There's Something about Agnieszka...

Back in 2009, Dan Holloway, author of the excellent Songs from the Other Side of the Wall, blogger, indie publisher and generally someone with way too much time on his hands, started an intriguing project, deciding to write (and publish) his latest novel on the discussion pages of his Facebook group.  Twice a week, after some preliminary teasers and explanations, a chapter was released, and members of the group applauded, booed or pointed out typos as they saw fit.

As the novel neared its end, Dan took a break to concentrate on one of his many other projects, and the novel stayed suspended there, almost complete (at least in a draft form, anyway), until he finally got around to adding the finishing touches to the story, honing the draft into a finished form and releasing it electronically in various formats.  Mainly because I kept nagging him to get it finished :)  The result is the wonderful (and wonderfully-named) The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes.

Aggie, as it is familiarly known, is the story of Dan Griffiths, a photojournalist with the job of finding a new angle on a famous story; the tragic (and unlikely) demise of Agnieszka Iwanowa, a young Polish businesswoman living in London.  Thanks to a youtube video of her accident, along with a publicity stunt by the elusive artist Ludwig, the images of Agnieszka being dragged to her fate have become pop-art icons, and it is Dan's mission to find a way to put a fresh spin on the story.

Dan, however, has suffered his own loss, and the pursuit of the truth behind Agnieszka's fate leads him to confront the unresolved disappearance of his daughter Emma.  As his journey leads him into a painful underworld where art, politics and murder merge into a surreal parallel existence, the search becomes less and less about the Polish icon and more about his own, personal suffering.

As with Holloway's earlier book, Aggie has several nods to Haruki Murakami, with the search for a missing person and the blurred lines between the real and imaginary worlds reminiscent of both The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Sputnik Sweetheart.  However, this novel is decidedly darker and, with its focus on pain and suffering, is closer in style to works by other Japanese authors, such as Ryu Murakami, Natsuo Kirino or Hitomi Kanehara. 

Why mention all these Japanese authors (you may ask)?  Well, firstly, I happen to know that Mr. Holloway is a big fan of several Japanese writers; and secondly, one of the principal characters is Japanese...  You see, Shuji Nomoto, a teenage recluse and one of the main protagonists of the novel, lives in Kobe and, quite conceivably, could have come straight out of a story from Murakami's post-Dai-Hanshin-Earthquake collection, after the quake.  Shuji, just like the unfortunate Agnieszka, the elusive Ludwig, and the AWOL Professor Sydney Byfield is one of the many people tangentially, but inextricably, linked to Dan, and his missing daughter.

Dan (Holloway, that is) is obviously obsessed with art, and this comes across in the writing, with many a visual metaphor or leit-motif.  The role of lines is prominent in the novel, whether they be artistic (the style used in paintings or the contours of sculptures), human (there are many descriptions of people with a focus on the sharpness, or blurriness, of their outlines) or metaphorical.  In particular, the idea of crossing lines and boundaries, transgressing against moral norms or even crossing into alternative realities crops up frequently.

Associated with this is the idea of entropy, or (as a well-known author once wrote) the fact that things fall apart.  Faces sag, make-up hides wrinkles and scars (unsuccessfully), minds creak and snap under pressure - as do tendons and sinews...  The city itself seems to be falling into a spiral of dirt and decay, a natural consequence of the pain and fatigue felt by the people who live there.   Things. Fall.  Apart.  In the best possible way, of course.

As you might(!) have gathered from the post, my objectivity may well be a little compromised in reviewing this novel, but if you're a little hesitant about trusting my slightly-biased view, there's some good news - it won't cost you much to check it out.  The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes is available as an e-book for just UK70p, or US99c, from Amazon UK, Amazon US and (for those of you without Kindles) Smashwords, where you can get PDF or ePub versions.  That's not much of a gamble now, is it?

Biased as I am, I was very happy to finally get the finished version of the book, and I am grateful to Dan for including us in the creative process - and for putting us out of our misery!  Rest assured, if you're looking for an entertaining, thought-provoking look at how media affects how we see life in the twenty-first century (one that doesn't mention Charlie Sheen), The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes is well worth a read.

Did I mention that I was a little biased?

19 - 'Songs from the Other Side of the Wall' by Dan Holloway

Reading my latest book was somewhat of a voyage of discovery as it involved several aspects I'm unfamiliar with. Firstly, I'm pretty monogamous with my reading, so reading two books at the same time was an unusual feeling (and as close as I hope to get to adultery). In addition, one of those books was an e-book, and, not wanting to risk losing my job for using the office photcopier to print the whole thing out, I read the story straight from the screen. However, the most novel of the novelties was the fact that the book I was reading was by an unpublished author who had sent me a copy for free.

