Japanese spirit.

Where the first book was littered throughout with references to spring flowers, delicate colours and the first stirrings of cherry blossoms, the role of nature and the seasons is very different here. Several important scenes are carried out in the scorching summer sun: Isao's first appearance in the kendo tournament; a parade of soldiers on a visit to the army barracks; the first meeting of the new league. In all these scenes, Isao soaks up the sun, using the energy of the Emperor (the 'Sun God') to fuel his resolve, the intensity of the sunlight only matched by the strength of Isao's faith in his beliefs.

The theme of reincarnation hinted at in 'Spring Snow' is again central to 'Runaway Horses' with Honda gradually beoming convinced of the reality of his friend's rebirth. From Isao's natural grace to his fulfilment of one of the dreams in the diary Honda has inherited, the lawyer sees the return of a character he thought was lost, with a scene from one of those dreams becoming reality. Ironically, one of Isao's dreams, later on in the book, appears to point to the direction of the third book of the tetralogy (but let's not go there today...).

'Runaway Horses', like its predecessor, is a wonderful book to read, although very different in its style. Where 'Spring Snow' was feminine and graceful, conforming more to the kind of Japanese novel most of us are accustomed to read, this novel is more masculine, dangerous and urgent. It is easy to see how the events of this story, set in 1932/3, could lead to Japan's aggression in East Asia, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the brutality of the Pacific War. The passion of aggressive young men, who eventually won the support of the army, allied to a blinding belief in the divinity of the Emperor and the superiority of their homeland, was one of the causes of some of the cruellest behaviour of the Second World War.

However, when reading of the exploits of the original 'League of the Divine Wind' and their utter disregard for their lives when called upon to purify their country, it is another conflict which comes to mind. Just as the samurai did not hesitate to attack the supposed enemy, even in the face of insuperable odds, with the prospect of almost certain death clearly in view, so too have fundamentalist 'freedom fighters' waged war on enemies of their religion. The stories of the suicide bombers of Iraq and Afghanistan, if told sympathetically, would probably differ little in the essentials from the description given by Mishima in the mini-novel inside his book. Not convinced? Try looking up the Japanese for 'divine wind'; ever heard of the word 'kamikaze'...

I did intend to finish here, but there are two more things to say. Firstly, I'm looking forward to the next installment of the tetralogy (off to the book depository again next week!). And finally, I believe the last word really should go to Belinda:

"Whoa-oh, Runaway Horses, whoah-oh, take us through the night,...

You and I on Runaway horses, Ooh-ooh, baby hold on tight..."

66 - 'Dubliners' by James Joyce

"In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone..." Sorry, just catching up on some family business. It's true though; I saw the statue of my semi-fictional possible ancestor on Grafton Street about ten years ago (I couldn't see any resemblance myself, but you never know).

Aside from the famous fishmonger/woman of the night, of course, the Irish capital's most well-known artistic creations are those of James Joyce, whose epic (in all senses of the word) novel 'Ulysses', did so much for Dublin's culture - not to mention the tourism industry. However, Joyce's preoccupation with his home city started much earlier, with the writing of a group of short stories which were to become the collection entitled (simply, and somewhat unimaginatively) 'Dubliners'.

This collection consists of fifteen short stories, most of which are very short indeed (in fact, if you take out 'The Dead', a late addition to the book, they average about nine pages each). Each of the stories takes place in Dublin, usually over a very limited time span, and follows a local resident along their merry (or not so merry) way before ending, if not suddenly, at least unexpectedly. By this I mean that there is no real conclusion to many of the tales; the story simply stops, and we move on to the next little view of the great city.

The writing is beautiful, seemingly effortless, and despite the brevity of most of the stories, the reader is sucked into the details of the main protagonist's life - what little we see of it anyway. Joyce also manages to tell the tale through language tailored to suit the speech and thoughts of the character he has created, which may sound obvious but is not actually that easy to do. As the book progresses, the age of the main character increases; where the first few tales are centred around children, by the end of the collection, the central personalities are far more mature (in years, if not always in behaviour).

The last of the stories, 'The Dead', which, at 34 pages, is by far the longest in the collection, could easily serve as an example for the rest of the tales. A seemingly simple account of a Christmas party at a dance academy, followed by the main character's trip back to his hotel with his wife, manages to cram in several of Joyce's most common themes: the status of Ireland as an occupied country in search of its past in the face of an uncertain present; the presence of sexual desires, despite the teachings of the church; above all, the importance of the everyday, the common, the mundane. The final passages, with Gabriel in his bed imagining the snow falling all over Ireland, "upon all the dead and the living", are simply beautiful.

Having read 'Ulysses' earlier this year, one of the questions I had about this book was whether, forgetting what was to come in the future, this set of short stories would actually measure up. It would be (and is) very easy to see in it the germs of the great novels to come, but is 'Dubliners' any good in its own right? I can assure you that the answer is an emphatic yes: it is a perfect example of the art of telling short stories. In fact, while 'Ulysses' is an undoubted classic, it would have been very interesting to see what kind of novels Joyce would have produced had he decided to become merely a successful novellist and not a genre-destroying genius. Something to ponder as I look out of my window and see the raindrops slowly sliding down the glass.

P.S. For those still confused by the first paragraph, let me introduce myself: the name's Malone, Tony Malone, licenced to make exceedingly weak puns...

65 - 'The Return of the Native' by Thomas Hardy

Out on the wild and windy moors... Sorry, wrong book (just having a Kate Bush moment there). The reason for this lapse into song is that Thomas Hardy's well-loved Wessex Tale, 'The Return of the Native', depends just as much on the natural environment and its claustrophobic (and paradoxically neverending) moorlands as Kate B.. . Emily Bronte's novel 'Wuthering Heights' does. The star of the show is not, in my opinion, the returning native of the title, Clym Yeobright, or his proud and flighty wife, Eustacia Vye, but the magnificent setting of Egdon Heath, an expanse of heathland which provides the backdrop for the drama without ever fading into the background.

The images of the first couple of chapters are among some of my favourite pieces of writing as Hardy introduces the primeval heath, a place scarcely altered by human hand and yet showing subtle signs of bygone civilisations. The brambles and heather growing wild on the ground are given a life of their own, and when human figures finally appear on the scene, they seem to be almost an afterthought to the descriptions of the countryside which have gone before. When Eustacia makes her first appearance, standing on top of the ancient 'barrow', or burial mound, which the locals call Rainbarrow, she appears to be a natural extension of the landscape, rather than a person.

This is far from the truth though. In fact, Eustacia, a woman of good birth living on the heath with her grandfather, feels trapped and isolated by its expanses and longs to get away. It is this desire to return to civilisation which drives her on to the unfortunate relationships (first with Damon Wildeve, then later with Clym) which form the seed of tragedy in this tale. It is only natural that when an educated native returns to his home village after years working in Paris, the excitable Eustacia should latch on to him as a means of escape.

Clym, however, turning his back on his luxurious, but ultimately unsatisfying, life abroad, is determined to make a new start in his home surroundings. His over-romantic attachment to his native soil is just as exaggerated as Eustacia's aversion to it, and his attempts to reestablish himself there are doomed to failure. Despite his intention to do good and raise the country folk from their state of relative ignorance, his decision to come home is met with confusion, ridicule and a complete lack of understanding (from both family and friends), with most people concurring with Eustacia's view that a return to Paris would be for the best.

As with many of Hardy's novels, the writing is beautiful (if slightly over-complicated at times), and the portrayal of rustic life and rituals is without equal. The major events of rural life, including the Guy Fawkes night bonfires, the Christmas 'mumming' play and the springtime Maypole dances are used as a backdrop to important occurrences in the novel. This picture of an England which is long gone (and was disappearing even at the time of writing) shows us a part of our cultural heritage which, perhaps, is not commonly known today. Despite the general idyllic feeling though, the story moves inexorably towards tragedy.

Another of Hardy's quirks is the tendency of his characters to end up in trouble, and 'The Return of the Native' is no exception. Chance, misfortune, frustration and boredom combine to inspire Eustacia to escape from her married life, and, as the rains lash down, and the major players are drawn inevitably together on the heath, the only question is who will come through the ordeal alive (if not totally unscathed).

The book ends, just as it started, on the wild vastness of Egdon Heath. The situations of the major characters have changed; some for the better, many for the worse (to put it mildly...). Whatever the feelings of the people sitting listening to the lecture delivered from the top of Rainbarrow, the heath itself is unchanged, quietly alive, seemingly endless. Oh yes, whether wuthering or not, it is the heath which is the true star of this book.

A-bok-bok-alypse Now

Hurrah! After moaning and whinging about a lack of recognition, I now find myself the proud recipient of a Zombie Chicken Award. Eternal thanks to Michelle of su[shu] for this prestigious prize; it's not the Booker, but you've got to start somewhere!

For those of you who are not familiar with this highly-coveted award (and I suspect that that may be most of you), please read the following explanation of the meaning of this offering from the undead poultry:

"The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken– excellence, grace, and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all."

Hmm. While obviously honoured and flattered, I do feel rather guilty at the thought that some of my dear readers may be disembowelled by a rampaging pack of indefatigable chooks from hell just for the sake of reading one of my posts (it also puts a fair bit of pressure on my shoulders...). Oh well, I suppose sacrifices have to made in all true art.

Anyway, the second part is now the tricky one; who do I nominate to receive this coveted award? There are two issues with this:

1) Whose blog would I face a horde of Zombie Chickens for?

2) Have any of these people already received this prestigious accolade?

I can't give it back to Michelle, for obvious reasons. Another previous recipient of the chickens is Mel of The Reading Life, so no chicken for her either. Zombie Chickens then for:

1) Samantha of Soul Searching

(for reminding me what it's like to be young...)

2) Dan of The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes

(for all-round brilliance and advice)

3) Belezza of Dolce Belezza

(for the Japanese Literature 3 challenge)

4) Clare of Paperback Reader

(for lots of hard work and Booker prize news)

5) Colleen of Bookphilia.com

(for the inspiration for this blog!)

Yay! Cheers all round and Zombie Chickens for everyone! Let the slaughter commence!

64 - 'The House of Mirth' by Edith Wharton

Some days, I feel just like Lily Bart.

OK, I sense that there may be a little scepticism out there in Bloggerland, so I will try to explain my ideas a little more clearly (I'm not promising that I'll succeed though). The way in which I feel my life is comparable to the tragic heroine of Edith Wharton's classic novel, 'The House of Mirth', is that... well, I mean... what I'm trying to say is... Hmm. This isn't working too well. let's go back to the start.

Lily Bart - who is a woman approaching the age of thirty in turn of the (twentieth) century New York at the start of this book, and definitely not a thirty-something book-reviewing hack living in the outskirts of Melbourne - has a problem, an unsolvable, unmanageable problem which is threatening to ruin her life. Born into, and a bright star of, New York's high society, Lily does not possess the independent means to allow her to continue her life in the rarefied air of this social stratosphere and, therefore, needs to use her considerable feminine wiles to snare a rich husband who will provide her with the status, and the money, to enable her to continue living in the way to which she has become accustomed.

Lily has the beauty, and the intelligence, to pull off this seemingly minor feat; however, she also possesses something more, a sense that there is more to life than the 'gilded cage' in which she and her acquaintances spend their endless rotations between the city and the country estates of the rich and famous. Frequently, on the cusp of persuading some rich gentleman to make a proposal, Lily's better nature causes her to shy away at the last minute, and the gentleman retreats, licking his wounds, until another bright young thing comes to... mend his broken heart (what did you think I was going to say?!).

As the years pass by, these opportunities become more scarce, and Lily, despite the brightness of her star, begins to slowly fall from the social orbit in which she has been travelling. A chance meeting with Lawrence Selden, a young man who, although part of the same social group, knows his way back out of its golden residence, hastens her spin away from her path towards happiness. The problem is that she does not have the necessary desire to wrench herself from the pull of high society's gravitational field once and for all and thus falls into a gap between the two conflicting styles of life (one probably inhabited by as many mixed metaphors as the previous couple of paragraphs).

I won't say how it continues from there ('there' actually being a very short way into the book...), but I would heartily recommend this book to anyone who likes good literature, and especially to anyone who thinks that Jane Austen's heroines can be a bit weak and insipid at times; you wouldn't catch Emma or Elizabeth behaving like Lily does.

Oh yes, me and Lily Bart. I think I can see an angle now (fittingly enough, an obtuse one). You see, I have devoted large parts of my time this year to my blogging, to the extent that my wife raises her eyebrow rather pointedly whenever she notices me logged on to the site (it may not sound much, but married men everywhere will understand the significance). I am doing my best to make my blog shine among the millions of other book blogs and carrying out all the manifest duties of the assiduous book blogger, including linking to other blogs, joining challenges and commenting on other people's posts. And yet...

... it all seems, well, a bit try-hard. I know that quality of writing is not everything and that a lot of leg-work is required if you are to attract the attention you want, but I am in the unfortunate situation of wanting the love and admiration (and the millions of comments and followers that certain other blogs have), yet unwilling to take the final step towards making a real effort. Like Lily, I shy at the final hurdle, having done most of the hard work, but pulling away from turning myself from the gentleman amateur blogger I currently am into the hard-nosed, advertisement-revenue-seeking, freebie-requesting, award-receiving, million-blog-adding professional that other people are quite prepared to be. I would (secretly) like to be the Bertha Dorset of the Blogosphere, but I am actually doomed to be poor Lily.

Catharsis, a wonderful thing (and nothing to do with a sibling's chest infection). I have purged my bitter feelings and am now ready to continue serenely with my blogging life. I love you all.

I apologise: I am nothing like Lily Bart.

More Books...

While I am eternally grateful to the nice people at the 'Review' section of The Weekend Australian for informing me of the wonderful institution that is the Book Depository, a part of me knows that it is a double-edged sword as I'm probably going to end up spending more in the end, if only on more bookcases to house my burgeoning collection. I'm trying to stick to a routine where, every two weeks (on pay day), I browse the site (and my long, rather messy, wish-list which lives on my desk at work) and spend as much money as I would on buying one full-priced book from an Australian bookshop. Thanks to the extortionate prices here, and my penchant for buying cheap versions of classic novels which are out of copyright, that usually means I get three for the price of one. Brilliant.

So what has been dropping through my letterbox recently? Well, for starters, most of the books I've reviewed over the past month or so. In addition, I have a nice collection of Wordsworth Editions classics sitting waiting to be read: 'The Return of the Native', Dostoyevsky's 'Demons', a collection of Tolstoy's short stories, 'Dubliners' and 'David Copperfield'; and yesterday, when I got home, my long-awaited edition of Mishima's 'Runaway Horses' had arrived. Yay :)

The sneaky side of me would like to end the post there; however, my honest, ethical side (damn him, the idiot do-gooder) feels the need to confess to some furtive book buying. You see, the campus bookshop is having its semesterly clearance sale, and... well, let's move along. To cut a long story short, I walked out $15 lighter and two books heavier, but happier. One is a novel by the Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov, whose book 'Death and the Penguin' has had some good reviews. I wasn't lucky enough to come across that, but I snapped up a copy of 'The President's Last Love' which will hopefully also be a good read.

The second book is called 'Classics' and is the work of an Australian academic who has chosen sixty-two works of literature (mainly prose) from throughout history, starting with Homer and ending with 'Midnight's Children', and written a few pages on each, explaining its importance and context. At the end of each review, there is also the distraction of a short piece from famous contemporary writers and artists talking about their favourite books. I don't think this is one to read from cover to cover, so I may be dipping into it for years to come (starting with the books I've already read!).

Phew. The Catholics are right - confession is good for you. Well, until I get home and find that my wife has read this post anyway...

63 - 'Amrita' by Banana Yoshimoto

I am, as anyone who read my last post closely enough would know, thirty-four years old and will turn thirty-five very soon. Time for reflection, perhaps. Therefore, it was perhaps apt that I (randomly) decided to re-read 'Amrita' this week as Banana Yoshimoto's novel, a departure from the usual novellas or collections of short stories, is especially concerned with reflection and taking stock of your existence. In this tale about a young woman who loses her memory and has to reassess the way she is living her life, Yoshimoto blends elements of Buddhist theology and everyday philosophy to examine what it means to live in the present.

Sakumi, a Japanese woman in her twenties, lives at home with her mother, brother, cousin and her mother's friend, part of an informal family unit which has come together after several deaths and breakups. One winter day, she falls down a steep flight of stone steps, and, on waking up in the hospital, realises that she has lost a significant part of her memory. This loss of memory, however, is a catalyst for Sakumi to re-examine her life and relationships: she becomes closer to her little brother Yoshi, slightly more 'gifted' than your average elementary-school student; she starts to spend more time with Ryuichiro, the ex-boyfriend of her dead sister, Mayu; and she also begins to come to terms with the effect that Mayu's death has had on her.

The loss of memory enables Sakumi to look at the world around her through a new pair of eyes, and although she does regain her memory slowly, the lack of detail in her memory forces her to reconsider her relationships with people and places. The brush with mortality also brings her to consider life and death, and she comes to realise that all things - friendships, relationships, families - are transient and fleeting. While this sounds negative and depressing, in fact the opposite is true; Sakumi uses this new knowledge of the temporary nature of life to focus on the positives and especially the here and now; she is able to live for the moment and enjoy life for what it is.

The title, 'Amrita', refers to concepts present in the Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist religions and is connected to the refreshment of the human soul from drinking a liquid, like the nectar of the Greek gods, which is vital for living. Yoshimoto reinforces this allusion to Buddhism and Hinduism with frequent comparisons of characters to gods such as Shiva and Kannon. The 'thirst' for water is mirrored in the events of the novel as Sakumi finds enjoyment in swimming and then finds peace in journeys to the Japanese coast and Saipan, an island in the Pacific Ocean which appears to be a mythical place where the line between our 'real' life and the spirit world is blurred. Towards the end of the novel, Sakumi is also urged to quench her thirst by drinking in everyday occurrences - the water of life.

When I first read this book, I wasn't overly impressed; I felt that there was a lack of a structure to the novel, and it often felt as if it were a random series of events with very little to link them and move the story along. Also (as always with Banana's works), I felt that the dialogue was trite and that there was an overreliance on metaphor. I'm still not convinced on the latter point, although I am moving more and more towards the opinion that this is the fault of the translator, not the author (several typos and a couple of literal translations which even a low-level Japanese speaker like myself could pick up are swaying me in this direction), but I enjoyed the book as a whole much more this time. The idea of life circling around and people continually going through the cycle of making friends, developing relationships and moving on came through more strongly on this reading, as did the writer's focus on showing how Sakumi's loss of memory enables her to stop and look at what she actually is.

Of course, the reason why my opinion of the book this time is so different to when I read it a couple of years ago has a lot more to do with me than with the book. I'm a bit older, (hopefully) a bit wiser and more able to read things into a novel like this one (some of which probably weren't intended). Just as Sakumi needed an accident to give her the necessary distance to view her life, most of us find it difficult to get the required perspective to see our world as it really is, and being caught up in the daily grind makes it difficult to know if we're happy or not. Reflecting on the moment and ignoring both the past and the future is hard. Very hard.

And so, this morning, on the train to work, I finished 'Amrita' and looked around the busy carriage. The sun was shining brightly through the windows on a beautiful spring morning, the first of many to come. Across from me, a group of students were talking and laughing, generally being young and happy. On my i-Pod (on shuffle mode for a change), songs came and went: Motorace (a sadly defunct Australian indie band), The Stone Roses (the classic indie group from my school and university days), The Yellow Monkey (one of my favourite bands from my time in Japan - my lack of Japanese ability prevents me from finding out whether their lyrics are as clever as their Arctic simian cousins). I got off at Caulfield station and walked slowly through the campus to my office, taking a different route in order to stay in the sunlight for as long as possible. Trying to live for the moment and forget the past and future.

Of course, it's virtually impossible to always live for the moment (life has a nasty habit of getting in the way), but if you do look back, do so with joy, not regret. Life is constantly moving on; you meet people, you grow close, you have good times, and then you go your separate ways. If you are able to step outside the moment and look back on these times without wishing for their return, you will be a lot better for it. As I've recently learned (from all the Japanese books I've read), life is short enough as it is; wasting it worrying about how short it is just makes it shorter.

Time to step back into the sun...

62 - 'The Housekeeper and the Professor' by Yoko Ogawa

Apologies to the numerous participants in the 'Japanese Literature Challenge' who have already reviewed Ms. Ogawa's book for not reading your comments yet; I wanted to come to this book with a clear mind, and I promise that I'll read all the other reviews once this has been posted. Well, fairly soon afterwards anyway (family duties permitting, I'm a very busy person, you know).

Anyway, my second book in recent weeks with a housekeeper at the centre of the tale was slightly less murderous than the first, but just as well constructed. Ogawa's short novel tells the tale of a housekeeper employed to clean up for a mathematics professor who lost his long-term memory after a car crash. The housekeeper's son, whom the Professor nicknames 'Root' as his head is flat like the square root sign (and with whom I share a birthday!), strikes up an unlikely friendship with the old man, and in the course of the 11 chapters, spread over 180 pages, the three of them form a strange kind of family unit.

One of the things which bind Root and the Professor together is baseball, a sport which is especially fond of numbers and statistics. With his memory stuck firmly in 1975, the Professor frequently asks about his favourite player, Enatsu (a legendary pitcher who wore the perfect number 28 on his back). Through white lies and evasive tactics, Root and his mother share their hobby with the professor without alerting him to the fact that the times he remembers have long passed.

In this rather sparse work, Ogawa looks at the theme of family, in particular what makes a family. Root's eager adoption of the Professor as a friend can be traced back to the absence of a father figure in his life, and the Housekeeper may also be looking for someone to fill this role. In the film version, there is apparently a stronger sense of attachment to the Professor shown by the Housekeeper, but in the novel this is more implicit than described.

The role of mathematics is also important in this book as it serves as a metaphor for the situations the characters find themselves in. The Professor tells the Housekeeper that numbers underpin and support the real world; however, knowing this does not help you to understand that world. The Housekeeper realises the truth of this when going about her daily chores; knowing that the serial number of a fridge is a prime number will not stop the ice-cream inside from melting... In another example, the Professor explains how important triangles are to the complex formulae of further mathematics - a further parallel to the triangle of characters at the forefront of this story.

Parallels with Murakami are unavoidable; anonymous characters, chance meetings which change lives... The brevity of this novel reminded me somewhat of 'After Dark. However, I don't feel that the author quite succeeded with what she set out to achieve. The maths parts were very interesting (and, as someone who used to love pure maths at school, I relished the challenge of the Professor's simple puzzles!), but they became more of a gimmick as the book progressed. I also thought that too much was left unsaid. Much more needed to be made of the Housekeeper, by far the least developed of the three characters, and while I understand that the style was meant to leave many things unspoken, just because things are unspoken, doesn't mean they are actually there...

