Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Review by M

Here's the fuzzy lead up to why I read Half of a Yellow Sun in the first place, and my mixed but hopeful expectations for it:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus is one of those books that has a special place on my shelves. I read it during a period when I was reading little fiction and not making note of my thoughts about that which I did read (other than the piles of non-fiction, of course!). Consequently, I remember little of what Purple Hibiscus is about other than that my enduring response to it is similar to the one I hold for Tsisti Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions (both are about teenage girls in African countries). In short, Ngozi Adichie had earned a place in my reading heart. But then I tried reading Americanah, her most recent novel and the main character's internal whining jarred too much with me, and I left it unfinished and disappointed. But then someone from Booktrust told me how much they'd loved Half of a Yellow Sun, so I kept a wary eye out for it, curious as to whether it would be another Purple Hibiscus, an Americanah, or something else for me.

It was definitely more Purple Hibiscus, so I'm very happy and would recommend this novel to a variety of people.

Three things stood out most for me in Half of a Yellow Sun. - I learned something, I enjoyed the storytelling/plot over character (I know!), and yes, there is something about the writing (or structure) that jars with me a little.

The story is set in 1960s Nigeria, just before and during the civil war and the establishment of Biafra. Yes, I'd forgotten about Biafra (and Ngozi Adichie raises an eyebrow or smiles wryly inwardly), so I learned quite a bit from the plot, which often pleases me. For example, the title of the book is taken from a symbol on the Biafran flag. I'm sure I never knew that.

The plot became the page turner for me, and I read this novel for long uninterrupted periods over a few days - which is the first novel of the five I've read this year that has had that effect on me. Either I've reached a turning point or that's saying something about Half of a Yellow Sun. At least, it's saying that the novel tells a good story: that of love and human relationships within an extended family/household, and civil war.

Characterwise, the narrator and the novel moves back and forth among its main characters: Ugwu (the houseboy), Olanna (the long suffering beauty), Kainene (the ugly twin), Odenigbo (Master and revolutionary lover), and Richard (white man writer in Africa). Ugwu, for me, is by far the most charming of the characters. Olanna is a character who doesn't feel 'right' to me and I'm starting to think that Ngozi Adichie's main female characters are always going to have this effect on me. But, that thought doesn't sit true with Purple Hibiscus, whose main character is female. Interestingly, too, Ugwu and Kambili (Purple Hibiscus) are both teenagers. Perhaps then, I like Ngozi Adichie's characterisation of teenagers but not female adults. I'd have to reread Purple Hibiscus to get to the bottom of that one.

Structurally, I wasn't overly keen. The novel moves back and forth between the early and the late 1960s. The middle of these periods turns on two points: Biafra and war, and personal relationship troubles. Often I feel that this is done for no other reason than to introduce suspense. The novel does this but annoyingly it also 'spoils' some of the plot by telling me what happens before the story has reached it natural course (yep, for once, I'm plumping for a more linear tale!). There's also a strange device that occasionally tags the draft of a novel onto the end of chapters. The strange thing about this is it's written by the narrator and not the 'author'. For me, it obstructs the flow. I understand that Ngozi Adichie is making a political point about who should tell which stories but the whole of Half of a Yellow Sun does this anyway.

A last and, for me, interesting observation: sexual references are littered throughout the novel. Far more than I remember reading in other novels for a long time. This, perhaps, says more about the other novels that I've been reading rather than the amount of sex in Half of a Yellow Sun.

Most of this review sounds quite critical, more so than some of my other reviews. Maybe it just had more personal bite for me, and maybe I like that because it's the novel I've enjoyed reading most so far this year.


Publication details:
This copy: My own; Fourth estate, 2014

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler

Review by M

Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2014; winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

Some novels resonate closely with me for various reasons, and this novel is one of them. As a whole, it engulfed me. Despite some annoying elements, I loved it and won’t be surprised if it stays for a very long time on my ‘list of ‘favourite’ novels.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a novel about family relationships (and their difficulties), but it specifically explores questions about our humanity, our being, and ethical choices. The way it does this is directly via the plot (which I think is unusual and refreshing) but I’m not saying much more on this because of spoilers. 

Told in the first person by Pearl, she starts her story in the middle when she is making her way through university. She speaks directly to her readership as she takes them back and forth as she finds the courage to tell the beginning and some of the end of what happened to the brother and sister who left her family when she was just a young girl.

Fowler likes to keep her reader guessing but thankfully it is not too long before she introduces the big twist which puts the plot onto a level that goes beyond the everyday of ‘ordinary’ family lives. I’d suggest steering clear of reviews on this novel if you want to savour the impact of the twist when you read the novel. It really put me completely beside myself.

This is a wrenching and thoughtful read, delivered mostly with a light tone that works surprising well (given the subject matter). The annoying elements, for me, were: the character of Harlow (I could have done without her though I see how she makes Pearl think about her own ‘essential’ being); a bit too much tension; and I’d have preferred some of Pearl’s research to have been included as an appendix.

