The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud (Ben Sherwood)

Ugh, this book was AMERICAN. Overly sentimental and unnecessarily violent. With the kind of detail which you know the author has included because they think it gives their work increased depth when really it only acts to make the book longer. Obviously, if you are Dickens, this is important, as you are being paid by the word. However, Dickens had something to say with every one of those words. The superfluous detail in this story was the only thing retaining the integrity of the physical concept of 'the book'. The plot and characters were rendered irrelevant through the extreme use of hyperbolic emotional prose which only ever serves to alienate rather than draw the reader in. Your response is to say "Oh for God's sake, pull yourself together" rather than feel any sort of empathy.

Oh! The family are home! I await their invitation to come down to eat with trepidatious excitement.

And... alas. No invitation has been shouted from below.

Well, I'm not going down to find something to eat. I'll be fine. I have a bottle of water.

If the above interlude confuses you, refer to the post below.

Sherwood's novel tells the story of Charlie St. Cloud, who, whilst driving his mother's car when he was just a kid, inadvertently crashes and his younger brother is killed. Fast forward a few years and now Charlie is a gravedigger. Who can talk to dead people. He meets a woman named Tess who is straight out of a Mills and Boon. A bad Mills and Boon. One of the ones where the woman is irascible and selfish. They... talk and grow fond of each other. From here the book continues to bore the reader until the final, glorious denouement where we get to hear what sort of dog he's going to have in his future life. (A beagle. Bad choice. They're hard to train Charlie.)

The dialogue is plodding at best and I skipped many of the conversations because it was either that or risk becoming so tense that my neck veins would have ruptured. Of course, this meant I was often slightly confused as to what was happening. No matter. Confusion is the lesser of two evils when the other is to be so consummately acquainted with every nuance of Sherwood's writing that there is no conceivable way to escape from the knowledge that you are reading something obscenely pedestrian.

Apparently they are making a film of this book with Zac Efron as Charlie. Which is just perfect. Blocks of concrete deserve wooden rods to realise their full potential.

Rating: 3/10.

All the Nice Girls (Joan Bakewell)

This book should serve as a cautionary tale for those journalists who attempt to write novels. Say it with me people- journalism is different to novel-writing.

Joan Bakewell has written All the Nice Girls, which is her debut novel. I would mention her age, but a recent article in the Guardian on Bakewell stated that she hated people talking about her age. And calling her the 'Thinking Man's Crumpet'. Fortunately, I am a tactful and gracious reviewer and will raise neither issue.

But, CHOLERA, this book was bad. Confession- I did not finish it. I had to go to Madrid and I had a limited amount of time to pack. With five minutes to go before I had to rush out the door I tried to decide which book to take. All the Nice Girls was the obvious choice, as I was half-way through it. Instead, the white rabbit gesticulating wildly to the time, I speed-read through the first chapters of my three other options and chose from one of them. I almost missed my bus to the airport and then failed to open the covers of this new book for the entire trip.

Anyway, you've been warned, I did not finish the book, but I am going to critique it anyway. The fundamental flaw of this novel was the detail that Bakewell CRAMMED in. There are well-researched novels and then there are novels which would have nothing left if the detail were taken out. Nothing at all, not a single word would remain, were I to extract all the ridiculous details that were included.

That is a bit of a lie. I admit, there was a story. The narrative seemed (remember, I haven't finished it) to be constructed from an extremely rickety triumvirate of plot lines- a ship in WW2 that a girl's school adopts; a mother who is unsure if she should give her daughter a kidney; and an illegitimate love child. Unlike the milking stool, the tripod and the surety of the number of events that are going to occur, this triumvirate is more akin in stability to the three-wheeled car from Mr. Bean. Prop it up with characters who are mostly flat and occasionally horrid and voilà, Britain has yet another uninspired wartime romance novel to stuff onto its shelves.

Bakewell, I have no doubt, is an extremely intelligent woman. That is why she is the Thinking Man's Crumpet. I assume that is why she treats the reader like an idiot. Every thought is reasserted, every joke explained, every emotion analysed with historically accurate pop psychology. Competent writing? Absolutely. As scintillating as a documentary on the migratory habits of octogenarians in the South of England? Just about.

