Books before I'm 30: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
This book came very close to losing me right at the start. Its protagonist is a precocious 17 year old girl, as many protagonists of Young Adult fiction are, and as such was a little exhausting. Her mannerisms are sometimes exhaustingly sincere, and some of the rants she engages in in early chapters were off putting.
Still, if there is one place for the profundity of youth, it's probably teenage cancer sufferers. Every teenager introduced in the book either had or has cancer. As such, our heroine has a rather unique perspective on how she acts. Her behaviour with her parents, for instance, are intended to cause them as little suffering as possible, as she is aware of her own mortality. As much as it is perhaps cliche for me to have done so, I found myself most moved by the parents who had to watch their child slowly die.
Still, for all the inherent sadness of the book, it's quite a light tale for most of the time, following a romance between Hazel and Gus, and their quest to track down the author of a book about cancer (called an Imperial Affliction, which is a lovely turn of phrase), and obtain an ending to an ambiguously finished story. The author is an irascible and nasty man who is often correct in the assertions he makes, and is such delightful.
I know a lot of people cried at the end, but to be honest I had seen it coming from a mile away, the story structure being such that it felt fairly inevitable. Not that it wasn't sad, but the sheer obviousness of it made me perhaps less affected than I could have been. Still, a very good book, although perhaps not one to read if one is feeling particularly vunerable.
Labels: books, review, review booksbeforeI'm30
Books before I'm 30: The Enchantress of Florence by Salmon Rushdie
My previous knowledge of Salmon Rushdie was that he had written a book which caused the Ayatollah to declare a fatwah on him. If you judge a man by his enemies, he's looking pretty good.
Coming into this book I had very little expectations, other than it might be a slightly literary work. I was very pleased to find it a joy to read. It follows the tale of a man who travels from Florence to tell the Emperor/Sultan a story of his mother, who is a lost princess. The story draws heavily on the myths and legends of Arabia, leading to an engaging sense of magical realism: the Emperor imagined his wife into existence, at one point the protagonist gains entry to the palace by using unguents which make everyone fall in love with him. This is cleverly contrasted with the more earthy world of Florence, where, if you believe the story, practically everyone is obsessed with having sex with one another, to the point where three young boys will run to a hanging to get a man's semen, so that they can grow a mandrake.
Not a story you could share with children then, but a fun one, and an engaging one. It conjures a wonderful, deep world, with fascinating characters, and made me want to spend lots of time enjoying this company. If I had a gripe with it it would be that the ending feels a little too tidy, a little too pat. I almost wanted more from it, maybe a sense of mystery or confusion, while the book mostly just ends. Still, I would happily recommend this book to all.
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Books before I'm 30: The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
This book came recommended to me by multiple people. It is comprised of several case histories put together by Oliver Sacks, which focuses primarily on how neurological disfunctions can alter people's identity, or ability to identify others. The titular example is a man who cannot perceive the abstract: the only way he can perceive faces is by looking at details, which can often confuse, hence the attempt to put his wife onto his head.
Sacks goes out of his way to humanise each case that appears in the book, and each persons struggles to maintain their sense of self. This includes studies of a woman who has lost the sense of her own body, and amnesiacs with very little sense of who they are now. At its best, the book can be quite moving as you see how much people can lose but still manage to carve out something of themselves.
That said, I'm not sure the book completely works for me as a piece. The case histories are often quite disconnected, to the point where I feel like Sacks repeats himself. The language often varies quite a lot: it goes from lyrical descriptions of people's suffering to rather technical language which I'm afraid went over my head. A minor bug bear as well is that Sacks adds in his conversations with these people, which often sound like he is talking to himself.
Still a good work, and I imagine at its first release date quite a revolutionary one. The "World of the Simple" section where he suggests that people with severe mental retardation still have value strikes me as somewhat patronising, but that might be me looking at it from a more modern perspective.
Labels: books, review, review booksbeforeI'm30
Books before I'm 30: Care of Wooden Floors By Will Wiles
Care of Wooden Floors is Will Wiles' debut novel. It features a first person narrative from an unnamed copywriter who desires to write more than council leaflets. He has come to an unnamed Eastern European city (unnamed, I suspect, so Will Wiles can happily slander its architecture and people without fear) to flat sit for his OCD friend Oskar, who, while absent for most of the novel, leaves copious notes on how to look after the flat.