Despite these shortcomings, Ogawa's novel is well worth a read, and I would like to flick through her collection of novellas, 'The Diving Pool', when I get the chance. I think that knowing more about Ogawa's world will help me appreciate more what she is trying to say in her work, just as having read the weightier Murakami novels helps you to appreciate his shorter pieces. Before I go though, I just thought I'd make one last comment on the mathematics side of the story. As Root and the Housekeeper learn from the Professor, numbers are beautiful, and finding patterns in those numbers is even better. When browsing through some of the numbers from my review, I noticed the following: if you take my (and Root's) birthday (11th of September, or 119) minus the number of chapters (11) multiplied by Root's age (10), subtract my age on my upcoming birthday (35), add the Number of pages (180) divided by the number of major characters (3), and add Enatsu's perfect shirt number (28)...

119 - (11 x 10) - 35 + (180/3) + 28 = 62

But what' so special about 62 you may ask?

Look at the heading for this post...

Aren't numbers wonderful ;)

61 - 'Scenes from Clerical Life' by George Eliot

Wherever you look on the Blogosphere, there are challenges galore for the poor reader who has difficulty deciding what to read next. Me, I'm not really into this side of reading, with the honourable exception of 'The Japanese Literature Challenge' (and my own moral code, outlined in an earlier post!); if I was though, I think I'd invent my own challenge - 'The Fifty-Mile Challenge'.

Before you run off to fetch a psychiatrist ("Tony's really gone bananas this time!"), let me explain. My theoretical 'Fifty-Mile Challenge' would involve reading works by writers who were born within a fifty-mile radius of your home town. This would obviously be much easier for bloggers in Dublin than in Detroit, London than Loughborough, Weimar than Wollongong... However, it would be especially easy for me as, in addition to flicking through the works of some playwright from just up the road (wrote something about kings, mad people and lovers - 'Hambeth and Juliet'?), I would be able to sit back and enjoy the works of George Eliot.

'Scenes from Clerical Life' was Eliot's first work of fiction, but it was not her first novel as it consisted of three 'short' stories totalling about 320 pages. As is evident from the title, the lives of the clergy are prominent features of these tales, and the theme of religion is one that Eliot pursued in later novels, although these stories focus on the human more than the church side of their lives. Just like her contemporary, Anthony Trollope, she draws out the lives of churchmen in a time where the vicar was a centre of society in country towns and played a much greater role in the community than is the case in many countries today.

Back in 18th/19th century England, the church was not only a place for people with a calling to gravitate to, but also a common employer for the younger sons of rich families where the eldest son inherited the money and estate. Consequently, many clerics were well educated (at Cambridge or Oxford), fairly well off and desirous of the good things in life, and this made things difficult for the poorer members of the clergy, as they were expected to fulfil the same role in society as these younger sons of the landed gentry with virtually no money. The hero of the first tale ('The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton') faces precisely this problem, one which was not uncommon for poor curates (often substitutes for a vicar who owned the 'living' of several parishes and 'sub-let' all but one of them for a fraction of the stipend he received for them). Amos falls into financial troubles because of the need to keep up appearances, despite receiving a wage no better than most workers. When a flighty Countess decides to move in with him and his family, this causes further dents in the budget and leads to problems which are totally unforeseen...

In the third scene, 'Janet's Repentance', the religious view turns to the conflict between traditional Protestant doctrine and the evangelical wing of the Church of England. A new curate, Edgar Tryan, appears in Milby (Eliot's home town of Nuneaton, just down the road from my home town of Coventry - the model for Middlemarch!) and shocks many of the townspeople with his approach to religion, drawing protests and scorn from some of the most powerful people in the town. Events in this scene (and, to some extent, in her first novel, 'Adam Bede') reflect the conflict in Eliot's own life as she began to doubt her faith in Christianity. Through Tryan's role in the saving of Janet Dempster, the title character of this tale, Eliot espouses her support for people who do good deeds and have faith in their fellow mortals over the allegedly moral but actually selfish traditional churchgoers. Eliot also shows the way in which the ordinary people follow their religion without really understanding much about it, enjoying it as a tradition rather than as anything more complicated than blind faith (an idea which Thomas Hardy also touched upon in 'Under the Greenwood Tree').

However, important as the religious side is, the clergy are not always the central characters of these stories. In Amos Barton's tale, the tragic fate of his wife, Milly, and the way in which Amos only comes to realise his good fortune too late, are more important than the tale of the curate himself, and in the second scene, 'Mr. Gilfil's Love Story', the parson of the title is secondary to the true heroine, Caterina. This young woman, brought to England by an aristocratic couple after being orphaned at a young age has her affections trifled with by a young nobleman (very similar to the situation of Hetty Sorrel and Arthur Donnithorne in 'Adam Bede'). The poor Caterina, living as she does in late eighteenth century England is triply disadvantaged: she is foreign (you can't trust Italians...), she is of low birth, and is consequently not adopted, but brought up as a dependant, and she is also, the most unfortunate situation of all, a woman. By virtue of these social failings, she is treated badly by the vain young Captain Wybrow, and the events caused by this mis-matched passion lead to a tragic ending for all concerned.

I could go on all night about the interesting themes and concepts in this book, but I won't, mainly to spare you all my meandering explanations (and also because red wine and literary exposition just do not mix). However, there is one further idea which Eliot pushed in this work, and that is her preference for the plain, the old, the ordinary good people over the showy and well-off. Just as Edgar Tryan is eventually accepted by the folk of Milby, despite his dissenting views, and the crabby old Mr. Gilfil is shown to have a passionate and unfortunate past, people are shown to be inherently interesting in themselves, no matter what their religion or social standing. This collection was written in the mid-nineteenth century and was partly constructed to show readers that life was just the same, and people were just as interesting, passionate and good in the time of their grandparents and great-grandparents. Eliot enables the innate goodness of her characters to shine through in her scenes, connecting the old-fashioned times of the the stories to the 'modern' age of the readers. In this way, her readers were urged to learn lessons from the past and not make the same mistakes. Today, in a time where conflict, both within and between religions, is as violent as ever, this is a lesson which we could do with learning.

60 - 'Hear the Wind Sing' by Haruki Murakami

We all have to start somewhere. Einstein messed around with bunsen burners at school like the rest of us, and there was a time when Andrew Flintoff was shorter than the cricket bat he was holding (sorry, just had to get a cricket reference in today!). For Haruki Murakami, author of such complex tomes as 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' and 'Kafka on the Shore', 'Hear the Wind Sing' was the moment when he became a writer. There's a big difference between this tiny work (125 pages of a book the size of a postcard!) and his later efforts, but the seeds of his later ideas are already present in this coming-of-age story.

Murakami starts and ends the book with information from the life and works of a (fictional) American writer called Derek Heartfield, a novelist who writes stories based mainly in outer space (Kurt Vonnegut?), and this 'interesting' bookend surrounds a description of a few months in the life of a nameless university student who has come back to his sleepy hometown for the university summer holidays. Our protagonist spends his time lazing the days away, hanging around J.'s bar talking to his friend, Rat, and getting to know a girl he helped home after a drunken night out.

As alluded above, in this short but sweet tale, the elements which make up the themes of Murakami's later, more substantial works are already evident. University life (or the break therefrom), a symbol of rebellion and confusion which pops up in 'Norwegian Wood', serves as a metaphor for a period of life where you're not quite sure where you're going. Like Toru Watanabe, the central character seems stuck in a moment (and, as Bono so helpfully points out, he can't get out of it). As easy as it is to look back at such a period through nostalgia-tinted glasses as a golden era, at the time it can seem as if your life is never going to start; of course, with the manic, stressful life of the Japanese salaryman looming in the future, there is also the thought that you may not want it to...

When you mix his sense of dislocation to a growing feeling of the temporary nature of human relationships, it is no wonder that the slightly depressing, almost fatalistic nature of Murakami's world is also present in this book. Our hero has a few sad stories in his past, and the main female character is also far from happy with her lot. Despite this, they are able to continue with their daily lives and seek enjoyment from little things: good food, music, books; the things all of us use to help us through the day. However, when the student looks back at the end of the book, by now slightly distanced from the events of that summer, his connection to that time has become a lot weaker. All that remains is a Beach Boys album and a lot of memories...

The discerning reader (and my readers are nothing if not discerning) will have noticed that I haven't mentioned many names so far in my review, and this is because there are very few names actually used in the novel, something which makes describing it a tad tricky at times. This is deliberate and has the effect of reinforcing the temporary nature of the events; there is no need to use, or remember, the names as they are ultimately bound to be forgotten. This trend continues in Murakami's later works where many characters have names written in the 'katakana' syllabary used for foreign loanwords, rather than the 'kanji' (Chinese characters) or 'hiragana' which Japanese names are usually written in, instantly making the name stand out and appear slightly unusual (perhaps outside the usual society in a culture where conformity is prized).

This book is, of course, just as much about Murakami himself as it is about the story. The sections concerning the entirely invented Mr. Heartfield allow Murakami to play with his ideas about writing and to use an alter-ego to explain his first attempts at literature. The importance of writing about what is not known rather than what is known, as Heartfield tells a critic, could easily be (and, I suppose, is!) Murakami's own remark, and for anyone who has ever wasted countless hours wondering what on earth Toru Okada was actually doing down that well, a short perusal of Heartfield's short story collection 'The Wells of Mars' may bring enlightenment. Well, if not enlightenment, a little encouragement at least.

So there you have it; the start of a magnificent career, and, strangely enough, a start that old Haruki seems somewhat ashamed of. The edition I have is a translation by Alfred Birnbaum created purely for students of English as a Foreign Language (with several interesting translations in the glossary at the back!) which is not available outside Japan. It's easy to get your hands on it through Amazon or e-bay ('Pinball, 1973', the follow-up to this book, is another story entirely...), but Murakami refuses to allow the translations of his first two books to be published outside Japan. That's a shame, and I, for one, would be at the shops tomorrow if his first two mini-books were released together (in the beautiful British-style edition, of course). This may only have been his first effort, but this fascinating insight into the origins of a master novellist's career shows that even the best of us have to start somewhere.

Even Andrew Flintoff.

[Apologies to all of you who don't understand cricket for the references to Mr. Flintoff in this review; I'm sure all the English readers know what I mean. So will all the Australians but in a different way entirely...]

59 - 'Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum' by Heinrich Böll

A question, dear reader: what do you think it would take for you to blow someone away?

Now that I've got your attention...

'Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum' ('The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum') is a short work (the author himself calls it a "pamphlet") by the Nobel-Prize-winning German author Heinrich Böll, which relates an incredible few days in the life of a young German woman, the Katharina Blum of the title, in which she meets and sleeps with a criminal before helping him to escape from her appartment despite the vigilance of the police surveillance surrouning it. What follows this out-of character sexual liaison (and the crime that arises from it) is written down faithfully in the form of a report, taking information from the police transcripts of interviews and from conversations with the people involved in the events of those hectic few days.

Right from the start of the book, we know (or, at least, we think we know) was has happened; on the third page, we are told how Katharina rings at a policeman's door to confess to having shot and killed a journalist. While the description on the cover, and the initial events of the book, lead us to believe that there is some sort of conspiracy, the truth is that the book has very little to do with Katharina's private life and a lot more to do with the lengths to which people will go to uncover it. You see, the main idea of this work concerns newspapers, particularly of the tabloid variety, and the sacrifices that a civilised society makes in order to preserve the freedom of the press which is one of the hallmarks of democracy. Poor Katharina is mercilessly tortured by the ZEITUNG (a barely-disguised nod towards Germany's major tabloid newspaper, 'Die BILD Zeitung'), and so-called reporters roam the land, interviewing (and then manipulating the words of) anyone they can find who has ever had any connection to Fräulein Blum. Katharina's supporters and friends are, in turn, subject to accusations about their private lives, whereas a high-profile figure who had become involved in the case due to his (unsuccessful) overtures towards our heroine, somehow, probably through his connections, comes off as a victim of Katharina's wiles. When a reporter goes so far as to publish a (probably fictitious) interview with poor Katharina's mother, who dies soon after, in which it is strongly hinted that the blame for the death lies squarely at Katharina's feet... well, going back to our question, what more would you need to push you over the edge?

This book only goes for around 130 pages, yet the author is able, in such a short space of time, to outline a web of connections and misunderstandings surrounding what is effectively an open-and-shut case. Katharina is revealed as incredibly hard-working, overly shy and prudish, unwilling to open herself up, extremely sensitive and, at times, pedantic; however, Die ZEITUNG manages to twist the facts to fit the circumstances which they believe best suit their readers opinions, making the poor woman out to be a sex-crazed terrorist helping enemies of the state to escape justice. The style of writing Böll chose for this work lends itself to making the reader understand the frustration Katharina (and her friends) feels as the report style gives a certain detachment which allows us to view events more objectively than if they had been seen through the eyes of one of the main characters.

The setting is also vital for understanding the atmosphere of tension and the ferocity of the press at the time. The action takes place over the week of Karneval, which, in the Rheinland, is celebrated just as wildly as Mardi-Gras is enjoyed in Rio. For those who have never lived in Germany, this may be a little difficult to reconcile with the stereotypical image of Germans as practical and sensible, but during Karneval, anything goes. There is a strong feeling of freedom from everyday constraints, and the chance of sexual encounters, like Katharina's uncharacteristic liaison, is greatly increased. In fact, I've even heard opinions saying that infidelities during Karneval don't count as no-one is in their right mind...

Even more important is the fact that the action is set in 1974, in the middle of the Cold War and the era of terrorist attacks by the Rote Armee Fraktion and the Baader-Meinhof group. In a time of great uncertainty (as seen, unfortunately, throughout the world over the past ten years), we are always ready to jump at ghosts and pounce on the smallest sign of (imagined) betrayal. When even Katharina's friends are being excoriated in the media for their imagined communist past, it is no wonder that the papers, and the reading public, are so keen to believe her a foreign spy, or, at the very least, a fifth columnist.

So, I ask you once again: if a newspaper reporter accused you of treason, hounded your mother to death and blamed you for it, dug up dirt on all your friends, rang you up and harrassed you sexually; in short, did everything posible to deprive you of the one thing you held dear in life, your honour, before turning up to an interview and suggesting that you might as well screw him... would you, if in possession of a gun, be able to resist the temptation of shooting him down?

Well, would you?

58 - 'Oliver Twist' by Charles Dickens

Let's get it out in the open: I was not hugely impressed with this book. Before all you Dickensians flee for the exit, screaming in anguish, please let me explain my reasons; just like Fagin and the gang, I deserve a fair trial...

First things first. 'Oliver Twist' is, as most people in the western world are well aware, the tale of a boy who survives hardship in the form of life in the workhouse, a rough apprenticeship and a spell in a gang of thieves (none of whom, at any point, comes even close to bursting into song). Oliver Twist, the character, however, is a weak, uninteresting boy who actually takes up a lot less of the novel than you would expect from his prominent billing. He is more an excuse for Dickens to rant and rave, in pantomime fashion, about the iniquities of the laws governing the treatment of the Victorian poor than an actual, fully-rounded person.

Oliver is also (and this really annoys me) goodness incarnate. How else could you explain the fact that a young boy who has been abused his whole life and brought (dragged) up grudgingly by the authorities is able to resist the temptation of crime and the degrading behaviour of everyone he meets? If you or I (heaven forbid) had been subject to the same kind of woeful upbringing that Oliver undergoes, I guarantee that we would have been out on the streets of London snatching wallets and handkerchieves to our hearts' content - or, at least until we got caught. However, Oliver, sickly, saccharine-sweet Oliver, is so horrifed by the sight of such felonious behaviour that he quivers at the knees. Rubbish.

Many of the other characters in the book are also relatively boring. The whole array of personages from the right side of town, undoubtedly mirror images of the people actually reading the book in its original serialisation, are fairly sketchily drawn and are hard to remember on completion of the book; in fact, I'm hard pressed to recall many of their names, and I only finished it this morning...

However, perhaps the main reason I have for not really liking this book is not so much what it is as what it's not. It's not Dostoyevsky; it's not 'The Brothers Karamazov'. Having just finished the afore-mentioned Russian classic, anything was bound to suffer a little in comparison, but 'Oliver Twist', with its tweeness, and beautifully sanitised view of suffering, comes off especially badly against the stark, bare and bloody representation of life in Dostoyevsky's work. Who could care about Oliver after reading the fate of Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha? How could such anodyne lovers as Harry and Rose(?) compare to Dmitri and Grushenka?

Of course, the book does have one redeeming feature, and that is the depiction of the darker side of the story. Bill Sikes, as nasty a piece of work as you're likely to find in literature, curses and threatens his way through the novel until his murderous betrayal and subsequent flight and descent into the darkest bowels of London. His persona looms so large that, by the bitter end, even his companion thieves are terrified by him and turn away from his gaze. The critics who accused Dickens of glamourising crime (and who would have been very smug if they had lived to see the stage version with the Artful Dodger singing and prancing around) were certainly off-target regarding Mr. Sikes.

And then there was Fagin. Not requiring more than one name to dominate the book, the 'dirty old Jew' is the personification of evil, the devil incarnate, spinning a web of sin and attracting young innocents like flies in order to corrupt and feast upon their souls. The longer the story goes on, the more we are drawn into his world, and the more complex the webs of intrigue surrounding him become. All is brought to a climax by his trial, surrounded by a packed house of baying spectators, vultures thirsting for the old criminal's blood...

...wish he'd got off.

In the introduction to my edition, the editor remarked that 'Oliver Twist' is notable for being an early, flawed work of a great writer, which is as close to saying that it's not that good as a paid review is going to get. I'm afraid that's not good enough for me; when the end of the reading year (same as the normal one) comes around, there's a good chance that this book will feature in my 'Hall of Shame', not what I would have expected from a work by the great Victorian novellist. Consider yourself... well and truly underwhelmed.

By the way...

The nature of the book blogging scene (from what I've seen) is very circuitous and overlapping, so it'll come as little surprise that I've popped up on another blog espousing my opinions on life, literature and spoon feeding. Click on the link to go to the interview at Colleen's wonderful Bookphilia blog and find out what they are!

In other news, I've just finished my review on Dostoyevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov', the third in a series of rather unconventional reviews I've done (the others being Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs Dalloway' and Franz Kafka's 'The Trial'). I'm not sure how useful this kind of post is to people who haven't read the book in question: yay or nay? If you have a spare moment, let me know!

Finally, I'm still waiting for more wonderful Japanese books to reach me from the (so far) fabulous Book Depository, so it may be a couple of weeks before my next entry for the Japanese Literature Challenge. Having said that though, I have been meaning to look at Murakami's first two novellas, 'Hear the Wind Sing' and 'Pinball, 1973', again, so you never know...

Next review in a couple of days (with added gruel!)

P.S. Remember my review earlier this year of the unpublished novel 'Songs from the Other Side of the Wall'? Well, thanks to the miracles of the modern world, Dan Holloway (while still waiting for Harper Collins to get its act together) has managed to self publish his novel - in both paper and bargain e-book forms. Read my review, then buy the book (or the other way round; I'm not fussy!). I promise I am not getting a cut of the profits....

57 - 'The Brothers Karamazov' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Tony made his way briskly along the muddy street, huddled inside his borrowed greatcoat, avoiding the great puddles of slush as best he could (which wasn't that well as there seemed to be more slush and snow than road). Finally, thankfully, he made out, through the newly started shower of snow, a collection of wooden structures indicating the start of the town. He hurried towards the nearest, a large, crude hut, and hammered at the door, breathing deeply and regretting it each time the frosty air penetrated to his lungs. A voice bellowed from within, "Come in if you're coming, damn you!"; Tony opened the door and stepped inside without needing further prompting than this rather unlikely invitation to enter.

Inside, behind a large table bearing a samovar, mugs and plates laden with bread, cheese and various meats, sat a thin, gaunt man, obviously in the middle of his meal and displeased with the interuption to his repast. "Who are you? Why do you disturb me?", he barked out. Tony took a deep breath and stepped forward. "My apologies for the delay", he said measuredly, "I had trouble making my way here on such short notice. Let me introduce myself, I-". The other interrupted him, waving his arm in the air as if to physically beat Tony's words to the ground. "I know who you are, the Englishman, the one who wants to talk about my book. Yes, my book!". He started to laugh, pointing playfully to the bench on the other side of the table. "Sit, Anton Antonovich, yes, I have been expecting you. Take off the coat, come now, we're warm inside, warm enough for an Englishman even!". Tony hesitated, then took off his greatcoat, laid it across one end of the bench and sat down opposite the great writer.

"Fyodor Mikhaylovich," he began, "I wanted to discuss your latest novel as, I must confess, it seemed, at times, somewhat confusing, rather circuitous. I know that there is a lot about Russia, about the Russian people, but I wanted -".

"Of course, it's about the Russian people!", the writer cried out, leaning back in astonishment, losing, for a moment, his balance and then righting himself and leaning forward onto the table. "I'm Russian, I write about Russia, I am Russia! Or rather...", he continued, a wry grin appearing on his face, "Russia is a part of me. We Russians are different to others; to you prancing womanly Englishmen, to those logical, loveless Germans, to those elegant, but lifeless Frenchmen. We live! We strive for love, we reach for the stars!". He leaned back again and shrugged his shoulders. "And should we miss, should we fall short, well, at least we have tried."

Tony nodded. "Like Dmitri Karamazov, Mitya. A typical Russian". The writer smiled. "Exactly! A true man, a Russian, a man with an impeccable soul at bottom, but a man who is unable, unwilling even, to adapt to his situations. A man unwilling to steal, to break his own somewhat twisted moral code. A man able to waste thousands of roubles, to drink, to dance, to forget the future, to exclude all thoughts not of the present time. A man of great sensuality and vigour, ha ha! Not one of your foppish Darcys or Rochesters, more than a match for your Heathcliffs even! A man, a Russian man, nothing gentle about him, but still a man!". Dostoyevsky laughed wildly, freely, until stopped by a great bout of coughing, his gaunt frame shaking behind the table. He recovered, breathing deeply. "A Russian. What else should he be?".

Tony went to speak again but waited as the writer reached over to the samovar and poured himself, and his guest, some tea, steam wafting away from the table, up towards the ceiling.

"Let us move on," he said, collecting his thoughts as Dostoyevsky sipped his tea, wincing at the heat of the scalding liquid on his pinched lips, "for I wanted to talk a little about the language used in your novel, the way that the characters use words without really revealing what they want to say, the way language is used to take up space rather than to make things clear. What I am trying to say -".

"- is exactly what you are saying! A perfect example of your point, young man, nothing better!", the writer laughed. "Do people really speak so clearly? Are intentions always there, on the surface, ready for anyone to touch at a moment's notice? Come now, young Anton Antonovitch, are your beliefs so easily found? As all people talk without saying, making noise for the sake of amusing the idiots around them, so too do my characters. They exist in their social context and their words are created by these surroundings, they speak to please those with whom they are speaking. Are people really concerned with other people's ideas? Do people really have a strong understanding of their own ideas, strong enough to be able to explain them, in detail, from one moment to the next, to the first person who enquires about them? People talk, dear Anton, but what they say...

"But not Alyosha. He knows, he understands, he cuts through the idiocy of idle pratter, he genuinely seeks communication, not diversion, and communicates in return." Dostoyevsky fell silent, perhaps thinking (as Tony supposed) about his own Alyosha, the departed soul of his poor child. A long silence settled across the room, like a blanket of snow slowly, but inexorably, settling and covering a churchyard. Neither man spoke.