I would just like to take this opportunity to get on my virtual soapbox, now that I have your attention, and extrapolate further on one part of the story that particularly upset me. I have always been confused by people who wanted to sell their organs to pay for things like their children's ballet lessons. What if that child needs a kidney later on and you can't give her one because you gave it up for sodding ronds de jambe? Then we have this woman, Millie, who doesn't want to give her daughter on dialysis her kidney. She feels resentment towards the doctor who assumes she will. I did not finish the story and I'm assuming she has some sort of change of heart but really. REALLY. How could anyone have a child in need and not give up an organ they will not miss? WE HAVE TWO!

To be fair, I will not give this book a rating, as I did not finish it. But you would be correct if you had suspicions that I did not enjoy this book in the slightest.

Traipsing back from the hinterlands...

I feel I may have already used that Waugh reference on another post and if so, I apologise. Full marks and a box of reindeer shortbread to the person who finds the post. It does, however, fit rather well with what I want to write.

I have been remarkably remiss at updating recently. Earhart's excuse is that she is reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men fame) and is sinking slowly into that quicksand-filled quagmire of reading a book slowly out of dislike yet being unable to put it down because it is nonetheless strangely compelling. Thus, she may not surface for awhile. I have no such excuse, merely that once I stop blogging for a few days it turns into a mountain to surpass when I attempt to begin again.

Today was my last day of work for the year (thank every denominational being ever to be suspected of existing) and I now have three weeks to do naught. I am off to Bath tomorrow, which is my happy place. You know that clichéd therapy technique where they tell you to imagine your happy place with palm trees and Adonis under a waterfall etcetera? My happy place ACTUALLY exists and I go there ALL THE TIME. (Smug, self-satisfied smirk).

A week there and then off to Norway for the coldest Christmas of my life, although seeing friends makes that all worthwhile. Which is all an incredibly long-winded way of saying that I am going to post several entries tonight because I'm not sure when I shall next have the opportunity. I have quite a few things I've been meaning to blog about for awhile so hopefully I will get it all done.

First on the agenda- this article today from the Guardian. In a surprisingly upbeat tone for such a negative idea, Sam Jordison questioned what books would be on a list of the worst novels of the decade. Ian McEwan gets stabbed quite a bit both in the article and the comments. I agree with the criticisms of Saturday but what the hell was wrong with On Chesil Beach?

Vernon God Little gets much abuse in the comments to which I can only say CLEARLY the peanut gallery were posting on the website today. RIDICULOUS. That novel is a little slice of genius pie. An anomalous use of language does not make a book poorly written. What do you think Shakespeare was doing you philistines?

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.

Restless (William Boyd)

This was a very tolerable read. I know that sounds lukewarm but it's actually quite positive compared to the review I was composing in my head before I had even started William Boyd's Restless. This is because it came out at around the same time as Paul Auster's The Brooklyn Follies. I detested The Brooklyn Follies and because Boyd's novel had the unfortunate luck to come out in the same month they are now intrinsically linked in my mind.*

Nonetheless, I was moved to pick it up the other day from a box of books advertised for 50p in Clapham. I came away feeling most pleased with myself, having grabbed Helen Garner's The Spare Room, John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces and something else I have now forgotten the name of. The universe, it seems, was telling me to read Restless.

As I've already said, not a bad read at all. Instead of the cosmopolitan mid-life crisis I was expecting I was pleasantly to find that it was actually a WW2 espionage 'thriller'. I say 'thriller' because the action/adventure part was a bit geriatric. The most exciting thing that happens is a Mexican policeman gets stabbed in the eye with a pencil.

As a relatively anxious person I don't look normally head for the thriller section of a bookshop. If I'm going to be scared I want it to be supernatural so I know there's absolutely no chance whatsoever it could actually happen to me. So I'm not complaining that this didn't have me cowering in terror from the shadows in my loft. I'm just being pedantic and saying that Time Out's comment that it is "heart-stoppingly exciting" would indicate that the reviewer didn't actually read the book.

I particularly liked the way the novel was structured- in ambience as well as tense. The story switches between a young woman who is recruited by the British Secret Service at the beginning of WW2 and her daughter, decades later, whom she enlists to help settle old ghosts. Eva Delectorskaya as an old woman fearing her past demons adds a surreal menace to the text. As the reader I had trouble believing that anyone would actually go after a grandmother who spends all of her time gardening. It is her rising paranoia rather than any actual events which propel the drama along.