Care of Wooden Floors is intended to be funny, and indeed has moments of humour, but I found it quite frustrating. The narrative can go into unnecessary detail at times in describing fairly mundane activities, and while the writing is often entertaining, it easily strays into pretentiousness.
Ultimately though it was the plot of the book which frustrated me, or rather the behaviour of the main character. Having been told that he should not leave wine glasses on the floor, he immediately does so, leaving a stain. He also allows the cats to sit on the sofa, which lets them be torn. He then, rather bizzarely, rather than consulting the book on the care of wooden floors to deal with the stain, basically ignores it, and gets drunk. This is something he does repeatedly, even when handling fairly nasty acid later on. As accident after accident piles on, he rarely takes responsibility for his actions, and comes across somewhat as a socio-path. My sympathies ended up very much with Oskar by the end of the book.
The best section was probably when he actually interacted with another human being, the even drunker Michael from Oskar's orchestra, which leads to a fairly entertaining, if somewhat inconsequential diversion.
To discuss this book further, I shall need to spoil it, so read no further if you wish that not to happen.
The book lost me a bit when he "accidentally" kills a cat, which has managed to pull a cork out of a bottle of wine he left, get drunk, then clamber into a piano and have the lid slam on it. This is absurd, and just annoyingly so. Will Wiles clearly wanted the cat today, but he clearly didn't want the narrator to be directly responsible, and so was forced to construct events in such a way as to beggar belief. The main character then decides to dispose of the body down the trash chute, but for some reason doesn't put it in a bin bag first, so the cleaner sees him do it.
This leads, later, to his accidental killing of the cleaner. He justifies himself as it being an accident, but he is the one that pushes her onto a knife sticking out on the dishwasher, and then, when she collapses from blood loss, assumes she is dead without calling emergency services, then drags her body back to her flat to try and get away with it! Bizarrely, the end of the book even seems to imply that he might have done so. He certainly shows a remarkable lack of guilt for being directly involved in the death of another human being.
I actually suspect that tonally all these events could have worked, perhaps as a third person narrative, where we get a bit more detachment, so can enjoy the blackly comic nature of the events (thats what Tom Sharpe tends to do, who writes stories of a similar manner). As it is, I found the style ultimately rather off putting.
Labels: books, review, review booksbeforeI'm30
Books before I'm 30: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
The Lies of Locke Lamora is a fantasy novel set in a grimy version of Venice. The people of the world all live in the remenants of something built by an ancient civillisation, who have since died out. Magic exists, but is rare, although there is a sciency/magic analogue in alchemy.
The book follows Locke Lamora, who is essentially a fantasy con man. He and his compatriots fool rich nobles into parting way with their fortunes. Doing so is fraught with danger, as it is not only against the laws of the city, it is also against the laws of the underworld, where there is a so called "secret peace" involving criminals avoiding preying on nobles, and nobles turning a blind eye to many criminal activities.
The book wears its influences on its sleeve, Pratchett clearly being a strong one, but the book is a lot darker in places, with often brutal scenes of torture or violence throughout. Despite this, the tone is mostly light hearted and enjoyable. I had a good time with this book, it carries you along with it, and the plot is decent. The world is well drawn and fairly flavoursome, even if it does borrow from the best.
If I had one complaint about it, its the lack of women. The "Gentlemen Bastards" which Locke leads does include a woman, but she spends the entire novel abroad, not even turning up in the flash backs. I assume this is to allow her reappearance in the sequels, but it is a bit frustrating. The female characters that are introduced are interesting and varied, but very rare, and have quite a short amount of stage time, which is a shame as they do seem to have a fair amount of personality. Still, this wouldn't be the first fantasy novel to make this mistake, and at least there is a suggestion that sequels will involve women a little bit more.
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Books before I'm 30: The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
[Reviewing several books over a few days as I read a few on holiday!]
For quite a while in this book I was having trouble determining if this book was autobiographical or fictional. Several of the events that occur are deeply implausible, and have a certain lyricism that would be very neat for real life, but the plotless, somewhat aimless structure of the book as a series of stories of events on a boat seem to indicate someone telling the story of their life.
