bwl 79 - Winter 2016
Fiction
| Fredrik Backman - A Man Called Ove
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| Ove is tired after a lifetime of railing against the world's irritations - from people who don't know how to do DIY properly to those who park in a pedestrian area. He only wants to join his late wife but fate, interfering neighbours and an annoying cat keep getting in the way. Achingly sad and laugh out loud funny in turn, this book leaves you wondering if maybe there's something more behind the grumpy people we come across in our lives. (Kate Ellis)
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| Evan S Connell - Mrs Bridge
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| Mrs Bridge, a well-off Kansas housewife, runs her household of successful workaholic lawyer husband and three children in the years between the wars. In 117 brief vignettes Connell gives us her life: her unquestioning acceptance of, and reliance on, convention always, fearfully, winning over occasional wistful intimations of doubt and dissatisfaction. Almost nothing happens but a whole world of repressed possibilities is implied, subtly, excruciatingly, touchingly. I found this oddly timeless re-issued 1959 classic irresistible. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Philip K Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'
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| Written in 1968, this rhetorical commentary set in a dystopian world is strangely accurate in its predictions of modern society and especially technology. "Advanced" humans have recolonised on Mars, abandoning war-ravaged Earth to lesser beings and to Androids whom Rick, a bounty hunter, is ordered to destroy. You have to read it to make sense of it! It raises many moral questions concerning the autonomy of the individual and the boundaries between real lived experience and that of artificial intelligence.
(Eloise May)
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| Elizabeth Edmondson - A Villa on the Riviera
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| Sit back and prepare to take a trip to the South of France in the years between the wars. Polly Smith is a struggling young artist. She seems destined to become a conventional wife of a boring young doctor. Then the Riviera beckons . . . This is not a novel to analyse, this is a novel to enjoy. Well written fun - and making no pretence about it. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| Elena Ferrante - The Story of a New Name; Those who Leave and Those who Stay Behind; The Story of the Lost Child
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| My Brilliant Friend (bwl 76) was the the first of Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet and now I've read the other three, were they worth it? Yes, definitely for those who are prepared to be swept into the turbulent lives and complicated relationships of the studious Elena and Lila, her rebellious childhood friend. The cast is huge, the settings shift and change, so best read one after the other without a time lapse in between. The friendship - is it really friendship? - spanning all four books is tested constantly and as the women approach old-age, past jealousies surface, storms brew, questions remain. Can anyone really know, trust or understand another person and do we ever really know, trust or understand ourselves? There are no easy answers. These four books, written by an author who shelters behind a pseudonym, have caused a storm in the literary world but, unlike some other titles that have done the same, they really do deserve the hype. Be prepared to be totally engrossed - though a word of caution for those who prefer down-to-earth, straightforward narrative, you might find them maddening!
