A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True (Brigid Pasulka)

I've never had a burning desire to go to Poland. The only person I can remember talking about Poland during my childhood is Basil Fawlty. We might have skated over it briefly during history classes but due to the soporific powers of my teachers I really have no idea what was going on during those times. Cue Alan Bennett and his play The History Boys, where one of the teachers talks to the boys about Auschwitz and how bizarre it is that it is now a tourist destination.

"What has always concerned me is where do they eat their sandwiches? Drink their coke? Do they take pictures of each other there? Are they smiling? Do they hold hands? Nothing is appropriate."

Thus, shrouded in swathes of depressing history and with Bennett's stamp of disapproval, Poland has not been high on my To-See list. After reading this book, it may not have creeped much higher up that list, but my entire perspective on the country has changed.

Pasulka's novel is divided into two time frames- the first is a small village in Poland during the German invasion of WW2. The second is set two generations later in Krakow. Before I delve further into the story I'd like to take umbrage with the Guardian's review. The 'miraculous links' which Catherine Taylor describes as the ties between the first period and the second are that it is the same family, two generations on. ASTOUNDING. I was positively BOWLED OVER by the literary capoeira Pasulka had to perform to provide us with such a plausible connection.

Tsk. Rusbridger- hire me. I will read the books.

We are first introduced to Half-Village, which is the scene for the extremely slow-burning love affair between the local beauty Anielica and a young man named The Pigeon. Their love is interrupted by a series of increasingly dire obstacles as Germany invades Poland and then Poland is forced to become part of the Eastern Bloc under the Soviet Union. The horror and gargantuan size of these events is offset by Pasulka's characters, who maintain their idiosyncrasies along with their strength throughout.

Fifty years on, their granddaughter Baba Yaga is living in Krakow with her cousins. This is the part of the story where stirrings of recognition began to occur in my brain. What made me feel twisted and guilty inside was that they were all insults and bigoted generalisations that I have heard made about the Polish since I moved to England. (We don't talk about the Poles much in Australia.) Issues with prostitution, drinking and drugs, roped together with a die-hard pessimism are all touched upon. Baba Yaga, as a relatively low-key character, acts mostly as an observer rather than an instigator. Yet her situation is no better than most and you would think that she would be dying to escape the country. Yet she has a moment of triumph towards the end of the book that perfectly summed up for me the steely strength the spirit of this novel is built upon.

"You think you can have any Polish girl you want? You think you can take advantage of us because you have pounds and we have zlote? Learn history. We Poles have fought against the oppressor again and again. For centuries. And now that we have our freedom, we are not going to be turned into prostitutes by a bunch of pickle-faced skurwysyns..."

The book is fanciful but ultimately overly depressing. I still don't want to go to Krakow or visit Auschwitz or go to a small Polish village where they may ask me to slaughter a pig. But A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True has made me think of Poland as a country of strength and passion, rather than a 'broken' country as we would call it in England. A country where people stay because it is their home and they cannot imagine living anywhere else. A country that may not have always been loyal to itself at the highest levels but has had persistent and enduring patriots propping it up from the bottom for centuries.

As a people they share a camaraderie that automatically excludes those who do not have the residue of hundreds of years of Polish history running through their veins. Ultimately, it is not the story which makes this book so remarkable, nor the characters. It is that I felt I was holding something that was actually a bit of Poland in my hands. Reading this novel, I was being allowed a glimpse into a country that I can never fully understand.

And BONUS- I now have a new curse- 'Cholera'. It is perfect for everything. I have already used it three times today.

Rating: 8/10.

The Echoing Grove (Rosamond Lehmann)

I am going home soon, to my family, my friends, my bedroom, my books. I brought one book away with me two years ago when I left Australia. Which book did I deem most fitting to accompany me on my backpacking endeavours?

Since you ask- I brought On The Road, by Jack Kerouac. Oh yes, I can hear the universal groans even from Acton, one of the most acoustically imbalanced areas in London. This is due to the most unfortunate combination of the A40, the Heathrow flight path, three intersecting train lines and the neighbour's illegal parrot aviary.