Reading the notes at the end gives some enlightenment: while the author did go on a similar journey in his youth, most of the details were utterly fictional. So there we go. The Cat's Table is a first person narrative following a young boys 3 week journey from Colombo in Sri Lanka to England, where his mother, who he has not seen for a very long time, awaits him. He is sat on the "Cat's table", at dinner, the one furthest from the Captains, with other non-persons, including two other boys similarly lacking parental guardianship. Together they explore the ship, meet other people, and generally go on adventures.
Its a well written book, and there are engaging passages, but I found myself failing to connect with this. This has mostly to due with the plotless nature of the book: at least initially all we have are a series of anecdotes where the young author is just having fun. There is no real sense of peril, or even any conflict: he seems to just mostly enjoy himself, which is fine, but not terribly engaging.
There are later passages which connect: tales of his relationship with one of the trio as an adult, and his early passing, are striking and somewhat moving, but they are soon there and gone. What plot the book has only emerges late in the book, and doesn't actually connect to the main characters story at all: it involves mostly background characters, and comes across as remarkably implausible.
I might try another book by Ondaatje at some point: this one was picked primarily due to its availablility than any other metric, so I might have more success with other books by him, but this one didn't really strike a chord.
Labels: books, review, review booksbeforeI'm30
Books before I'm 30: Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Wild Swans has been sitting waiting to be read by me for a while. I am very glad of this project, as every time I came to start a new book I would read the blurb of Wild Swans and think "phew, that sounds heavy" and read something else.
Wild Swans is a remarkable novel, and really is essential reading, especially for anyone (like myself) whose knowledge of Chinese history over the twentieth century is pretty shaky. It manages to tell a very personal story of three generations of women, but also tell the history of China in the twentieth century, which comes across as a slow tragedy.
The remarkable thing about the book is how many stories and themes it contains. It begins by being about the place of women in society, with Jung Chang's grandmother becoming a concubine (effectively an unofficial wife) of a local warlord, so that her father can improve his position. To use his daughter effectively, the grandmother has her feet bound at birth, a tradition that is going out of fashion and is insanely cruel. We see just how perilous her position is: she has to appease the wife of the warlord as well as the other concubines, and even her servants need to be treated extremely well, lest they make up stories about each other. This society turns women against each other as they struggle for security. Her story is heroic, as she manages to struggle to protect her daughter from others who would treat her cruelly.
Alongside this personal tale is a story of occupation by a series of cruel occupiers. The Japanese are replaced by the Kuomintang who are in some ways even worse, and more corrupt. Communism, when it comes, comes as a breathe of fresh air, but this only makes it more heartbreaking as this new system, which held so much promise, betrays Jung Chang's mother. In particular Jung Chang's father, who is presented as an incorruptible figure who believes utterly in the communist cause, strikes a tragic figure as the full insanity of Mao is revealed. The madness of the great leap forward followed shortly by the cultural revolution are vividly described.
The writing is clear and involving, and managed to deliver a wild sweeping story in a very engaging fashion. I would absolutely recommend that everyone who has not read this book.
Labels: books, review, review booksbeforeI'm30
Books before I'm 30: P.G. Wodehouse: The Code of the Woosters
Several people suggested I read some Wodehouse in my facebook post, and having never done so, I decided it was high time I complied. My particular choice was based on that being the only Wodehouse book we had in the house, although I'm told it is considered one of the best of the Jeeves and Wooster books.
I'm not quite sure how I managed to avoid Wodehouse until now. I had seen snippets of the television program, but not read a single word by him. I'm probably not going to shock anyone by saying his writing is a delight, but it truly is. Wodehouse has a marvellous way with words that, to be honest, I'm not sure I've ever seen repeated. I rarely actually laugh at comic books, but I felt compelled to do so several times throughout this book, so delightful was the turn of phrase Wodehouse uses.
The plot itself is insubstantial: Bertie Wooster on a quest to avoid being engaged, or, worse yet, losing the services of the excellent chef Anatole by stealing a cow creamer. It is pure farce, and it is not really a surprise that the writers of Frasier had Wodehouse as a massive influence. Its very nature is rather whimsical to be honest: theres some fun to be had with speculation as to Wooster's sexuality (he does seem rather eager to avoid getting married), but its mostly just fun and froth. But what excellent fun and froth to spend ones time with. The only thing I will say is that the highly arch nature of the writing did tire me out on occasion, leaving me having to have brief breaks before re-engaging. Still, I shall definitely be searching out more Wodehouse.
