Books of 2014 Part 3: 30-21

Yes having a day out of the house yesterday means I'm a bit late with posting this one. Relax, Mother. 

30) Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey

#BookerPrizeWinners #AustralianBooks

So finally, our first double hashtag, but also despite the break in between, this makes six Booker Prize winners in a row. Will this trend continue? No. No it won’t. Sorry for the spoiler.

This was my first taste of Peter Carey, and a very odd tale to start. It’s effectively a first person narrative, although the story our narrator tells is basically “How my Grandfather met my Grandmother”, or otherwise the story of two colonial settlers, predictably named Oscar and Lucinda, who meet in Sydney and have a bet about transporting an entire glass church 400 kilometres up the coast. Yep, that’s pretty much it.

The strangeness of the story, though, is not where the strangeness ends, because Carey plays around a great deal with our expectations of narrative direction and style, and while the story felt plodding at places, it all pays off with a big bang.

I hadn’t really noticed how depressing a book this is - about overcoming a gambling addiction, struggles with unemployment and poverty – until the final depressing blow, details of which would basically be the worst spoiler possible, in the sense that it would completely rob this book of its power. Basically let’s just say this book definitely worked for me, and it has a great hold on my memory as a result.

29) War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

#BookshelfCatchUp

Not a Booker Prize Winner? Great, let’s take a nice, relaxing breather. No, fuck it, let’s discuss War & Peace.

Sitting on my bookshelf for the best part of 15 years, this felt like it would fall into my ‘too difficult ever to read’ pile, but with a great No-fuck-it determination I picked it up and spent a month saying No-fuck-it-I’ll-keep-going.

No, in truth it’s not that difficult a read, although it is epic in its scale and at times interminable in its persistence of “At this point let’s just take a few hundred pages to discuss historiography and in what ways historians have gotten it wrong so far”.

Yes, like Hugo’s description of the Paris sewer system in Les Misérables, I could have done without all of Tolstoy’s editorialising, because the story it otherwise tells, in its brief commercial breaks from proselytising, of Russian society and the effect of the Napoleonic wars on the ordinary Russian people as well as the Russian national consciousness, is rather compelling.

I was particularly drawn to the character of Pierre, whose everyman buffoonish, but well-meaning demeanour, makes him as much of a ‘hero’ as this book can muster. I was really quite swept up in his story arc, and overjoyed when it came to a satisfying conclusion (the fact that the book was also concluding may have contributed to my joy). Andrei Bolkonsky and Nikolai Rostov are the other two major protagonists, and although they strike more classically heroic figures I didn’t find them as compelling as I did the wonderful Pierre.

At the end of the day though, the book is a monumental achievement and well deserving of its place in the canon. I don’t think it has the resonance for the modern world as, say, Crime and Punishment whose themes about the tragedy of the human condition are universal, but it’s still a masterful work of fiction and a remarkable bit of history as well.

28) Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann

#BooksReadForAbsolutelyNoReason

Well actually I’m stretching this hashtag for inclusion here, just because I feel I need a hashtag for everything, because it’s Blogspot, and Blogspot totally uses hashtags. I actually had a very fine reason for reading this book, namely that it was recommended to me by Davis, our erudite and charming AirBnB host from New York last year.

This is one of those collage-type narratives, telling the story of a city (namely, New York) through a diverse cast of characters and, like Don DeLillo’s Underworld and its home run, all the stories center on a pivotal event that has all eyes on it. In this case the event is Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the World Trade Center towers.

So firstly, is this as good a book as Man on Wire is a film? Well that’s a stupid comparison and a stupid question. I hope you feel ridiculous for having asked. The fact is I found the book a little confusing at first, because the whole prologue/first act tells of a pair of (presumably Irish) Catholic brothers, and feels like the book will become their story. It’s quite a fair chunk of the way in that other characters and plotlines are introduced.

After my initial confusion though, the storylines are engaging, and well intermingled – arguably more so than in Underworld or, another similarly-structured book discussed on this blog before, E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime – but at the same time it didn’t quite deliver the knockout emotional punch of these other two books. Perhaps too much happens at the start, and it plateaus out a bit towards the end. Still a great read, but not one I immediately started to rhapsodize over.

27) A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

#BookshelfCatchUp

So from Leo Tolstory via Colum McCann we come to another canonical writer whom I had never read. I was, as most people are, already very familiar with the first line – "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times" – but otherwise hadn’t properly sat down to churn through any of Dickens’ work. I hope I’m not contradicting myself, though, to say that I had tried and failed to read this very book at one time in my life, and I can tell you in fact exactly when it was because the bookmark I used was still in it and reminded me that I had an orthodontist appointment on the 5^th of May, 2002.