I suspect fans of Margaret Atwood (especially perhaps Cat’s Eye), Ann Patchett and Maggie O’Farrell will thoroughly enjoy this novel. Highly, highly recommended and definitely one to be discussed - but not online for fear of spoilers.

Publication details: 2014, Serpent’s Tale, London, paperback

This edition: gift from Little M

Dear Committee Members - Julie Schumacher

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

Review by M

For me, this was more self-indulgent than a chocolate box (or whatever else is your guilty pleasure). A series of increasingly disgruntled – and often hilariously cringeworthy – letters, are written by Jason Fitger, a well-established professor of English Creativeve Writing and Literature.  His lengthy letters show he is overwhelmed by the increasing academic protocol of writing recommendations for colleagues, funding and students. All of this is set within the context of university cuts (which seem to affect English creative writing university courses more so than the Economics department) as well as his personal relationship and publishing debacles.

This is a short book and each page is almost tediously ‘more of the same as the last page’ – but I found it immensely addictive. Recommended as a light but spot-on read.

Publication details:  The Friday Project, 9 October 2014, London, hardback

This copy: digital review copy from the publisher

J - Howard Jacobson

J by Howard Jacobson

Review by M

 

J has been shortlisted for the Man Booker 2014.

 

(Please note: The title of this novel is not J. It is a struck out J but I don’t know how to type that!)

 

I’ve never finished The Finkler Question, the only Jacobson I’ve ever started to read, and the curious thing about this was that there ‘was’ something that I liked about his writing just as there ‘was’ something I did not like. Precise, aren’t I?

When J came up for review (prior to its Booker listing), both this niggle about Jacobson’s writing and the premise for J grabbed my current attention. Going by the blurb, J is both a dystopian novel and a love story, so pretty much right up my street.

Set in the future, a not-spoken -about past frames the novel, and the narrator hovers it over the characters like a thick mist: What Happened, If It Happened. Most of the novel is spent providing clues and red herrings as to What happened, if It happened (my early hunch was that something almost apocalyptic had happened due to social media – but I was wrong and anyone who understands the significance of the struck out J will have a good idea from the offing What has happened).

The narrator expounds philosophically about the pre- and post- treatment of It (for me, this went on a bit too much and was not sufficiently convincing). Post-It, public mood is presided over by an agency known as Ofnow (hmm, Atwoodian handmaids anyone?). Unfortunately, this ‘new’ world that J creates, is not fully explored and just doesn’t feel quite right.

J turns, however (and ultimately,thankfully), around two central characters, Ailinn and Kevern, and their new love affair, the future of which hangs in the balance due to a pair of ugly feet and a murder mystery. Jacobson crafts a believably poignant relationship, and these two characters, for me, are what carry the novel.

As the novel unfolds, the significance of the struck out J and What Happened, If It Happened is deadly serious. It is unnerving and unsettling, and on one count is not something unfamiliar from real life and on another count is not unfamiliar from the worlds of big brother.  

Jacobson puts much detail but also not enough into the plotlines so that some elements seemed superfluous while others were lacking. I found the ending very unsatisfying, partly because some things felt as if they were left hanging, but also because some things just didn’t feel like they fit well. I struggled to identify the ‘tone’ of the novel – there was always a lighthearted humour mingling with something much, much darker. It just didn’t feel plausible enough (though perhaps this is ‘the point’). I think I'd recommend this as a library read to some people.

 

Publication details: 14 August 2014, Jonathan Cape, London, hardback

This copy: digital review copy from the publisher

 

 

 

 

Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

 Adult fiction review by M

 

Station Eleven was pitched as being for Margaret Atwood or Hugh Howey fans.  I’m an Atwood fan but had never heard of Howey. This novel has had a huge (social media) presence, and from what I can gather, many people adore it. I didn’t.

Station Eleven is an apocalyptic novel. A virus, details unknown, kills almost everybody. There are a few survivors who have to start all over again and they’re afraid (typical apocalyptic scenario). A group of them form the Travelling Symphony, which tends to perform Shakespeare. Rather than simply exploring the now, the novel focuses on a few characters and their past, which helps to provide clues as to why survivors choose to protect and sustain certain ‘artefacts’. This held much promise for me but then the novel introduced a very coincidental ‘bad guy’ plot that I did not find very believable nor interesting.

I felt like I was reading something that wanted to be profound. But there was a disconnection for me: too many characters, none of whom were especially endearing to me; a plot that was built upon many coincidences (potentially very plausible but always unexplained, and therefore too convenient).

I couldn’t sense the ‘Atwood’ beyond post-apocalyptic similarities with the MaddAddam world (and on my current re-read of Cat’s Eye, some similar objects turn up: comics, glass ornaments etc ). As an Atwood fan, I was disappointed. The Travelling Symphony doesn’t hold the same place in my heart as God’s Gardeners. I can’t comment from the Howey camp.

 

Publication details: September 2014, Picador, London, hardback

This copy: review copy from the publisher

 

 

 

 

Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Review by M

 

Wide Sargasso Sea was a reread for me this time, and so I’m charting my reflective thoughts on my reading journey with it. There are some small spoilers but nothing that actually ‘spoils’ a first read. This is a dense and special book, the kind that really begs to be read again and again (and I rarely read a book twice).