Labels: books, review, review booksbeforeI'm30
Books before I'm 30: Things the Grandchildren should know, by Mark Everett//E
The Eels (technically its just "Eels" but my mind always puts in the "the") are one of my favourite bands. I got into them around the time their fourth album, Souljacker came out, in 2001, fairly shortly after I was getting properly into music. The lead singer of the band, E, who is basically the Eels, is pretty prolific, and excluding his first two albums, released before the Eels existed, has 11 albums, excluding some best of and curio albums.
I love the sheer variety in their output. While there are certain "types" of songs that E produces, there are huge differences between the heavy sound of Souljacker, and the lighter sound of Daisies of the Galaxy, or the depressingly wonderful Electro Shock Blues. I've seen the Eels play three times, and had fairly different experiences. The first time they were in a "rock" phase, touring Hard Rock Times, with electric guitars (although also a harmonica. E gave myself and the others with me a brief jig with his harmonica when we wondered up to see them rehearsing, and the door left open), for a pretty pounding concert. The second time was with a string orchestra for the contemplative "Blinking Lights and Other Revelations". The third time was a somewhat uninspiring performance at Leeds Wireless festival, where they gave a frankly uninspired performance.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic. The point is that I have followed the Eels for a long time, so its probably about time I got round to reading E's autobiography. I don't read much autobiography. I think I've read Richard Feynman, Bill Bryson and Derren Brown, but that may be about it. My worry with autobiography is that the level of prose is going to vary depending on how well the person involved can actually write.
E has a funny writing style. Its extremely bare bones, and in fact he has a brief detour where he gives a paragraph in more flowerly prose, but explains that he doesn't like telling his life in that way. The narrative progresses in a fairly linear fashion, through a series of connected anecdotes and remembrances of his life. As those who are familiar with him might be aware, he hasn't had the easiest life, with his only sister committing suicide, and his parents dying while he as fairly young. The starkness of the prose works well for communicating the kind of pain he's gone through, and throughout he quotes his own songs. Electroshock Blues was written in the wake of his sisters suicide and his mothers terminal cancer, and for anyone who has listened to it, it really tells the story of the pain he was experiencing at the time.
The music though, was his way to work through all this, and for all the painful experience, the book is an optimistic one. After all, despite numerous obstacles in his way, he has succeeded, and produced music which was personal and unique to him.
Its hard for me, as a huge fan of the Eels, to tell if the book would be that engaging to someone who wasn't. I think so, as its a compact, well told story when you get to the bare bones of it, but for anyone who is a fan of the Eels, I would argue that it is essential.
Labels: book, music, review, review booksbeforeI'm30
Books before I'm 30: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
I went into this book fairly ignorant of its contents. I was aware that it was a well loved novel, particularly by my mother, but other than that, nothing. I didn't even particularly notice the author, Dodie Smith, wrote 101 Dalmations, nor that the book was written in the 1940s and set in the 1930s.
It gives us the diary entries of Cassandra, a somewhat impoverished 17 year old girl, who lives in a castle (well, a house in a castle) with her family: her father, who appears to be trapped in depression, her step mother, a nature loving model prone to speaking nonsense, her slightly foolish older sister Rose, their younger brother Thomas (who is sort of sir not appearing in this novel for most of it) and their semi-adopted brother Stephen.
Their prospects seem somewhat bleak, until the new owners of the land, two American brothers, come to stay. From there, the plot thickens.
I did enjoy the book, although I don't know that I loved it. I liked all the characters, particularly Cassandra. Dodie Smith captures her very well, and you get to enjoy the little turns of phrase she uses. It reminded me of Austen to some extent, and indeed Cassandra references both Austen and the Brontes several times. Some of the cleverness of the book comes from that it is a diary, and thus we only ever see things from Cassandra's perspective. Dodie Smith rarely cheats in this regard, so in some respect Cassandra functions a little bit like an unreliable narrator, in that the assumptions she makes about others motivations is often wrong in hindsight.
There are some lovely moments when Cassandra is feeling unhappy, but is under the impression that she has concealed such emotions from other characters, who then demonstrate through their words and actions that they perceive her true emotional state, even if they don't let on directly. I suspect the book would very much reward re-reading, especially given some of the final act revelations.
