The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes

I loved this book. It’s blessedly short because, as is always the case with this magnificent writer, every single word counts. It’s the type of book you need to savour, because it’s not about story, it’s about a psychological state. The book is about Shostakovich and his life in the Soviet Union. It is well researched and uses the facts of his life as a basis for a psychological exploration of how this famous composer dealt with strictures of living in Russia at that time. From that point of view it is fiction, almost like historical fiction I suppose, but better. I was completely fascinated with the relationship between the musicians that were living there at the time and the blind, clumsy-minded power of the officials running the union. Barnes has captured the fear that ran through everyday life like a mineral lode through rock. There was no rhyme or reason to officialdom’s decisions and there was no predicting their behaviour. What astonishes me is that any of these composers like Shostakovich or Prokofiev managed to produce what they did. This was a fascinating insight into living and working under a totalitarian regime.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

This is an incredible book. Yanagihara writes like an old, experienced woman; I find it hard to understand how someone so young can be so in touch with the inner workings of people’s minds. The story is simple: it traces the lives of four men who share rooms in college and go on to be friends for the rest of their lives in New York. They are very real. I particularly liked her rendition of JB, a character both attractive and lovable and very flawed, a completely authentic character. There were some parts that didn’t ring true, their amazing career successes for one. It’s also almost impossible to write a story chronicling four people’s lives in a book of any readable length, without skimming over bits and lapsing into that sort of shallow story telling that drives me nuts. There’s a little bit of this; there has to be I guess, because even though the book is 800 pages long the scope of the story is four lifetimes. There’s also a little bit of sentimentality, because it’s impossible to do other than sketch a secondary character and as a result their actions become almost superficial, like Harold’s relationship with Jude (though even there she manages to give us clues about why Harold is so attached to this man.) But the real focus of the book is the story of Jude and Willem, the childhoods that formed them and the men they become. Although I’ve not experienced anything like it myself, it seems to me that her exploration of Jude, a victim of horrific abuse as a child, is masterful. And her exploration of grief is so on the money that it had me in tears. That I have experienced and I’ve watched close friends experience too, and I was right there with the characters, recognising and identifying with their suffering. Her research has been astonishing. There’s a great long list of people who worked with in the areas of mathematics, law, medicine and so forth, an incredible achievement. I couldn’t put this book down.