Wide Sargasso Sea is about Antoinette, a creole girl in 1930s Jamaica, set just after the emancipation of black slaves. Born to a white slave owner and a creole mother from Martinique, Antoinette passes into womanhood during turbulent times, and finds that her family is reviled from every side. Struggling with her own identity problems and with a history of family ‘madness’, marriage and a move to Granbois in nearby Dominica begin as a blissful escape and descend into something much more sinister.

The novel is often talked about as a companion novel to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Certainly, that’s how I came to first read it. It was on the reading list for an English Lit options module that I took, something along the lines of either Gender in Fiction or Feminist Fiction (because of course, they may not be the same things). Essentially, Wide Sargasso Sea is the prequel to Jane Eyre and features the first Mrs Rochester as well as the Mr, and gives voice to the mad woman in the attic.

Previous to first reading it, I’d read Jane Eyre, again for a literature course. I cannot immediately recall anything about it (!) and my recorded comments for it were ‘Disappointing’ (clearly my expectations had been somewhere quite off the mark). My comments for Wide Sargasso Sea, however, were “strange but powerful”. Additionally, I could remember much about the atmospheric Wide Sargasso Sea, although in a very disjointed way.

Recently, it popped up in conversation on Twitter. When Natasha Farrant mentioned that she had started reading it, wondering how it had never been in her life before this, I knew it was time for me to look it over once again.

Wide Sargasso Sea is a little book. I read it in just over one sitting (simply because I started it very late on a Friday night and I was past being ready for sleep). It is beguiling, and sad, and unbelievable, and stark, and confusing, and deeply rich in its imagery. Antoinette’s relationship with Christophine, and the pulls and sway of both obeah and christian religions in the novel are both intoxicating for the characters and the reader. Wide Sargasso Sea still says as much to me as it leaves unsaid and trails, in a sweetly troubling way, around my head.

Part One is narrated by Antoinette, Part Two by the I who is her husband and Part 3 again by ‘Antoinette’. On narration, I had the feeling that Antoinette also narrates sections in Part Two of WSS (but without a triple check, I may be wrong). Part 3 is perhaps the one that most directly links WSS to Jane Eyre and is my least favourite part of the novel.

 

I’ve heard some people say you need to read Jane Eyre first in order to understand Wide Sargasso Sea. Well, seeing as Jane Eyre had left such a weak impression on me, I do not agree. Of course, there are references in Wide Sargasso Sea that are obviously Jane Eyre, but they don’t detract from Wide Sargasso Sea as it’s very own story. As much as there’s the idea of giving a voice to the mad woman in Jane Eyre, for me, Wide Sargasso Sea is very much its own distinct – though connected – story to Jane Eyre. Antoinette’s story is compelling and powerfully told. For me, again, it is both Jean Rhys’ atmospheric language as well as Antoinette’s desire to be accepted and not treated as an unworthy foreigner, that leave the biggest marks on me.

Throughout the novel, Antoinette also recalls a dream she has, and tells it in three parts (I think, it was three). At the end, her dream becomes clear to her but it muddled a few things for me. I felt as if both she and I had experienced some sort of déjà vu and that I should have been paying more attention to her dream segments than I had (I often lose interest when characters relate aspects of their dreams!). Clearly, there is plenty left for me to explore on a third reading at some point, perhaps!

 

I’m currently rereading Jane Eyre (I still can’t remember anything about it! Perhaps I previously skim read it for an exam!), so it will be interesting to see whether this enhances or alters my thoughts on Wide Sargasso Sea.

 

My classics club challenge verdict: Absolutely a classic: it has been re-read by me and I suspect generations on will continue to explore it

 

Publication details: first published 1996

This copy: mine, Penguin, 1968, paperback (yep, it’s my varsity copy)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Vacationers - Emma Straub

The Vacationers by Emma Straub

Review by M (Adult Fiction)

The Post family goes on holiday to Mallorca: Manhattan-living husband Jim and wife Franny take their two grown children, a best friend, and partners to an out-of-the-way villa. It was supposed to be a thirty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration but a ‘discovered workplace affair’ has thrown a couple of spokes in the wheel.

This is very much not the sort of novel that I would actively pick up to read (though the cover is quite catching!) and in many ways the characters are all many worlds away from my life (no spoons from Tiffanys here and my family is the most functional ever – of course!). But it was here so I gave it a go. I read it quickly and it is funny, in that ‘sideways’ sort of way. It also made me want to go on holiday, possibly even to Mallorca, which is not a transatlantic flight away for me.

The two week holiday, or vacation, is the setting for the plot from beginning to end, and most of it takes place in a heavenly sounding villa. Of course, like all middle class extended 'families', this one has its dysfunctions and all of the characters and couples and friends have their ‘issues’ and their ‘secrets’, from body-building powershakes to gay adoption and 'class values' (and not forgetting ‘the affair'). While there is something to dislike about most of the characters (except Lawrence, and Carmen gets a rough deal, in my opinion) there is also plenty to like, and the bossy, people-feeding matriarch, who is Franny, is actually a delight.