I can still remember the reasoning behind bringing the Kerouac. My appearance, my expectations, dreams and aspirations all played a part in choosing to bring On The Road. It was a terrible, terrible decision. Yes, the book is brilliant. Hilarious and epic, it makes you want to clench your fists and run. THE FIRST TIME YOU READ IT. At last count I owned three different editions of this book. None of the subsequent readings were comparable to my first foray into Kerouac's world (not even the original scroll) so what the hell I was thinking I really don't know.

When you're travelling you want something that speaks to your soul, is comforting but not gushing, a book you recognise yourself in. It needs characters who are sympathetic but flawed, a plot that has momentum but doesn't gallop, a denouement that satisfies but doesn't pacify.

The novel I SHOULD have brought with me is The Echoing Grove, by Rosamond Lehmann. The story is about Rickie Masters, his marriage to Madeleine and his affair with her sister Dinah. The sisters reach an impasse when Rickie is killed unexpectedly and both must deal with the fallout of a situation both had already found hopeless.

In the interest of full disclosure, I saw the film before I read the book. The cast includes Paul Bettany, which is how I came across the story in the first place. Bettany makes me sympathise completely with Rickie and hope for his happiness- if I had read the book first I may have found Rickie hard to like. The film changes little of the script and plot so it is Bettany's brilliance which makes me see the frailty and beauty in Rickie when I later read the novel.

Lehmann's prose is often described as gentle, although I wouldn't agree with that. I'd say it's more akin to the old velvet glove/iron fist style of doing things. Writing like this reminds you of why male authors really shouldn't write from the female perspective in stories of great love. Madeleine and Dinah are entirely unique yet nothing they think or do would feel aberrant to my character were I to emulate them. The sinking feeling both of them experience with the knowledge that they cannot help but move into something that will cause them only heartbreak is devastating yet, as the reader, you agree that they have no choice.

This may seem to you a rather odd book to classify as 'comforting'. Well, this is my brand of comforting. I have always found more solace in the depressingly meaningful than the vacuously upbeat. Of course, I probably would have been most comforted and sustained on my travels if I had ignored Earhart's insistence that everybody would laugh at me and purchased the blanket with sleeves in duck-egg blue that I really wanted. I bowed to convention and coolness, but I still think about that blanket. I haven't been able to find one since.

Rating: 9/10.

The Song is You (Arthur Phillips)

Two posts in one evening... I must be feeling better. As you will all know, I am battling another case of bronchitis. You will all know because I whinge about it on a relatively regular basis. I haven't been feeling up to staying up past eight o'clock and reviewing. This is proving problematic considering I am leaving London in six weeks time. Attempting to cram in quality time with friends I may not see for years and years is hard when you are slumped over the table, weakly waving away offers of an ambulance (friend J is particularly twitchy when it comes to medical matters) and coughing so much you can hear your lungs bouncing off your ribcage (true story!). However, I am now feeling much better, although I am reluctant to give up the marvellous and miraculous cough medicine I have been taking at night. It puts me in an extremely deep sleep about twenty minutes after dosage and I have been waking up this past week feeling well-rested, which I don't think I've felt since Christmas. But it's the dreams that have me coming back for more. Never have I had such vivid, interesting dreams, with the perfect balance of the surreal and the familiar. Not too much menace- enough to keep things interesting, but ultimately not too unsettling. The sort of dreams where you're being chased by a shark but then you find chocolate cake.

I have taken this marvellous medicine (Alcott's not George's) and thus do not exactly have an elegant sufficiency of time to finish this review before I drop off. Probably then, we can all agree that the paragraph I just wrote above was an ill-advised way to spend my limited time.

The Song is You is the sort of novel you want to love but you suspect, before you have even opened the covers, that it is going to be a grave disappointment. A man who uses music to define all the most important moments in his life. A romance with an Irish singer. Reviewers gasping to make their accolades more adoring than everyone else's.