Boyd's main problem seems to be his inability to adopt the female mindset and write, realistically, from the point of view of women. Ruth (the daughter) is strong and independent but comes across as cold, which I don't feel is at all deliberate on Boyd's part. Eva as the young, beautiful spy is a mere caricature, sort of like a particularly intelligent Bond girl. Had Boyd managed to inflate these characters into a three-dimensional state the novel could have been quite a bit better. As it stands, it is merely a non-trashy historical fiction novel with some mildly exciting action halfway through.

Rating: 7/10.

* I THINK. I could be wrong and they came out at completely different times. Maybe their covers are the same colour.

Then We Came to the End (Joshua Ferris)

This book is EVERYWHERE. You can't walk into a second-hand bookshop without the offensive neon yellow of the cover jumping out at you. When I first saw Then We Came to the End on Charing Cross Road my reaction was to shy away immediately. The font on the spine looks like a Christopher Brookmyre novel and heavens to Betsy that man hurts my brain. Upon discovering that this was NOT in fact a Brookmyre novel my curiosity was piqued and I picked it up. It then took me a long time to open the covers and have a read. I was worried. One book in that many swap shops is a warning. People do not want this book in the house. It's like when I had to read The Gathering by Isobelle Carmody for English class. The book disturbed me so much I felt compelled to give it away after the exam. Creepy, doomsday teenage fiction set in an ABATTOIR... I did not want it on my bookshelf, giving me goosebumps every time I caught sight of it.

I therefore assumed Ferris' novel to be similar. People do not routinely sell junky, mediocre fiction they purchased for a beach holiday. Those inane titles tend to sit on bookshelves for years, hidden behind The Kite Runner and A Fine Balance, saved for those times when an appendix has ruptured or heart has broken. People sell books that have inherently upset them in some way.

However, I don't know who would be upset by this book. Granted, I haven't finished it. Probably because it was so unbelievably boring that to finish it would have been a feat equal in perseverance to an amputee stumping their way up Everest. From what I have read, I can tell you this. It is about people who work for a publishing company. It details the minutiae of their working lives. I believe it to be narrated from a group perspective, thus giving a lovely, communist vibe to the whole thing. At one point a little girl is abducted and they all spend an afternoon making posters to advertise her disappearance.

That's where I stopped. If you would like to know if she turns up, I suggest you go to ANY second-hand bookshop in the English-speaking world and pick up a copy. It will probably be my copy.

Actually, you will probably be upset by it if you bought the novel based on the endorsement from The New York Times- "One of the ten best books of the year." Ohhh... a bad, bad year for literature then.

The writing is actually very, very good. Ferris has an unusual style to his sentence structure and he has a firm grasp on the tense which is unusual in these long-winded, philosophy of the mundane novels. I think this could have been brilliant if it had the slightest bit of passion, but the whole thing comes across as a bit soulless.

Which may in fact, be the point- highlighting the pedestrian nature of our working experiences. In which case, well done Ferris. You have achieved your goal and subsequently, have written a novel no one can read.

Rating: 4/10.

The Slap (Christos Tsiolkas)

Absolutely wonderful news about good ol' Christos winning the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for The Slap. Even more exciting that it has now been optioned for television. I'm absolutely delirious for Tsiolkas, on an artistically-fulfilling front as well as a monetary one.

It's just seems such a damn shame the book was so reprehensibly awful.

The Slap is set in Melbourne and follows a group of middle class suburbanites as they deal with the fallout after one of them slaps a child who is not his own at a barbecue. What follows is a crude storyline (in content and style), where the generally sensationalised characters are cobbled together in all their selfish and seedy glory to form a stilted plot. I almost wrote a 'plot that limps along', but this indicates a certain underdog aspect of the characters or story, thus rendering this initial thought of mine incorrect. Rather than limping, the novel careers along hopelessly like a drunken, blind neanderthal on an obstacle course.

Other thoughts: I do not like book covers where there is a child crying on the cover (who has, I assume, just been physically hurt); I do not like sexual descriptions where I feel the need to wipe MY EYES out with disinfectant after having read them; and parvenus who adopt a manner of superiority through the employment of too much glitter and Lycra are probably the most annoying people on the planet.