 

The Vacationers is a novel that is very much about, though not too deeply, the characters and their relationships (which is very much the sort of novel that I like to read). A funny and feelgood-but-not-too good-cos-that-would-be-uncool beach read.

 

Publication details: Picador, 5th June 2014, London, paperback

This copy: for review from the publisher

 

 

Em and the Big Hoom - Jerry Pinto

Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto

 

Review by M (adult fiction)

 

Em and the Big Hoom features the most scintillating dialogue and moves at a pace that had me happily clambering.

Em and the Big Hoom is a novel (which makes it fiction?), though it reads very much like an entertaining yet deeply heartfelt memoir. This is a novel about mental illness. I’m not sure I’ve read many of these for fear of them being drearily and saddeningly depressing. Em and the Big Hoom is not like that. It truly is a….riot!  

Written from the young adult son’s perspective, he presents a story which is both a celebration of his mother, Imelda’s infuriating mad life and an attempt to understand both her and her relationship with his father. Among other names, his parents are known as Em and the Big Hoom – I love that!

Variably diagnosed with schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, Em just accepts herself as mad, and everyone around her just goes up and down with her. It’s a vibrant but rough ride for everyone, but particularly full of laughs for the reader.

The novel is set in 1960s Bombay, India and the family are anglophile Catholics. These add a colourful and engaging context to the story.

Highly recommended.

 

Publication details: Viking (Penguin), May 2014, London, hardback

This edition: digital review copy from the publisher

The Book of Unknown Americans - Cristina Henriquez

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez

 

Review by M (adult fiction)

 

The Book of Unknown Americans is a immigration story. I will never tire of these. This one is especially tender and it's also a little different to some of the others that I have read.
 

The novel puts ‘parents doing their best for their children’ at its heart. The main plot follows the Rivera family who leave a life that they love in Mexico in order for their teen daughter, Maribel, to attend a special needs school in the USA. They arrive in Delaware to find that their new home is in a bare grey apartment building in the middle of nowhere.

From here on, the novel really is The Book of Unknown Americans and it follows this premise in both its narrative structure and in its plot. While the plot of the Rivera family (how they came to be here and how they get on) brings flow to the novel, it’s the apartment building residents and a tragically bittersweet coming-of-age tale that really bring the novel to life.

The chapters are narrated by different characters, and all of them are people who are South American immigrants residing in the same block as the Riveras. Some of these chapters add to the development of the main plot but a few of them are an aside, where the character simply tells us how they came to live here – and their stories are all so different yet so similar too. In this way, a varied and moving picture of immigration is created. Mixed in with all the poverty and sorrows, there is a lot of joy, and hope, and life.

The UK cover (pictured here) fittingly combines the tone, hue and themes of the novel: a variety of South American people with their hopes, dreams, stories and labours holding up America. This is the statue of liberty as we don’t usually see it, with its added textured colours giving life to what is often just a grey structure.

 

Publication details: 5 June 2014, Canongate, Edinburgh, trade paperback

This copy: for review from the publisher

 

 

 

Kindred - Octavia E Butler

Kindred by Octavia E Butler

Adult Fiction Review by M

Counted towards Classics Club challenge

 

 

I don’t read much science fiction but am definitely one who likes the ideas more than the details or adventure that fill the plots (that probably applies to any book from any genre that I read, if I’m being honest). So, Kindred’s mix of science fiction and African American literature as a premise was irresistible for me. I’d never read Butler before, but I was definitely aware of her, most recently through Aarti’s Diversiverse blog tours which explore speculative fiction by writers ‘of color’.

 

Kindred delighted, surprised, informed, moved and disappointed me, all in one. In 1976, Dana, a black American New Yorker, finds herself back in the southern heartland of nineteenth century slavery, a dangerous place for any black person. The novel takes Dana back and forth over the course of these years. While these travel episodes seem connected to Rufus, a slave owner’s son, Dana finds that her ‘quest’ is a very long-sighted survival that will last for generations.

 

For all its enormous subject matter (north American slavery in the 1800s and time travel) – and particularly given the context of 1970s USA when it was written and published – Kindred is quietly unassuming in its exploration of love, mixed race, gender relationships and enslaved bondage. Yes, there’s the time travel aspect to the novel but this is much more a device, which presents both the writer/narrator, the characters and the reader opportunities to grapple with these psycho-social themes.

 

What the time travel element also enables is the idea of the ‘one woman’ that Rufus creates in his mind for Dana and Alice. Also interesting, to me, is how the characters of Kevin, Rufus and Tom Waylin contrast white men. I would have liked to have seen further developments in Kevin’s story but that at least shows that there is substance to the individual characters independent of the novel’s story.