As with my first attempt to read this book (admittedly it lasted about ten pages, max) I found the opening exposition a little tedious, but it was very much in keeping with nineteenth century tradition of having an opening exposition that’s a little tedious. Persistence pays off because this really is a very fine book indeed.

Without meaning to spoil anything (but you know, like you actually read this anyway, mother), I noticed Chekhov’s gun very early on in this story – in particular the deftly woven little detail that Carton and Darnay bear a striking resemblance to one another – and spent the rest of the book enjoying the fact that, despite its shoehorning in of all the different elements, it was all done very deftly and subtly.

Early on in the piece I was drawn to the character of Carton who, like Pierre in War and Peace had a downtrodden, relatable quality, and the dramatic build-up to his great sacrifice was compelling. I have to admit it did feel a little Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle-esque in its contrivance (anyone who’s followed my brother and me on Twitter in the past month will know this is a great bugbear of mine), but the ensuing suspense and resultant conclusion were still deeply enjoyable.

A tad loquacious at times, Dickens otherwise really weaves a fine fable, and I can look forward to reading more of his work for future write-ups.

26) Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

#BookshelfCatchUp

Apart from being able to tick off another book that has sat on my bookshelf for upwards of 15 years, there was another very good reason for finally catching up with Conrad’s masterwork, namely that I decided this year that Apocalypse Now is my all-time favourite movie. It only seemed fitting then that I acquaint myself with its loose source material.

And I was delighted on two accounts: firstly, that it delivers an evocative and eerie tale of doom; and secondly, that it didn’t deliver as evocative and eerie a tale of doom as Apocalypse Now, cementing the fact that the film is a masterpiece on its own rather than simply borrowing the vibe.

So I’m sure you all know the story – Martin Sheen has to track down and kill Marlon Brando who’s gone mad oh whoops that’s the film again – so I’ll say instead that this second foray into Conrad for me held a similar sense of detachment from my first, Lord Jim. I don’t know if it’s a criticism or just an observation of his style that doesn’t quite work for me, but his way of having his fictional characters narrate to others - as if spinning yarns around the campfire - has a self-conscious filtering quality to it. In this case it doesn’t dampen the ultimate effect, but it still takes me a bit out of it, like I have to think twice as hard to picture the scene.

The story, though, of the unrelenting exoticism of the jungle, and the power that nature has to subjugate the best of us, is timelessly fascinating, and while I couldn’t stop wondering when Robert Duvall was going to wander in and set his boombox to play Flight of the Valkyries, it still held me in its thrall throughout.

25) Brighton Rock – Graham Greene

#BooksReadForAbsolutelyNoReason

Absolutely no reason, me? Of course not. I love Graham Greene, so what better reason to read something than because it was written by him? Stupid me and my stupid hashtags.

This is actually a really weird book, and in all honesty it further befuddles my understanding of Greene’s work, although it pleases me that it’s so hard to pigeonhole him. Although I said in my last post that I’ve never read any gangster novels, I think it’s fair to call this a gangster novel.

It tells the story of Pinkie Brown, a young upstart who aspires to be the kingpin of the Brighton underworld. He’s an intriguing character, in the way that his ambition far outstrips his competence, and the way he tries to effect threats on those around him comes across as mere teenage impudence, lacking any real menace.

And that’s what’s weird about the story. It feels in tone and style like a sort of wry comedy, which completely belies the brutality that lies within the story. It’s a fish-out-of-water story, about a young bloke who gets in way over his head (and yes I’m aware I’ve just drowned that metaphor) but is ultimately and deservedly the architect of his own destruction. Yes, I’m also aware that architects usually don’t destroy things, I’m having a shocker.

Despite its weirdness though, Greene’s sheer luminescence as a storyteller shines through as usual here, and I think this book could only grow in my esteem upon a second reading.

24) Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee

#BookerPrizeWinners

Ah, so all the Booker Winners weren’t just clumped right in the middle of my list, here’s another one.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure why this book is quite so high up by comparison with some of the others in that clump of six. The best reason I can figure is that there’s certainly nothing wrong with it, at least.

Having said that, it’s a very depressing read. The story of a university lecturer who has an affair with one of his students and then finds himself isolated and publicly disgraced. It’s an interesting exploration of themes, taking us through the protagonist’s emotional journey into the sickness unto death (something for all you Kierkegaard fans out there, whooo! Represent!).

At the heart of this story lies the question, though,  of what exactly did the protagonist do wrong? Certainly he took advantage of a vulnerable younger woman, but it remains an encounter between two consenting adults. It’s drawn out into strokes of racial inequality in a still-divided South Africa, but becomes far more about simple loneliness and desolation as an inadequate man approaches his autumnal years.