So how does that happen? No, I didn't get an unsolicited e-mail (although many Nigerians have contacted me recently owing to issues with sending their private funds out of the country; I must get back to them some time soon...), and I didn't find a USB in the street. One day, I was idling my time away on Facebook (as you do), flicking through the contributions on a group dedicated to Haruki Murakami, when I saw a post from someone offering a free PDF copy of his novel (not Murakami's, someone else's. Hope you're still with me). As I like reading a lot (and like not spending money almost as much), I took up the offer, and that is how 'Songs from the Other Side of the Wall' made its way into my life, and onto my Compaq Presario.

Reading two books at a time wasn't really a big issue; I'm a big boy now, and I'm able to keep two ideas in my head at the same time. Reading directly from a PC was more of a challenge as it was difficult to focus for any great length of time. Because of the issues of reading from a monitor (scientific studies have shown that people blink less when looking at a computer monitor than when reading print), I occasionally got a headache when reading, leading me to read in short bursts. Which was OK because I probably should have been having shorter lunch breaks anyway.

It was the unpublished author part which was the most interesting experience though. The whole concept of knowing that the book has not been published affects the way you look at the text; in fact, I found myself becoming more and more critical and analytical than is normally the case when enjoying a book. This was, in some ways, justified: there were several spelling mistakes which (understandably) had been overlooked in the editing process, and there were other errors of language which could be attributed to the fact that the book had not had a professional eye cast over it. As well as these typos though, there were some basic errors (e.g. using 'their' instead of 'there') which seemed a little less forgivable (if anyone finds a typo here, I apologise profusely and blame it on the distraction of my daughter. She's currently asleep, but I'm blaming her anyway).

In terms of the book itself, I found the spread of locations and nationalities a little overwhelming for such a short work and wondered whether it had been over-done a little. While all the places had their own reasons for being included, the story would have been affected very little by condensing the action into just a couple of places. Szandrine is undoubtedly a citizen of the new Europe, but there wasn't really a need to spread her cultural heritage so thinly over 137 pages. I also found the character of Yang to be incongruous and, in some ways superfluous. The book is about Szandrine and her past and future; to me Yang seemed a bit of a side issue (titillation almost?), and the discovery of her role in events towards the end of the novel appeared to be a device to tie loose ends together.

Looking back at what I've just written, my poor blog readers (if, indeed, there are any) must be commiserating with me for the waste of my time and assuming that any such offers will be sent straight to the little green bin on my desktop in future, but that is definitely not the case. Apart from the issues above (which are relatively minor and only my humble opinion), I enjoyed most of what I read in this book. The influence of Murakami, freely admitted by the author, is apparent in many areas. Food and drink (Gulas and Hungarian wine rather than 'Cutty Sark' Whisky, pasta and grilled eel!) are important elements of the novel, binding Szandrine to her Hungarian heritage and providing a link betwen the pre- and post-communist eras. Szandrine herself is fairly Murakami-esque as a character (apart from being female - then again, her sexuality means that her partners can be portrayed in a similar way, and Murakami often describes secondary characters more than the main protagonist); we discover things about her life, but we never really get an insight into who she is and how she feels. One thing we do know is that she is not part of the usual working society, and that she is trying to find a place to fit into. Oh, and there's a talking statue. And a cat.

The charm of this book is the way we start with Szandrine trying to make sense of her life and follow her through, learning about things almost at the same time as she does. It's a voyage of discovery which leads to an open ended finale, and we are left wondering where she goes from here. The way forward is most certainly not clear, just like the start, but in a different way perhaps?

Dan's latest project is a book, 'The Man who painted Agnieszka's Shoes', written incrementally and published on a Facebook group page:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=609552826&ref=profile#/group.php?gid=49068587189

This method of publishing allows members of the group to comment on each short chapter as it appears, thus possibly influencing the progress of the book (which is reminiscent, in the sense of a life being discussed by virtual friends, to Szandrine's blog in this novel: life imitating art or vice-versa?).

In short, give unpublished authors a chance, read what they have to say, appreciate the chance to read for free, and enjoy being part of a small artistic community. Unless, of course, Mr. Holloway gets the shits with me over this review; in which case, feel free to never read anything not bought in 'Borders' again. Your call, Dan :)