Finally, the writer looked up, puzzled initially by the sight of the other, but then, as recognition dawned in his eyes, he stood up and shouted, "But wait! It grows ever later, and we have not discussed (we have not touched upon!) the central theme, the one true core of the novel! We have not discussed God!". The old man stood behind the table, shaking with, what Tony could only presume was excitement, evidently waiting for his visitor to speak, to ask a question. Tony, however, stayed silent, slightly embarrassed, unwilling to make the first move in such a delicate area. Slowly, the writer's face calmed itself, the features rearranging themselves into their usual, almost angry state, and he sat back down, silently, defiantly, on his bench. Again, silence.

This was the part Tony had feared, and part of him wished to avoid it and move on. But, with such a book, such an idea... He took a deep breath and plunged in. "Fyodor Mikhailovich," he began, "I must confess that, on this point, my ideas are not exactly clear." He paused, and, as he had expected (indeed wished), the writer eagerly took up the thread of the conversation.

"Not clear? What is there to be confused about? My views are crystal clear, a call to arms, a warning for my great country to acknowledge the true path before it is too late. You see, my young English friend, we have strayed from the right path, we have been blinded, blinded I tell you, by the progress of logic and science and philosophy, and what does it all mean? There is no God, they say, there is only here and now! And this, this should set us free, make us happy! But no. This idea is ridiculous, lacking in all credibility, this way lies madness, for if there is no God, no guidance from above, no rapture to look forward to, where will we find our guidance? What will prevent us from living like dogs, worse than dogs even?". Dostoyevsky paused for breath, panting, his eyes shining from the conviction of his words. His gaze never deviated from that of his visitor, who looked back, unable to break away from the writer's terrible grip.

"You saw what happened to Ivan, poor Ivan, when he gave up the idea of God. He was unwilling to believe because of what he saw as the inconsistencies: the suffering of children, the only innocents and still subject to death and torture; the necessity of believing in the end of days without the hope of actually being there to witness it himself. He believed he could dismiss God, dismiss his teachings and found a new life on science, on logic, but", he continued, his voice dropping so much that Tony was compelled to lean forward, so as not to miss the writer's words, "he was wrong. Without God to order his life, he lost direction, as would we all. If you dismiss God, you dismiss society, you reject laws, you decide to take the role of God into your own hands." A pause. "Ivan stepped back from the abyss, but the other, the other... he walked into it, and he took his brother with him...".

He stopped. Tony was getting up, taking his greatcoat from where it lay on the bench, as if ready to leave. Dostoevsky also rose and sighed. "I see you are unconvinced. Still, my story is not finished, Mitya's tale will continue. I'm sure that you will start to see the truth after the next book...". He stopped speaking. A strange expression had appeared on Tony's face, a mixture between pity and regret, an incomprehensible look of sadness. The two men stood there for a moment, and then, with a bow, the Englishman took his leave and vanished into the snowy night. The writer sat down again and wondered.

[This text was recently discovered in the attic of a small wooden house in a village a few hundred miles outside Moscow. There seems to be no trace of the writer. Dostoyevsky never wrote the sequel to 'The Brothers Karamazov' mentioned in the text.]

Stream of Semi-Conciousness

737 down, only about 140 pages to go. In the words of Rolf Harris, do you know what it is yet?!

Anyway, frivolity aside, I thought I'd just write a mini-post on some of the changes you may have noticed here at Malone Towers (aka 'My Blog'). I've started making use of some of the features that the lovely people at Google have provided for me to make my little blog look pretty. I've messed around with colours, increased the font size, added labels for authors (in addition to countries) and put in a neat little search engine gadget which allows you to search the blog for mentions of the word 'banana' (go on, you know you want to).

I'm also toying with the idea of more little interim posts; of course, that's only possible when I'm in the middle of a monster like my present book. When I go back to normal (!) books, I'll probably have problems keeping up with the review posts, let alone writing extra posts to spread my pearls of wisdom across the breadth of the interweb thingy.

One final point: in browsing the many trillions of book blogs out there in cyberspace, I could hardly miss the fact that there seem to be a million and one different challenges going on. Hmm. While challenges are all well and good, I don't want to be penned in too much by what other people want, or expect, me to read. Therefore, I have developed my own monthly challenge to keep me on the straight and narrow (and so that I can say I'm doing a challenge. Even though I'm really not).

Tony's challenge is that each month I will read:

1) At least one Japanese novel.
2) At least one novel in a foreign language (i.e. French or German - Japanese would be pushing it unless you count the picture version of 'The Ugly Duckling' which I have hanging around somewhere in the house).
3) At least one big book - for the purposes of this challenge, that means 500+ pages.
4) No rubbish books.

The gauntlet has been thrown down (which was very silly as I'm only going to have to bend down and pick it up again): let the challenge begin!

Tomorrow; I'm very sleepy now.

Reading, Reading, Reading

Big books are wonderful, but they have the disadvantage of taking a long time to finish, leaving my loyal blog readers starved of my attention for too long (no, even I don't believe that really). I'm currently about 300 pages into my latest choice; which would be good going were it not for the fact that I've still got about twice that to get through. August is going to be a lean month on the books read front...

Anyway, while I'm plodding along with my book, I thought I'd post a short ramble about reading and, especially, reading and the internet. You see, most people would assume that the evil computer, like its horrible cousin the television, has a negative impact on your reading (and if I were fifteen years old and blasting mutant armies to death eighteen hours a day, that might well be true); however, I've found that the internet has actually encouraged me to read more, provided me with more information on books and authors and helped me to be able to locate (and afford!) more books than previously.

After joining Facebook (my second favourite waste of time), I quickly got into various reading groups, and, after filtering for Twilight addicts and strange people offering various sexual services, I found a community of normal people who actually really liked reading - and did it a lot. Over the past couple of years, although I had been reading, I think that my reading time had gradually been eroded because of my studies (Master of TESOL by distance), my work (ESL Teacher, then co-ordinator and now Learning Adviser) and my young daughter (Emily). Connecting with fellow readers encouraged me to look at how I was spending my time and to think of how I could fit my reading into my schedule.

These groups have also helped me to broaden my literary horizons and to branch out into areas I was previously unaware of, or not interested in. From discussions, I was able to judge what kind of novels people were interested in and trust the recommendations of those whose interests coincided with mine. Authors whom I have discovered in this way include Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton and Jack Kerouac, writers whose works I may never have glanced at were it not for the trust developed in the people who recommended them.

Of course, it's not all about connecting with other people. Another way in which the internet has been useful is in providing me with information about authors, novels and criticism. Wikipedia has become a good friend, allowing me to check on authors and find out what they wrote, and when, and helping me to find interesting information on the background and content of novels. Whether wanting a quick overview of the Indian partition while reading 'Midnight's Children' or discovering that the author of 'The Classical World' was a Hollywood extra, I have been able to get access to facts which have enhanced my reading experience.

For that experience, of course, I still need the books, and while I have not yet succumbed to the e-book craze (and until they invent something which actually looks exactly like a book, and smells like one too, I probably won't), once again, the internet has made this a lot easier. Books in Australia are expensive, and there are no really cheap internet book providers - Amazon charges the earth for deliveries - , so I was very happy to hear about a site called 'The Book Depository', which delivers books, with a particular focus on hard-to-find works, worldwide for free. Brilliant! Yes, I know I should be supporting my local bookshop etc. etc., but the reality is that if Angus & Robertson only stocks vampire novels and expects me to pay $27.00 for the very few decent titles they have in stock, it's no surprise if I instead decide to take my pick from the best of world literature for a fraction of the cost and the comfort and convenience of home delivery. Even if it costs me my soul :)

So there you have it. The internet is good for readers (and I haven't even mentioned blogging!). Have fun with your computers, and don't forget to join some literary chat groups. The only thing to avoid is spending so much time discussing books with your newfound virtual friends that you forget to actually read any...

Japanese Literature Challenge

While you are waiting for me to plough through my latest literary delight, I thought I'd advertise a little challenge I'm taking part in. In the words of Dolcezza (the challenger):

"This year, all you have to do is read one work of Japanese origin. It can be literature of course, but don’t feel confined to that. You may choose to read poetry, biographies, short stories or even manga. If you are willing to read one such piece, you’ve met the challenge. If you read more, all the better. I have set the time frame between July 30, 2009 and January 30, 2010."

Now, how easy is that?

Anyone wishing to join in can sign up at: http://www.japlit3challenge.blogspot.com/

I shall, of course, be continuing with Yukio Mishima's 'The Sea of Fertility' quadrilogy after the first part was so good (and more, I'm sure, besides).

Banzaiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

56 - 'Under the Greenwood Tree' by Thomas Hardy

'Under the Greenwood Tree', one of Hardy's earliest (and shortest) novels, takes place against the usual backdrop of the imaginary county of Wessex early in the nineteenth century and is structured around two main plot strands: Dick Dewy's pursuit of the beautiful new schoolteacher, Fancy Day, and the last days of Mellstock's traditional church choir, replaced by the new trend of organ music. Both stories help the writer to discuss what was to become one of his central themes, namely the rapid disappearance of country life and traditions in the face of progress exported from the big cities to the English countryside, an alteration that Hardy believed was not always for the best.

One of the reasons for the change in lifestyle was the arrival of newcomers in what had been relatively stable communities. Fancy, flighty by name and nature, comes to Mellstock to work as a schoolteacher, and immediately causes several hearts to flutter. As well as the good-hearted tranter's son, Dick Dewy (what do you think I am Wikipedia? Look it up yourself...), both Farmer Shiner and Reverend Maybold, the newly arrived vicar of Mellstock, fall under Fancy's spell. Over the course of a year (the book's four main sections are named after the seasons), we see the progress of Dick's pursuit of the beautiful outsider, which is eventually crowned with success - but not without a few hurdles on the way, at least one of which comes as a bit of a bombshell...

As interesting and well written as the lovers' tale is though, Hardy himself was more interested in the accompanying story regarding the choir (or quire!). The story begins on Christmas Eve as the choir prepares to make its traditional rounds of the outlying houses, men carrying string instruments and their own voices, highly critical of the trend toward organ music replacing the traditional church choirs. Little do they know that there is soon to be an end to their right to play the hymns in church as two of the contestants for Fancy's hand in marriage discover her ability to play the church organ and decide to use this skill in Sunday services (ironically, the third suitor, Dick, is part of the choir...). While disappointed, the choir take the decision on the chin and, rather than causing trouble, agree a timetable for change with the vicar, allowing the proud old men an opportunity to retire on a high.

Hardy actually wanted to call this book 'The Mellstock Quire' (and chose the actual title on his publisher's advice as books with titles from songs sold better - plus ca change...), and the story of the choir has its roots in actual events from the author's life. While the introduction of organ music was seen by some as an imrovement to church services, Hardy argued that the downgrading of the role of the parishioners in the service had the effect of distancing them from the church. Whereas before a group of local men, young and old, were motivated to appear each Sunday and use their leisure time to practice together, the new regime had the result of creating an 'us and them' mentality which loosened the bond the villagers had with their religion,a bond which had just as much to do with community as communion.

In this book, despite the problems noted above, things turn out for the best. The novel ends with the expected wedding festivities under the Greenwood tree, and the villagers dance and feast as they have done for generations. However, by the time of the publication of this book, the customs described were, for the most part, long gone, leaving a bitter-sweet taste of nostalgia on the lips of the original audience (let alone on those of the 21st-century reader!). This book, short and sweet as it is, does end happily, but Hardy was to develop these ideas in his later works; as anyone who has read 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' or 'Jude the Obscure' knows, his later novels were a little more scathing in their criticism of modern life.

55 - 'Spring Snow' by Yukio Mishima

There's something about Japanese writers. They have such an elegant way with words and paint amazing pictures with their prose, sweeping the reader into a world of the author's making, making them see what the writer sees in his imagination, setting a measured yet engrossing pace (either that, or they all have really, really good translators). And among these writers, one of the masters of the art is Yukio Mishima; and 'Spring Snow' must be among his best works.

In this novel, set in 1912-13, Mishima lays out a tragic love affair between Kiyoaki Matsugae, the son of a well-to-do family, and Satoko Ayakura, the daughter of members of the Japanese aristocracy. Through Kiyoaki's stubbornness and Satoko's teasing of the younger boy, the pair circle each other without penetrating the layers of reserve until Satoko has already been promised in marriage; the subsequent events lead them into a downward spiral resulting in their disappearance, in different ways, from Tokyo society.

That's basically it - 400 pages of star-crossed lovers. What makes it more than just a Mills and Boon romance, however, is Mishima's ability to paint the background of the story, and the principal actors, with such vividness that they seem to burst into technicolour in your mind (actually, technicolour would be too bright and garish - let's say watercolours instead). The Japanese are fond of reminding foreigners about their four seasons (and can be confused when those same foreigners seem particularly underwhelmed by this astounding piece of information), but it is true that the country does mark its seasons very distinctly, something that Mishima draws out in this book. From the famed cherry blossoms of spring, through the typhoon season to the sprouting greenery of a humid summer, the seasons march on with the multi-coloured mountains of Maple trees in the autumn giving way to the bare trees and swirling snow of winter and early spring (which, as you would guess from the title, marks some important events in the novel).

As well as being able to describe the natural world, Mishima is extremely adept at portraying the state of Japanese society at the time, just half-a-century after the forced end to the country's self-imposed seclusion (and only a few years after Japan became the first Asian country to defeat a major European power in battle in the Russo-Japanese war). Houses now have Japanese and Western rooms; students smoke cigarettes; the upper classes provide private screenings of the latest western films or play recordings of classical music. Despite this superficial move towards westernisation though, the traditional culture remains almost untouched. We are treated to views of private ceremonies celebrating traditional holidays, cherry-blossom-viewing parties and New Year's imperial poetry competitions; let us not forget that the Emperor was still regarded as a god at this time.

This shift from Japanese to Western cultures has also not extended to the morals the characters display over the course of the story. While the Christian west is motivated by guilt and may be prevented from acting by the thought that they are doing wrong, Asian cultures can be motivated more by shame and the possibility of people outside the family group finding out their secrets. Of course, as long as everyone keeps their silence, this will not happen, and everyone is happy. This behaviour, so contrary to many western beliefs (although strangely similar to the way the English upper classes often deal with scandals...), allows Kiyoaki and Satoko to continue with their affair, and helps the two families to cover it up once they have discovered the truth.

The third major character of the book, Kiyoaki's friend Shunsuke Honda, is also part of the web of cover ups and intrigues. Very different from his effete and uninterested friend, Honda, a hard-working student and future lawyer, is happy to be of service to Kiyoaki in his adventures, helping him several times to arrange illicit rendez-vous with Satoko. Eventually though, his conscience starts to prick him, and he has to face up to a dilemma familiar to anyone who has been asked to help a friend do things which they really shouldn't have: does he do what his friend wants, or what his friend actually needs? Honda's response to this problem shapes the way the plot eventually unfolds.

What really differentiates the book from similar western novels, however, is its central theme of Buddhism and, in particular, reincarnation. Throughout the tale, we see references to the religion, often in the shape of the Thai princes who have come to Japan to broaden their horizons (which mainly seems to consist of smoking and messing around with local girls). Honda's discussions about the nature of reincarnation with the princes and his study of Buddhism-based ancient Asian law lead us nicely through the ideas which will be explored later on, namely is it really reincarnation if the reborn soul is unaware of past lives?

And now, dear reader, I can hear you asking yourself 'Later on? What's he talking about?', and, yes, it may seem a little odd until you hear that 'Spring Snow' is merely the first in Mishima's quadrilogy of books making up 'The Sea of Fertility' cycle. Before his untimely death (which I mentioned briefly in my earlier post on 'Forbidden Colours'), Mishima wrote one last set of novels, with (as far as I'm aware) the theme of reincarnation at the heart of them. What does that mean? That after finishing a truly wonderful book, I'm still only a quarter of the way through the story. Now that's something to be very happy about.

54 - 'Our Fathers' by Andrew O'Hagan

Once upon a time (as my daughter insists every story should begin - even if it's from the local newspaper), I bought a book for $5 at Borders, put it in my one of my many bookcases and promptly forgot about it. Could happen to anyone. Recently, it caught my attention (I'm not sure how; it wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary), and I put it on my pile of books to read - i.e. books I haven't read yet. As I got it out, I noticed on the cover that it had been short-listed for the Booker Prize - the major British literary prize which is open to novels written in English by Commonwealth authors (no Americans allowed) - in 1999, which made me think I'd give it a go.

Now comes the twist in the tale. One of the inspirations for my deciding to start this very book blog was an example I found via Facebook, a wonderful blog created by a Canadian by the name of Colleen Shea, and, having recently rediscovered this site, I decided to browse through some old posts. Now Colleen, who seems to have a lot in common with me in terms of book taste (apart from a liking for mediaeval French literature which I don't really share), also started off with the whole 50-Book Challenge, and one of the posts listed her favourite and not-so favourite books of the year. Guess where 'Our Fathers' ended up...

Whether a masterpiece or a pile of rubbish, however, 'Our Fathers' was always going to ring true with me. A tale of disillusionment and anger set amongst the soaring tower blocks of Glasgow and Ayr, the book focuses on the lives of Jamie Bawn, his alcoholic father, Robert, and Jamie's grandfather, Hugh, a social reformer who single-handedly pushes the adoption of high-rise flats to replace Glasgow's seedy tenements. In a neat twist of fate, with the concept of cheap, mass housing in tower blocks consigned to history, Jamie is now responsible for tearing down the very buildings his granddad put up.

This sense of disillusionment with what has come before, extends to the country as a whole. While Hugh, and many old men like him (including one of Jamie's teachers), rage blindly against the wrong done to the Scots by the English and drown their centuries-old grievances in whisky, song and Robbie Burns' poetry, others attempt to get on with their lives in a country which is struggling to come to terms with its identity. For this reason, Jamie, now living in Liverpool, feels awkward on his return north of the border, abused as 'soft' by his granddad and other men he encounters, different by virtue of having crossed over to live with the 'auld enemy'.

In fact, Jamie, like his country of birth, seems to have put his life on hold. Unwilling to commit to a relationship (or a family), it takes his trip home to show him that change is possible. Over the few months he spends with Hugh during his final illness, Jamie changes, both in terms of his attitude towards his grandfather (and his grandfather's flawed vision of 'cities in the sky') and his decision to move on, as both his mother and estranged father have managed to do.

To be fair, the ideas and people in this book were always going to resonate with me. As a mid-thirties ex-patriate with a Celtic background (and memories of a hell of a lot of drinking), it was extremely easy (sometimes frighteningly so) to put myself into Jamie's shoes. Were it not for the fact that the journey from Melbourne to Coventry takes just a little bit longer than Jamie's train ride from Liverpool to Glasgow, this is a trip which I could well see myself making. And where do I live now? In the sleepy Melbourne suburb of Berwick, named after the Scottish city in which a certain Jamie Bawn was born...

However, before you all decide that in the case of Booker v Blogger, the jury has unanimously found in favour of the plaintiff, I should, in fairness, address the case for the defence. Leaving aside my emotional involvement, the story did drag a little at times, and I can see how, for someone less personally involved in the events, the book might be hard to get into. I also thought that the writing, at times, was very subject-verb-object-full stop; anyone who has ever attempted to follow my tortured, relative-clause-laden writing (and that means you, dear reader!) will understand that I like my prose a little more florid than that.

Still, I'm giving this a thumbs up for now, despite the reservations noted above. It's always interesting to read a book which touches on themes and places close to your heart (which isn't always the case with my Russian classics and contemporary Japanese novels). Next time I go back to my home country, I'll have Jamie's story in mind. Not to get me to change anything in my life (we're not that similar); just to remind me to be nice to my family. Now if that's the only thing I get from this book, then it was well worth the $5.

53 - 'Kitchen' by Banana Yoshimoto

I like bananas. I take one to work with me in a lunchbox every day (the banana's in the lunchbox, I'm not; that would be weird). They are a wonderful source of potassium (which I'm sure I have a use for, even if if it eludes me at present), they give you a wonderful boost of energy when it's 3.00, and knocking-off time seems aeons away, and, most importantly, they come in their own, portable, bio-degradable wrapper. Brilliant. It really is a stupid name though.

Which leads me nicely (some might say predictably, but that's 'cause they're just mean, and I'm not listening) to Banana Yoshimoto, the exotically-named Japanese author of my latest literary delight, 'Kitchen'. Obviously, 'Banana' is not Ms. Yoshimoto's birth name (she changed it from 'Strawberry'), but that is the one she thought would best suit her personality. Which really says all you need to know about her.

Despite her rather cheery pseudonym, Yoshimoto's debut novel - actually a two-part novella followed by a short story - is really rather short on smiles. In 'Kitchen', Mikage Sakurai moves in with a casual acquaintance, Yuichi Tanabe, after the death of her grandmother, and the poor girl struggles through the loss of the last family member she had left. Both Mikage and Yuichi have to learn to get over their repective losses before their lives can start again. In 'Moonlight Shadow', Satsuki is mourning the loss of her boyfriend, Hiroshi, when a chance meeting with a strange woman, Urara, gives her the opportunity to find a way past her emotional blockage. Not happy stories.

Both tales address the big questions of life: What's it all about? What happens when you lose a loved one? How do you keep going? Both Mikage and Satsuki find it difficult to adjust to a changed world and doubt they possess the strength to continue an empty life, but both are helped to move on by the new friends they find; for the first time, the girls confront the truth that relationships can be ephemeral and that life is more a series of friendships than one life-long set of relationships.

I bet you're still not sure what I actually thought about this book (and you wouldn't be the only ones), so I'll put your minds at rest; I liked it. But. Just as I'm in two minds about bananas, at least when it comes to the name, I'm still not completely convinced by Ms. Yoshimoto's writing. For one thing, as I previously alluded to, the two stories in this book are very similar in theme, and, at times, I really couldn't feel any difference between the two characters. Mikage could have been Satsuki, and Satsuki could have been Mikage (except for the fact that Mikage did a lot more cooking); just as some people criticise Haruki Murakami for writing the same characters over and over again, Yoshimoto seems to write very one-dimensional people.

However, the biggest problem I have with our little Banana is that her writing seeems to be schizophrenic in the split between description and dialogue. Many's the time (in this book and in 'Goodbye Tsugumi' and 'Amrita') I have been lulled into a state of comfortable numb enjoyment by Yoshimoto's work, only to receive a rude awakening from her wretched, childish dialogue. This may be deliberate (many of the characters are teenagers); it may be an issue with the translator (unfortunately, my Japanese isn't good enough for me to be able to check this any time soon); it could well just be an aversion on my part to what I consider to be overly-American jargon in the dialogue. Whatever it is, it makes me cringe at times, and that's a shame because I do like the ideas behind her books.

Please don't be put off by the last couple of paragraphs; it's sometimes easier to write about the negatives than the positives, and there is a lot of good reading to be had in this short work. Give Banana a go, and I'm sure you won't regret it. Just be aware that in amongst the sumptuous yellow flesh, just as in a banana, you may find some squashy blackish bits. Yuck.

52 - 'Das Versprechen' by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Back in April, I read two slightly unusual detective novels by the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt, one of my favourite discoveries from my German studies, but he actually wrote a third... OK, I think you're with me now.

