Sunday, January 18, 2015

Breakfast with the Borgias by DBC Pierre

I really didn’t know what was going on in this book for much of the time. It is very slow in the unraveling, even though it is housed in the form of a novella and so can easily be read in a couple of hours. It is a horror story of sorts, throwing a computer sciences professor Ariel up against a creepy family in an equally creepy Victorian guest house on the British coast. But DBC Pierre didn’t really give himself over to the horror, and seemed more concerned with concocting weird conversations that didn’t hang together and equally weird events. I suppose they were clues but I didn’t get them. The main character Ariel is on his way to meet his lover and the whole thing revolves around the frustration of not being able to communicate because phone signals are not working. His attempts to communicate on a borrowed phone have the sense of one of those nightmares where everything moves slowly and you try to do something and can never execute the action. And I’m sure that’s deliberate. So I found this a disconcerting book, a bit annoying to read because I had no idea what to make of it and wasn’t entertained enough along the way to finding out what it was all about.

Stoner by John Williams

There seems to be some debate about the smallness versus largeness and the sadness versus happiness of this book. Stoner by John Williams was published fifty yeas ago or thereabouts and received minor recognition. It is the story of William Stoner, a farm boy whose quiet parents quietly decide to acquiesce to his wish to go to college to study agriculture. There he has an epiphany and discovers English and more specifically grammar and the effect it has on literature. He becomes a teacher and the rest of the story is about his life as a teacher in college. Some people think this is a sad book but Williams didn’t, and neither do I. It’s a book about Everyman, his daily life, small pleasures, larger disappointments. Some people do better than others. But this man Stoner goes through life doing the work he loves, making and breaking relationships, with the highs and lows and sadnesses that the ordinary person experiences. Apparently the book has not been picked up in the USA. It’s cheeky of me to comment but I wonder if that is not because of that culture’s interest in narrative. I know they test various film endings to see which one appeals and they’re not big on unhappy endings, whereas the Europeans revel in them! I know this isn’t a film, of course, but I wonder if there is a cultural perspective there. Anyhow, this is a wonderful book. A friend of mine recently told me that she sometimes finds herself with an overwhelming feeling of general sadness, for no particular reason, though she is definitely not depressed. I feel that from time to time as well, a sort of sadness that recognises the way the world is, our limitations, our powerlessness and how temporal it all is. And this book taps right into that. I read it slowly and often went back to reread paragraphs and phrases, afraid of missing a word or an observation while distracted by the quest for story. It is beautifully written and a book that everyone should read.

Monday, January 5, 2015

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

Good on you Graeme Simsion. Here’s another delightful book about the very odd Don, now married to the beautiful but challenging Rosie, and a Baby Under Development. It’s intelligent and original chicklit really but ideal for summer reading on the couch. My only gripe is that like the Harry Potter books and the Tolkein films, the first one is surprising and delightful in its originality, but the second one is more predictable. What made you laugh out aloud in the first, only makes you smile in the follow up.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Pilcrow by Adam Mars-Jones

Adam Mars-Jones’ hero John describes himself as a pilcrow, the sign for a paragraph, in his view an unusual piece of typography. And he is unusual. John has something called Stills Disease, which is a form of arthritis that utterly disables him. But it’s his character that makes him unusual. The novel explores the first fifteen years of his life in minute detail. At one point John talks about his progress being an inch and a half at a time and this book is a bit like that. But it is not for a moment tedious. In fact, the book is completely engaging. In every other way this boy is a normal child, though brighter than most, and spends his time manipulating a wonderful cast of characters that populate the special schools where he needs to live and gouge out an education. It’s clear from early on that he’s gay and his sexuality develops like any other normal healthy boy, full of fumblings and discoveries. This all sounds quite serious, a chronicle of how a disabled boy makes his way through life, morally good for you to read and applaud. But it’s not like that at all. It’s wicked and naughty and funny and sad in turn. John is a typical, wonderful, at times immoral boy. He’s a witty and sometimes scathing observer of the people and situations around him. He’s open and unapologetic for his often self serving and opportunistic behaviour yet has a streak of endearing kindness and empathy running through him. It’s a very funny book, often wicked, and with wonderful characterization. I found it refreshing to see how this disabled boy manages to navigate the early years of his life and come to terms with a very healthy sexuality – not something people normally think about when they consider those with a disability. That’s all there is to this book, a chronicle of fifteen years, but the elegance of the prose, the humour and wit and its originality make it one of the must read books on anyone’s list.