 

I also liked the way Butler highlights that the pain and suffering during slavery were (and are) experienced by everyone in some form or another, and across different times and space. Of course, she highlights too how there are different levels to this experience and how some are more affecting, unequal, unacceptable and abhorrent than others. But, again, she peruses whether or not this too alters in perception across time and space. She presents no easy answers or solutions to either racial identities or historical guilt.

 

For shelving Kindred, I’d definitely put it in among the Toni Morrisons and Alice Walkers. But, for a completely different yet parallel reading experience, it would sit equally comfortably, for me, alongside Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. Love and time travel provide the similarities, but Kindred offers less of sweet romance and much more grounded depth. I’d recommend them both for quite different yet similar reasons.

 

Classics club verdict: It definitely makes me want to go back and read Toni Morrison's Beloved again.

 

 

Some notes for my future lack of memory (small SPOILER ALERT):

 

 

 

SPOILERS BEGIN:

 

The characters: Alice is a black slave whom Rufus loves. Kevin is Dana’s husband, Rufus is the boy she connects with, and Tom is his father. Where Dana and Alice might be seen by Rufus to embody the one woman (who is also black), the three white men might be analysed in a similar way too (Perhaps? I have not explored this)?

 

 

 

SPOILERS END

 

 

 

 

 

Publication details: Headline, March 2014, London, paperback (originally published 1979)

This copy: review copy from the publisher

 

 

Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

 

Adult fiction: Book review by M

I'd been curious to read one of Franzen's novels for a while. Having recently bought copies of both The Corrections and Freedom, I started with Freedom purely because the title compels me more.

Freedom is an epic turn of the century (20th to 21st) great American family drama that dilly-dallies heavily in the American dream and national politics of the day. No-one gets off too lightly. Tonally, it has the zip and sting and taboo-shaking that Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap delivered but is geographically and thematically set in a far more expansive American way.

Freedom is about the Berglund family but really more about Walter and Patty, their son, Walter's friend Richard, and not so much about their daughter. From the start, we know that Walter has mucked up big time over ethical environmental issues in Washington, and that this seems uncharacteristic from what people knew about him. The story immediately jumps back and traces, through a third-person narrator and occasionally, Patty, a series of events that led to this current situation. The story traverses about four decades of intersecting and persistent relationships (mostly flawed and definitely obsessive) amidst a vitriol against American middle class politics that raises questions (not so new but nevertheless persistent and deliberately ignored) about motives for war, saving the earth and of course, freedom.

Being somewhat stuck in the middle of the debates about freedom from meets freedom to, the concept of freedom is what drew me to the novel.While always interesting (and especially if you've never given much thought to the un/limits of freedom), I felt that the concept of freedom was heavily overworked in this novel. This doesn't necessarily detract from it still having thought-provoking value for the reader (in this case, moi).

Characterwise, Walter is the most interesting and, for me, wholly likeable. Patty reads like a dull character and I really can't see what other characters thought was so extraordinary about her. No doubt she wouldn't give me a moment's notice either. Her beloved son, Joey is very unlikeable and his whole situation is weird (or maybe the way some things are in real life just don't translate very well to the written word). Interestingly, the daughter, Jessica, doesn't get much textual space in the novel whereas the rest of the Berglund family (and Richard Katz, Walter's best friend) get their own very lengthy chapters, at least once. Arguably, Jessica gets a lot of headspace though. The description of Richard as a cute Gaddafi, that ruined him from the start for me.

It's not often that I think or feel that a novel has a gender, but I think Freedom is masculine. All of the characters feel masculinised (rather than gender indeterminate). For example, Patty is a top notch basketball player and describes herself as a jock. That's great but the sound and flow of her voice felt very masculinised - even the high school incident, which, well.......is alarming. But, what is especially interesting is how all of the female characters are described as super pretty, bar perhaps just one - Jessica. Jessica, who doesn't get the word count that the other characters get describes herself as not that pretty. Every other woman character is drop-dead-georgeous-and-beautiful-in-a-very-pervy-objectified-way. Even Walter's feminism doesn't stretch beyond that.

Did I like it? On the whole, yes but with lots of grumbles. It is an absorbing read (though its chapters are...lengthy). I especially liked the character of Walter Berglund and the final chapter (which is a bit Life of Pi-ish - but more in terms of interpreting the ending rather than the whole story so it might be a cop out but it's very entertaining). It's the kind of novel I'd love to read with a bookclub because there is a lot of stuff to wrangle over.

Publication details: Fourth Estate, London, 2011, paperback
This copy: Mine



SPOILER ! SPOILER!  SPOILER!

SPOILER about the ending!


My interpretation of the final chapter is that there is not a happy ending.

This chapter was a story that Patty wrote for/to Walter. None of the events in that story actually happened, in a literal sense. They may of course have happened post-writing but I'm not so sure. I don't think Walter was a big grumpy depressive hermit in the way that Patty portrays it. Then again, The Winter's Tale quote at the beginning suggests quite the opposite........



End of spoiler

MaddAddam - Margaret Atwood

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

Adult fiction rambles by M

(haha, there’s a short video of Atwood somewhere, cracking a smile about MaddAddam’s dark humour, “parental guidance and all that”!)

