Fine Just The Way It Is (Annie Proulx)

Annie Proulx makes horrendous people, places and events FINE JUST THE WAY THEY ARE. This is her process, her tool, her particular brand of magic, and I never would have spotted it if she hadn't named her last collection of short stories just that.

Admittedly, I have a warped view of what is horrendous. To me, bad coffee is insufferable. Having lunch with someone and not getting the good seat (against the wall) is intolerable. Living without my hair straightener is INCONCEIVABLE. So naturally, I find these stories of poor and broken people in Wyoming cruel beyond all mortal comprehension, because I'm high maintenance and disgustingly entitled in my outlook on life.

Yet still, I rooted for them. I was happy for them, devastated for them. These, the people described as ugly, poor, unlovable, selfish, racist, stupid... utterly pedestrian. Proulx does not bother to take the easy route and write stories about the innocent, the intelligent, the fair and good. Any person would prove to be interesting under scrutiny. Worthy of our time, our eyes, our $22.95. How then, do writers differentiate between those who are passed over and those who deserve their own worded spotlight?

They choose the beautiful, the well-structured, the desirable people to write about. And I'm not talking about the desirability a husband sees in a wife who has a saggy stomach and discontented attitude radiating from beneath a hairstyle long out of fashion and powdered at the roots. Or the girl with average looks and average brains being charmed by the boy whose speech is clogged with the unfortunate spittle that plagues the over-salivating.

Those are the people whose stories are harder to write and still generate empathy with the reader and thus they are so often the people without a strong literary presence. Which is stupid, because when a writer does bother to create a character who is hard to like and rough around the edges it normally becomes as artful as Don Quixote, the book an ode to imperfection, beautiful through the simple fact of its existence.

That's what Annie Proulx does and then she goes one step further. She neglects to include any action whatsoever in her stories. Each event is constructed as a past occurrence, mentioned in passing by one character or another. At any one time, nothing is really happening. Snippets of family mystery, suspense, skeletons are hinted at, but the writing quickly moves on, choosing to focus instead on a wife musing about her dinner plans. It takes a serious talent to keep us engaged through all this, yet we find ourselves also weighing up the beef and pork options. Because she's just that damn good.

I must apologise for the wordiness and general pretension of this review. I have been embroiled in a big fight with a large pile of torn newspaper and glue for two days trying to make an acceptable model of a dolphin for a Year 4 Art Show. Because I have about a teaspoon of artistic ability in my entire genetic makeup... this has been a trying, exhausting time. I felt the need to prove I could still string a sentence together, having failed spectacularly as a sculptor.

Rating: 9/10.

Le Prix Goncourt 2009

Marie Ndiaye has won France's most prestigious literary prize for her novel Trois Femme Puissantes. Having just recently discovered a love for Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (who won the Nobel Prize in 2008) I am now craving another slice of the French literary pie. I think I'll try and find a copy of this in English. Earhart can show off and read it in French.

The Heretic's Daughter (Kathleen Kent)

I have this thing about the Salem Witch Trials. It's like my thing with the Amish. I'm don't want to BE Amish, I'm just overly and unnaturally fascinated with them. Salem- I don't wish I'd lived during the trials (with my hair and no straighteners available I'm sure I would have been scruffy enough to create suspicion) but I LOVE reading about it.

I bought this in Hatchards (LOVE this bookshop, want to get married and live and DIE in this bookshop) on Earhart's recommendation. Apparently she sold it to loads of customers last Christmas, not having actually read it herself. We both read it during Earhart's London visit and the sister, having read it first, insisted she would do the review. Well, I am ignoring that and doing the review myself because she has a lot on her plate at the moment and I have to work hard to come up with enough things to do to avoid filling out uni applications.

I know it sounds like Earhart and I did nothing but read whilst she was here on her three week visit, but we did talk to each other! We ate and drank a lot as well. And we spent a seriously enjoyable two hours in Wales sitting in armchairs, eating strawberry sours and quizzing each other from a Film Trivia Book we bought for 50p. Exciting stuff.

I digress... back to the book. Which was so unremarkable I have to go grab it off the shelf to remind myself of the title. Ah yes, The Heretic's Daughter. Meh, meh, meh. I have trouble feeling sympathy for a woman who is hung as a witch when she spends her time physically and emotionally abusing her children.

Sarah, the 'heretic's daughter' as it were, reminds me slightly of a Joanne Harris character. She is wilful and troubled and hard to like and the relationship with her mother Martha seemed overly reminiscent of the tempestuous relationship between Framboise and her mother in Five Quarters of the Orange. Although, not nearly as well-executed.

There is also some mysterious red book with the history of Sarah's father in it which is mentioned once and then all but forgotten. Sarah is allowed to read it when she comes of age, but she never tells us what is in it. A ridiculous and redundant side-plot.

The writing does the job (the job being the telling of an average plot and detailing of average characters) and that's it. If you're in the market for some mildly compelling and clichéd historical fiction, this is it.

Rating: 5/10.

A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)

I arrive at beginning this review feeling conflicted. Not, it must be stressed, as to the quality of the novel, but rather at how one goes about reviewing a book so transcendentally... loud.

Mmm, that's right, LOUD is the word I have come up with to describe John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. I toyed with 'brilliant', contemplated 'glorious torrent of cynical social commentary', seriously considered 'rich in passion, laid on thickly with Toole's impressive voice, seasoned with insight and spiced with humour; the book is obese with ambition and serves up a literary dish fit for a king.'