To my happy, happy surprise, the novel was beautiful. A deeply romantic love story told with impeccable modern prose. The musical references throughout felt organic rather than affected or, (as I suspected they might be), a pathetic attempt by the author to prove how hardcore and bohemian he is. Phillips manages to make Julian's attachment to his iPod merely a part of the character rather than a grating plot hook. This is harder than it looks. In many ways it is the easy way out to write historical fiction, where there are thousands of sources to draw from when looking for guidance on the forms of expression that work most eloquently. Internet technology, modern slang and pop culture are infinitely harder to include in effortless prose.

The love story itself has two main elements that prevent it from falling into twee territory. The first is the slight seediness and underground feel to the romance. Julian is much older than Cait, the young singer he has fallen for. He stalks her, lets himself into her apartment, cooks her dinner without having been introduced and leaves an indentation of his head in her pillow so she won't feel so alone. I had chills for a lot of these scenes, but I was always most panicked when I thought the police were going to catch him. "They're going to arrest him and they won't realise he's doing everything out of love!" I thought, distressed. (Although, it must be noted, this is probably the excuse of every stalker out there.)

The other aspect of the romance which made it all the more engaging was the refusal of Phillips to indulge the expectations I have as a Generation Y Instant Gratification Brat. Julian and Cait embody the typical Girl Meets Boy Plus Obstacles scenario, except that the girl doesn't actually physically meet the boy until the end of the novel. This restraint on the part of the characters (because it is a decision they both contribute to) is INFURIATING for the reader but also strangely exciting and compelling. After all, wanting something and being denied it only makes you want it more.

If there are some loose ends not tied up as neatly as I would have liked, if there are some characters that I felt needed further development, that all seems rather irrelevant when you can read a book that actually delivers what it promised to do- tell a love story that is determined to be of this time, a love story that nevertheless reaffirms that romances like these are as old as the songs that are sung about them.

Rating: 8/10.

Lady Chatterley's Lover (D.H. Lawrence)

I challenge anyone to not pick up Lady Chatterley's Lover after learning that Penguin Books were prosecuted in 1960 under the Obscene Publications Act for releasing the book. I am glad to see that novels can no longer be banned under the Act (ridiculous) and am quite eager to read other titles that were previously hauled into court by the braying conservatives. Inside Linda Lovelace and Lord Horror have been added to my list!

I was going to start off this post with a brief rehash of Sons and Lovers and then swoop saucily into a review of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Sardonic eyebrow cocked, I would note wittily that Lawrence's earlier title had hinted at his grasp of the relationship between sexuality and creativity but further life experiences (and partners) must have educated him further, as the latter novel clearly demonstrates. Then, with a sigh, I realised I had not read Sons and Lovers (I saw the TV series) and could not say this with any authority. Perhaps more importantly, I also realised I cannot cock my eyebrow, sardonically or otherwise and thus I decided to angle the review in a different direction.

This book shocked me several times. I can understand why critics claimed it was just a series of lewd sexual encounters held together by a shaky plot line. I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS. If the plot line were any more complicated or emotionally involving the book wouldn't achieve one of its main purposes: to put promiscuity on a pedestal. The shocks came not from this but rather from the swearing and sexual descriptions which seemed far too graphic for lovers in the early 20th century. Surely they were only indulging in this sort of carry-on in uncomfortable silences with yards of starched muslin petticoats hampering their every move?

Lady Constance Chatterley needs a lover because her husband has come home from the war paralysed from the waist down. He doesn't much mind if she takes a lover, as he would quite like a son to look after the small copse on their property that has been there for hundreds of years. He worries what will happen to the trees if they do not have an heir. He is, to be honest, not the most exciting of characters. Connie takes a few lovers but the lover of the title is Mellors, the new gamekeeper on their property.

I had a bit of trouble feeling attracted to Mellors. He has a ginger moustache. He seems to have the same expression on his face for most of the book and that is an amalgam of terrified and watchful. He is not very strong and he wheezes when he pushes Connie's husband around in a bathchair.

