Monday 30 May 2016

A Bookish Lunch, Tolkien's Gown and The Laughing Academy

Here's a review by Danny Yee for a book that was brought by Annabel to a village Bookish Lunch to recommend.  Tolkien's Gown is, in my opinion, something to delight a bookworm and a real reader-friendly volume of bite-size chapters.  This little compendium has been written by Rick Gekoski, writer, broadcaster, rare book-dealer.  Let Danny Yee tell you about it:

'Each of the twenty essays in Tolkien's Gown is a mix of biography, literary history and personal memoir, focusing on a leading twentieth century writer and one of their key works, with details from Gekoski's own encounters with them or rare editions of their books.

Gekoski provides background for those who might not be familiar with his subjects, but doesn't attempt general biographies, usually treating one aspect of or episode in their lives. Similarly, he restricts himself to scattered critical comments on relatively minor topics. This is given some body by the inclusion of his own recollections — he knew personally many of the notables he writes about — and glimpses into the workings of the rare book market.

The result is very easy to read and good fun. I learned something both about the authors and works I knew well and about those that were largely unfamiliar to me. And I have no great interest in the rare book market, but Gekoski's glimpses into that were also interesting.

The authors covered are — in the fairly random order of Tolkien's Gown — Vladimir Nabokov, J.R.R. Tolkien, William Golding, Oscar Wilde, Jack Kerouac, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, J.D. Salinger, T.E. Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, John Kennedy Toole, Evelyn Waugh, Beatrix Potter, Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, George Orwell, Salman Rushdie, T.S. Eliot, J.K. Rowling, and Philip Larkin.'

Another recent read of mine is The Laughing Academy by Shena Mackay. 

Mackay is a Scottish novelist born in 1944.  Her writing career started with her winning a poetry competition in the Daily Mirror at the age of 16.  When interviewed for The Observer she is described as wry, funny but serious too........  is a witty, black and compelling read   The collection of short stories in The Laughing Academy takes the reader from antiques fairs to Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, geriatric wards to Crystal Palace, and the collection offers a journey around the bizarre yet familiar characters and settings that Mackay has made her own. There are Roy and Muriel Rowley, the fun-running charity-junkies who give blood by the gallon (offending their daughter's religious principles); we meet Gerald Creedy who only loves three beings - his twin brother, Harold, and his two tortoises, Percy and Bysshe - and the mysterious lodger Madame Alphonsine who has the strange powers to make things (including tortoises) disappear; and then there is the rather arrogant bestselling novelist who gives a reading at a women's bookshop only to find, to her horror, that two of her old schoolfriends are in the audience.

This was another read to enjoy in bite-size pieces.

Sunday 29 May 2016

The Miniaturist

In 1686 in Amsterdam, 18-year-old Nella Oortman arrives at the grand house of her new husband, the wealthy merchant Johannes Brandt. The marriage is more arrangement than love match, and Nella is intimidated by her new home and her sister in law Marin.  Johannes does not come to her at night, and his wedding gift is a cabinet house – an exquisitely diminutive replica of his own property – which he now invites Nella to fill with miniature furniture at his expense.

What follows for Nella is a series of puzzles. How does the miniaturist know so much about her and her household.  What family secrets exist.  Luckily, the heroine is not at all the timorous type she seemed at first to be, and she takes the ensuing revelations – they come thick and fast, in the manner of biblical thunderbolts – if not exactly on the chin, then with a great deal more aplomb than you might expect.

The plot takes us through household tensions, family intrigue and secrets.  I listened to this book in audio version.  Two things were distracting.  The first concerns
the narrator who was the author herself, Jessie Burton.  I actually found her voice rather irritating and tended to think that someone other than the author would have been better.  Some of my audio reads have featured well-established actors and these readings have always been easier to follow, especially when different voices are crafted for the different characters.  It seemed to me to be something of a conceit to read one's novel if one has not had a drama training of some kind.  The other distraction concerns the dialogue Burton has crafted.  I did not always find it convincing  - there were times when the central character spoke with a 21st century turn of phrase and voice, as if she might have been educated at a good English school. 

The Miniaturist is Burton's first novel and she has clearly done a lot of research.  But sometimes I found myself thinking that some of the action did not ring true.  Towards the end of the book Nella's behaviour, actions and her reformed attitude to her erring husband were not convincing.  For all that though this was a good story.

Saturday 28 May 2016

Dark Things in the Night and the Arctic Cold

So I press on with my Read Harder Challenge.  One item on the list is:

'Read a book with a main character that has a mental illness'

The Bird of Night by Susan Hill fulfils this category very well.  It also ticks a box on my Booker Shortlist Personal Challenge.  It is a bleak read and not a long one.  Unfortunately the author commented in 2006 "It is a novel of mine that was shortlisted for Booker and won the Whitbread Prize for Fiction. It was a book I have never rated. I don't think it works, though there are a few good things in it. I don't believe in the characters or the story.  
Hill is known for her gothic style and penchant for a ghost story several of which she wrote in the 80s and early 90s.  Her 21st century novels are, in one way, lighter being thrillers written around her detective character, Simon Serrailler.  In terms of writing they are rather lightweight when compared to, for example, The Bird of Night.  But she has captured an audience with Simon Serrailler and this sells books and pays bill!

Moving swiftly on therefore I come to three detective novels written by Icelandic authors.  Two, by Arnaldur Indridason, are part of a crime fiction series written around the character Inspector Erlendur.
Strange Shores and Hypothermia are full of Icelandic atmosphere.  Having recently renewed my acquaintance with Iceland in general and Reykjavik in particular and rekindled my enjoyment of everything the country has to offer,
and given my fondness for a good thriller, these are books to enjoy for their page-turning qualities added to which there is an ongoing story surrounding
Erlendur and his early life, during which he experiences the death of his younger brother, in circumstances the nature of which he has not been able to establish. 

Another Icelandic writer, Ragnar Jonasson has also captured my attention.  His output is not quite so prolific but he is the author of the Dark Iceland series in which there are only two titles published so far but three further novels planned according to his website.  I've read Night Blind and I now need to retrace steps and read the first title, Snow Blind.   As with Indridason we are in the realms of Icelandic noir, atmospheric with good characterisation and plotting.  The tension sucks you into a claustrophobic story whose main protagonist is a novice police detective Ari Thor.  The peace of a close-knit Icelandic community is shattered by the murder of a policeman - shot at point-blank range in the dead of night in a deserted house. With a killer on the loose and the dark Arctic waters closing in, it falls to Ari Thor to piece together a puzzle that involves tangled local politics, a compromised new mayor and a psychiatric ward in Reykjavik where someone is being held against their will...