(Jenny Baker)
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| Robert Harris - Dictator
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| Volume 3 of Harris's fictional biography of Cicero is, if possible, even better than the others. Narrated by Tiro - his secretary, one-time slave now a free Roman - based on Cicero's speeches and writings and Tiro's own work, this thrilling epic of the tumultuous events following the Republic's fall is also an intimate portrait of the brilliant orator, a hero for his time and ours. Harris surpasses himself and does great credit to the historian he really is. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Alexander Kwame - Crossover
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| Two brothers, twins, both basketball players; but what happens when one begins to grow up a little quicker than the other? What happens when a girlfriend appears? This is an unexpected treat for the younger teen. A verse novel where the rhythms are those of hip-hop that traces sibling relationships against the backdrop of a sport. Concise, believable - I would recommend this to all. (Ferelith Hordon)
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| John Lanchester - Capital
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| John Lanchester shows an extraordinary ability to portray the feelings, thoughts and backgrounds of the characters featured in Capital, all of whom live in the same South London street. Without wasting a word, the essence of each character is established so well that their responses to momentous events in their lives, as well as their strengths and weaknesses, are entirely believable and so is the author's detailed knowledge of contemporary situations and dilemmas. I couldn't put it down! (Jane Grey-Edwards)
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| Antoine Laurain - The President's Hat
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| Dull accountant Daniel picks up Francois Mitterand's hat in a restaurant and . . . Impossible to avoid calling 'charming' this light-hearted tale of Daniel's attempts to trace it after he leaves it on a train because it is, of course, a magic hat conferring power on whoever wears it. We follow the hat's progress from person to person, changing their lives as it goes, with Daniel in pursuit. Will he get it back? Will Mitterand? I'm not telling. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Mary Lawson - Road Ends
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| One winter's day in 1966, 21-year-old Megan, the linchpin of her family, breaks free from their chaotic life in Canada's frozen north and flies to London in search of independence and fulfilment. But at home, without her, everything is falling apart. Step by step, through the eyes of Megan, her father and her brother, their stories unfold. Another totally absorbing read from the author of Crow Lake (bwl 77) and The Other Side of the Bridge (bwl 78). (Jenny Baker)
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| Andrew Miller - The Crossing
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| The story stems from Tim's love for enigmatic Maud, a fellow sailing enthusiast, but she is aloof even to us, and neither character seems sympathetic. Their relationship is precarious, and then a traumatic event drives her to set off alone in their yacht - for me the most enjoyable and rewarding section. Improbably, she is later washed up near an isolated community where she starts to heal. Interesting - it makes us question our own reactions and relationships. (Victoria Grey-Edwards)
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| David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
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| Jacob tries to survive in the cut-throat atmosphere of Dejima, where the Dutch East India Company is trading with the suspicious, closed Japan of 1799. There are power struggles among both the Dutch and the Japanese and of course the love interest, which leads to a heroic mission and a rather messy ending, especially when the English turn up. It's beautifully written, moving, funny and very clever (and there's a cast list at the end!). (Victoria Grey-Edwards)
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| Ruth Rendell - The Girl Next Door
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| This is much more than a thriller, here the author juggles expertly with time, with personalities, with old and new emotions, violent death and death without violence, the merry-go-round of life through a microscope. A masterly portrayal of old age, based on all those who knew each other in their youth, about real tunnels and the labyrinths made by life, City and suburbia, past and present, this stand-alone belongs more to literature than to entertainment. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Ruth Rendell - Dark Corners
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| This, her final novel, was posthumously published to enormous acclaim and adulation. However, despite the ecstatic blurbs, this last effort does not reach her previous high standards of insight or plot. The breakdown of the chief personality is foreseeable and repetitious, the characters in themselves rather flat, the plot certainly not original and rather pedestrian. But still, she is a legend in herself, always entertaining, and so worth reading at a dull moment or on holiday. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Nina Stibbe - Man at the Helm
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| The younger of two sisters searching for a partner for their mother narrates their efforts. Both knowing and naïve, as children are, she shows you not only the often hilarious situations which arise but also village life. You enjoy seeing what she and her sister see - and more. The narrator's adult perspective sometimes gives a sadder, more serious edge to things but this is essentially a highly individual and very funny novel which keeps you reading. (Tony Pratt)