Well, I can hear you saying, as long as Connie's happy, that's all that matters. That would be all well and good, apart from the fact that I shudder every time I remember the moustache.

What follows is a torrid love affair and some of the most insightful prose I have ever read. Lawrence is a master of dialogue... never straying into the trap of using it for plot momentum. His descriptive text is evocative but sparse, focusing on the thoughts the landscape generates rather than the landscape itself. The characters themselves are not overly glamorous or worldly which adds a charm to the novel it might otherwise have lacked.

In conclusion, a thoroughly satisfying read. Even if you don't want to read it, I recommend picking up a copy purely for the cover. Has there ever been a more hilarious Penguin Classics jacket?

Rating: 8/10.

Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

I have come across a new way to get into a book. I started reading Love in the Time of Cholera two weeks ago and kept putting it down, happy to read anything else if it would save me from the trudging toil of reading this. But then I said sternly to myself "Marquez is a genius. You LOVED Memories of My Melancholy Whores. You SALIVATED over One Hundred Years of Solitude. GET IT TOGETHER."

So I read the last page. And then the second last page. And then the third last page. And then I skipped to the beginning of the last chapter. THEN I was having so much fun I read the entire book like that... chapter by chapter.

Admittedly I remain a little confused. I believe I missed some vital moments doing this, and I sort of destroyed the flow of Marquez's words. But I quite enjoyed the novel regardless!! It's a very sad tale of an unrequited love that rights itself in the end, with beautiful writing and gorgeous descriptions.

Just... a little TOO much on the descriptions Marquez. I mean, listen, you're a Nobel Prize winning novelist and if you want to put them in then I guess it's your call, but I didn't really need all the anecdotes on the pureed eggplant and the boots and the godfather's chronic constipation.

ALSO, I don't want to read about love that takes half a century to find fulfillment, only to have Florentino (the guy) complain that his lady love (Fermina) smells old: "...she had the sour smell of old age... It was the smell of human fermentation."

SWOON.

Otherwise, thumbs up Marqy Marq.

Rating: 8/10.

Stardust (Neil Gaiman)

For your reading pleasure: some more Neil Gaiman love. This time, a cute, old fashioned (old fashioned on purpose you understand...) love story that takes place in the world of faerie. If you've seen the movie (not bad), or read the title of this post...you'll know I'm talking about Stardust.

Tristran Thorn lives in the village of Wall, so named because of the Wall which lies to its east, separating our world from the world of Faerie. On his seventeenth birthday he learns that his father crossed over into faerie one night, met a girl and ... well, you know. Half-faerie, half-human, poor old Tristran has quite the identity crisis and he has promised his beloved, Victoria, he will retrieve a fallen star for her from faerie. Because NOTHING says true love like a fallen star. When Tristran gets to where the star fell, he discovers not a lump of grey rock, but a beautiful (and kind of grumpy) woman named Yvaine. Oh no... cue romantic dilemma... stars take the form of beautiful women!

Meanwhile, the Lord of Stormhold has died, and his three sons who are still alive are vying for the crown, which will be passed on once there is only one Stormhold heir left. Primus, Tertius and Septimus spend most of the story trying to kill one another, all the time followed by the ghosts of the brothers who have already been killed off. (SERIOUSLY lacking in brotherly love, but we can't expect anything more with names like that...)

Gaiman wrote Stardust in the style of a Victorian fantasy, with references to various Nursery Rhymes, local myths and legends. It is a self-consciously quaint, charming read, made about a million times more special by the amazing, AMAZING illustrations by Charles Vess. Though you can now buy Stardust as an ordinary novel, I strongly advise that you find an illustrated version somewhere (there is a regular paperback and a gorgeous, GORGEOUS hardback special edition) - you just won't get the total Victorian fantasy package unless you invest in the pictures.

