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

 

 

 

 

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Reviewed by M

I first read Things Fall Apart at university for African Literature. It was possibly the first novel I’d read that was written by a black African author. The novel recently reappeared on my bookshelves after bringing it back from my attic bookhaul earlier this year (some of you might recall this event!). What prompted me to read it now, however, was We Need New Names, a new and wonderful novel by NoViolet Bulawayo.

 

We Need New Names referred frequently to ‘things fall apart’and I was sure this was more than coincidence. Having read Things Fall Apart, I should have known....but I didn’t. So I reread it. Yes, it is more than coincidence.....

 

Things Fall Apart is a tragedy: a tragedy about an individual, a tragedy about a village and perhaps a tragedy about colonialism. Set in pre-colonial Nigeria, it tells the story of Okonkwo, a proud and successful member of his tribe. The novel describes the tribe’s way of life, their (almost) unflinching adherence to their religion and patriarchal values. However, the novel also introduces questions that cut right into how we perceive our own and other cultures. At the forefront of this are differences about individual will versus the will of the gods as well as group will, justice, and sorrow. What comes out most strongly in Things Fall Apart is the suggestion that without missionaries and further colonisation, the tribes, as any other group of people, would have developed in their own time and ways – who knows what our histories would look like if that had happened? Achebe makes it clear that individuals in Okonkwo’s village were starting to mumble about the ways some things were done: for example, killing people simply because the gods said so or abandoning twins. The novel makes an effort to point out that cultural interpretations vary even within countries and that what is an atrocity ‘here’ might not be considered an atrocity ‘there’.

 

It is a highly enjoyable and gently compelling re-read and I think I got much more out of it this time. The writing style is quiet and quite different to many contemporary novels and especially 'western' novels. Some people criticised Achebe for writing in English but I'm in the camp that thinks this was a far-reaching move and achievement for both literature and cultural thinking.

 

Comparatively then, how did I view Things Fall Apart and We Need New Names?

 

Things Fall Apart was first published in 1958 and is set in Nigeria just before colonial times (probably late nineteenth century), around the time that the first European missionaries moved in. We Need New Names was published in 2013 and is set in Zimbabwe and the USA post-2005. Both novels are written in English and their authors are both African by birth.

About halfway through Things Fall Apart, Ekwefi (one of Okonkwo’s wives) tells a story about a tortoise and the birds who have a feast in the sky. I think that NoViolet Bulawayo has borrowed from this little story and weaved it into We Need New Names. There are other scenes, images and thoughts in Things Fall Apart that make the two novels interesting for parallel reading most notably in how different groups of people (towns, tribes, nations, religions, races) respond to other cultures and about tolerating (or not!) their vastly different ways of life.

What both novels do well is to lay out the beautiful and the ugly nitty gritties that underpin the rules and regulations and daily functioning of specific communities and cultures. In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is not the most sympathetic character and there are many views and actions that may grate on your personal worldview. And that’s the point. Covering a century of time, reading these two novels together is a wonderful experience. In some ways, it's a tragedy that  hundreds of years later, there are still so many overlaps.

A little heads up especially for younger readers: Susan Cooper’s Ghost Hawk is set in the USA and has many parallels with Things Fall Apart too. Adults who have an inclination towards comparative reading and discussion might want to check that out too.

 

Classics Club verdict

 

Things Fall Apart is also on our Classics Club challenge list. Little M and I have been drawing our own conclusions about what we think a 'literary' classic is. Of course, Things Fall Apart has its feet firmly planted in the African canon and has made tracks in European and American canons too. Our own 'canon' is more about whether we enjoyed some aspect of it enough to recommend it to readers from another generation. Things Fall Apart ticks the box for me.

 

My copy’s publication details: 1987, Heinemann African Writers Series, London, paperback

The Tragedy Paper - M's review

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban

I loved the premise of this novel: an English teacher sets his final year students a project: a Tragedy Paper. But for some students, this takes on a much more sinister meaning.   The first page reads “Enter here to be and find a friend.” Immediately, the novel is filled with the same wondrous coming-of-age atmosphere as Dead Poet’s Society, a 1989 film which I loved - and I think The Tragedy Paper manages to sustain it (see trailer at end of post too).

It’s also a thrilling but thoughtful read: a combination that I like.

An atmosphere of trepidation filled suspense is created from the beginning with Duncan being worried about the treasure he will find in his new senior boarding school room, which room he will get, tackling his English tragedy paper and hoping that nobody will bring up what happened last year.  Added to these worries, there’s a girl.

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban

Duncan ends up in a room whose previous resident was an albino called Tim (whose surname is a tragic irony). The narration moves between Duncan and Tim’s points of view and therefore moves back and forth in time too. The Tragedy Paper is a pageturner that is difficult to put down. It uses a similar suspense-building structure to Annabel Pitcher’s Ketchup Clouds. You know something not-so-great has happened. Slowly you begin to learn which characters may have been involved and you start putting together clues about what’s happened. There’s a love triangle of sorts too. And lessons to be learned.

While thrilling and enjoyable overall, for me the novel was a bit anti-climatic. Sometimes, I felt like it tried a little bit too hard.

The novel obviously explores the themes of tragedy (in both a literal and literary sense), but there is also friendship and romance. A highlight for me was that the plot beautifully captures and questions the ways social hierarchies can be created and sustained through cloak-and-dagger traditions.

Publication details: January 2013, Doubleday, London, hardback

This copy: received for review from the publisher


PS. I've included the Random House The Tragedy Paper trailer: I loved it and seeing as I watched it before I read the book, it formed an important part of my reading experience.