The third detective novel is called 'Das Versprechen' ('The Promise') and takes place in post-war Zürich. In a story within a story, a famous writer on a book tour meets a retired police Captain who, not thinking much of the way his metier is portrayed in fiction, decides to educate the novellist in real police work. While driving the writer back to Zürich, the policeman relates a story about a former employee who tried to act like a character in a novel and instead found his whole existence crumbling around him.

The policeman's story centres on Lieutenant Matthäi and his insistence on continuing the search for a little girl's murderer, even after the main suspect, a travelling salesman with a prior conviction for sexual molestation, admitted to carrying out the attack, before hanging himself in his police cell. At first, his colleagues refuse to believe that a mistake has been made; however, through the use of ever-so-slightly unethical tactics, Matthäi manages to lure the real murderer into his carefully-laid trap. And that's where real life starts to have an influence...

Matthäi's inhuman persistence in the face of wide-spread scepticism hangs on the promise he made to the mother of the murdered Gritli Moser. Unable to ignore the doubts he harbours about the confession of a convenient scapegoat, Matthäi forces himself to continue the hunt for the real murderer, despite the effect the chase is having on his life. In the end, a prediction made by a psychologist he consults about the case comes chillingly true; unable to find the murderer, he only finds madness.

As mentioned above, Matthäi was actually on the money, and the real murderer is tempted to stalk the cute eight-year old girl that Matthäi uses for bait (told you it was unethical...), so where does it all go so wrong? As in Dürrenmatt's earlier novels, it is luck, or rather misfortune, that provides the twist in the tail. While little Annemarie sits waiting for her fateful encounter with a child molester (and half the Zürich police hide in the bushes), the potential murderer has already met his fate. At the end of the book, we learn that he died in a car crash on the way to the secene of the crime... After a week of stake-outs, the police lose patience and leave Matthäi to his fate; for the poor unfortunate genius, this consists of drinking, smoking and waiting for a murderer who will never appear.

For such a short book with a fair amount of action, the writer is able to build the tension to unbearable levels, with the reader feeling the urgency of Matthäi and his captain as they lie in wait for the murderer. Annemarie sits and waits, the policemen hide and watch, Annemarie sings the same song over and over again, nobody comes, Annemarie plays with her doll... for days the policemen watch and wait until, finally, one of them cracks; then, the remaining detectives begin to shout and scream at the poor girl, demanding she tell them all she knows. Under the unbearable pressure of the wait, the girl's protectors become the ones she needs protection from.

This tension is also evident in the final part of the book when Frau Schrott, an old lady on her death bed, summons the captain to tell him something important before her death. Through her meandering nothings about her family and her various marriages, she stretches the story (and the captain's nerves) to breaking point, leaving the reader breathless in her slow, measured progression to the part about the murderer. Only when she reveals the truth about her husband, the murderer, and the events leading up to his death, does the reader finally learn that Matthäi was both right and terribly, terribly wrong.

It is Matthäi's character which reinforces the effects of his investigation. Unable to adapt to unforeseen events, he continues in the path he has taken, which should, logically speaking, lead him to his goal. However, life has a funny way of meddling with even the best-laid plans; while fictional detectives usually get their man in the end, in real life luck can intervene to stop you achieving your goals, no matter how well you have prepared.

At the end of the novel, there are some very poignant lessons to be learned from Matthäi's downfall. Firstly, expect the unexpected. Life cannot be micro-planned; something will always get in the way of your best intentions. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, be very careful with what you say. Never, ever, make a promise that you may not be able to keep. Who knows what may happen to you if you can't keep your word...

51 - 'Midnight's Children' by Salman Rushdie

I believe that I left you, dear reader, on the precipice of a cliffhanger (if such a thing is possible) while I hurried to complete Salman Rushdie's superlative novel, 'Midnight's Children', and, having waited for a few days for the answer to my question, I'm sure you won't mind waiting for a few hundred words more. Such is life (as a famous Australian criminal is reported to have said...).

Saleem Sinai, born at the stroke of midnight on the 15th of August, 1947, shares his time of birth with the country of India itself. Almost thirty-one years later, exhausted by fate, he sits in a Bombay pickle factory with his would-be lover, Padma, recounting the history of his family, how he came to be born, and the effect his life, and those of the other Indian children born in the first hour of the country's independence, had on national affairs. On a vast canvas, Saleem paints a picture of a country struggling to find its identity and a boy struggling to come to terms with his destiny as a mirror of the nation's fate. And a very big nose...

This is a big book. Yes, I've read longer novels, but this has a hell of a lot crammed into its 647 pages, a portrait of a young, yet ancient country, which strays into the magical realism territory of books such as 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' and 'Kafka on the Shore' while evoking experiences of the sub-continent so powerful that even someone who has never been near India can smell the streets of Bombay and see the crystal Kashmir lakes. One of the great tricks Rushdie pulls off in this novel is making the different scenes in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh come alive. Saleem's nose acts as a guide for the reader through not only the worldly smells of excrement, perspiration and naan, but also the more subtle aromas of bitterness, betrayal and danger.

The children of midnight of the title, the 1001 children born in the first hour of India's independence, are supernatural beings, with powers beyond those possessed by ordinary humans. Saleem, who accesses his telepathic powers after a series of childhood accidents, is able to connect with the other children and organises a nightly meeting, the Midnight's Children Conference (M.C.C. - an acronym which will raise an eyebrow of any Commonwealth citizen among you...) in the hope of harnessing the powers of the children for the good of the nation. However, there is a traitor in their midst, and the children of midnight are doomed from the start...

So what does Salman Rushdie have in common with Forrest Gump and Hiro Nakamura? Not a lot, obviously: having written a book of this magnitude, there's no way the author has an I.Q of 75, and I'm pretty sure that his temporal manipulation abilities are not that flash. However, by now, patient reader, I'm sure you will have started to see the connection between Hiro Nakamura, the time-travelling Japanese salaryman in the T.V. show 'Heroes', and the array of characters in this novel. In fact, with a time-traveller, a telepath, a boy who can walk through mirrors, a traitor and a government with a desire to eradicate the powers of superhuman beings, it's hard to imagine that the show's writers didn't have a well-thumbed copy of Mr. Rushdie's book on their desk when creating the concept. The idea of the Widow seems especially reminiscent of 'Heroes' sinister governmental interference in the lives of the central characters (although 'X-Men' deals with similar themes).

This Widow, based on a real political figure (saying who would spoil the story a little!), is also involved in the second allusion of my previous post. Just as Forrest Gump lives his life in the shadow of American politics, shaking hands with presidents and living through wars, so too does Saleem become involved in the dramatic events of the Indian post-colonial era. From being the accidental instigator of Bombay's language riots and a witness to West Pakistan's military coup, to being present during the invasion of East Pakistan and the eventual birth of an independent Bangladesh, Saleem's fate really does seem linked to that of his homeland, and it is precisely for this reason that the Widow and her brood of helpers make the decision to eliminate the problem of the Midnight Children (under cover of the Emergency period of the mid-seventies).

It all seems a bit fantastical and far-fetched (and it is!), but Rushdie holds it all together, thanks mainly to the interaction between our narrator, Saleem, and his disbelieving (but eager to hear the story) listener, Padma. Saleem himself admits that certain aspects of his story are not true, contradicting himself and forgetting vital information while Padma interrupts, questions and rubbishes the child of midnight when he gets too big for his boots, or when the story takes a turn too incredible for her liking. In doing so, she takes our part, asking the questions we would ask of the story-teller, raising an eyebrow when we start to get restless. In short, we are Padma (with less chutney).

After almost 650 pages of mesmerising yarn spinning, Saleem's story ends unfinished, with an empty chutney jar ready for the last instalment of his life, the final chapter in the life of this Midnight Child yet to be written. However, we know that the story goes on; another generation of magical beings is set to take over from the first, just as in the more mundane outside world, sons take over from fathers (or mothers...). Whole in itself, yet hinting at a lot, lot more, Rushdie's superb novel has created a story, and character, to rival anything Hollywood has to offer; very apt for a work set largely in Bombay, the centre of the Indian film industry. This sub-continental Forrest Gump has taught us that while life may be a box of chocolates, it's infinitely more interesting if you add a spot of lime-green chutney. And a large dollop of imagination.

While you're waiting...

Apologies for the delay; currently reading 'Midnight's Children', and it's a fair few hundred pages. But what do Salman Rushdie, Forrest Gump and Hiro Nakamura have in common?

You'll just have to wait to find out... :)

50 - 'The Complete Polysyllabic Spree' by Nick Hornby

Hurray! 50 Not Out! (I am now strolling around the room raising my non-existent cricket bat in salute to the equally non-existent crowd; I take this challenge very seriously...). Avoiding the rather obvious choice of 'War and Peace' to bring up the milestone (too cliched. And long.), I thought it would be fun to use the milestone to think about what I've learned this year by reading Nick Hornby's collection of magazine columns, 'The Complete Polysyllabic Spree', and finding out what old Nick feels about this reviewing lark.

You see, despite being touted as review columns, Hornby's pieces have just as much to do with him and the whole idea of reading, writing and reviewing as with talking about any particular book. Which was a blessing as, to tell you the truth (and I'm nothing if not truthful - O.K., slight fib), I didn't really love this book as much as I thought, or hoped, I would. One of the problems was that the columns were aimed at an American audience and dealt with a host of books which I'd never heard of and which didn't really sound that interesting. I know I can't expect authors to write books with me in mind (although I'm hopeful that Haruki Murakami will get back to me about the pitch I sent him involving cats, wells, loneliness and my local football team), but I struggled to stay interested in his brief descriptions of novels he picked up whilst on book tours in small-town USA.

Now the stuff about writing, that I could relate to. In the introduction, Hornby talks about the effect taking on a book review column had on his literary intake, noting that where before he would take time out between books and read newspapers and magazines instead, he now felt compelled to close one book and open the next in the same action (which is a very cool trick if you can pull it off. I tried it, but I just ended up with two books face down on the floor). In addition, because of the happy-happy joy-joy nature of the magazine, which prohibited any kind of slagging off of books (apparently there are already enough literary reviews which specialise in crushing writers' confidence), Hornby was encouraged to only read books he was 100% sure he'd love - if he hated them, he couldn't actually mention the name of the book, or the author, in his column...

Those of you with long memories, or an ability to spot hyperlinks, may recall that the reason I started this blog was linked to taking on the Fifty-Book Challenge, and one result of that challenge has been that I've been reading like mad all year. I now find it hard to imagine a stage of being between books, a sort of literary inter-regnum (inter-librum?); to misquote the Royal Family's announcement, "The book is dead. Long live the book!". The fact that I have a full-time job, a part-time Master's course, a hyper-active (but loveable) two-year-old daughter and a long-suffering wife (who now says the word 'blogging' with the contempt you'd usually bestow on infamous war criminals) has not managed to come between me and a good book. Or 50.

Another issue with writing is (and this may come as a big shock to some people) that other people out there in the vast space that is the world-wide interweb thingy actually take the time to read what you write. And then hate you for it. Just as Mr. Hornby has had to bite his tongue on the orders of the (wholly fictional) massed ranks of the Polysyllabic Spree, so too have I had to think twice about what I want to say in case I offend someone who happens to stumble across my blog. This is especially important because I am essentially a product of my culture and my upbringing, something which helps to style my reviews, and many of the people who read my amateurish waffle are not (actually, that covers pretty much everyone apart from my brother and sister). That is to say, it's incredibly easy to offend someone without even trying. And that really concerns me. I really would like to know when I'm offending someone; it makes life much easier.

Of course, the most worrying thought I had while reading 'The Spree' was that if Hornby, one of my favourite writers, was capable of losing me for good parts of his writing, how could I expect to hold the interest of anyone outside my immediate family (and some of them are already a lost cause)? Do other people really care about what I'm reading? If so, why? A while back I read Kafka's 'Der Prozess' (The Trial), and I spent hours on an elaborate parody of a Kafkaesque situation in lieu of a formal review. Having applied the final touches, I sat back and waited for the comments to roll in. Ten minutes later, I remembered to publish it and went away to do something more useful instead. A week later, crushed and licking my wounds, I got on with my life, having seen my most painstaking effort at a piece of writing ever simply ignored by the whole world. Six-and-a-half-billion people; not even my wife read it.

Naturally, now I realise that:
a) Only about 12 people know my blog exists.
b) Very few of those people will have read the book.
c) Why would anyone read a book review which tells the uninitiated absolutely nothing about the book, or the author, which can be deciphered without a specialised university course?
d) It probably wasn't anywhere near as good as I thought. Now, that really hurts.

So, yes, hurray for me, 50 not out and all that. However, as the imaginary crowd settles back into its collective seat, and I get ready to face the next book, I have to start thinking about the blog and my insatiable reading drive. Why am I really doing this? What is possessing me to spend as much of my spare time as humanly possible reading and then scribbling down my responses in blog form?

No, seriously, that was a real question...

49 - 'The Age of Innocence' by Edith Wharton

On a Facebook group I frequent, there was once a thread discussing the relative merits of Jane Austen and Edith Wharton. Not having read anything by Wharton, I refrained from commenting (unlike the carriageful of Austenites who used the thread as another excuse to praise Saint Jane to the skies), but I was interested by the few comments which actually mentioned the American author. So, when I was idly looking around my local campus bookshop... well, I think we all know where this is heading by now.

Having now read 'The Age of Innocence', I can sort of see why the comparison with Austen was made. The writer describes the close-knit society of 1870s New York with a similar scrutiny to Austen's view of the home counties at the start of the nineteenth century, penetrating the veil of breeding and form and observing the way people who don't really need (or want) to work spend their days. Just as a handsome soldier or blushing debutante were able to set tongues wagging in deepest Surrey, so too is the arrival of the prodigal daughter, Ellen Olenska, the catalyst for a thousand (mostly scandalous) private conversations in the American metropolis.

The differences, however, are far more intriguing. Unlike Austen's race-to-the-matrimonial-finish-line relationships, the happy couple in Wharton's book begin the story as newly affianced lovers, a point where their relationship begins (for the first time, perhaps...) to become interesting. On meeting and talking to the newly arrived Ellen, the cousin of his fiancee May, Newland Archer begins to examine the stifling social structure surrounding him through new eyes and starts to wonder whether he really wants to get married at all. The more he gets to know Ellen, and the more he becomes involved in fighting for her cause against the massed ranks of his new relatives, the less certain he is of his place in New York's fashionable milieu.

As Newland ponders the surroundings he has taken for granted all his life, the reader is sucked into seeing events through his (newly troubled) eyes. When, later in the book, we get the first hints of secrets being kept from our hero, this viewpoint renders the surprise we feel even more abrupt. Throughout the novel, Newland believes that he is in control of his actions, trying desperately to make the decision to break with his family and friends to be with the woman he really loves; it is only at the dinner party to send Ellen on her way back to Europe that he (and the reader) realises that there is no such thing as a secret among New York's upper echelons - and that there is very little chance of his being able to extricate himself from the position he has been groomed for from the cradle.

In fact, despite his constant protests about his fate, Newland may not be as different as he, and the writer, would have us believe. There are several hints to his normality, his 'averageness', in his behaviour, which he would have us consider as unique and different. Even when he is on the verge of running away with Ellen, he feels that their case cannot be compared to the tawdry affairs of his acquaintances; in fact, society knows (but decides to discreetly ignore) about his commonplace pulling against the reins of polite society. What seems like a frustrated rebellion against his family and friends may actually just be the normal doubts of a married man in an era where sex before marriage was not even to be hinted at.

To return to the comparison of Wharton with other authors, this novel brought to mind another English writer, one who wrote about London society at the same era as that of 'The Age of Innocence'. In his Palliser novels, and the excellent 'The Way We Live Now', Anthony Trollope neatly captured the lifestyles of the rich and famous of the day but was also able to accurately reflect the start of a change in the way people went about their daily lives. Just as Ellen Olenska causses turmoil in Manhattan, so too does Lizzie Eustace in 'The Eustace Diamonds'; the notorious bankrupt Julius Beaufort, a minor character in Wharton's novel, is reminiscent of the 'Great Financier' Augustus Melmotte in 'The Way We Live Now'. In comparison, Austen's tales of the rural upper-middle classes can seem a little tame and lacking in substance.

Twenty-odd years on from the bulk of the action in the book, Newland Archer looks back upon his youthful escapades, happy with his married life but still nursing regrets about what could have been. It is easy for the reader to see his marriage of convenience as a sham and to think that this kind of societal pressure is no longer possible; in the West, at least, this kind of semi-arranged marriage is no longer the norm. However, the ties that our community constricts us with are perhaps no less real today than in the New York of Wharton's novel. Can we really say that when we act we pay no regard to the possible reactions of our family and closest friends? In spite of the long gap separating our time from that of the unfortunate Newland Archer, the truth is that we can often be under as much unseen pressure as Edith Wharton's hero.

48 - 'Sputnik Sweetheart' by Haruki Murakami

As any regular Murakami reader knows, the Japanese author likes to alternate between slightly odd short stories, big mind-boggling novels, and short novels which, in their own way, are just as nutty as the rest of his writing. 'Sputnik Sweetheart', at 220-something pages, falls into the last category and, like most Murakami works, sucks the reader in with a perfect description of the everyday before blind-siding them with something a little more, shall we say, bizarre.

The narrator of the story, K. (another hint of Murakami's love of Kafka), is in love with an ex-college friend, Sumire, who in turn is in love with her new boss, Miu, who isn't in love with anyone, not even her husband, because of a strange event in her life fourteen years ago. After Sumire flies off to Europe on a business trip with Miu, K. gets on with his life, as most Murakami male protagonists do, with classical music, simple home cooking, enjoyable but meaningless affairs and the odd drink too. Then he gets a phone call from Europe, and everything comes crashing down...

The central premise may seem like an ordinary love triangle, but the writer turns it into something more. The three main characters are all loners who have trouble defining their identity, and the relationships they enjoy with each other are a way to start to understand what they want. K. serves as a sounding board for Sumire's constant inquisitiveness, and Sumire helps to get K. to see things from another's point of view, something he's not always very good at doing by himself. When Miu comes along, Sumire is instantly smitten and temporarily abandons her bohemian lifestyle and attempts to become a writer, following Miu to see where the trail will lead.

The connections the three characters have are strong, yet it is always clear that they are ultimately temporary, likely to end soon, and this is one of the writer's key points. In life, people are very much like satellites; while we may occasionally cross paths and accompany each other for a while, we are all alone in the end, trying to understand who exactly we are. When we do meet a kindred spirit, it can be earth shattering and life changing, and it's very easy, especially when we're young, to think that the current situation will go on forever, sometimes leading you to take a once-in-a-lifetime experience for granted. As K. and Miu find out, it rarely does. Like the song goes, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone...

Of course, with Murakami, it's never quite as simple as all that. On top of the nostalgia of lost relationships, 'Sputnik Sweetheart' also deals with a more sinister side of the search for identity. Each of the three central characters experiences a moment where the line between the real world and the imaginary world is blurred, a dangerous time where, if you don't take care, you may end up on the wrong side of the line when the gap closes. Miu's experience on the ferris wheel (the essence of which scene Dan Holloway says he has spent his last two books trying to capture), whether a supernatural moment or a painful psychological projection of self during an unwanted sexual encounter, leaves her empty, broken, unable to function in the real world any more. K., rather more down-to-earth than the others, manages to avoid falling across the line, but is left wondering why he bothered. As for Sumire, well, we'll probably never know.

This book reminds me a little in its themes of 'Norwegian Wood', even if that book is a little more rose-coloured in its portrayal of relationships past (well, vaguely rose-coloured; Murakami is never happy-happy, joy-joy). Most of us can remember times in the past, at school or university, where we met someone with similar interests to us for the first time, and everything just clicked. Many of us are still wondering where that relationship went wrong. Murakami tells us in this book that it's normal for these relationships to fizzle out and for friends to go their separate ways; the satellites cross paths, communicate briefly, then continue their different lonely paths around the earth.

47 - 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' by Thomas Hardy

So, a man walks into a pub with his wife and their daughter and says that he'll sell the wife off to the highest bidder. Then a sailor walks in, slaps five guineas on the table and says, "I'll take you up on that mate, no worries". The first man (slightly perturbed to meet an Australian in an English literature classic) mulls it over and takes the money, and the sailor, the woman and the child leave the pub. This is not a joke; this is the set-up for the Thomas Hardy novel 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'.

We rejoin Michael Henchard, the man with the slightly relaxed attitude to marital ties, in the town of Casterbridge, where he is now the Mayor. Almost twenty years of hard work and abstinence from alcohol (you didn't think he was sober when he sold off his wife, did you?) has enabled him to rise to a respectable place in rural society, an effort which is, in effect, an attempt at atonement for his youthful faux-pas. Having failed to locate his wife after sobering up the day after the 'sale', you can imagine his surprise when his daughter pays him a slightly unexpected visit. Reunited with his family, he swiftly 'courts' and remarries his wife, whose other husband is presumed lost at sea, but, from that moment on, his success in life begins to fade away; one by one, other ghosts reappear from the past to haunt the powerless Henchard until he is forced to leave Casterbridge the same way he arrived, as a wandering labourer.

Henchard is portrayed throughout as aggressive, arrogant, headstrong and jealous, yet Hardy's novel was sub-titled 'The Life and Death of a Man of Character', suggesting that the reader is meant to sympathise in some way with the main character. While it may seem difficult, having glanced through my review, to understand how Henchard could possibly be seen in a sympathetic light, on closer reading of the book, he does have many redeeming features. He is generous, quick to make friends and loyal to those who support him (and honourable to a fault in his dealings both with his former and latter wife, and the woman who almost replaced her). A lesser man may have fallen less quickly (or not at all), but the same stubborness which shows itself negatively can also be turned to a steadfast belief in what is right over what is comfortable for him.

Of course, in today's society, family dramas are perhaps not as big an issue as they were for the highly moral (or secretly depraved and publicly hypocritical...) Victorians, but as followers of politics could tell you, any hint of a less-than-spotless past can have a huge effect on the career of a public figure, especially if it only comes to light decades after the original mishap. Hardy describes the tribulations of Henchard and his former lover, Lucetta, noting that the fact of their sins being long unknown (through being committed outside the realm of Casterbridge) is greatly to their disadvantage; youthful indiscretions are much more likely to be forgiven by people who have had years to get used to them and to measure them against subsequent actions.

Whether you're planning to be a hay trusser or a state M.P., one lesson you can learn from this book is that while it's a long way to the top (as AC/DC once remarked), it's actually a lot faster on the downhill stretch. Anything that happens in your life, no matter how stupid or insignificant it can seem at the time, may well come back to bite you on the behind twenty-odd years down the track (something to consider for those of you with particularly embarrassing photos on your Facebook page...). However, there is something else that we can all learn from Hardy's excellent novel; never, no matter how mad, or drunk, you are at the time, should you attempt to sell your partner (not even if it happens to be legal wherever you are at the time). I can guarantee that it will not end well.

And if you must, at least get your exchange policy sorted out in case the buyer wants their money back.