8/10

The Good Mayor (Andrew Nicoll)

I am SO glad I liked The Good Mayor. Mainly because for the past month I've been selling it to customers like crazy, telling them it's cute/charming/magical/the kind of book you just hug to your chest and go 'awwww'. Then a co-worker pointed out that maybe, just maybe, I ought to read it. Crazy crazy idea, but I thought I'd give it a go.

And you know what? It IS cute. And charming. Lucky break there...

Tibo Krovic is the mayor of a small town in the Baltic called Dot, who is hopelessly, head over heels in love with his (unhappily) married secretary, Agathe. Everyday he listens for her high heels clicking across the office floor, and whenever it is raining he watches under the office door as Agathe taking off her galoshes and slips into her high heels. The problem is, Tibo just isn't able to work up the courage to confess his feelings...until one day Agathe drops her lunch in the fountain and Tibo takes a chance.

The relationship which develops between the two is lovely, starting with lunch everyday and gradually becoming more. What could have been just a normal love story is made really special by the way it is told. The story is narrated by Saint Walpurnia, the patron saint of Dot whose image is everywhere. (As the legend goes, Walpurnia thought it was so important that she remain chaste, she prayed to be deformed and was given a beard and warts all over her body.) There are a few magical elements to the story, which now I think of it, reminds me a tad of Joanne Harris. Cute is probably an apt word to describe parts of the story; Dot's neighboring towns are called 'Dash' and 'Umlaut' and the local river is called 'Ampersand'.

Punctuation as names?

Why not?

A car chase that takes place at walking pace?

But of course!

Each sentence is beautifully constructed (much more so than in this review which I realise rambles on a bit...), and you just fall in love with the book a bit (and like it says on the cover, it DOES make you want to go out and fall in love with someone).

Admittedly, the story gets a little too weird towards the end, and doesn't quite finish as strongly as it started, but it's well worth the read. And I swear I actually did read it this time.

8/10

*Interesting tidbit - apparently the author, Andrew Nicoll, didn't like the Australian cover (pictured above) as it made the book seem like it was only for the ladies, when he wrote it to be for both men and women. Do we think a book which is mostly about feelings (I'd say about 90%) is a man book? I don't want to make any stereotypical judgments here....

Author Love: Paullina Simons

At first glance, Paullina Simons' books could be construed as chick-lit. Thick bricks of chick-lit. The new Harper Collins covers do her no favours either. RIDICULOUS.

But, open one and start to read.

And then give it 50 or so pages because the lady takes a while to warm up.

Born in the Soviet Union and emigrating to the U.S. when she was a small child, Simons incorporates all the tragedy, history and black-humour that we have come to associate with the great Russian sagas. I tell readers to prepare to have their heart wrenched out, several times. If the characters stumble... fall... seem unlikely to overcome their numerous and achingly sad trials, you as the reader will feel unable to go on with your own life. These novels are emotional testaments to the pain and suffering that humans endure in the name of love, honour and passion.

Simons relentlessly attacks her characters: both with interminably depressing plot lines and a no-holds barred attitude to uncovering every thought and feeling the character has ever entertained. Tully (in the novel of the same name) is hardly likeable, holding herself to a strict moral code that has nothing to do with treating people well and everything to do with ensuring her own life remains as miserable as possible. She is one of the greatest female characters to have been written in the last decade, obscenely alluring and entirely unforgettable. (Give Angelina Jolie a bad dye-job and she'd be perfect.)

Yet it is The Bronze Horseman which is Simons' greatest triumph. It is the story of Tatiana and Alexander, lovers who must survive the suffocation of Soviet Russia, the torture of the Viet Cong in Vietnam and all the temptations of simmering Arizona before we can begin to hope that happiness may lie in their destinies. I am normally reluctant to tell people The Bronze Horseman is the first in a trilogy. I feel they don't experience the full weight of emotion and despair if they know there is more of the story to come (i.e. hope of salvation). Having read the novel before the sequels were around I still recall the devastation I felt upon completion; and the sheer delight and exhilaration when I found out the author was putting the characters through two more books worth of hell.