Bleak and morose, there’s no fault to this book, but I’m not sure I would necessarily nominate it unprompted as my 24th favourite read this year. Call it a quirk in sorting.

23) Whit – Iain Banks

#BookshelfCatchUp

So a few years ago, my brother was in the midst of an obsessive Iain Banks-fandom and so showered me with a selection of his finest works. It’s exactly what I’d do with him and Saramago, if he still read books. So in the spirit of getting through more of the books that have sat unread on my bookshelf, I picked this one up, knowing absolutely nothing about it except that Jez recommended it.

This is the imaginative story of a religious cult, and a young woman raised in its embrace venturing out into the real world to try and rescue her cousin, who seems to have turned away from the light.

Isis, our first person narrator, is an interesting and quirky character: pious and self-righteous on the one hand, but with a devilish cunning and wit on the other. Whit has the vague feel of a piece of critical utopian fiction, as Isis begins to uncover cracks in her cult’s rock-solid foundations, but as with other Banks books, the obvious path is always the opposite direction from the narrative.

While I didn’t embrace this nearly as closely as I did Banks’ The Bridge, this is nevertheless a very worthwhile and intelligent satire, with his trademark sense of humour stamped all over it.

22) The Circle – Dave Eggers

#BooksReadForAbsolutelyNoReason

I went into this book ready to hate it. Not hate it because it was going to be bad, but because it was going to be good. More specifically, that it has the same germ of an idea for a novel that I had been planning for years, but fuckin’ Dave Eggers had snuck in ahead of me, already finished and published it and won universal acclaim for it.

My hypothetical novel that will probably now never be written and Eggers’ already written and universally acclaimed novel share a similar premise: namely a satirical dystopia based on Google, current social media trends and the principle of complete unrestricted access to information, but apart from that our approaches (again, mine only hypothetical, Eggers’ actual) are completely different.

Eggers focuses largely on the more social aspect of the information age, the sharing of all our personal information and the gradual erosion of the private sphere. And while Eggers is clearly lampooning companies like Google and Facebook, his ‘The Circle’ is not a satirical stand-in but rather a separate company in a speculative future. The only way we really know this is because there’s a single, really clumsy bit of exposition early on when he talks about The Circle pushing ‘Google, Facebook, etc.’ out of the market. Oh well now that’s conveniently out of the way let’s continue with what really would have been handled better if it were a satirical stand-in.

He certainly has some very interesting thoughts about the direction in which our current age is taking us.  While he expounds them for the most part interestingly as well, there’s a point in this book where it feels like a catalogue of different aspects of this constant over-sharing, and the frequent company town-hall meetings announcing a new innovation or initiative give the narrative arc a stop-start feel.

I’m not saying that I could have done better than Eggers. I’m saying that he does a lot of things very well; just differently. Moreover, I’m saying that I still can do better, and maybe one day I will. 

Unfortunately, I’m bitter about the inevitable comparisons between my magnum opus and this, and the fact that most of them will presumably be unfavourable. Because this is still a very fine book, and deserving of the accolades it's received.

21) The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco

#BooksReadForAbsolutelyNoReason

This is the last of the books I read this year (obviously not counting the two and a half books I’ve read since starting these write-ups), and in fact I had already ranked all my books while I was in the middle of this, so I just slotted it in where I felt it fit best.

For some reason, I’d avoided this book for years. And for some reason, I keep using the phrase ‘for some reason’ to describe things for which I’m completely and consciously aware of the reasons. The reason was this: I loathed, and gave up on, and was willing to set fire to, the only other Eco I’d tried to read, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loarna, because I just found it utterly, interminably tedious.

What’s more, every other smaller bit of Eco I’d read seemed obnoxious, full of argumentum ab auctoritate, and just generally a list of items rather than a clearly argued thesis. However, the merit of Eco remains a prickly subject between me and my friend Catie, who had read and loved The Name of the Rose many years ago, and continued to hold its author in high esteem. So why not finally give it a chance.

It’s certainly of far more merit than Queen Loarna – at least as much of that as I could stomach – and also far more accessible. Perhaps it’s simply that the framing device of a murder mystery and investigation is more engaging, but I just feel Eco’s self-puffery is more subdued here.

Having said that, there remains a lot of long expeditions into theory and theology, frequently resorting to ab auctoritate citations, and I found that some of its more interesting suppositions may have benefited from a more Socratic approach. This is, however, an argument more against some of the characters’ exchanges rather than Eco’s narrative interventions, and overall the ideas are all intriguing and thought-provoking.

At the end of the day, I’m not entirely convinced that the murder mystery and the theological-slash-philosophical treatises throughout are successfully enmeshed, but both are enjoyable enough on their own to warrant attention. In short, Eco can be a good writer, provided he keeps his own ego in check.