46 - 'Der Prozess' by Franz Kafka

Tony found himself one day at the end of a long corridor, unmarked by doors, windows or even paintings. Somewhere high above, there must have been some kind of skylight, or porthole, as there was enough light by which the sides of the corridor, for a fair way into the distance, could be seen, but, apart from the light, there was nothing else in view. Clutching his book to his side, Tony ignored the sense of misgiving he felt and started to walk along the corridor, briskly at first, then, as the minutes passed, and the end of the corridor failed to become visible, more slowly. After what seemed to be at least an hour of trudging through the gloom, a faint shadow began to appear at the far end and, with each passing step (which now became brisker once more) became clearer; there was the suspicion of a doorway and more than a hint of someone beside it.

At the end of the corridor, Tony, a little warm, but in no way exhausted from the journey from the other end, stopped in front of the figure sitting next to the doorway. Behind a plain, somewhat aged wooden desk, on which were piled mountains of pieces of paper - forms, essays, reviews; it was impossible to say from the disorder they were part of - , sat a middle-aged man, writing (in what appeared to be German) on one of the many afore-mentioned pieces of paper. Tony shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, hoping to attract the eye of the writer, whose attention appeared to devoted fully to the writing at hand, before finally deciding to speak and disturb the writer at his work. However, no sooner had Tony opened his mouth, when the man stopped writing and, without looking up from his task, declared (with a booming voice strikingly different to what Tony would have expected from someone of the writer's appearance), "Mr. Malone, you are late." Tony flinched at the unexpected challenge but then managed to stammer out, "I'm here, and I've got the book. Are you The Critic?". The writer looked up and smiled. "Let's just say that I'm a critic."

The Critic placed his pen on the table, crosssed his arms and observed Tony with an amused expression. "So, you wish to discuss Kafka's 'Der Prozess'", he said. "That's right, 'The Trial'", Tony relied, to the obvious displeasure of The Critic, who waved his hand quickly in a gesture from which it was surprisingly easy to read that he didn't have time to quibble about names. "I'm a busy man, so, if you want to run your ideas by me, please do so. Now." Slightly taken aback by the abruptness of the command, Tony again shifted his weight from one foot to the other, took a deep breath and started to talk.

"Look, I'll be honest, it wasn't easy to understand exactly what Kafka had in mind when he wrote this book, and, with all the unfinished sections and alterations, it's fair to say that no-one really knows the truth of his intentions...". Tony hesitated slightly at the sight of The Critic's furrowed brow and, after a moment's pause, hurriedly continued, "but I tried to look at it from a number of angles. The first was the role of bureauocracy and the way it is ever present in our lives, making things more difficult, in contrast to the original purpose of ensuring matters run smoothly. It even, you know, stops us from getting to the people with the power, you can't get to talk to anyone who can actually help you, you have to go through, helpers, intermediaries. And that's exactly what Joseph K. experiences. Kafka, knew about that. He was a bureaucrat too, you know." The Critic nodded, the stern expression momentarily absent from his face. "Absolutely hated it though." Immediately, the stern expression returned, becoming, if possible, even sterner, the brow becoming even more wrinkled. Tony realised that he was on the wrong path and went on.

"Yes, it's an attack on bureauocracy, but the main idea is a bit more abstract than that. You see, Kafka was religious, he wanted to, wanted to... try to understand what it's all about, why we're here, and the trial is about that. The courts, the whole process (if you'll pardon the bi-lingual pun), is a representation, if you like, of the church, of the structure underpinning Christianity and the way people try to make sense of it all. At first, it all means nothing to you, but, as life becomes more difficult, finding a truth, finding the truth, becomes more and more important. That's what K. was doing, you see. At the beginning, he thought he could get by on his own, he didn't need any, any... help, support, but, eventually he does, he wants someone to sort it out for him." Tony paused to catch his breath and was gratified to see that The Critic was nodding quietly, his papers seemingly forgotten. Ignoring his pounding heart, Tony continued, trying to make his voice as persuasive as possible; "Because, you see, he doesn't know what the true way forward is, he knows that there is a court, but he knows nothing about it. He turns to the lawyer for help, then the painter,he evens listens to Mr. Block, the businessman... he just wants some truth, no matter who gives it to him. But, the thing is, the more he knows, the less he progresses. You see, he realises that all these people are just the flunkies, the underlings, he never gets past the beginning, and that's just like the priests..."

"So what?", shouted The Critic, storming to his feet in his anger and cutting the, frankly startled, Tony off in mid-sentence. "Anyone can blabber on about religion, the church, God: anyone! Have you no new ideas? Have you got nothing to justify wasting my time like this?" For a moment, there was silence in the corridor, the echoes of The Critic's outburst overcome by the all-encompassing quiet of the emptiness surrounding them. Sweating, legs aching, deeply regretting his decision to make the journey to the end of the corridor, Tony decided to make one last attempt. "There was one more idea I had..." He took a deep breath.

"Terminal illness." There was silence. The Critic slowly examined Tony, his eyes moving up and down, then side to side, before coming to a rest on Tony's own. Then, gently, but decisively, he sat back down in his chair and laid his hands on the table. "Go on."

Tony swallowed and continued speaking. "My idea, and this, by the way, is just something that's been going through my head, not sure if it's relevant or, you know, intended, but my feeling is that perhaps K. is actually a cancer victim, or something. I started thinking about this because I read somewhere that Kafka himself had a lot of health problems. Perhaps he wanted to express them in his writing, I don't know. The start of the trial, the arrest, where the two men come to tell K. about the case, maybe that's where he finds out that he's sick. And he decides that he can overcome it, he doesn't need anyone, he's, well, in a way, you could say that's he's in denial. He can't believe that he's sick, and he thinks that by just ignoring it, it will all go away." Another pause. The Critic was still sitting in the same position, his eyes glued to a point somehwere around the top of Tony's nose, unblinking. Silence.

"And that's where he goes to get help, his family, his uncle introduces him to a lawyer, a professional - that's the doctor, you see, the cancer specialist, oncologist? - so he finally starts to get help. But it doesn't work, the cancer doesn't respond to the treatment, and K. gets frustrated, he doesn't think the doctor's any good, and that's when he finds out about an alternative: the painter or, as I like to think of him, the alternative medicine bloke. K.'s dying, isn't he? He's clutching at straws!" Tony leant forward, his hair matted with sweat, he too now had his eyes fully focused on the other man, his manner energetic and slightly manic. "And of course, the oncologist, I mean the lawyer, tries to win him back, tries to warn him off the charlatans, tells him about other cases which ended well, but K.'s had enough, he doesn't want to go through any more chemo, he just wants to..." Tony stopped, drawing breath, his shoulders dropping slightly. "And then, he... he accepts it. He knows that it's time. That's why he allows the men to take him at the end; he knows that it's time to go. It's a kind of... acceptance."

The corridor was silent again. The Critic leant back in his chair, distracted, pondering. Tony felt the wall by his side, for the first time, and half fell against it, using it to support his weight. His legs seemed unable to keep him upright. For a while, the two men were quiet, unmoving. Dust floating in the air was the only sign of life, if you could call it that. Suddenly, The Critic took up his pen again and, before starting to write, said, "You may continue." Tony straightened up and looked uncomprehendingly at The Critic, who merely jerked his head towards the doorway, obviously gesturing for him to move on through. A deep breath, and Tony moved through the doorway into another room, leaving The Critic, and his paperwork, behind.

As Tony walked into the new room, he saw an old man looking out of a large, stained-glass window. The light streaming in through the window lit up the man's face, showing a benevolent-looking expression, an appearance aided by a small, red-framed pair of glasses. Tony stopped again and called over, asking this new apparition, "Are you The Critic?". The man turned slowly with a smile beaming all over his wrinkled face. "Well, young man, let's just say that I'm a critic...".

[This review was never completed]

45 - 'Notes from Underground' & 'The Double' by Fyodor Dostoevsky

If you're looking for happy smiley people, my daughter has several teddy bear books which may be just up your street. If, however, you enjoy reading about people more depressed than you (or you're depressed yourself and want to know you're not alone), you can't go past a bit of classical Russian literature, and who better to put a dampener on your day than good old Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky, Fyod (possibly) to his friends. A few hundred pages of his tales of anguish and existential angst, and you too will feel as if you've been trudging through the St. Petersburg mud and sludge in the middle of a blizzard (without your fur coat. Or shoes.). Not that I'm saying that's a bad thing...

My most recent book brought together two of Dostoyevsky's shorter works, 'The Double' and 'Notes from Underground'. Apart from the fact that they add up to a nice amount of pages (Penguin probably decided they couldn't get people to fork out their hard-earned cash for each story separately), the two stories are linked by the theme of a man's decline in terms of social status and sanity. That, and the fact that there's a lot of snow.

'The Double' follows a few days in the life of Mr. Golyadkin, a civil servant who is passing pleasantly through life until the arrival of an interloper with the same name and, more importantly, the same face as him. The new Golyadkin usurps the original's place and causes him to lose face, status and, eventually, his job without the poor public official being able to do anything about it. He roams aimlessly through the streets of St. Petersburg, unable to make a decision and stick to it, denied at all points by the mysterious newcomer and suddenly shunned by his aquaintances and colleagues. As the tale progresses, we realise that all may not be as it seems; Golyadkin's spiral into the gutter is the description of a mental illness which the patient himself seems to be unaware of. The reader is also unsure as to the exact role of the new Golyadkin: is he real, is he a figment of the imagination, or is he the mischievous alter-ego of a schizophrenic?

While 'The Double' is one of Dostoevsky's earlier books, and consequently not that well known, 'Notes from Underground' is one of his most famous works. The unnamed 'underground man' rants about his life in the first section, explaining how, as an intelligent person, he is plagued with self-doubt and unable to function, as he is without the certainty and belief in his decisions that stupid people seem to possess. When faced with unmoveable obstacles, he cannot rest, knowing that there must be a way around, while the less intelligent accept the fait-accompli and are happy that they have done all they can. These existential musings are followed by a series of events which occurred earlier in the underground man's life: an imagined street confrontation with an unsuspecting soldier; an embarrassing scene at a dinner party for a former friend, which the underground man invited himself to; and a confrontation with a prostitute whom he offers to save and then rejects, before regretting his behaviour and (too late) chasing after her into the street.

On reading the first section, it is easy to believe that the underground man is talking to the reader and expressing their thoughts. After all, who hasn't felt that they were special and intelligent and that their path was blocked by less intelligent people whose only advantage was their ability to substitute volume and aggression for reason in an argument (and that these people still somehow seemed to come out on top)? I've even seen comments on discussion boards where people identify with the underground man, believing him to be describing the plight of intellectuals everywhere. As the story progresses, however, it becomes more difficult to identify with the writer's voice. His actions seem exaggerated and unnecessary, and his voice becomes less and less trustworthy. Despite his professed superiority over his less intelligent classmates, he is unable to display it and, in reality, comes across as petulant and childish. By the time he wilfully rejects Liza and thrusts her back into the street with money in her hand (which she rejects), he has (hopefully) lost all credibility in the eyes of the reader.

Although the underground man professes to tell the truth, we are unable to take him at his word. His rejection of friends, privilege and company are less the consequences of a proud nature than those of a cowardly one which is afraid to bare its soul to the realities of life. Having mastered books, he is unable to return to the real world, and, after inheriting a small amount of money, he finally withdraws from the real world and decides to write his 'notes'.

With this tale, Dostoyevsky begins his works on the uselessness of Western (European) philosophy and culture and a need for a return to the good old Russian basics (which includes serfdom/slavery, but it's a nice idea all the same). The French philosophy of man only needing to find out their true desire in order to be able to find their way in life is rejected; the underground man claims that man's need to be able to go against his true nature is stronger than the nature itself. Even if we know that something is for the best, as humans, we desire to have the freedom to screw up our lives if we so choose, and this freedom to mess up is what stops everything from being perfect (slightly paraphrased, but you get the idea). Which explains why diets never work...

Having read the work starting Dostoyevsky's golden era, it would be interesting now to go back and read 'Crime and Punishment' to see how the earlier novella influenced or led to the classic novel. The background and setting are the same, as is the fevered stream-of-conciousness dialogue (monologue) of the main characters, slightly more coherent than Woolfe's fragmentary utterances or Kerouac's verbal diarrhoea, but still fairly confusing and breath-takingly swift. These shorter works are a great starting point for anyone wanting to read Dostoyevsky but still unsure about launching into one of the great novels. For anyone who has been put off by my description, please give them a go anyway. If not, well, the offer of the teddy bear books still stands. Just don't tell my daughter...

44 - 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Last year I read 'Love in the Time of Cholera', Garcia Marquez's novel of a love story in old age, so I thought I knew roughly what 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' would be like. As it turns out, I was ever so slightly wrong... The casual prose dragging the reader languidly through decades in the life of its protagonists was the same; however, the content, while still set in Latin America and dealing with love, lust and family life, was, to put it mildly a bit different.

In my last post, I compared Nick Earls' short stories to Haruki Murakami's novels in the way that the everyday is described in great detail while being peppered by events which are slightly less real; little did I know that this style of writing ('magical realism') was coined to describe the work of South American novelists like Garcia Marquez. From flying carpets whizzing past the window to four-and-a-half-year rainstorms, 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' has something for everyone without turning into a fantasy book, and the reader can accept these abnormal occurrences without it affecting the enjoyment of the story.

At the centre of the book is the tempestuous Buendia clan, whose patriarch, Jose Arcadio, strikes out from his hometown with his wife, Ursula, in an attempt to escape the ghost of a man he killed, and founds the town of Macondo in an uninhabited part of his country. A century later, after walking the reader through the experiences of the children, grand-children, friends, concubines, lovers, partners and animals of what, at times, is a hugely powerful and culturally dominating family, the book ends with the disappearance of all that has gone before and the town's return to its earlier obscurity.

The Buendia family are a collection of larger-than-life characters, from Jose Arcadio and the long-lived Ursula, to their sons Aureliano and Jose Arcadio and a whole host of their descendants, many of whom share their forefather's names. The men of the family, often divided over the six featured generations into the calm, calculating Aurelianos and the aggressive, hard-living Jose Arcadios, build, fight, whore and die; the women, most of whom marry into the family, are either scheming, tenacious and hard as nails, or beautiful and somewhat detached. Over and over again, names are handed down, children are brought up, and the same mistakes are made. Although it seems as if the Buendias are merely a victim of circumstances, we finally find out that their rise and fall has been predicted all along.

Despite the size of the Buendia family, theirs is not a house of laughter and love (although a theme of barely suppressed and finally unwtting incest runs through the tale), with many of the family members preferring to keep themselves to themselves, some to the extent of locking themselves in a small room for years at a time. The solitude of the title refers to the lack of support for each other and the looseness of the ties which would normally bind a family together. While the women do try to keep the family (and the house, a symbol of the family) together, time eventually defeats them all, and everything returns to its natural state.

However, the solitude refers not only to the Buendias, but also to Macondo, the town which the original Jose Arcadio founded. The completely new town gradually grows and becomes more and more important owing to Aureliano's role in the country's political wars, finally becoming a centre of commerce with links to the outside world by road and rail. However, as time passes, so do the temporary riches; the outsiders leave again, the buildings crumble, and the town is once more isolated from the rest of civilisation. In the space of the hundred years of the title, the town is born, expands, is ruined and disappears.

The book ends in a whirlwind of emotions (amongst other things...), and it takes a while for the dust to (literally) settle on what has happened and to think about what the whole point of the book was. One rather obvious one is, as was discussed in Sophocles' famous plays, check your girlfriend's birth certificate (just to make sure that the names on it aren't the same as the ones on yours); the story begins and ends, and largely hinges on, incest and its consequences. Another one is slightly more palatable but no less important; nothing lasts forever. Just as civilisations rise and fall and football teams go from losers to champions to idiots again, the fortunes of people and places can move in cycles, swinging between famous highs and ignominious lows. It's something we should all be wary of at the time of our great successes. Time and fortune may lift us up, but they can always send us crashing back to earth.

43 - 'Headgames' by Nick Earls

After a week or so in the classical world, it was time to get back to a more contemporary feel this weekend; to be more precise, late twentieth-century Brisbane, a world containing a lot more pubs and not quite so many ritual sacrifices (although it has been a while since my last visit, so don't take my word for it). Nick Earls is an Aussie author of several novels and would easily fit into the much discussed (and often derided) 'lad-lit' genre if he lived about 10,000 miles to the north-west. Having read many of his books about the mishaps of various semi-autobiographical characters, I thought I knew what to expect from this collection of short stories, but on the whole I was (pleasantly) surprised.

There is a wide variety of styles and subjects over the eighteen tales that make up 'Headgames'. The five stories that form the backbone of the collection, following the everyday adventures of Frank and Philby, slightly nerdy (or, as they say down under, daggy) university students looking for love and cheap drinks, are typical of Earls' novels. Philby, tormented by a shyness that is criminally vulgar (couldn't resist it) and a rather embarrassing English mother with a penchant for speaking in foreign accents, meets the hyper-confident Frank in a chemistry class, a meeting which is to drag the shy, unassuming Phil out of his comfort zone (mainly consisting of his bedroom) into a world of creme-de-menthes, sausage sizzles, part-time jobs at the 'Ekka' (the yearly show or fair) and a general lack of sensible study. The last story in the collection has Philby in his thirties, regressing to his shy self at an after party for a film and ending up at dawn doing something incredibly unusual with a Hollywood celebrity. No, I'm not going to tell you what (or who) it is.

Many of the other stories, however, take a very different road than Frank and Philby's light-hearted adventures. As a former doctor, Earls is, understandably, interested in diseases and illnesses (particularly serious ones), and a few of the stories are concerned with this theme. 'All those Ways of Leaving' is seen through the eyes of a young woman who is slowly dying of cancer and shines a light on the way people treat her in the light of her impending death. 'Box shaped Heart', on the other hand, looks at a young student's recovery from a near-fatal heart condition. His determination to get back to full health as soon as possible and continue with his university career is explained not only by a fear of becoming a permanent invalid, but also by the realisation of what could happen if his friends move on without him.

In 'There must be Lions' though, the focus (I think...) is more on mental illness than a physical ailment. A woman in a hospital or clinic believes that lions enter the building every night and devour the patients' limbs (which somehow grow back again before the morning comes); despite her best efforts to capture one, they always seem to subliminally persuade her to release them from the nets she has caught them in. Her painstaking efforts to prove to the world that the lions are real, including her hundreds of letters to experts in the field of lions (and the Lone Pine Koala sanctuary, just in case), are a scary indication of just how deluded people suffering from a mental illness can become.

This slightly off-beat story actually turned out to be a fair representation of the style of the rest of the tales in this book. From a young woman's never-ending trip to a gigantic, ever-expanding shopping centre, and a sadistic P.E. teacher's sad demise while only able to bark out instructions with his last breaths for his students to keep running, to a grumpy unicorn, angry because his female housemate continues to use the toilet (when everyone knows that it's a reading room and that the garden is the appropriate place to do your business), and a lab assistant who ends up more lab than assistant (woof), Earls displays a deft surreal touch that keeps the human emotions close at hand despite the detour to Planet Bizarre. Incredibly, I found myself reminded of a certain famous author who has written some, shall we say, slightly unusual short stories: the Australian Haruki Murakami?

It's a bit of a stretch, and Earls has yet to produce any lengthy works which compare to Murakami's more famous novels, but the comparison is apt at times on the short-story front. If Murakami had been brought up in Brisbane by embarrassing English parents, studied medicine at university, got into indie and alternative music rather than jazz, developed a liking for sickly green liqueurs over Cutty Sark whisky and favoured shy, clumsy central characters over cool, anonymous protagonists, he may have turned out a bit like Nick Earls.

Whether that would be a good thing or not is for you to decide, dear reader; if you can get your hands on one of Earls' books in your part of the world, I would urge you to give him a go (if only to expand your world view to include a nice city on the other side of the world where footwear in supermarkets can be optional). Who knows, you may even decide to visit Brisbane after reading about it in his stories. Just a word of advice in case you do though: watch out for the unicorns. I hear they can be very temperamental at this time of year.

42 - 'The Classical World' by Robin Lane Fox

After polishing off Euripides' plays, I was keen to read some more about those troublesome Greek gods, so I picked up 'The Classical World' on one of my rare trips to Borders. Of course, if I'd bothered to read the back, I probably would have found out that it was a history book a lot sooner. Oops. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a go and have spent the last week embroiled in the tumultuous Mediterranean conflicts of the classical era, and great fun it was too.

The writer, a professor at Oxford University (and an expert on Alexander the Great, something which allowed him not only to provide research for the Oliver Stone film, but also to ride in the front of all the cavalry charges in the film!), describes the period of history from the rule of the Greek city states to the time of the Roman emperor Hadrian, some 800 years or so in all. While taking the reader through such events as Thermopylae (familiar to anyone who saw '300'), the conquests of Alexander the Great, the gradual shift from Greek to Roman dominance in the region and the rise and fall (well, it's hard to stand when you've been stabbed in the back) of Julius Caesar, Lane Fox attempts to show us exactly how people lived back then. It's one hell of a story, and very well written, but it takes a lot of doing to get through it all in one go. I think I should have approached this book a little differently and read it over a longer period as the battles and orgies tended to blur into each other after a while (not sure that makes sense, but it did in my head).

While taking us through the events of the classical era, the writer also repeatedly returns to three crucial concepts and how they are affected by events: justice, freedom and luxury. You would expect that each of these ideas had progressed over the eight centuries covered, but on the whole that is not the case. Luxury did become more obtainable as new worlds and unknown products became available, but the Romans frowned upon private consumption of luxury items, preferring to have their wealthy citizens spread their wealth (and festivals) around. Justice was obtainable for some in the democracy of the city state of Athens but was only really an option for the rich by the time of Hadrian. And as for freedom; let's just say that the citizens of the Roman Empire had to revise their views of what freedom actually meant. Freedon to continue breathing was about as far as it went for some people...

There are some lovely maps of various areas of the Med, and the Middle-East, and I kept getting a nagging feeling that they, and the book as a whole, reminded me of another epic work. And then it came to me: Lord of the Rings. Looking at the various maps from different periods, with different countries under the control of new rulers, was exactly like poring over Tolkien's maps of Middle-Earth in both 'The Silmarillion' and the later trilogy of novels (Tolkien actually considered it as one book, but that's another story...). Even the constant introduction of new tribes, heroes, villains and wizards (alright, philosophers, but they're both old with beards), was reminiscent of the fictional version. Still not convinced? What huge unknown animals did the Greeks face in their battles in the Middle-East and India, later to be used in Europe? That's right, elephants. I rest my case.

Ancient history? Yes. Irrelevant? Not quite. Just as Alexander and (later) the Romans marched on Babylon, so too have the United States and their allies invaded Iraq. Just as the invading forces realised later that it was actually too much trouble to administer the province themselves, leaving the 'barbarians' under the control of a puppet king, so have the Allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan allowed a local leader, friendly to their aims, to start the rebuilding and regoverning process. Those who fail to learn their history are doomed to repeat its mistakes, something the leaders of the world, hopefully, understand. The centuries of empire building and epic wars are over, not (with a bit of luck) to be repeated; let's hope that these kinds of stories are only to be read in history books in the future.

Except for the elephants: you can never have enough elephants.