 

Thanks to Hatchards Bloomsbury Book Club, my copy of MaddAddam turned up early enough for me to be an advanced reader before any of the mainstream reviews surfaced. So I read it whole, then made some notes, then read some mixed reviews, and then met Margaret Atwood. A couple of other things happened too and now, these are my thoughts-at-this-juncture on MaddAddam. It's a bit uncharacteristically gushy. For a succint overview of the plot, look somewhere else.

Punning satire and parody, MaddAddam is earnestly comical cult fiction. Forget literary salons, guys, the next cosplay is MaddAddam CampGeek at my place via PulpFiction-cum-RockyHorrorPictureShow-cum-BoneyM (and if we can fix the world too, great). And then we can watch Aidan Quinn (sorry Offred) and maybe eat cake (morally disordered, of course). If ever there was an impetus for me doing fan-fiction, MaddAddam is it (wonder what the Toad’s copyright regime is...).

So yes, if you haven’t read any of it, the trilogy’s a Margaret Atwood blast: Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and then MaddAddam. And then read The Blind Assassin: the parallels between her latest offering and her Booker winner are mad! There’s plenty of overlapping pulp fiction in that winner.

Trilogy- and plot-wise, all three overlap but fill gaps and provide alternative perspectives on the same events: the story behind the MaddAddam ARG and organisation, the apocalyptic time and the fallout. But in MaddAddam, Atwood brings storytelling to the forefront as the novel’s form is structured around Toby’s night-time storytelling. This could be be seen as the development of the chapters in a new Crakers’ gospel, much as the God’s Gardener’s from The Year of the Flood had their psalms/songs. Toby even creates the possibility for the addition of new testaments through Blackbeard. Indeed, each of the three novels are a new testament on the same central story.

Comic. Above anything else, for me, MaddAddam is funny; at times it is farcical. Known for her caustically detailed observations about our lived and culturally-enhanced humanities, Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam is nothing if not a moment of let’s-laugh-and-cry at ourselves. Much of the humour feels like it has developed straight from a creative stream-of-consciousness brainstorming session that delights in wordplay. God’s Gardeners, it’s cutting bloody dark fun.

Of wordplay there is plenty and the novel's central themes, for me, are about words and meaning particularly in the context of storytelling, both written and spoken, and with multiple narrators over periods of time. In some ways, this has threaded all through the whole trilogy and were present in The Blind Assassin.

For other readers, eco-political themes will ring loudest. And of course, as with many of her novels, Atwood also grapples with sexual and romantic relationships. Sexual relationships and particularly monogamous versus polygamous relationships, romance versus biological reproduction and consensual acts versus abuse abound in the MaddAddamite trilogy. MaddAddam shows – clearly – how blurred lines really are. An example of this is an “energetic” pun on foreplay which in some ways is a reprehensible bang.

At the same time, despite her matter of fact and non-sentimental style, MaddAdam, like The Handmaid’s Tale, is also a smouldering love story. For the critics who suggest that MaddAddam sacrifices characterisation, in my mind, they’ve missed the point/s. Nowhere are Zeb and Toby more real than in this novel. Shucks, I even shed a tear (note the singularity). And look at the Crakers whom we first meet and the Crakers that we leave.

Singing: this seems to work as some sort of motif or extended metaphor. Zeb sings little ditties when he’s frightened or stressed. Gospel singers sing. The Crakers sing. Adam, Toby, Crake and eventually, Blackbeard, don’t like singing. But Toby also learns that the Crakers’ singing is something that might save them. I even asked Margaret Atwood about it.

In the latter part of the novel, there are strains of Animal Farm.

At first, I couldn’t get into MaddAddam. I wasn’t fond of the ‘storytelling’ form that it was taking, framed by a very thin plot. However, as it develops into a story about Zeb, it becomes much more interesting although there is no real crescendo – though there are some very high and significant ends of chapters towards the end.

I read both of the previous novels a few years ago, and although there is a very extensive ‘the story so far’ at the beginning, and although Atwood provides lots of catch-up details throughout MaddAddam, I couldn’t help wishing that I’d read the three novels in order quite quickly one after the other.

 

At the end, the MaddAddamite left me sorry to say goodbye to some of my favourite Gardeners. It also left me craving to go and read, and re-read more of Atwood’s fiction. So, I did.

 

Publication details: Bloomsbury, 2013, London, hardback

This copy: mine and signed!

 

The Testament of Mary - Colm Toibin

The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin

Review by M

 

The Testament of Mary is a short novella, my edition being only 104 pages. It is shortlisted for this year's Man Booker Prize and I picked it up because it was on a 4 for 3 type offer at our local bookshop. The title itself hadn't appealed to me and I was unfamiliar with Toibin's work so it wasn't at the top of my reading list. I had no idea what it was about, but, being the Booker that often doesn't matter.

The opening pages are extraordinary. A dark, menacing and increasingly brutal mood is created and there was a scene involving rabbits and a bird that I pretty much had to skip. Still, I didn't know what the story was about and it was intriguing.