However, I settled on 'loud'.

What other adjective should one use when talking about a book that shouts its revolted social commentary at such decibels? When our hero can be spotted from a satellite, not only because of his size but also because of the voluminous white hot dog vendor smock he wears, surely the best word for him is 'loud'? When the mention of Ignatius J. Reilly inspires giggles and nervous tension in the same breath; when each of the supporting cast beats me over the head with their incessant bleatings that serve to brand every one of them on my memory indelibly... that's BLOODY LOUD.

A Confederacy of Dunces is about nothing and because of that, it is about everything. You know those books that have a hook- making them easy to sell to the undiscerning buyer. "It's about a salmon fishing project in the Yemen. I know right? HAHAHAHAHAHA. That's $22.95." Alternatively: "It's not girly! I mean, I know the cover is hot pink, but it's a retelling of A Room with a View! Obviously you've read that, right? Would you call E.M Forster chick-lit? WOULD YOU? Exactly. That's $22.95".

If I tried to sell A Confederacy of Dunces, I would revert to one tactic and one tactic only: "New Orleans in the 1960s. An obese hot dog vendor with three University degrees and an inflated vocabulary. A crumbling pants factory whose employees are drunk/ancient or delusional. A seedy nightclub whose owner distributes pornography to orphans. TRUST ME."

The novel, in my opinion, is made even more compelling with the foreword written by Walker Percy. He explains that Toole's mother contacted him in 1976 with this manuscript. Her son had killed himself and left it behind and she was determined to get it published. Who was this young man who wrote such a masterpiece? I can't help feeling that many of Ignatius' thoughts on the human condition and the depravity of society are mirrors of what Toole himself may have been thinking, caught in a web of depression that would ultimately end his life. At times Ignatius exhibits an obstructed self-hatred; when denying a customer a hot dog he asks- "Are you unnatural enough to want a hot dog this early in the afternoon?" ignoring the fact he has just consumed three himself. (I know this is not an overly obvious example of self-hatred, there are others, but this was the only one I could find. It's a big book!) It saddens me to think of Toole, perhaps subsumed with self-hatred, churning out the pages of Dunces in an attempt to expurgate and externalise the self-scorn he contained within.

On a slightly removed yet still related note, it's great to meet a new friend who enjoys reading, even more so to discover said friend is not a moron and has seriously stellar taste in literature. I'm always a bit wary when people start recommending books to me. My default position is that I know more about books than most people and if you're recommending a book to me I've never read then it probably isn't any good and I've skipped it for a reason. This new friend, having talked up Toole's novel, has now been elevated to position of a Person Whose Recommendations I Can Trust. Which is always nice in these uncertain times.

Rating: 10/10.

The Return

I am in the process of dragging myself back from the hinterlands of reality after having farewelled Earhart and escaped to Bath for a few days in hopes of ignoring the fact she has left me alone in this cesspit of sin and depression... London.

Another week and things are looking happier- I find London quite palatable again and feel I should catch you all up on my literary endeavours over the past few weeks. Most importantly- the books we snagged for next to nothing in Hay on Wye!

I found three first editions of Evelyn Waugh (not Brideshead unfortunately), a first edition of Thornton Wilder's The Ides of March (tucked in the front cover were newspaper reviews from 1948, the year it was published) and a first edition of A Girl of the Limberlost. I'm sure Earhart will wax lyrical on her purchases when she emerges from the pile of book reviews she has to do for other publications.

First and foremost I must post a review of A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, which I have been threatening to do for weeks.

Whilst I am editing that and overseeing a rather violent and clumsy ballet rehearsal which is going on in the living room you should allow your attention to be diverted here. If you have never discovered Asterix, his golden jubilee would seem the perfect opportunity.

Booker Prize 2009

Hilary Mantel has won the Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall. Click here to read my earlier post on the Booker where I decided Mantel would definitely NOT win. It is an insightful post.

I will write no more on the subject because I am in bed, although it is the early hour of 7:51 pm. I am finishing up John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces and I have not been this excited about a book since Vernon God Little. Stay tuned for a sickeningly positive review.

Guilt + The Summer Book

So...I kind of thought since we were in Paris/I am in London that maybe posting would slow down. Ducked into an internet cafe to escape the downpour this afternoon, clicked on the blog and saw the seven million book reviews Alcott has done whilst I've been wandering around with my head in the French clouds. Oops. Feeling guilty now. So I bring you... The Summer Book.

Not heard of it? Shame on you. It is a classic in Sweden! Tove Jansson (who I love love love) is the author of the amazingly fantastic Moomintrolls series (both the books and the comic strip). If you haven't heard of the Moomintrolls, then shame on you AGAIN - basically they are small, round hippo-like creatures who have ridiculous adventures. The books are for children... the comics not so much.

The Summer Book, which is about real people (not Moomintrolls), is a book for grown-ups which enchanted me from the start. The book is made up of short encounters between Sophia and her Grandmother over various summertimes on the island where they live. One summer Grandmother carves animals out of bark and wood and leaves them in the magical forest. Another someone new moves onto the island (!) and Sophia and Grandmother break into the new house. Sounds odd, but it is truly magical.

Gently philosophical, almost in the same way as The Little Prince, this is a very calm book to read, and a real treasure.

I realise this review is super short, but fear not...I have just started Three Men on the Bummel (follow up to the hilarious Three Men in a Boat) and am laughing already. Stand by for review.