41 - 'Medea, Hecabe, Electra and Heracles' by Euripides

If you're sitting at home depressed, feeling that things just aren't going the way you want them to, there's nothing like reading some Greek tragedies to make you think that life's not that bad after all. Euripides, one of the three great tragedians of ancient Greek literature, wrote almost a hundred plays during his life (of which not that many remain as he didn't save any soft copies), and these four are among his most famous.

The plays are connected by a common theme of murder as revenge for betrayal, with three of them involving a particularly horrid kind of murder; let's just say that they kept it in the family... Unlike many Greek plays where the gods are seen as omniscient and controlling, Euripides has a slightly more sceptical (almost proto-atheist?) view of the residents of Mount Olympus. Basically, you can't trust the gods to do anything, so you might as well rely on yourself. Unfortunately, that can be difficult if they decide to smite you (but I digress).

In 'Medea', the title character, deserted by her husband Jason (he of the Argonauts' fame), decides that revenge is not a dish best served cold, but an excuse to murder her faithless husband's new wife, his new wife's father and her own two sons. Euripides does a good job of making Medea as sympathetic as possible, painting the ambitious Jason as a success-chasing sycophant who is ashamed of his non-Greek wife, but, by today's standards, Medea does take the revenge thing a bit too far, what with all the murders and then taunting Jason from the air while hovering in a dragon-drawn chariot (which, by the way, is exactly what I want for my birthday).

By contrast, 'Hecabe', widow of the defeated and killed Priam, King of Troy, has slightly more cause for revenge when she learns that not only is her daughter Polyxena to be sacrificed to honour the death of Achilles (whose mentions in the play always conjure up the image of Brad Pitt - stupid film), but that her last remaining son, Polydorus, who was sent away from Troy for his safety, has been murdered by his guardian, Polymestor. It's unfortunate that in addition to blinding her son's murderer, she also gets her handmaidens to do away with his young sons, but that's Ancient Greece for you. If you don't get them when they're young, you may live to regret it when two young strangers hack your head off twenty years later.

Which brings us to 'Electra', daughter of the betrayed Greek hero king Agamemnon, and her brother Orestes. While Orestes is not really convinced about his duty to shed lots of blood, little sis is very keen, promising to top their treacherous mother, Clytmnestra, if Orestes gets rid of her new husband, the usurping Aegisthus. Unfortunately, Electra losses her nerve at the last minute, leaving big brother to do away with his mother, putting himself in big trouble with the gods (there are very detailed divine rules about who you can and can't kill; it can all get a bit confusing at times...).


'Heracles', on the other hand, is a real tragedy. Having returned from the underworld just in time to save his family from the usurping king Lycus (yes, it's not often you use 'usurping' in consecutive paragraphs), the famous hero falls foul of the petty jealousy of his father's wife. Unfortunately for him, his father is Zeus, which makes the woman he has annoyed Hera, Queen of the Gods. As you can imagine, she is not the sort to settle for strategically-placed banana skins or two flat tyres on his chariot, instead sending poor Heracles mad and making him kill his wife and three kids.

Joking aside, 'Heracles' is extremely touching. Euripides sets a scene where the reader is prepared for Lycus to kill Heracles' wife, father and children, and when Heracles appears in the nick of time, the reader experiences the same sense of relief that the characters do. Of course, for those watching the play in the era it was written, this was a part of the shared cultural knowledge, and everyone would know exactly what was going to happen next. In a way, that would make the scene even sadder.


These four plays are centred around the way insults in ancient times demanded revenge, often embroiling families (or, in the case of the Trojan War, whole countries) in situations where blood was inevitably shed. It was easy to blame the gods, but Euripides' view was that men should help themselves - not an easy thing to do if you've got a goddess with a grudge on your back, though.

When reading these plays, for the first time, it was surprising how many names and events (and even plots) were familiar (as were the plays in Sophocles' Oedipus trilogy which I read earlier in the year). The legends of Ancient Greece were not only relevant at the time of their performance, but also today; for anyone of European or Anglo-Saxon heritage, these tales are part of our cultural background, and it's important to revisit these stories to see how to deal with adversity in life. Or not, as the case may be.

Now, I'm off to see a man about a dragon...

40 - 'Soul Mountain' by Gao Xingjian

In February, I posted a review of Gao Xinjian's collection of short stories, 'Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather', and, after recently reading 'Getting Rich First' (and with the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen square crackdown just around the corner...), I decided it was time to give Gao's Nobel-Prize-winning novel 'Soul Mountain' another try. As previously mentioned, his merits are not unanimously agreed upon, so I thought that this time I would read the book with one eye on the controversial topics and methods denounced by certain detractors. Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

The book itself is a fictionalisation of a journey by the author around rural China in 1982, not (as you can imagine) because he needed a break from the rat race, but rather because he had heard rumours that he was shortly to be denounced and brought in by the government (so you could say the trip to the country was for his health). Two main narrators, 'I' and 'You', move around the countryside, the mountains and the forests of southern China in search of Lingshan, the Soul Mountain of the title. On the way, they encounter many interesting, bizarre, sensuous and worrying people and try to document some of the disappearing customs of life outside the major cities of the east.

Gao (or his literary representatives) is searching for something, and it is really up to the reader to decide what the mythical Lingshan represents. The main character 'I' often reminisces about his childhood and seems to be searching for some remnants of a time which, if not idyllic, is certainly better than the present. This search for times past may just be a desire to escape the oppressive period he is living in, a very difficult one for a writer whose opinions do not exactly mirror those of the state. Unfortunately, he eventually realises that escape is impossible; however many mountains he climbs, the next one always looks bigger and better. In the end, it's time to return to Beijing, to go back to society, friends and warmth.

The book also portrays a search for a style of life which may be becoming obsolete. Throughout their travels, the protagonists (especially 'I') visit rural towns and villages, interview monks and shamans, attend religious and cultural festivals, request performances of old folk songs from venerable elders, and look for ancient folk songs to copy down for posterity. There is an obvious desire on the part of the author to preserve these old traditional ways in the face of both the cultural rewriting of history and the unstoppable march of modernisation and urbanisation.
Although the village scenes may appear to be unchanged from hundreds of years ago, there are many signs of the decline of rural life. Most of the bearers of the old stories and songs are old, and the new generation is not always interested in keeping the traditions alive; the government officials most definitely not.

Another threat (which has since become a reality) is the plan to create the Three Gorges Dam, a project which will necessitate the removal of millions of people and the destruction of many villages and cultural artefacts. The project is mentioned several times, usually in connection with a place of beauty or site of historical interest which will be lost under the new water level. The dam project seems to be the epitome of the aims of the Cultural revolution; the ability to wipe out all resistance in order to create a new reality, whatever the cost.

Enough description, let's turn to the criticism (and there is a lot of it). Before (and while) reading 'Soul Mountain', I did a lot of research (OK, I used Wikipedia and Google...) on what people thought about it, and, while many people loved it, there was a significant number of disgruntled readers. One of the most common criticisms concerned the use of the multiple narrators and the part they played. In addition to the aforementioned 'I' and 'You', Gao also created a 'She' (to accompany 'You') and a 'He' (when 'You' became too close to 'I' - bear with me here). At times, this does cross over into poetical lunacy, but I found the idea and use of 'I' and 'You' aesthetically pleasing and relevant to the book. 'I''s (my?) journey was more grounded in fact while 'You''s (your???) story was more mystical and slightly less connected to reality. This use of the double character enabled Gao to explore the mystical and the practical at the same time - and gave the story a lot of variety, too.

Another criticism, which I have a lot more time for, is that the book is lewd and, at times demeaning to women. Although there were obviously political issues which the writer had to face, it is very easy to interpret the story as one big mid-life crisis. The main characters seem to fall in and out of bed with women on a regular basis, and these women are portrayed as sensuous and cunning, with a hidden agenda of ensnaring a man in their web of romance. The need for women to possess a man (a desire which Gao does not appear too fond of ) is pitted against man's desire to do the deed and get out of there pronto (I paraphrase slightly). I am not the world's biggest feminist, so if I cringe slightly at certain sections, many people may find the author's treatment of relationships somewhat disturbing.

The big question though, the 555-page question in fact, is this: is 'Soul Mountain' even a novel? Several critics have answered in the negative, and, if you are expecting a linear progression with a clear ending, you will be very disappointed. Several parts of the book could be chopped up and reassembled in a random order without making much of a difference to the reading experience (which actually sounds like a fun, and rather Zen, thing to do). Cleverly, Gao anticipates this; one of the later chapters consists of a dialogue between the writer and a literary critic who throws this accusation at the author (but never quite makes it stick).

My answer would be: is it important? If the reader enjoys a book on any level, then the definition of the genre can be left to academics with time and research money on their hands. Despite the admitted flaws in the work, I found 'Soul Mountain' to be an interesting journey through a place which could soon be consigned to the pages of history and a time where writers had to be very careful about what they wrote. One thing I would add to that though is that knowing a little about the writer and the history of his country makes for a much better reading experience. The information I gathered through reading Gao's other novel, 'One Man's Bible' (no review because I read it last year: sorry!) and surfing the internet meant that my second reading of this book was a more rewarding experience than the first.

39 - 'Les Récrés du Petit Nicolas' by René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé

After the recent traumatic tales of the darker side of childhood, I thought it would be nice to finish off a trilogy of kid-lit (my copyright, if there's any money in it) with a short book concentrating on the sunnier side of being young. 'Les Récrés du Petit Nicolas' is a French book about a young boy and the adventures he has at school with his friends. Just as in 'What Maisie Knew', the reader sees events through the eyes of the title character, but in this book, the child's lack of understanding of what adults say and think is substantially more light-hearted.

The seventeen short stories, supplemented by black and white sketches of major scenes, only take up about 120 pages (it is a kid's book, after all!), but Goscinny, who was also involved in the creation of another French icon, Asterix, manages to pack a wide variety of stories and emotions into such a small space. Most of the humour comes from Nicolas' attempts to interpret the language, both verbal and non-verbal, of adults, something he usually manages to get ever-so-slightly (but always amusingly) wrong. For example, when, after a hellish day chasing around after a class of screaming kids at the art gallery, Nicolas' teacher says that she never wants to see another painting in her life, our young hero understands why she is so unhappy; she obviously doesn't like art and never wanted to go to the gallery in the first place. Nicolas also shows himself to be very trusting of what his parents tell him; he talks about a present his father received from his mother, a green-and-red tie which he never wears because he doesn't want to get it dirty...

While the stories are very funny, there are also some very touching scenes. When Nicolas, along with all his friends, catches a tadpole and takes it home, his mother demands that it leave the house immediately (otherwise she will!). It is up to Nicolas' father to gently persuade his son to take the tadpole back to the pond, explaining that the mummy frog will be missing her baby, just as Nicolas' mummy would miss him if someone took him away in a jam jar. Another example is the final story of the book, where Nicolas attends a prize-giving ceremony marking the end of the school year and the last thing between him and the long-awaited school holidays. Only when the ceremony is over, and all his friends have gone away for the summer, does he realise that he won't see them for the next few months and that he is going to be all alone over the holidays. And then he starts crying...

I've read this book (and a couple of other Nicolas collections) several times, and I love the idea of the endless childhood and long-forgotten school days. Whenever I read about Alceste (always with a pain-au-chocolat in his hand), Eudes (permanently ready to start a fight), Clotaire (usually asleep in class) and Agnan (the teacher's pet who needs to keep his glasses on if he is to avoid being set upon by the other kids), it takes me back to the simplicity and innocence of my own childhood. Being grown up has its advantages (and I definitely enjoy not having to sit in detention!), but occasionally I miss running around playing football in the playground, talking to my friends in the bitingly-cold wind and waiting for the bell to ring us back into the classroom. Happy days.

38 - 'Atonement' by Ian McEwan

I recently wrote a review of 'What Maisie Knew', but I thought I'd also tell you a little about how I bought the book (come back, I am going somewhere with this). The university bookshop had one of its periodic outlet sales where they try to flog off surplus copies of paperbacks, some good, some not so good. Most of the books were $10, which, although reasonable, is not good enough to get me to drag my moth-eaten wallet out of my pocket (because I am extremely tigh... sensible with money). Imagine then my excitement (well, a mildly elevated pulse, nothing too energetic; I am English, after all), when I saw two books bundled for the price of one, both of them books that I was quite interested in reading. They were the aforementioned Henry James novel and the subject of this post, 'Atonement'.

There was a reason for the two books' being sold together. Vintage, the publisher, had created ten twin-packs of classic and modern novels based on a common theme, and the theme for these two was 'Lies'. In 'What Maisie knew', the lies were told to the young heroine of the piece; however, in 'Atonement', it is a young girl who tells the lie which is the catalyst for the later, tragic events. Briony Tallis, who is thirteen at the time of the first part of the novel, is a young girl who has turned to literature to deal with growing up, and this escape into fantasy is part of the cause of her behaviour. Disappointed in the play she has tried to stage to welcome her brother home from London, she loses herself in events involving her sister which she observes from a window. By the time tragedy strikes, her mind is in a condition to allow her imagination to override reason. I will say no more (mainly because you may not have read the book - or seen the film!).

One of the interesting aspects of 'Atonement' is the way McEwan creates a book inside a book. Briony later relates the events in a manuscript she sends off to a publisher, but, just as with her real life, it is impossible to have complete faith in the story she tells. At times, the line between McEwan and Briony is blurred, and you're not quite sure who is telling the story (and whether either of them can be trusted). Another nice touch is a letter Briony receives from the publisher; you get the feeling that there may have been a fair bit of McEwan in this scene of literary criticism (perhaps even a bit of tongue-in-cheek revenge for past wrongs at the hand of editors? Just my speculation).

Over the whole story, there hovers a feeling of pressure or suppression, a storm approaching, which can be felt before its arrival. From the unbearable, oppressive June heat of the first part of the novel, to the constant threat of annihilation from the air in the second, the characters appear trapped by circumstances and unable to break out and breathe freely. Cecilia, Briony's elder sister, a recent graduate from Cambridge (in the days when women could study but not receive a degree), feels caged up at her family home in the country but still strangely unable to move away and break the tie. Her mother, Emily, is overcome by blinding migraines which affect her to the point of restricting all movement or thought. Robbie Turner, a family friend and one of the principal characters, flees through the French countryside, expecting death from the sky at any moment. Later, even Briony herself experiences a form of suppression of self when she decides to do her bit for the war effort and steps outside her comfort zone. All these experiences combined give a tense flavour to the flow of the story, a flavour which enhances, rather than spoils, the enjoyment of the novel.

Of course, the major theme of the book is its title; Briony's lifelong effort to make up for her childish error is the main source of atonement, but there are other people who make mistakes (some bigger than others...) and try to erase them in some way later. Sorry; I'm not going to give any more away than that! I'll just say that there is a great twist in the book, and, not having seen the film, I wonder how the big-screen version would handle it. The cynic in me thinks that it probably isn't handled well at all...

Despite that, I would be quite interested in watching the film, to see how the story has been adapted, and, coming from a person who really can't stand spending two hours of his life in a dark room (unless I'm sleeping), that is actually a huge compliment. Reading 'Atonement' has given me a taste for McEwan's writing, and I'll certainly be looking for a few more of his novels soon (but only at a reasonable price). And that's the truth.

37 - 'Getting Rich First - Life in a Changing China' by Duncan Hewitt

As you may have noticed, I haven't really reviewed a lot of non-fiction in my little blog. There are two main reasons for that:

1) With my work and studies, I read a lot of journals and articles anyway.

2) I have very little reading time and a lot of fiction I want to read!

However, I do make the occasional exception, and 'Getting Rich First - Life in a Changing China' is one of them. Written by a former BBC World journalist, who has lived in China for over twenty years, this fascinating book gives a broad overview of contemporary life in the world's most populous nation. From urban growth to rural decay, from big business to fine art, the book's thirteen chapters each take one area of Chinese life and attempt to make sense of sky-high economic growth in a communist regime.

The topic of China is an interesting one, both personally and for my adopted homeland. Trade with China, especially in the area of natural resources, is one of the most important factors in staving off the worst of the Global Financial Crisis here in Australia, and our (fairly) new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd (hands up who knew that; I can hear the embarrassed silence from here...), is a bonafide Sinophile, having studied Chinese at university and lived and worked in China before his political career reached such dizzy heights (don't laugh. Being Prime Minister of Australia is a serious job. Who do you think tells all the kangaroos where to go?). Just as Japanese real estate investment was the talk of the town a few decades ago, tales of takeover bids by Chinese companies are now regular fodder for newspapers down under.

I have slightly less of a background regarding China, never having been there and not being able to produce more than a few mumbled expressions ('Ni Hao' and 'Xie Xie' probably won't get me very far with anyone more fluent than a six-month old baby. Or a dog.). However, in my work in international education, China is an ever-present factor. The majority of the students at my college come from mainland China, and, as is the case with most Australian higher education institutes, these full-fee paying students are responsible for providing the college with funds which the government is less than keen on providing. In fact, providing higher education for overseas students is one of the top few Australian export industries (I feel so proud that I'm doing my bit for the country).

Education is a major topic in this book, and Hewitt details the possibilities and strains brought about by a freedom of choice. The children of many wealthier Chinese families, fearing the stress of punishing high school exams and dubious about the effectiveness of local teaching methodology, now have the possibility of jetting overseas to get their tertiary (and, in some cases, secondary) education. Of course, this involves substantial costs, and very few families can even consider this option, but the expense is not the only issue here. The book touches on the problems these exported students face in studying at a young age in a different culture, and, unfortunately, I see this in my role as a Learning Adviser on a regular basis. Many young Chinese students, sent over (often alone) to a country with a different language and culture, are simply not mature enough to cope with the style of independent learning required in the west and retreat into their shells, often failing to acknowledge the offers of assistance from their school or college until it is too late.

While this is unfortunate, some people could only dream of being in a position to be able to mess up their education in this way. Many Chinese children, especially in the countryside, do not even have access to a decent education, and this is also true for the children of economic migrants who flee the countryside for the giant cities of the eastern seaboard. Being registered in their home town, these new urban dwellers have no right to send their children to city schools and often face the choice between sending their children to sub-standard unofficial schools in the city or sending them back to their home town to live with their grandparents. Even if these children make it through a full course of education, the chances of obtaining one of the few places in a top university are extremely slight.

The most surprising topic laid bare in this book is the huge discrepancy in the treatment of urban residents and those who leave the countryside to join them in the big cities. Not only do country dwellers receive less welfare than their urban counterparts, but when they rush to the big city to join them, they are not eligible for even the little state help that remains from the good old days of true communism. This disparity in the treatment of the two groups resembles the way immigrants are treated in other countries; in fact, in a country the size of China, this is pretty much what they are (and, apparently, the locals can have the same attitudes towards the newcomers that many people can display towards foreigners).

This book is a great introduction for anyone with an interest in the country, and I don't really have the space (or the energy) to go into all the topics here now, but one last area I'd like to touch on is the media. The internet has made things a little more transparent despite the best efforts of the Chinese government to keep out information not considered 'necessary' for their citizens; however, one school of thought has it that by allowing a small degree of latitude, the government is able to concentrate on hiding more controversial topics. This was certainly borne out in a recent conversation at lunch with a friend of mine, a largely apolitical Chinese student who recently graduated from a Masters course at an Australian university. I'd read an article the previous week about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown and the reaction to it by politicians and Chinese students in Australia, and (with a little caution) I told him about the news story and asked if he knew much about it. His reply?

He'd never heard of it.

36 - 'What Maisie Knew' by Henry James

I do try. From time to time, I pick up a Henry James book, and I tell myself that this is a very famous author with wonderful insights into the human condition, convincing myself that this time will be different, this time I'll really enjoy it.

Never works.

Unfortunately, this time was no exception. The major feeling I had on completing 'What Maisie Knew' was one of relief, which is never a sign of a fun time had by all. Less than 300 pages, but it seemed like an eternity. So what went wrong?

Let me just clarify my opinion before I am summarily arrested, tried and executed by the HJ Fan Club (of which at least one of my faithful followers is a member...). I am not saying that I didn't like this book; I did, to a certain extent. I am not saying that it's not a good book; there is plenty to appreciate about the story and the style. The problem is that where with my previous read, 'Middlemarch', I was stealing as many minutes as possible from the day to read the next chapter or two (or ten), with this book, I pretty much only read on the train to and from work and spent large amounts of time staring out of the window. At fog (it's almost Winter here in Melbourne, and yes, it does get cold). This is the third James novel I've read, the others being 'The Europeans' and 'The Bostonians', and I'm beginning to wonder...

The story itself is an interesting one. A young English girl is used as a pawn in the messy divorce of her parents with both wanting custody of her only to annoy the other as much as humanly (or diabolically) possible. Maisie, the young heroine of the peace, entusted to the care of a governess, is made to shuttle from one house to the next and back again, all the while being exposed to the less-than-polite behaviour of her (frankly idiotic) parents. When both remarry, their game changes from one of keeping Maisie to that of trying to offload her onto the other, a game that becomes further complicated when the two step-parents become fond of Maisie, and consequently, each other. At the end of the book, Maisie, slightly older (and, hopefully, wiser) has to finally decide where her loyalties lie.

The action is seen entirely through Maisie's eyes; she is present in every scene, and this is both a strength and a weakness. The reader experiences events through the filter of Maisie's youthful naiveity and must piece the story together from the fragments gathered by the young girl. However, this style of story-telling also has the effect of being, in my opinion, slightly repetitive. The novel consists mainly of endless conversations between two of the adults which Maisie tries to follow and conversations between the little girl and one of her guardians where the adult uses her as a sounding board for their thoughts, not really talking to her at all.

The biggest issue I have though is with the language used and especially the convoluted style James uses to write his books. Never using one word where three clauses will do just as well, he spends page upon page on expressing something other writers would fit onto the back of an envelope. Although it is probably this very style which endears him to a lot of people, I am not a big fan (and secretly think that it was sometimes done just to show that he could). I suspect that having gone through the tangle of double negatives and multiple relative clauses James delighted in pouring out, whatever I read next will seem like one of my daughter's picture books (which are very good by the way; lots of princesses and animals, although not usually in the same story).

Yes, as a writer he is fit, but (to misquote a song you may or may not know) don't he know it. Henry James is the literary equivalent of a busty blonde flicking her hair back and sauntering along the beach, a trail of love-struck admirers in her wake. Ugly metaphor? Probably. Harsh? Not if you had read the ten-page essay accompanying my edition of 'What Maisie Knew' where James outlined what he wanted to do in the book and what issues he had with finding the right voice for his protagonists - and where he basically said that it was brilliant and he was a genius (I paraphrase; I don't have time to copy it out the way he said it). I'll probably give him another go, particularly as I haven't read some of his most famous works ('The Portrait of a Lady', 'The Wings of the Dove'), but I'll give myself some time to build up to the effort. And that, after all, as I said at the start, is what disappoints me; while reading should be a pleasure, reading anything by Henry James seems like more of a chore.

OK, I'm ready for the handcuffs...

35 - 'Breath' by Tim Winton

Are you breathing comfortably? Then let's begin...