And then it clicked. This made me smile but then my relationship to the book changed because I knew the story it was based upon. This was a story that had been shoved down my generation's throat time and time again at school. It's not a story I like.

Of course, this is a retelling and from a different perspective: the testament of a mortal woman who experiences pain, fear and love; who explains how some stories turn into slightly different legends. We were often asked to tell this story in school, though I suspect this particular telling might not have met favour with the teachers (today, and in the UK, many of them might be more accommodating).

The opening pages are exquisite and the final pages come close. I didn't feel the middle section was as strong and the characterisation of the son remains very aloof (perhaps unsurprisingly). Mary's voice is strong, whereas perhaps once it was weak, and it is noteworthy how the book feels contemporary yet still recreates an image of a time and society from long, long ago. Overall, I felt it was a bit too drawn out for a character portrait but not long enough to hold my overwhelming interest as a story. I feel slightly ambivalent to it overall and it wouldn't be my choice for this year's winner (though I've only read two on the shortlist).

I would recommend it to other readers though, partly for what it's about, because its short length makes it a quick read and the writing is good. It is a very accessible novella and suitable for all ages.

Publication details: Penguin, 2012, London, paperback
This copy: mine


If you like suprises when you read a story, do not read on......




SPOILER! SPOILER!
The story: Yes, it is the testament of Mary, recounting the time of Jesus' crucifiction: my least favourite of all the Bible stories.

We Need New Names - M's review

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Adult fiction review by M

 

This novel slipped its hands around my throat and the bruises won’t fade to pale that quickly.  I suspect it will never fully let go.

We Need New Names tackles the displacement that has become part of our contemporary global landscape.  Set just a few years back in post-2005 Zimbabwe, it is narrated by Darling, a 10 year old girl who lives in a Paradise shantytown shack and dreams of escaping to an American paradise.  The novel follows Darling and her friends until she is about fourteen (or fifteen) although there is a section that suggests it follows her for many years after that as the latter chapters follow a distinctly non-linear chronology. It seems appropriate to post this review during Refugee Week.

Wonderfully, this is a novel whipped with the complexities of African identities in a post-colonial and globalised world and its most compelling theme is that of contemporary displacement, a theme that will resonate with many readers. The formation of the informal settlements is the first displacement that takes place – in Darling’s life – and a few more follow. At some point the novel asks what is home and reminds us that when someone is talking about home we need to listen very carefully to hear which paradise they are actually talking about.  We Need New Names is not only about physical displacements of home, it is about lives, countries, systems falling apart until we don’t know which part of the broken Coca-Cola glass bottle we are. Where some books get under your skin, We Need New Names snakes right in and tugs at every essence.

Aside from displacement, We Need New Names will appeal to anyone interested in Zimbabwe. The novel deals with power and corrupt leadership, religious beliefs and customs, cultural mores, childhood values, land ownership, AIDS, race, language and the pains of self-imposed exile. It is a painful read with many disturbing scenes. Darling’s voice is occasionally reminiscent of Harrison in Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English.

While this is up there with some of my favourite post-colonial African writing like The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (Ayi Kwei Armah) and Nervous Conditions (Tsitsi Dangarembga), intriguingly We Need New Names also reminded me of The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (especially one chapter). Because the clause "things fall apart" repeatedly crops up in We Need New Names, I have also been prompted to start a re-read of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (since writing this review but prior to its posting, I have finished the Achebe and highly recommend reading these two novels together. A parallel review of Things Fall Apart is coming up...).  Younger teen readers may like to read Now is the Time for Running (Michael Williams) which is a novel about similar issues around Zimbabwe and exile.

I’m very keen to see what NoViolet Bulawayo does next.

NoViolet Bulawayo left Zimbabwe when she was eighteen and now lives in the USA.

 

Some asides (may be a bit SPOILERY – but only a teeny bit):

• I don’t think Zimbabwe is ever named in the novel, nor is its political leader.
• Once again, dogs get a raw deal in this novel: ouch.
• Although quickly replaced, Darling is also permanently remembered: another ouch.
• Remember: oranges are definitely not the only fruit – there are guavas too.

 

Publication details: Chatto & Windus, June 2013, hardback

This copy: digital copy received for review from the publisher

 

 

 

 

 

The Humans - M's review

The Humans by Matt Haig

 

Reviewed by M

There’s really nothing like being alien that gets you thinking about home and who you are.

Forty-three year old Mathematics professor, Andrew Martin, has made a world changing mathematical discovery. This results in his swift abduction by outergalactic alien hosts. Believing humans to be inherently and undeniably violent and greedy, an alien from Vonnadoria is sent to earth as Martin’s physical replacement, his main task being to wipe out any proof or knowledge of the discovery. Narrated by the alien, The Humans is his evidential report about what it is to be human.

The Humans is a compelling and relatively light read that makes you smile more than anything else. Without giving much away and while there is death and destruction, this is a feelgood novel (at least, it was for me but depending on where your headspace is currently situated, you might feel differently).