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| Gore Vidal - Burr: Number 1 in series (Narratives of empire)
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| A cleverly constructed piece of historical fiction centred around the little-known politician crucial to the formation of the United States. Beautifully written, with sometimes devastatingly sharp wit, this is also an original and definitely unflattering exposé of the political issues of the day, and a critical reassessment of our received wisdom dealing with those who conceived and signed the Declaration of Independence. Some staying-power is needed but the effort is certainly worthwhile. (Kathie)
(Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Andy Weir - The Martian
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| If the recent film of this book is designed to seem like the dramatisation of a real event, then this would be the technical transcript (including all the amusing unofficial parts). If you're looking for grand heroics or epic planetary vistas, you're in the wrong place. But instead you get an extremely detailed and realistic account of exactly what knowledge, ingenuity and resilience it would take to survive being left behind on Mars. (Kate Ellis)
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| John Williams - Butcher's Crossing
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| Written some years before Stoner (bwl 71 & 72), this less mature but equally interesting work is set in the virgin territory of 1873 Kansas. The young protagonist, filled with Emersonian romanticism, finds himself on a buffalo hunt led by a figure as obsessive as Melville's Captain Ahab. The story, while it describes extraordinary physical courage and resourcefulness on one level, is an examination of the nature of desire. And for me, it is ultimately about hubris and defilement. (Kate Hobson)
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| Niall Williams - History of the Rain
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| We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive those who only live now in the telling . . . so writes Ruth, bed-bound, in her attic room in rain-sodden County Clare as she struggles to find her roots, her poet-father, her lost twin-brother . . . and in the background, always constant, is the river, the salmon running through it and the curse of the family's Impossible Standard. Funny, heart-wrenching, Irish writing at it's most sublime. (Jenny Baker)
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Non-Fiction
| Svetlana Alexievich - Secondhand Time: An Oral History of the Fall of the Soviet Union
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After the collapse of Communism, Alexievich interviewed ordinary people from many walks of life and here are their authentic voices (and what voices!). Overnight embracing of freedom, democracy, capitalism? On the contrary, disorientation, anger, betrayal as social order disintegrates into the law of the jungle and pre- and post-Soviet generations can no longer communicate. Yes, goodbye to repression, but increasing nostalgia for lost ideals and certainties. I now understand the appeal of Putin. A fascinating eye-opener.
Ed Note: due to be published in English in May this year (Annabel Bedini)
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| Alan Bennett - The Lady in the Van
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| Easily read in one sitting, this is Alan Bennett at his best. Originally published in 1989 and later included in 'Writing Home' it has since been adapted as a stage play and recently come to a wider audience as a film, both starring Maggie Smith. It tells the true story of the eccentric 'Miss Shepherd' who lived in a van parked in Bennett's drive. Touching, sad, humorous and much more, I found the discoveries made after her death most revealing and poignant. (Mary Standing)
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| Doris Kearns Goodwin - Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
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| Supposedly inspiring Obama to choose his Presidential rival as Secretary of State, this evocative Civil War history examines the four politicians pipped at the post by Old Abe, the Illinois Rail Splitter, in 1860. The nobility and grace of the man Lincoln picked for this post, William H. Seward, shine though this excellent work of scholarship. Seward was attacked, and nearly killed, at the same time as Lincoln, thus further thwarting forever, his political ambition. (Jeremy Miller)
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| Florian Illies - 1913: The Year Before the Storm
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| The year 1913 heralded an age of endless possibilities yet everywhere a premonition of ruin is omnipresent, judging by the diaries and letters of writers and artists who feel adrift in an inimical world, dark clouds looming. Almost "everyone" is there from Louis Armstrong, to the brothers Mann, Freud, Jung, Stravinsky, Hitler, their wives and other loves. All described with a light hand but with an admonitory finger pointing to the fatal year, 1914. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Primo Levi - The Periodic Table
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| A chemist by training, Levy's inspiration for these 21 stories was the Periodic Table,
an element being the fulcrum of each. There is chemistry here, quite a lot, but so much more, as he traces the different periods of his life and those who he encountered from childhood in Fascist Italy to the Holocaust, Auschwitz and survival. Finally there is Carbon, which endlessly renews itself - surely a metaphor for Levi's own humanity and belief in life. (Jenny Baker)
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| Tom Michael - The Penguin Lessons