It's not something you think much about, breathing, unless you're having major issues with it, but in Tim Winton's latest novel, breathing is integral to the story. The Australian author returns to his West Australian stomping ground to tell the tale of paramedic Bruce 'Pikelet' Pike, reminiscing about a period of his adolesence after coming back from an incident at work. The tale of the young Pikelet, living in a small, isolated town close to the West Australian coast, takes us through his development from a scared young boy into a teenager throwing himself into the ocean surf.

From the moment we meet him, he is starting to yearn to break away from the sleepy town which is 'suffocating' him, and everything which happens afterwards is an attempt to take risks and be something out of the ordinary. The question raised by the book is how far you should go to raise yourself above the crowd, to be something more than ordinary, without losing control of who you really are. Although Pikelet survives his youthful tribulations, he does not get through without scars, both physical and mental, as can be seen from the very start of the tale.

The title is well chosen: the allusions to breathing (or a lack thereof) are scattered throughout the book. Whether trying to escape from the claustrophobic environment of his hometown, listening to his father's sleep apnoea, or staying at the bottom of the freezing local river for as long as possible, Pikelet constantly experiences the extraordinary feelings associated with a lack of what most people take for granted. This theme of oxygen-starvation culminates in scenes which would seem startling in isolation yet appear to be a natural end to the progression of preceding events.

Winton is very good at taking readers' breath away (as you'd know if you had read my review of 'The Riders'), and this is another great piece of work. The only criticism I have is that it is a fairly short novel; it's 265-pages long, but there's plenty of white space around (and between) the actual words. It only took me just over two hours to get through the whole thing, and I always feel a little cheated when that happens. Of course, when you've just finished 'Middlemarch', anything under 500 pages is going to leave you feeling short-changed...

This is a 'Bildungsroman' for the surfing generation, but, unlike many books of this genre, the hero does not come through the testing fires of his formative years without a scratch. We are left pondering the dangers of growing up and thanking our lucky stars that we got through our teenage period in one piece. Anybody looking back on their childhood can probably remember turning points where things could have gone badly wrong (whether they involve surfing or not). Luckily, for most of us, after a short airless period, our lungs resumed sucking in oxygen and life went on with no real consequences. Winton shows us that it's not always that simple.

34 - 'Middlemarch' by George Eliot

I live in Melbourne, a big city on the south-east coast of Australia, where the sun always shines, beer is cheap and kangaroos bound happily down the road of an evening (sadly, none of those things are true). However, my home town is Coventry, a small city located in the centre of England, where the skies are grey, beer is expensive and people can be a bit mental (sadly, all of those things are true). So what, you may ask; what does all this have to do with the critical review I am about to unleash? Well, dear reader, the fact of the matter is that Middlemarch is Coventry, and Coventry is Middlemarch. Confused? Read on.

George Eliot was born (a long time ago, let's not get bogged down by details) near Nuneaton, now a small satellite town of Coventry. She moved to the larger town in her teens, spending many of her formative years there, and when she was looking to write a grand novel set in a provincial centre, my home town was the pattern for the book (hurray!). The setting is crucial for 'Middlemarch'; the book is set in the years around 1832, when the great Reform Bill (abolishing many 'rotten boroughs' and increasing the number of people able to vote in elections) was the talk of the nation. By using a semi-urban centre away from the capital, Eliot was able to show the changing society of early-nineteenth century England as social mobility became a reality. In a town of substantial, but not national, importance, we can more easily see the interplay between events and people. Many of the characters in 'Middlemarch' rise or fall in class and social standing over the course of a few short years, affected by external events or their own rash decisions or shortcomings; Fred Vincy, disappointed in his hopes for a large inheritance, voluntarily descends in the social order by taking up a job which involves some manual labour while Caleb Garth and Vicar Farebrother both end the story richer and more successful than when it began.

One of the major causes of change of class is, of course, marriage, something which is all too common in what Henry James describes as the great, baggy monsters that are Victorian novels. Unusually, however, some of Eliot's marriages occur early in the piece, leaving us with the opportunity to examine the marriage, and not just the wedding. As a result, we are able to compare the lots of the young, devout Dorothea Brooke (who marries a much older man and lives to regret it, through no fault of her own) and the local doctor Tertius Lydgate, whose marriage to Rosamund Vincy descends into a loveless torture, owing mainly to the selfishness and shallowness of his beautiful bride. Dorothea's sister, Celia, who marries more for convenience than real love in accepting the proposal of Sir James Chettham, the former suitor of the elder Brooke daughter, is (initially at least) far luckier in love poor Dorothea.

As can be seen from the previous section, one of the telling features of 'Middlemarch' is the intricate web of human connections which Eliot spins over the many pages of the eight books making up the novel. The limited size of Middlemarch, the inter-marrying between families, and the chance arrival of strangers who have a connection with one or more locals leads to a sense of 'wholeness': the book does not consist of a few separate stories loosely tied together; rather, each character and relationship is vital to the book as a whole. 'Middlemarch' (and the town itself) is a living, breathing organism which is difficult to reduce to the sum of its parts. One reading does not do justice to the skill with which Eliot has put the novel together, and each time you approach the book, more layers of subtlety are revealed.

Crotchety old Henry James (a great admirer of Eliot's, who, nonetheless, blew hot and cold about this particular book) also said that this was the book which pushed the idea of the Victorian novel to the limit. He wasn't being completely complimentary when he said that, but I prefer to understand it literally; with 'Middlemarch', Eliot had taken the genre of the sprawling, multi-plot novel as far as it could go. It literally wasn't possible to connect each part of a book to every other part more than she had done here.

The first time I read 'Middlemarch', I didn't really fully understand its greatness. Of course, that's probably because I got distracted by the fact that it was supposedly set in my home town and spent the whole time trying to spot local landmarks (which wouldn't have existed 135 years ago anyway...). This time, however, I enjoyed the book a lot more; in fact (if I may end on a pun) being sent to Coventry was never such fun.

Poorly Tony

Cough, cough.

I hate it when you get so sick that reading is no longer a pleasure, something I've experienced over the past couple of weeks. Nothing major, just bad timing (flu caused by going to work when I should have stayed in bed, followed by food poisoning caused by... well, something I ate, probably). Anyway, life has come to a bit of a standstill: little reading, virtually no work and absolutely no studying, so I'm starting to get way behind with that.

So, naturally, my current book is 'Middlemarch'.

All being well (and by all I mean me), I'll have got through it by the end of next week and be able to give you all my thoughts on Eliot's magnus opus. Then again, I may actually have to devote some time to the other things (and people!) in my life...

Watch this space (not literally, nothing will happen if you do, it's just an expression).

33 - 'Forbidden Colours' by Yukio Mishima

A promise is a promise. Back in February (book 12a - yes, 12a...), I related a tale of getting lost in the city and the purchases that resulted but only reviewed one of the two books I picked up. So now, ever true to my word, here's the second of my chance purchases.

'Forbidden Colours', set in post-war Japan, centres on the life of Yuichi Minami, an attractive young man who sets pulses racing (of both genders) wherever he goes. A chance encounter with a famous novelist and poet, Shunsuke Hinoki, who discovers the secret of Yuichis's homosexuality, is the catalyst for a series of gay flings and longer love affairs, both sexual and merely teasing. Shunsuke, after giving Yuichi 500,000 yen, persuades the young man to marry Yasuko, the woman arranged for him by both sets of parents.

This is, however, no act of generosity. The author is using Yuichi to get back at someone who has hurt him in love; he also manages to get the young man to start affairs with two married women where he is to drive them to distraction and then hurt them (one by sleeping with her husband...). Although Shunsuke is initially in control of the naive young man, Yuichi soon becomes emboldened by his success with both men and women and starts to play his own games. Eventually, Shunsuke begins to feel that he is falling for Yuichi's beauty himself...

In all the affairs and deception, the reader is made to observe the life of the outsider. Mishima depicts the life of gay society in the Tokyo of the time, with young men waiting in coffee shops to be picked up by captains of industry or one of the many rich foreigners occupying Japan. The sense of desperation at being forced underground and having to hide their true feelings from the 'normal' society feeds into the hedonistic behaviour seen at the cafes and parties the men frequent.

However, it is not only the men who feel excluded from society. The three main female characters, Yasuko (Yuichi's wife), Kyoko (a young society wife) and Mrs. Kaburagi (who falls for Yuichi only to find that her husband has gone slightly further with him than she has) also struggle to find a purpose in life. Yasuko continues to love her husband despite the months of abandonment and her suspicions of affairs with other women. It is only when Mrs. Kaburagi lies to her about being Yuichi's mistress (in order to deflect suspicion from his homosexuality) that she loses her attachment to him; ironically, it is at this time that Yuichi seems to be ready to become a good husband.

The hatred of women is one of the central themes of this book. In the homosexual world of the story, women are excluded and do not exist for most of the men. Yuichi is quite happy to help out with Shunsuke's revenge on his former mistresses; the writer insists that women are a waste of space and deserve no love, indeed cannot be loved. At this point, no doubt, most readers would be thinking that this sounds like a very painful book to read..

On the contrary, it's a very enjoyable novel. Despite the misogynous behaviour detailed above, the female characters give as good as they get, and Yuichi does not have things all his own way. Although seeming to fall on his feet again at the end of the book with the inheritance of 10 million yen, it is difficult to see where his life will go from here (although, considering that the last thing he does is to get his shoes shined, perhaps his breath-taking vanity is still intact!). His wife no longer loves him, and he gets no real satisfaction any more from his casual flings with men.

Of course, with Mishima, part of the value of reading is deciding how much comes from the author's own life. He was a bit of a misogynist (and a little xenophobic, just like Yuichi, who sleeps with hundreds of men, all of them Japanese), he allegedly had affairs with men, and (and there is no getting around this) he comitted seppuku, ritual suicide, in his mid-forties. Yes, he disembowelled himself and then had one of his retainers slice off his head. I'll just let that sink in for a moment.

On knowing this, it is only too tempting to look for traces of Mishima in his characters. Is he Shunsuke, the ageing death-obsessed, woman-hating writer who takes his own life? Is he Yuichi, the young, attractive woman-hating homosexual who has a sham married life? It certainly makes for interesting sub-text. In the end though, it is best to read and enjoy the book without trying to look for traces of the author; there is enough to ponder on without that.

In the end, the main theme which comes to mind is happiness. Is it possible to be happy in life? What do we need to be happy? Perhaps the most important requirement is to be yourself. None of the major characters in 'Forbidden Colours' seem to open up and let their true thoughts be known (which may have something to do with both the time and the place the novel is set in), and this may be the reason for their unhappiness. Whether Mishima was happy or not is another question entirely.

32 - 'The Universe' by Richard Osborne

I am poorly. Nothing to do with pigs, I hasten to add, just normal flu which is taking its time to clear up. This, along with the burst of reading energy set free by the completion of 'Ulysses', should explain why I've been reading and posting so much over the last few days. Anyway, I was just on my way to the doctor's, and, having finished 'Remembering Babylon' yesterday, I found myself in the predicament of having to choose my next book and only having seconds to do it in. Usually, I stand and stare at the pile of unread books on the shelves, weighing up the alternatives, fiction or non-fiction, quality or trash, English or German, contemporary or classical, until my wife comes in and quietly wheels me in the direction of the living room sofa to recover. I don't like making quick decisions when it comes to my reading.

So, I did what I usually do in these cases; I picked up the shortest unread book in my collection, figuring that even if it turned out to be a mistake, I wouldn't regret it for long. Which leads me to Mr. Osborne's very brief summary of the development of human knowledge regarding the universe. Packing this into 120-odd pages would seem a bit of a tall order, but, when I picked it up in the university bookshop, I thought that for one Australian dollar (approximately 71 US cents, 48 pence and 68 Yen for those who get confused by Kangaroo money), you couldn't really go wrong. Well, no.

Osborne, a lecturer in Philosophy, attempts to summarise what scientists, the church and assorted nutbags knew, know and could ever know about the universe and tries to put it in language everyone can understand. Unfortunately, in doing so, he comes across as a bit of an idiot who thinks that by awkwardly throwing in references to popular culture throughout his extended essay he will be admired by his readership; unlikely, unless he is writing for a convention of pub bores. Yes, Homer Simpson may have said (or have been prompted to say) something witty about science once upon a time, but that doesn't justify using it in a book if it isn't properly integrated.

It doesn't help his cause when his already slightly-annoying style is undermined by several obvious spelling mistakes, and, in one case, by the bizarre inclusion of what appears to be the draft form of the preceding paragraph. Obviously, in trying to offer cheap access to the mysteries of the universe, the idea of editing was the first to fall by the wayside. You'd think that in such a short book, it wouldn't have been too hard to pick up at least a couple of the typos.

None of this would matter too much if the style and content were entertaining, but there are also serious flaws here. A lot of the information is repetitive and badly phrased, and the book seems to whizz past without really telling you much at all. In addition, Osborne's style of someone who obviously knows more than you but is dumbing it down for the less intelligent is not designed to ingratiate him with the reader. Several times in passing, the writer mentions Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything', and you get the feeling that he is subconciously putting himself into the same category as the famed travel writer. Unfortunately, he is not even in the same galaxy.

I don't know too much about the universe now that I didn't a few hours ago, but I do have some lessons learned from reading this book:

1) Having read a bad example of the genre, I now appreciate how good Bryson's book really was in being able to write as one of the common people trying to make sense of things, rather than patronisingly educating people from on high.

2) You get what you pay for. I miss my dollar.

3) Never hurry the choice of a book. With apologies to Forrest Gump, life is not a box of chocolates; it's a bookcase full of books which may, or may not, be worth reading.

Now, I have about another twenty minutes before my wife gets back from child-care with my daughter, so I may just be able to start to think about what to read next. If you need me, I'll be standing on the other side of the study, staring vacantly at a big pile of books...

31 - 'Remembering Babylon' by David Malouf

Am I Australian?

Technically, yes. I went through a very tedious ceremony a couple of years back (with my then-five-month-old daughter screaming through most of it), and I got my certfiicate, a photo with the mayor and a native plant which, although able to survive local conditions, was unable to survive complete neglect and is now quietly rotting somewhere in my garden.

Of course, that doesn't mean that I am as Australian as the people who were born here. I don't have all the cultural and social background that they do. And compared to the aboriginal inhabitants of the land down under... Well, I don't think they'd think much of my claim to being Australian. Anyway, what does that actually mean?

David Malouf, himself the son of immigrants, explores the idea of belonging and land in 'Remembering Babylon', a short book which briefly describes an event which takes place in 1860s North Queensland. Three children, playing on their property, see a figure approaching them and think that it is one of the natives. In fact, Gemmie, the man who has come out of the bush, is neither a 'blackfella' or one of the settlers; he was a ship's boy who was abandoned in the north of Australia and then taken in by the aboriginal tribe that found him.

Gemmie is given shelter by the family of the children who found him, but the rest of the small community of settlers are, well, unsettled by the newcomer. Gradually, their fears overcome them, and when Gemmie receives a visit from his tribe one day, certain pople decide that enough is enough..

The settlers, many of them from Scotland, have left their lives in dirty, crowded conditions back home, to create a better life for themselves, something which they could never aspire to in Britain. In the expanses of Australia, far away from the state capital of Brisbane (which was itself, at the time, merely a small town), the new Australians feel threatened by the old Australians. Their attachment to the earth seems to threaten the stability of life for the farmers, who know that their land was, a matter of years ago, untamed and part of the unknown wilderness. It doesn't take a great leap of imagination to see it reverting to its prior state.

The Aborigines are shown as having a deep attachment to their land and an understanding of how to live on it (something we are shown through the eyes of Gemmie, who has become part of the tribe despite being a white man). However, the white settlers are shown to be no different to the natives, in that they too seem attached to their land. The McIvors often think about Scotland and the plants and landscapes they left behind (even the eldest daughter, Janet, who has never been there). Of the main characters of the novel, only Gemmie, who willingly abandons his British life, and Frazer, the local botany-obsessed vicar, appear to understand the importance of adapting to the alien land.

A story of long ago, and yet very, very relevant today. Almost 150 years on, the white population is not that much closer towards understanding the land they now live in and its traditional owners. In many parts of Australia, there is very little intermingling and co-existence, and the Aboriginal community is still comparatively disadvantaged today. However, the idea of conflict between new and old Australians is not limited to the issues of the 1860s. Ever since the first fleet arrived, people have been sailing to these shores to start a new life, not all of them from the preferred country of origin. Although the old White Australia policy, with accompanying language tests to keep 'undesirables' out, has long gone, many people are still concerned about outsiders (outside their culture, at least) affecting their lives. Recently, boats with people smugglers and refugees have begun to enter Australian waters again, forcing politicians and ordinary people alike to examine their beliefs on what makes you Australian and who should be allowed to enter our country.

Am I Australian? Yes, and so are all the people who have just arrived, who were born here, whose ancestors have been here for millennia. What does that mean? Well that's a question for another day.

29 & 30 - 'Der Richter Und Sein Henker' & 'Der Verdacht' by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

A long, long time ago, back when I was doing my A-Levels, I was first introduced to the work of the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt, in the form of his classic detective novel, 'Der Richter und Sein Henker'. The title can be translated as the judge and his executioner (literally, hangman) and the book tells the story of a policeman from Bern, Kommisär Bärlach, who uses events to his advantage to finally bring a career criminal to justice. A couple of years later, while I was what is laughingly described as 'studying' at university, I took a unit on Dürrenmatt and read the sequel to the original tale, 'Der Verdacht' ('The Suspicion), where the now-retired Bärlach takes on another evil-doer, an action which almost costs him what is left of his life.

I read a few detective novels when I was a teenager (and I still like a bit of Inspector Morse!), but, on the whole, I find them a little simplistic, even when the plot is well thought out. The difference with these two stories is the way the solving of the suspected crime becomes unimportant compared to the sub-plots and interplay between the characters. Dürrenmatt uses his works to discuss the role of good and bad in the world and how far good men can, and should, go to prevent evil from gaining the upper hand.

The two titles are chosen quite deliberately; throughout the two books there are several judges and executioners, none of them appointed by the law of the land. In 'Der Richter und Sein Henker', Bärlach and his subordinate, Tschanz, are assigned to solve the murder of another policeman, Schmied (who was secretly working for Bärlach to gather evidence against Gastmann, a career criminal who continually crossed paths with the old inspector). Again and again, the investigation comes across obstacles preventing access to the suspected perpetrator until Tschanz finally confronts, and kills, Gastmann and his sidekicks. Only then do we find out that Tschanz was Schmied's real killer and that Bärlach used this knowledge to increase the pressure on Tschanz to push the blame onto Gastmann. The old inspector has judged the inveterate criminal and sent his executioner to carry out the sentence.

In 'Der Verdacht', however, a chance sighting of a picture of a Nazi war criminal operating without anaesthetic in a concentration camp leads Bärlach to investigate a high-class Swiss surgeon. Only too late he discovers that his suspicion is actually the truth; worse, the surgeon knows that Bärlach is onto him and is not inclined to allow the frail old man out of his hospital alive...

Both criminals, Gastmann and the surgeon, Emmenberger, are portrayed as rich, successful, intelligent men who commit crimes for the sake of it. Gastmann is just as capable of murder as he is of paying the taxes of an entire town. Emmenberger, who tortured hundreds of prisoners in concentration camps by operating without anaesthetic, but with the consent of his victims, rejoices in his freedom from the normal rules of society, believing himself to be living the only kind of life possible, one where you are free to make whatever decisions you want (even if that involves torturing and killing people).

Both behave with full knowledge of what the results may be, and, in his own way, so does Bärlach. Dürrenmatt insists on the importance of taking responsibility for your actions, even if they do not always turn out as planned. In the first book, the old inspector, while seeming to be unable to match Gastmann in their battle of wits, is eventually the victor, able to use events to his advantage and 'convict' the criminal for a crime he did not commit. However, in the sequel, the tables are turned, and it is Bärlach who is out-thought and out-manoeuvered. As a result, he causes the death of an innocent man who was enlisted to help him put pressure on Emmenberger. This is something the policeman must take full responsibility for.

From the discussion of the events in 'Der Verdacht', it is probably clear that these events take place shortly after the end of the Second World War, and the role of Switzerland itself in this period is implicitly handled, especially in the second novel. While we condemn the criminal behaviour of the two villains and are appalled at the horrors of the concentration camps, Bärlach questions the self-rightiousness of the Swiss, stressing that they were "verschont, nicht versucht" (spared, not tempted). Gastmann and Emmenberger were tempted by life unrestricted by society and became criminals. In the same way, Tschanz, passed over again and again for promotion, jealous of the better-educated Schmied and of his beautiful partner (and car!), is tempted to get rid of his superior in order to slip into his role. Lead us, indeed, not into temptation...

However evil or good, cunning or impulsive, plans are never perfect in this world; luck can always prevent your intentions from being realised. The publication of Emmenberger's photograph in a magazine, Schmied's untimely death, Tschanz... Nothing is certain, and we must always rely on a little luck to cover up our crimes, or uncover those of others. It is no coincidence that the key character in the first book is called Tschanz (pronunciation? Chance.). A coincidence brought Gastmann and Bärlach together near the start of their lives, and luck helped the criminal commit a murder in front of the policeman's eyes without his being able to act. In the end, it is fortune that helps to complete the circle.

Quite a lot for around 250 pages, but then, Dürrenmatt is a very special writer. The difference between these dectective stories with a moral and the usual plot-driven pulp fiction is that knowing the outcome doesn't lessen the effect of the novel. Even (almost) twenty years on, the books still have the same pull, and I know I'll read them again and again. And that is the hallmark of good writing.

28 - 'Wish You Were Here' by Mike Gayle

Dear Mike,

We've had some good times, it's true, and that makes this all the more difficult. I remember the good-old days, back when I was a university student, at the inception of the 'lad-lit' trend. Nick Hornby's 'Fever Pitch' blazed a trail for other writers, such as Tony Parsons and yourself, to begin writing about the lives of men. Finally, even in the era of 'Loaded' and 'FHM', it was alright for blokes to pick up a book and read about life in nineties' England.

I loved your early books and looked forward to when they came out, but, more recently, I've had the feeling that something wasn't right; I didn't really enjoy them as much. While the topics were similar (thirty-something men, friends/partners, relationships at a crossroads), they just didn't seem to grab me anymore, the way they used to.

Even so, when my wife got your latest book, 'Wish You Were Here', from the local library, I was keen to read it and forget the bleak Melbourne weekend while immersed in your tale of thirty-something English friends on a week's holiday in Crete. I was hoping to find something of the old magic, the stories which entertained me all those years ago. I was disappointed.

Were the charcters always so one-dimensional? Were the plots always so transparent (and frankly uninteresting)? Was the dialogue always so stilted and un-lifelike? As I skimmed through the pages, not really caring about what was happening (but too cold and flu-ridden to do anything else), I wondered where it had all gone wrong. And then I knew.

I'm sorry, Mike. It's not you. It's me. You and your books are the same as they always were. You have remained constant and faithful, you can be relied on for the same structure and characters. I'm the one who has changed; I've grown, and I need more from a book. I want a well-developed plot, believeable characters, dialogue that sounds convincing and natural, interior monologues, description that enhances the background of the story. I need good writing.