This novel marks the expiration of my tolerance for these novels of modern fiction hailed as glorious when they are, at best, the least awful of a bad bunch and at worst, better never to have been written in the first place. This does not, of course, cover all modern fiction. That is a ridiculous notion. But I am feeling disillusioned and thus am exaggerating accordingly. It worries me sometimes, that humankind has penned every original thought and must now rehash other people's brilliance (and idiocy) for all eternity.

Honestly, it keeps me awake at night.

Thus I made a monumentous decision last night (I have not cleared this with Earhart but anticipate it will not cause her much grief. Also, I am aware monumentous is not actually a word, but I believe it should be). I want to scrap the Monthly Classic, as I would rather turn to these for my main reading material now. It DEPRESSES me, going into the library, standing in front of the classics section and allowing myself a single, miserable title. Think of the riches I shall feel endowed with, now being able to stand there and pile my arms high with Bulgakov, Camus and the like.

I shall, of course, then pop over to the romantic lit section and grab a couple of pastel coloured delicacies. I like to think of them as the literary equivalent of the macaroon.

Oh, and I am still to post on Lord Lucan (William Coles' latest) and must delve at some point into Kate Grenville's The Lieutenant.

Basically, I will still be posting on a wide range of genres, but will allow myself (ourselves) more than one measly classic a month.

Rating: 3/10.

May Classic: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Ahhh...so I completely forgot I was doing the may classic, not Alcott, which is why this one is so late. Oops. Which means my review comes without a re-reading of this classic - was planning to have a bit of a refresher read before my June classic review. No matter - I studied this one at school so god knows I had to read it over and over and over and over and over...

Which is really too bad for me because I hate this book. I rarely say that about books - even while disliking just about every character in Wuthering Heights I was able to appreciate it as a great piece of literature - I can see where people are coming from with that. Tess of the D'Urbervilles not so much. Seriously, Thomas Hardy: What was your problem? Do you hate happiness that much? Would it have killed you to give Tess a skerrick of joy in her miserable depressing life?

Tess Durbeyfield is a poor girl sent to rich relations to get cash, the rich son takes a liking to her and so rapes her. She gives birth to a kid called 'Sorrow' who dies, she falls in love, on her wedding night tells her new husband of her past, he chucks her, her father dies and her family is facing life on the streets so she becomes rich-son-who-raped-her's mistress. Husband comes back feeling bad, she tells him its too late, then angry at life, stabs rich guy to death, kisses husband one last time before being hung. The End. 

Can you hand me that straight razor?

The thing is, not only is the book incredibly depressing, but it is a chore to read, each chapter drags on and on and on and on and on...AND its confusing too. Half of my year eleven English class didn't even realise that Alec had raped Tess. Suddenly this random baby turns up and you have to turn back a chapter and realise that when Alec 'gives her a flask' you're supposed to assume he give her something else as well. Wink wink. Except in my second hand old copy the text is still censored so Alec 'gives her his cloak'. Wink?

Maybe there is something I am not getting: my English teacher assured me that in 30 years time I will have grown to appreciate the wonder that is Tess. I think not. Feel free to disagree though...

3/10

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Paul Torday)

What better way to celebrate the corruption of the MPs in my adopted country than with a review of a book about a corrupt, delusional government wheeling and dealing? If you've been living under a rock (or in Yorkshire) you might not have heard about the corrupt expenses system many of the English public servants have been taking full advantage of. And when I say full advantage, I mean FULL ADVANTAGE. Details of the mangled expenses system were leaked by The Daily Telegraph, including bills for moat cleaning and porno films.

I was highly amused, although if I paid taxes I probably would have been outraged.

Torday's first novel describes a government gone slightly mad when the powers that be at 10 Downing Street command a scientist to work with a very powerful sheikh. His task is to help the sheikh develop salmon fishing in Yemen. The only problem is... Yemen is completely the wrong climate for salmon, hence why there are none there. Undaunted, 10 Downing Street ignore the scientific reasons as to why the industry cannot be developed, their eyes focused on the possibility of a positive story out of the Middle East.