This may all sound a bit over the top. Simons' prose is not brilliant or unique. But her emotional intelligence is astounding and it is impossible to read her work and not be swept away on a tide of longing, darkly tainted with despair. I don't feel enthusiasm like this that often (I am tensed with excitement, hunched over the keyboard), so this is genuine, I assure you.

We attended an event with Simons a couple of years ago. In front of hundreds of people I raised my hand.

(Cue gushing voice).

"Paullina, whenever I sell one of your books in the bookshop I get the most amazing feeling inside, like I'm passing on some sort of gospel. I want to thank you for emotionally enriching my life."

(Earhart sinks slowly to the floor next to me in morbid embarrassment).

I would like to point out my comment wasn't nearly as awful as the woman who told Paullina she couldn't get pregnant until she read The Bronze Horseman.

That was most amusing.

The Bronze Horseman: 10/10

(Steer clear of The Road to Paradise. Only hard-core fans would enjoy this. I wouldn't recommend Simons' books to anybody battling depression... I do not want to be responsible for any bridge-leaping).

The Butchering of Twilight

I realise I have to approach this topic carefully. Too much praise for the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer and I'll never be able to snatch my dignity back.
It is hard though, when you come across a book so utterly HILARIOUS, yet at the same time finding yourself unable to change a thing about the series. If I wanted dialogue that didn't make me retch involuntarily, if I wanted descriptive text that wasn't so freaking predictable, the books wouldn't be the same.
Anne Rice didn't do this to people. Sure, L'estat was cool, sexy, dangerous (given that writing about a harmless vampire would be as fascinating as the inns and outs of the tomato skin debate in Bengali cuisine, this is assumed); yet he doesn't have a hope against Edward Cullen. I must admit though, superb foresight of Tom Cruise to play this role. Who knew he would actually turn into the character everyone revolves around whilst making sure no direct contact is made?
You know, in case it's catching.

In short, we've got a vampire in love with a mortal girl; a Quileute reservation that is on the point of exploding into a werewolf pack; the most beautiful people in the world all living in the same house and having vampiric relations all night long; a wildcard coven who decide to hunt our heroine; obsession bordering on the creepy; and, just for the guys, fast cars.
This should have been cinematic gold people.
Instead we got... uneven and staccato camera close-ups of Edward's golden eyes (yeah, we got it, his eyes changed colour, you didn't have to show us three times); unflattering angles where we seriously question how attractive Pattinson actually is (he is obscenely attractive, that's how bad these were); a voiceover from Stewart that doesn't make up for the gigantic plot leaps; and the careless disregard the director/screenwriter apparently had for making the rest of the Cullens in any way credible. I mean, why did Jasper look stoned the entire time? Was that entirely necessary?
Also, why, WHY in all the photocalls for this did Pattinson's hair look so utterly ridiculous? He said he was contractually obliged to keep it long, but it's not long in the film! Sheer lunacy!
I must admit, the Italian food preparation scene was amusing... but this is another peeve of mine. Why bother to add in extra scenes when you don't even do the existing scenes justice?
It is no great surprise to me that the director has been shafted for New Moon, although apparently it's a timing clash.
Maybe they all needed a warm-up and New Moon will be spectacular.
Maybe.

In other news, it's a great time for movies of novels at the moment. Revolutionary Road, written by Richard Yates, is a seriously excellent kitchen-sink drama and a fitting film for Kate and Leo to reunite on. The Reader (seriously, Winslet's outdone herself this season) by Bernhard Schlink should be superb. On a sidenote, I'm so glad Schlink has got himself back together, Self's Punishment and Self's Deception were so ordinary, but he's back on form with Homecoming. I'll let Earhart do the comparison of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with David Fincher's film as I haven't seen it yet.
Was it butchered?
Probably, but we'll have to wait and see.
Film Rating: 2/10
Novel Rating: 10/10 (Oh for... don't spit the dummy, check out the ratings table.)