It's not your fault that you can't give me what I need, and I'm grateful for all the good times we had, but it's time to move on. Don't take this the wrong way; it doesn't reflect on you as a writer. I just need to be free to experience other authors, other genres, other books. It's over.

I hope there are no hard feelings. Once you've had time to think it over, I'm sure you'll realise it's for the best. There are other readers out there, younger, less-experienced readers, who will appreciate your work for what it is and not demand what you can't give. Good luck, and all the best for the future.

Thanks for everything,

Tony

26 & 27 - 'The Family Way' & 'My Favourite Wife' by Tony Parsons

After my epic struggle with 'Ulysses', it's back to some slightly simpler literary fare this week. A few weeks ago, I saw a copy of 'The Family Way', which I'd read once before, in the bargain bin of the local newsagent's for $5. So I bought it (no surprises there). On the day I started reading it, my wife went off to the library and brought back, alongside the children's books and DVDs for my daughter (a very tempting way to get to fifty books quickly, but I'll take the high road), a copy of Parsons' latest novel, 'My Favourite Wife'. So, lucky reader, what you get here today is a review of both of these books, for the following reasons:

1) Mr. Parsons' books contain several recurring themes, and I thought it would be interesting to compare the two works.

2) I finished the first one too soon after posting the last review, and I really couldn't be bothered to start blogging again.


I'll leave it to you to decide which was the more pressing reason...



Parsons became famous in the U.K. for his novel 'Man and Boy', the story of a man trying to keep his relationship with his son intact after his relationship with his wife ended (mainly because he slept with another woman, but let's not get distracted). The book became a BBC television adaptation, and Parsons , along with one of my favourite authors, Nick Hornby, became one of the leading lights of the new (wholly invented) 'lad-lit' scene. Because, of course, men didn't read books until then.

The theme of family is what drives Parsons; all of his books examine the idea of the family in all its incarnations, and most of them involve the breaking up of the traditional family unit and the creation of new, different forms of families. The three sisters in 'The Family Way' all manage to have children within a different lifestyle; Megan, the baby of the family, gets pregnant after a one-night stand, middle sister Jessica has the perfect husband but has to consider her options after struggling to conceive, and Cat, who had to take on the mothering role after her own mother abandoned the family, is forced to examine her long-held belief of not wanting children at all after seeing what is happening with her sisters. On the other hand, in 'My Favourite Wife' (disappointingly, this book has nothing to do with bigamy), Bill Holden risks his nuclear family by having an affair with a Chinese neighbour in Shanghai while his best friend Shane (another of Parsons' dumb, blond Australian males) has problems of his own in his marriage to a Fillipina singer.

Don't get me wrong; I like reading these books. At times, the author can create some genuinely touching moments, especially when it comes to the relationships between adults and children, and the trials and tribulations involved in creating a new human being in the first place. Parsons also develops believable, recognisable scenarios which develop into whole stories which are interesting and comfortable to read. But.

Over the six books of his which I've read so far, I've never really had the feeling that the characters have been fully developed; to be honest, the characters exist only to help Parsons expound upon his beliefs regarding modern marriage and family. Milan Kundera gets the same criticism; his themes are a little more high-brow, though. I've never met old Tony (and I've only read a little about his life in the book blurbs), but, as my dad says, I'll bet you a pound to a piece of shit (my dad is a little more direct than I am) that Parsons has:

a) Been divorced (OK, I know that one already)
b) Had child maintenance issues
c) Lived or worked in Asia (no-one would mention Japan, Hong Kong and mainland China in their books so much without having a reason for it; unless, of course, they were actually from one of those countries).

Another issue I have is with the simplistic stereotyping, both of genders and of nationalities. I've already talked about poor Shane (and casting an Australian character called Shane from Melbourne is bad enough in itself. I'm just glad the poor bloke didn't have an addiction to texting), and the various Japanese and Chinese characters in his books, with the exception of Jinjin in 'My Favourite Wife', seem to be there just to act as people we Westerners will never be able to understand. It's also intriguing how useless most of the male characters seem to be. Admittedly, a book about a man who stays faithful to his wife and loves his kids may not make for quite such an interesting tale, but there seems to be a very high proportion of men in Parsons' world who wine and dine strange women on an almost-nightly basis (having said that, I've never lived in London, or Shanghai, so I may be the one who is out of the loop).

I've already hinted that the books are more of an outlet for Tony Parsons' personal manifesto than attempts at entertainment, and the final point I want to comment on is the actual style of writing itself. There isn't a lot of dialogue (which is good, because it's not his strong point); much of the text consists of descriptions of action followed by a character's thoughts on what is happening. Which tend to be very neat and profound, and wrap things up neatly with a final sentence.

Just so you know what to think (annoying, isn't it?).

After reading a few of his books, it becomes part of the rhythm; you know it's coming, and it can be extremely repetitive and a pain in the behind.

Now, after a few hundred words criticising the poor, unsuspecting (at least I hope so, or I may be in a spot of bother) author, what can I say to make up for all my nasty words? He's no Milan Kundera (or even Nick Hornby), but he writes interesting books about life and family, and he can write good scenes about ordinary people. Not everyone can be James Joyce, and, quite frankly, not everyone would want to either; it's good to have something to get through quickly on a cold, wet and windy day in Melbourne when the thought of having finished 'Ulysses' makes one feel much better than the idea of having another 500 pages to go.

Literary comfort food; not junk, but certainly no Emperor's banquet. Is that unfair?

25 - 'Ulysses' by James Joyce

"La, la, la, la, la, Ulysses,
I've found a new way, I've found a new way"

Thank you Franz Ferdinand for releasing this song, in Australia at least, while I was struggling through this book. Very, very annoying to have that line stuck in my head all the time.

However, whether they were writing about Joyce's epic work or not, the Scottish popsters have a point; 'Ulysses' is unlike anything you've read before (or that anyone has written since). In eighteen chapters spread over 933 pages, the writer tells the tale of an ordinary man's meanderings through Dublin on the 16th of June, 1904. While this may sound fairly straightforward, it is, in fact, one of the most complex and tightly designed pieces of writing ever published.

The eighteen chapters are not random; the whole novel is underpinned by the classic myth of Ulysses, or Odysseus, and each of the sections corresponds to a stage in the wanderings of the legendary Greek hero. Joyce wanted to contrast the idea of the hero with his everyman, Leopold Bloom, to protest against the dominance of violence and aggression, both in life generally and during the First World War. Bloom, a rather effeminate (or perhaps not overly masculine) Jew, wanders the streets of Dublin from house to funeral, from pub to beach, from brothel to deserted streets and back home again. On his travels, he meets up with Stephen Dedalus, the central character of Joyce's earlier, semi-autobiographical, novel, 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man', and the meeting of the two minds drives much of the later part of the book.

This meeting is also part of the original Odyssean myth: Bloom (Ulysses) is on a spiritual search for a son after his own died in childhood while Stephen (Telemachus) wishes for the parental guidance he does not find with his present, but absent, father. The theme of absent fathers is further discussed when Stephen elaborates on his ideas on 'Hamlet' (a vivid discussion ensues as to who Hamlet and his father are based on - is Hamlet Shakespeare himself or his son?). At the end of the book, the two have met and talked and seem to have made plans for future dealings; it is doubtful though whether either has really found what he is looking for.

Bloom is a very different type of person to the one you would expect to be roaming the streets of Dublin, and this is exactly what Joyce was trying to create, an ordinary man who is slightly out of the ordinary. His lack of understanding with many of the other men populating the pages of the book can be put down to his background (or the fact that he doesn't get blind drunk before noon...), but it is also something to do with his personality and his preference for the company of women. He abhors violence and is eager to live and let live (to the extent of not being overly concerned about his wife's infidelity). So, unlike the real Ulysses? Well, yes: he doesn't slaughter all of his wife's suitors. On the other hand, Ulysses, as can be forgotten, was also a man of peace and did his utmost to avoid being dragged off to Troy to fight in a war over a woman (just like Bloom!).

I usually write about themes in the novel at this point, but I'm not really going to here, simply because there are just too many ideas criss-crossing to get them all down in one post (I do not intend to make this a lecture series). One I found interesting though was the topic of colonialism, and the attitude of the oppressed to the oppressors. In my previous read, 'A Passage to India', E.M. Forster sketched the attitude of the Indians to the rule of the English, and there are many similarities in the natives' rather passive dislike of the invaders in Joyce's Dublin. The writer found the traditional Irish mythology of the famed Celtic defender Cuchulainn to be a bad basis on which to found a plea for independence and preferred the more cerebral Greek legend to form the skeleton of his story. Like the Indians, the Irish (well, most of them..) had very little time to wait for freedom from the Union Jack.

So much for symbolism and myth. As a linguist, the main interest for me in 'Ulysses' is the use of the language itself, which is, of course, the thing which makes it so hard to read. Having recently discovered Lawrence, Woolf and Boell, this seems to be my time for stream-of-conciousness writers; 'Ulysses' contains the mother of all stream-of-conciousness sections with Molly Bloom's 62-page, eight-sentence rambling monologue rounding off the book. However, it is Stephen's shorter, but seemingly more incoherent, talk early in the book which I found almost impossible to read. Joyce creates these patches of interior speech by starting and stopping thoughts and interrupting them with new ones and cutting the sentences short and not really stopping the flow because as you know that's how we think and speak not in standard sentences yes if you think about it writing is but no I mean (OK, I'll stop there; I think you get the point!).

Another inventive use of language is related to the use of different genres throughout the book, culminating in the scene at the midwife's house where events are relayed in different writing genres, progressing from ancient sagas to modern (for the time) slang. Each genre adds a different slant to the proceedings and uses a different type of language, something which most native speakers are unconciously aware of but could not actively analyse. In my tertiary studies, I have had to work with genres, and the ability to decode and, eventually, reproduce different text types is one of the key aims of a non-native learner of English (in fact, it could be argued that all speakers of English require some education in the different accepted styles of writing required in different spheres of life).

A third area of language use is the coining of new words and manipulation of word order and sentence structure. Joyce plays with word order to disrupt the rhythm of the text (and, thus, the reader's sense of comfort) and constantly introduces vocabulary which can be found nowhere else (or is so rare that it would be used nowhere else). As well as creating new adjectives and combining words to combine meanings, he has Bloom invent ways for animals and inanimate objects to communicate (apparently machines go 'sllt'). Although Joycean coinages may not have caught on as Shakespeare's did (he was another big maker-upper of words), it still shows a vast intellect - and courage...

Alright, yes, it's a classic, brilliant, etc. etc., but is it any good? Should anyone in their right mind actually read this monstrosity of a house brick masquerading as literature?

Yes. But the case for the prosecution...

1) It is a bit long and unneccessary at times.

Having read the extensive introduction in my edition and several commentaries, I realise that the bulk of the book is tightly woven onto the stem of the original Homerian tale; but are you really sure that it couldn't have been cut here and there?

2) It's a bit crude, unnecessarily so at times.

I'm sure it was all necessary to drive home his point (no double-entendre intended or implied). However, the language did go over the top, and some of the characterisation bordered on the stereotypical (and would have been described as such if produced by, say, Dickens).

3) Clever word play, at times too clever for its own good.

No argument here.

4) The portrayal of women is not balanced.

True, few of the women come across as appealing and realistic. Then again, neither do most of the male characters either.

5) You need to do a lot of reading just to be qualified to open the book.

Yes. A good grounding in Greek mythology (especially Ulysses, naturally), a fair command of Latin, some experience in French and German and a strong interest in Philosophy seem to be pre-requisites for tackling this monster (reading 'Dubliners' and 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' first is also recommended, if not compulsory).

The introduction of my edition comments that you do not read 'Ulysses'; it reads you. Very true. After reading it, you feel exhausted and a little confused. After reading what other people say about it, you're even more confused. This is the type of book which you read again and again, if only to try to understand it more (or if you have serious masochistic tendencies). I'd like to finally get around to reading the original Ulysses legend, which may help me to understand the modern myth a bit more, but that will have to wait a bit. My head hurts now, and I'd like Franz Ferdinand to finally bloody shut up.

Almost There

You would think that after more than a week off work, I would have ploughed through the 933 pages of Joyce's epic by now. But you would be wrong.

So what's the hold up?

Of course, my 3000-word assignment (which, due to my perfectionism, or possibly my lack of editing skills, came in at 5000-words+) was a slight impediment to my reading plans. However, the main reader's block has been my beautiful daughter, Emily, who decided this week that she really wasn't that keen on going to sleep in the evening and would prefer to howl non-stop until I sloped off to bed around midnight.

I did do my bit (even if my bit is ever so slightly under the fifty per-cent that modern society demands), but even in the few minutes I was able to snatch away from the screaming toddler, reading just did not work. Why?

Because reading 'Ulysses' while a baby screams is like running a marathon on stilts.

703 down; the next post will be the review.

No idea what I'm going to write yet. But write I will.

(Don't worry: it won't be 933 pages)

Progress Update

I'm past the half-way point, and I should be able to knock off the rest in the next week or so as I've just about finshed my assignment. Of course, I'm sure that's what Captain Scott said when he was half-way to the South Pole too (well, not about the assignment, although that could explain a few things). I can see why a lot of people have given up after a few hundred pages, but I have the pressure of my loyal followers (that's you!) and Facebook people, so I'll persevere. I'm not going to pre-empt my final review by saying too much here. However, one thing's for sure; James Joyce was definitely on something a lot stronger than Guinness when he decided to write this...

Apologies For The Delay...

I've had a pretty good start to this 50-Book Challenge lark despite my new job and my studies (to say nothing about my hyperactive daughter), but things have come to a temporary halt; don't hold your breath for the next post (because you'd run out of Oxygen pretty quickly, and then I'd feel extremely guilty). Two main reasons for this roadblock:

1) I have an assignment due on the 17th of April for my Master of TESOL course (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). Which means that I really should get down to work.

2) My current book is 'Ulysses' by James Joyce. Which means that I'll be lucky to get it read and reviewed by the end of April.

Thank you for your time (all three of you. Oh, and my wife, who reads the posts right after I've written them); I'll be back as soon as I can!

P.S. I've gone for a new look, but I'm not convinced...

24 - 'A Passage To India' by E.M. Forster

Here's a quick question to start us off today: what do indie greats 'The Stone Roses', writer E.M. Forster and Australia's national football team, the Socceroos, have in common? Answer at the end of the review!

Moving from trivia to the not-so-trivial, 'A Passage To India' is generally regarded as Forster's masterpiece, and it is easy to see why when reading this novel. The reader is transported into a lost world of British (English) colonialists attempting to subdue the natives in far-away lands, where men in three-piece suits drink gin and tonics while the servants wait patiently in the scorching sun, and elephants wander around playing football... wait, no, that was the kangaroos. In any case, Forster, who worked and travelled in India, something which shines through in his treatment of the culture in his writing, is able to conjure up a magical, enticing image of a place many westerners have never seen (and which those with a sensitive stomach probably never will).

The book describes Adela Quested's journey to India, where she is to decide whether to marry Ronny Heaslop, one of the Anglo-Indian ruling class. In the course of her visit, wishing to see 'the real India' and the native people, she is befriended by an Indian surgeon, Dr. Aziz. In a desire to win the favour of Adela and his new-found English friend, Cyril Fielding, Aziz organises a trip to the famous Marabar caves, a day-trip which goes drastically wrong and has dire consequences for all concerned...

The main idea of the novel was the impossible relationship between the colonisers and the colonised and how alien cultures could co-exist under such circumstances. The English attempted to seal themselves off from the locals in order to prevent any loss of power, and the Indians, resentful of this unfriendly attitude, discard the desire for peaceful, friendly servitude and start to dream of ousting the white invaders from their land (something they only had to wait another twenty-five years for). Despite the obvious connection to actual events in the sub-contintent, the difficulties experienced on both sides parallel those in many other parts of the world. Living in Australia, I am only too aware of the potential for disaster when two cultures collide; the plight of the Aboriginal population, even today, shows the difficulties of mutual respect for cultures. This is also true in more advanced stages of civilisation; the trial of Doctor Aziz reminded me strongly of the plot of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' with the difficulty in separating prejudice and fact in a racially-charged atmosphere.

Aside from the larger issue of politics and colonisation, Forster examines the thorny question of intercultural friendships and asks the question of whether true friendship is possible under conditions such as those in British India. Fielding, regarded disapprovingly by his fellow Englishmen for his relations with the natives, and Aziz, the educated surgeon in the pay of the Crown, would appear to be as likely as anyone to be able to get past the veneer of civilised politeness; in the end, however, psychology, geography and fate doom the friendship to failure. Their ways of thinking, their views of life, their morals, their ways of looking at the universe, everything about them puts obstacles in the path towards a true understanding of each other's character.

Over the past decade, I have spent the majority of my time either in Asian countries or working with Asian students, and I have experienced both of the situations outlined above. During my three-year stay in Japan, despite my efforts to learn the language and find out as much as posible about the culture, I never really got past superficial niceties with any Japanese people and certainly never got close to any locals (although many of the other western teachers got very close with the help of alcohol and love hotels). Admittedly, I spent a lot of my time working or with my Australian (then-) girlfriend, but even in conversations with coworkers in bars after work, I never really felt that we had much in common. One of the problems was that, just like the Anglo-Indians, the foreign workers in Japan often stayed together (although not to the extent that the English in Chandrapore did), living in the same apartments and drinking together on free evenings.

Now that I'm here in Australia and educating young (mostly) Asian students, I can see them falling into the same traps. There is a tendency to share houses with compatriots and a reluctance to socialise, or even work together, with students of a different nationality. Of course, this is a generalisation, and some students do strike up friendships outside their own ethnic group; however, from my own experiences (supported by Forster?!), I'm not sure how deep these friendships go, especially when they involve two such disparate philosophies as the Asian and Western cultures.

Only about 260 pages, but as you can tell from the disjointed musings above, there is a lot packed in. Despite the fairly straightforward plot, the psychological byplay and the beautifully drawn conflict of minds makes this a great book to read and justifies the opinions of the critics; which makes it a shame that this was only Forster's fifth and last novel. Oh, and the quiz question? The common theme was tardiness: The Stone Roses took about five years to follow up their eponymous debut album with a slightly disappointing second effort; the footballing Marsupials first qualified for the World Cup in 1972 but didn't appear for a second time until 2006 (cheating Italians - that's all I'll say...); and Forster also made his fans suffer by finishing 'A Passage To India' a full fourteen years after his fourth novel, 'Howard's End', was published. Like John Aloisi's penalty against Uruguay (and unlike 'Second Coming'), it was definitely worth the wait.

23 - 'Billard um Halbzehn' by Heinrich Böll

The German department at Monash University, my (indirect) employer for the past six years, must have had a liking for Herr Böll as his works seem to make up a disproportionate part of the foreign language selection at the second-hand bookshop. Of course, that means that the students weren't so keen on him... Whatever the opinions, the fact is that there were several books available for me to buy, and after reading (and liking) 'Ansichten eines Clowns' (see previous post), I thought I'd risk another $8 on 'Billard um Halbzehn' (Billiards at half-past nine; Germans do time strangely).

The story takes place over one day in September, 1958, on David Fähmel's eightieth birthday. We are told the story through the eyes of several of his family members and friends, and we are thrown backwards and forwards in time from 1907, when Fähmel senior arrived in the big city to make his mark as an architect, through both World Wars and into the society of post-war Germany. The narrative is held together by the central thread of the time bringing the tale towards its conclusion on the evening of the birthday, where the family comes together in slightly unexpected circumstances. So, money well spent?

Well, yes, but I had a harder time with this book than the last one. On top of the usual issues of reading in a second language (and you should try that when you've got the flu; like solving a Rubik's cube in a very dark room while wearing really effective sunglasses), the structure of the book was a little unbalanced for my liking. The book runs over 240 pages, divided into 14 chapters; however, the core chapter, describing David's arrival in Cologne and his success in being awarded the contract to build the abbey of Sankt-Anton, is spread over almost fifty of them. Half-way through this part of the book, I was very tempted to skip on to the next chapter (especially as the outcome was already known).

The spreading out of the narrative point of view to include most of the main characters was another dificulty I found with the text. At times, it was difficult to follow the writing and determine who was meant, especially as Böll often deliberately introduces new information at the start of a section, which only makes sense a few pages later. I also thought that some of the sections were a little weak; Joseph, David Fähmel's grandson, gets his turn late in the book and doesn't really add a lot to the story whereas more could have been said about his father, Robert.

However, on the whole, the same qualities which led me to enjoy 'Ansichten eines Clowns' shone through in this work too. The device of using a single day to describe the culmination of events going back decades and having the characters paint in the details of these events, selectively at first, keeps the reader thinking and guessing, and while the multiple viewpoints, as discussed above, don't always work, the ability to show several sides of the same situation enhances the reality of what is portrayed.

Another common stylistic device is the way the characters, especially the main character of each chapter, speak and think. Often, the scenes are more of a monologue than a dialogue; events are described in great detail without the need for a response or signs of interest from the listener. It's also common for the speaker to make a short statement but then think about the same material in great detail as if the information is meant more for the reader than the other characters present. In some ways, there is a little of the stream-of-conciousness type writing of Lawrence or Woolf, but the focus here is more on description rather than feelings; the narrative is much more structured than Woolf's chaotic streams of thought.

There are multiple themes packed into this relatively short book, but the main one is the temptation to conform to society's norms (which, in a German book, has obvious, sinister undertones). The Fähmel's are one of the few who do not swallow the ideology whole (although this does not mean that they stand up against their country and ther leaders; they merely refuse to accept the unpalatable parts of the package); however, many of their contemporaries do seize hold of these ideals, and as in 'Ansichten eines Clowns', many of these are able to use their connections to succeed in the post-war period.

Böll also looks at the idea of family and what that actually means: is a family constructed by blood ties, or is there something more? Several examples are given of family members who aren't connected by blood, and we are shown at least two examples of blood relatives who reject, or are rejected by, their family. At the end of the book, David does not have the celebration he had wished for, with seven children and seven times seven grandchildren, but he is surrounded by a group of his nearest and dearest, even if some of them are not 'real' family.

I have one more novel of Böll's to read, his Nobel-Prize-winning work 'Gruppenbild mit Dame', but I think I'll leave it for a little while. Much as I enjoy his novels, I need to take a bit of a time out from forcing my brain to decipher strange foreign words; I have work to do, a toddler to help look after and a Master's degree to work at (and the footy season has just started...). Nevertheless, I will get around to reading it at some point, and next time I visit the campus bookshop, I'll have a look and see what else they have available. For now, it's time to take off the glasses, put down the cube, and go and give my daughter a big hug!

22 - 'Blind Faith' by Ben Elton

Imagine a divided world where logic has been turned upside down. Where privacy is frowned upon. Where your every move, even at home, is closely monitored. Where language no longer means what it used to.

George Orwell wrote about this in his classic novel '1984'. Ben Elton pretty much copied it in 'Blind Faith'.

Elton, a comedian, script writer and novelist, is obsessed with two main themes: the environment and the impending danger of global warming; and celebrity culture and the rise of reality television. His early novels ('Stark', 'Gridlock', 'This Other Eden') went squarely down the environmental path while two of his later books ('Dead Famous' and 'Chart Throb') analyse the vapid arena of instant fame. In 'Blind Faith' he com