What ensues is a marginally ridiculous solution masterminded by this poor, long-suffering scientist whose wife keeps threatening to leave him throughout the process. The story is told in a series of interview transcripts, letters, emails and diary entries. Whilst I would often use this as a selling tool ("It's so interesting! All those different formats!") I am actually not a fan of constructing a story this way. I feel it's catering to the lowest common denominator and, if you get down to the bare bones of it all, this multi-formatted style is normally executed much more fluidly by Marian Keyes. If Marian Keyes can do something better than you, DO SOMETHING ELSE.

I read this and wasn't overly impressed, despite all the hype. I found Fred (the scientist) to be uber-depressing in his downtrodden existence; and the disintegration of his marriage and budding relationship with another woman are PAINFULLY written. I'm cringing now, just thinking about those moments. The diary entries and emails all seem somewhat forced, as though real people aren't actually writing them.

However the book has several redeeming features. One, the title is superb. You may not think this matters that much, but it does. Two, SO many people come into the bookshop after a book for a non-reader. ARGH. You have come to the WRONG SHOP. However, this is one of the easiest books to sell to those desperate customers. "Government gone mad! Think Yes Minister! Fishing! Funny! Different formats! SO MANY different formats! Not really a book at all when you get down to it!"

Three, the satire that Torday uses in his depiction of Jay Vent (the British PM) and his cabinet is very, very funny. My favourite quote from the PM is here: "We're pretty much committed to going down a particular road in the Middle East... and it would be difficult to change that very much without people beginning to ask why we'd started down it in the first place."

And now I've just read the Speaker for the House of Commons has resigned, the first speaker in 300 years to do so. I feel it's only a matter of time until more than just the highly ridiculous is uncovered. Black glitter toilet seat and chocolate Santa aside, I reckon there are some ludicrous salmon fishing-esque skeletons in the British parliamentary closet rattling to come out.

Rating: 6/10.

Cocaine Nights (JG Ballard)

I find it excitingly creepy that neither Earhart nor I normally read crime, yet in the last few days we have both picked up crime novels... and both of them are about cocaine!! Unfortunately, my pick didn't feature a diamante garter... probably because most of the female characters appear to be without clothes for a large portion of the novel (Europeans... tsk). 

I was a bit disappointed with this read. Partly because everyone was calling it 'dazzlingly original' and I didn't think it was. The plot was incredibly crafted and the characters were well-constructed in terms of realism and depth... but the actual writing style didn't resonate I'm afraid. It was Greene with a shot of Hemingway (so... definitely GOOD, I'll give it that). Dazzlingly original is DBC Pierre. Show me that level of originality and I'll be impressed. 

Cocaine Nights is about a journalist (Charles Prentice) who flies to a wealthy Spanish resort town when his brother is convicted of the murder of five people. Frank Prentice runs a local club and is well-known throughout the town... so well-known that absolutely nobody believes he committed the murders- the police included. However, a guilty plea is pretty hard to ignore, so everyone seems pretty set on just letting Frank take the rap. Charles, firmly believing in his brother's innocence, sets about uncovering the many secrets of the resort.

In all honesty, this had a gripping plot line and a classy, elegant feel to it (ummm.. despite the gratuitous sex, drug use and violence) for crime. Ballard is obviously gifted and I applaud the fact he got me to finish a novel in this genre. But I had high expectations for a mind-blowing read and these didn't eventuate.

Perhaps it is because I was prejudiced against the book from one of the earliest chapters... when one of the characters chucks his remaining tapas at a bunch of homeless cats for them to eat. I cannot explain the outrage I felt when I read that alley cats were eating (fictional) tapas and I was not. (I may have been hungry at the time of reading that part). 

Rating: 8/10. 

Paolo Coelho: I Don't Get It

I was wandering down Oxford Street today and I passed by Borders. Wondering what the big bad chain was up to these days I popped in for a stickybeak.

Apparently still catering to the lowest common denominator.

The shelves which house the staff picks were astoundingly mediocre: Lisa Jewell... Maeve Binchy... Jeffrey Archer. There was of course the compulsory Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (there's always at least one staff member who dreams of an orgy of drugs and alcohol whilst driving across America in a convertible.)

However, what distressed me more than the staff picks was the large bay of shelves dedicated to Paolo Coelho's novels. In case you're not sure who that is, he wrote The Alchemist which was a memorable fable told in a beautiful way. It's often a good pick if you need an extra text for English during the HSC.