I can absolutely see why some would fall in love with the book, but I didn't feel myself fully engaged at all points. I feel like the narrative slows at some points, and I felt myself lose interest occasionally. That said, this is a book I could happily recommend someone else read, as I suspect most would have a good time with it.
Labels: books, review, review booksbeforeI'm30
Books before I'm 30: Guns, Germs and Steel
Book two is a nonfiction book recommended to me by Sophie Ellis. This is a book I'd heard a bit about before, so was eager to catch up with.
I don't read a great deal of nonfiction. Its not that I hate non-fiction or find it dull, just that my primary enjoyment in reading tends to be in finding well told stories. That said, I do enjoy a good piece of non-fiction. Probably the last I read was the Selfish Gene, by the much less admired than he used to be Richard Dawkins. I would still recommend it, as it is purely Dawkin's writing on evolution, which is generally great.
This book shares some of the characteristics of the Selfish Gene, in that while it is a work of history, it is instead an argument for why the broad scope of history is as it is. Why were the Americas, Australia and Sub-Saharan Africa invaded by Europe, and not the other way round? Was it to do with the people, or something to do with the environment they inhabited?
Diamond constructs a careful theory with several points. As the title indicates, nations with guns germs and steel tend to triumph, where guns and steel represent a technological advantage, while germs cleared out some areas (particular the Americas) of their inhabitants, and sometimes made empires collapse. He argues that Eurasia (which he includes North Africa in, as it has a similar climate) not only has the largest land mass, but following from that the greatest number of domestable plants and animals. The former give rise to societies, while the latter gives rise to the germs that were transmitted from Europeans to Americans.
Its a well and carefully argued piece. It suffers slightly from the fact that the evidence there exists is somewhat sparse. For instance, his argument that there are less domestable plants in the US essentially hinges on the fact that since Europeans settled there, very few have been domesticated. He can hardly point to an exhaustive survey of plants and there ability to be domesticated on either continents, as it does not exist! That said, this is how science progresses. Someone makes a theory based on the evidence available to it, and then others can search for more evidence to either strengthen or falsify that theory. As such, this is a great and inspiring book, which presents a clear way to think about the broad scope of human history.
Labels: books, review, review booksbeforeI'm30
Books before I'm 30: Stoner by John Williams
The project begins!
First book: Stoner, bought for me by my parents as a birthday present.
Stoner is a funny sort of book, in that it was published in 1965 to no particular acclaim but found fame rather randomly in 2013. Its not the sort of book that would seem to be a sleeper hit. It tells the tale of a somewhat unremarkable academic's life, being set (at least initially) pre-world war one, and following his failures and successes.
I can see why a lot of people like the book. Its a well told story, and easy enough to read. It rarely slows done or feels turgid, and the main character is interesting enough. The themes that it hits on: the search for meaning, curating happiness in adverse conditions, loss and hope, are interesting enough. Sadly though, I found myself not enjoying most of the book.
The unfortunate part for me is the blamelesness with which Will Stoner, our main character, acts. He always acts with the utmost virtue. Even when he conducts an affair the narrative does its best to imply that it is not a bad thing he is doing, and even seems to condemn his wife when she injects a cruel jibe about his lover.
Ah yes, his wife. Edith is my main problem with this book, although I do have another. Edith is someone he meets at a party and find himself in love with, despite having little in common with her, and her seeming disinterest. In fact its never quite explained why Edith chooses to marry him in the first place, as she seems to have no affection for him, even though the book takes pains to point out why Edith's responses to Bill's sexual advances are ones of disgust. Edith, it seems, is a creature of spite and hatred, but not in a deliberate way. Her many deeply unpleasant actions towards Stoner throughout the book are apparently not her fault: she makes no deliberate move in her endless campaign of making Stoner's life miserable. Stoner, other than perhaps a lack of self awareness, is apparently not guilty of ever acting poorly towards his wife. Her hatred of him appears to spring up ex nihilo to make Stoner's life that bit worse.
In fact Stoner seems to spend his life dealing with people who hate him for no reason at all. His academic dispute, which take up a large portion of the latter half of the book, come from a character acting in a totally unreasonable way, and Stoner acting in an utterly, completely moral one. The sum of this was to make me frustrated with the one sided portrayal of Stoner against the world, making me wonder if the author wasn't working out his personal bugbear with the world.
I didn't hate this book the way I hated some (I'm glaring at you, the Lovely Bones), but I sadly cannot recommend it.
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