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| A real antidote to those post-Christmas blues: meet Juan Salvador, a penguin, impulsively rescued then smuggled into post-Peronist Argentina by a young English teacher at an elite boarding school. Soon boys and adults alike are captivated by the bird's pragmatic bearing, his unique ability to listen and to change lives. The author's honest and clear-headed account of his time in S. America and his attempts to do what is best for the bird had me enthralled. (Jenny Baker)
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| Adrian Murdoch - The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World
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| Neglected and even vilified as the Apostate, Julian is here given the respect he deserves not only as a talented general but as an intellectual and philosopher. Drawing on Julian's prolific writing, Murdoch reveals that had he lived longer our history and culture would have been very different. Christianity was not yet so strongly rooted that the ancient worship of multiple gods could not have been re-established. A most interesting historical biography in every way. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| David Potter - Theodora: Actress, Empress, Saint
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| Determined to exclude the sensationalism accumulated during two millennia and provide an accessible text, Potter has over-egged the cake. His Theodora does not "live" as she might, but nevertheless the book is worth ploughing through and the Notes are invaluable. Although wordy and repetitious, his deep knowledge of everything from theatre to theology and the people of the time makes this much more than straightforward biography or the rehabilitation of a slandered Empress. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Jonathan Raban - Old Glory
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| Raban rides the river from Minneapolis to New Orleans. A romantic journey? Yes but fraught and dangerous too. The Mississippi is just there in all her old glory, rolling down through middle America with her cargoes of wheat, cotton, iron and coal. Raban gets the better deal. Following the river by land, it can rarely be seen for the hundred feet high levees. This old favourite, like the river, is both timeless and eternal. (Jeremy Miller)
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| James Shapiro - The Year of Lear
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| This brilliant book manages to encompass, through Shakespeare and his plays, not only a broad study of theatre at the time, but - through a detailed analysis of the Gunpowder Plot and a well-informed description of the Plague in those years - to entwine a great deal of history as well. Filled with much hitherto little-known or unpublished information, written with exceptional clarity, it reads like a thriller and has great meaning for our time as well. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Robert Winder - Half Time: The Glorious Summer of 1934
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| Three sporting heroes: Hedley Verity, who bowled out the Australians at Lord's; Fred Perry, who won Wimbledon and Henry Cotton, who won the Open Golf - all in a matter of weeks. Fascinating for the very different personalities whose lives amounted to a social history of the times. Vividly related with insight into the role of sport and into Britain at half-time between the wars. (Tony Pratt)
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| Feedback |
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I could have gone on tweaking my above review of Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich for ever. I've left out whole important subjects, like the initial jubilation about freedom (but what is freedom?) and high hopes for the future, but also umbrage about no longer being a Powerful World Empire and the past horrors of Soviet repression and the appalling poverty after socialism collapses and the terrifying cruelty and violence of the various mini wars after the disintegration of the empire and and and ..... It's a very complex book, impossible to do it all in 75 words, so how on earth to choose what to put in?
I'm enjoying the fact that we are increasingly coming out with what we don't like. Not that you can change our name to Books we like/don't like! We can equally hardly call us simply 'Books we've read'. I think BWL should remain BWL.
(Annabel Bedini)
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| The Other Side of the Bridge (bwl 78) is beautifully written and totally engrossing. Spanning sixty years, the narrative beguilingly travels backwards and forwards, evolving slowly while building tension all the while. The characters are so well drawn I found myself caring greatly about them and their lives and they certainly remained with me afterwards. Also I'm in complete agreement about Crow Lake (bwl 77) - a lovely book. Mary Lawson is quite a "find" (Sue Pratt)
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| Just finished Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See (bwl 78). It truly is exceptional and it made me want to find out how an American writer could have conceived such a viewpoint of WW II. It transpires that Doerr first visited St. Malo in Brittany on a book tour. He was captivated by the ancient walls and buildings only to discover that the present city is the result of almost virtual block-by-block restoration following its near-destruction by the American bombardment in the closing months of WW II. This was the beginning of a ten year odyssey of researching and writing. We see the war through the experiences of the two young protagonists, one French, the other German and through the prism of radio: the propaganda tool, the means of transmitting and receiving, tracking and eliminating - and then there is The Sea of Flames . . . riveting! (Jenny Baker) |
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