From the first page, this is a funny book that you know is going to include a fair amount of wryly observed human navel-gazing. My gut (rather than mathematical) instinct sees The Humans as a tenderised cross between The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a David Lodge novel and Baz Luhrmann’s song Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen. Little M thought the premise sounded like the film, Meet Dave. If you like any of those, you’ll probably enjoy The Humans.

The main niggle I have is that I didn’t really connect with any of the characters – I’m not sure if this is the point (emotion-free narrator) or if it’s linked to Haig’s style/the novel’s voice. The other thing that might have affected this is that I read this novel on an e-reader (I know, gasp! More about that below).

I’d highly recommend it. Suitable for any reader who can handle the f word and light sexual references.

These two videos both say a lot about The Humans:

 

The Humans Book trailer featuring Advice For a Human:

 

 Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen

 

 

About the e-reading:

I’ve never read anything on an e-reader. I’ve read plenty of non-fiction onscreen, but never fiction. So this was a first. Quite fitting that it was The Humans that smacked the champagne over this virgin voyage! My experience of reading The Humans was not too dissimilar from the Vonnadorian visitor’s experience on earth. I had to relearn how to turn a page. Plenty of mishaps. And I lost my page. Had to flick back to the beginning because my memory of the first event has been mysteriously wiped. Only, this wasn’t paper so it didn’t flick. But, I finished it and I even cried (slightly) once.

 

HUGE SPOILER & THOUGHTS

·        A flow of advice for being human is dispensed throughout. I think live in the present because it’s fleeting  and essential was a strong thread in the novel.
·        Rather than a number (prime or anything else) the alien narrator concludes that love is the basis of being human.

 

Publication details: 9 May 2013, Canongate, Edinburgh, hardback

This copy: digital proof received from the publisher for review

The Dog Stars - M's review

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

Adult fiction review

 

The Dog Stars was shortlisted for the 2013 Arthur C Clarke Award which annually awards the best science fiction novel in Britain.

I really, really enjoyed this book from the moment I started reading it.

The Dog Stars is about a forty year old man called Hig. He lives with his dog Jasper, a man called Bangley, and the Beast, his Cessna plane. Jasper is his best and beloved friend, Hig is partial to the Beast and he despises Bangley. Everyone and everything else they have known has been wiped out by viruses (including Hig's beloved Melissa): the world-as-they-knew-it has ended. There are few survivors, a lot of shortages, and a lot of unknowns. Not an original post-apocalyptic scenario yet still a scary and strangely fascinating one.

Hig is lamenting. Lamenting all that he has lost. Lamenting all that he has and what he has become – if you see something moving, kill it. No questions asked. Do not negotiate. And lamenting the future. Does he dare to change its seemingly inevitable course? This is a story about whether you dare to rename the stars - and then follow them. To boldy go...or not.

It is a compelling and quick read. I even interrupted my reading of another novel (by an established author whose books I enjoy a lot) to read this one. I loved Heller’s writing style, particularly in the first chapter. Short truncated sentences. Ellipses. This is stream of consciousness writing that I could readily understand and beautifully conveys the narrator’s immediate thought processes. It lets you get right inside his head and by the third page I had to put the book down and let the tears flow. Clearly, it hit a nerve.

For an apocalyptic novel, there’s an interesting mix of this being an action, adventure, masculinised novel and an introspective, emotional and relationship novel. In a weird sort of way, I found this exciting: a bit like I was going somewhere I’d never been before with the feminist in me sounding occasional alarm bells yet at the same time rushing forward with the story. If ever there was something that epitomises a man getting in touch with his feminine side (if you think there is such a thing), I think The Dog Stars achieves this. It’s a highly believable novel.

Book One was my favourite part of the novel although Book Two and Three surprised me. There are a few predictable ways the story could have gone. I think it was predictable – but not in the way I’d have predicted.

I thought there was good characterisation for all of the characters: there aren’t many but you have a good sense of who they are even for those characters who only make cameo appearances. I was able to empathise (and like) almost all of the characters (definitely barring one and maybe two). This really is a book about the essence of humanity (at both its worst and its best). Some of the behaviours and thoughts of the characters are really crude and base (and that’s probably exactly how some of them would be). There is a lot of killing in this book and themes of cannibalism but it is also the best kind of love story. In many ways this is a brutal book but based on my reading of The Dog Stars, the UK paperback cover (pictured) is spot on. Sublime.

Spoilerish thoughts

Without giving too much plot away, I was afraid to read this book. I thought it was going to shock me and leave me in despair. Parts of it shocked me. It did not leave me in despair.

The representation of women in the novel:

As a feminist, I did enjoy this book, I would highly recommend it and think that it does challenge sexist behaviour. However, from a gendered analysis, women characters are seen as needing protection and there was some traditionally heteronormative gender stereotyping, e.g. hysterical women and caring women. While heavily challenged, there is still some portrayal of woman as sexual objects. However, the overall point is that Hig is not Bangley.

 

Publication details: Headline Review, London, paperback publication: 9 May 2013, originally published in hardback 2012

This copy: paperback edition received from the publisher for review