However, as beautiful as the story is, the writing is very simple. This works for the mystical fable and thoughtful message of The Alchemist, but doesn't translate well for the rest of his writing. The novels are so simply written that they are BORING. It's like listening to a three year old struggling to articulate a thought. You know where they're going but you don't want to jump in and finish the sentence for them because that would be mean and unproductive towards their mental health, so you let them struggle on whilst internally you're screaming in frustration. Then, when said three year old finally makes his point, he repeats it 18 times to make sure you get it.

That's what reading Coelho is like. Brida in particular (his latest) is painful. The New York Times commented that: "Coelho is a novelist who writes in a universal language."

Yah- the language of MEH.

Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout)

AMERICA.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

I have just finished Olive Kitteridge, the novel which just won the Pulitzer. It is amazingly meh. Don't get me wrong, it's very well written. The character of Olive is nicely developed. She has enormous flaws and a grating voice that seems to jump off the page and gnaw at your eardrums yet the reader still feels a great liking and empathy for her.

But ye gods, where is the originality? Where is the x-factor? Where (at the risk of sounding like Billy Flynn) is the pizazz?

I also take issue with the plot, or lack thereof. NOTHING HAPPENS. Everything is alluded to, but no events really ever actually take place. As soon as something interesting is about to happen Strout skips ahead and has her characters looking back at the interesting event. Of course, said interesting event will have been traumatic so the characters don't allow themselves to remember it properly and instead we just get fragments that slip through their emotional defenses. I was sitting there mentally screaming at the book: "Have a meltdown. CRACK. PPLLLEEAASSEE. Emotionally purge yourself. Scream at a person passing by in the street. ANYTHING. I just need to know what's happening!"

There are so many characters as well that I got confused. I would read it again for clarification, but I can't be bothered. I think there may have been two Kevins. Either that or poor old Kevin had one hell of a time.

However, I am about a quarter of the way through The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich, which was one of the runners-up and it is MARVELLOUS. So a favourable review should follow shortly, unless Erdrich drops the ball halfway through.

Rating: 7/10.

PUHLEASE-itzer 2009

Tomorrow, at 3pm EST, the Pulitzer will be announced and we are both very, very excited.

That... is a lie.

The Pulitzer is always a bit hit and miss. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was... NOT wow (I am HILARIOUS)... March was no more than glorified fan-fiction... I have tried to read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay so many times it is now my Everest... The Hours was soporific.

Which doesn't mean the judges cannot recognise brilliance. American Pastoral was superb, The Road was phenomenal and To Kill a Mockingbird... enough said.

The Pulitzer is a different award to most in that it does not announce a shortlist- on the day we are just presented with the winner and a runner-up. A very intelligent man (who obviously needs more to do) built a model last year predicting the 10 books most likely to win the Pulitzer. Considering he had both the winner and the runner-up on the list, that's pretty nifty regression analysis in my opinion. (Ahem, I have no idea what that means, I lifted it from the article.) If you want to read the rest of the article, including the list of books he predicts for 2009, click here.

I've only read four on the list: A Mercy by Toni Morrison, Indignation by Philip Roth, Netherland by Joseph O'Neil, and Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. I didn't like the last, so I'm not pushing for that and on the others I'm undecided, but I reckon Netherland is in with a pretty good chance, at either winner or runner-up. (If only because it's about cricket.)

Undoubtedly it will go to one I haven't read... sigh. Starving children in Africa have NOTHING on me and my troubles.

Most punters seem to be backing Morrison's prequel to her Pulitzer-winning Beloved, but we'll all know tomorrow. Any further predictions are welcome, but they don't count after 3pm EST.

The Understudy (David Nicholls)

"Funniest book of the year" MY ASS Marie Claire.

I know, I know, I shouldn't take book recommendations from a women's magazine but honestly, I thought that comment at least indicated this would be a diverting, light-hearted read.

The Understudy was the singularly most depressing novel I have read in my entire life. Admittedly, this may be a slight exaggeration. But this was not good depressing. Good depressing is a novel you can seriously wallow in. It reduces you to frantic tears and staring at yourself in the mirror, tugging your hair and imagining yourself playing the part of the heroine in the film. This was cringy, pathetic, snivelling and pseudo-realistic depressing... not enjoyable AT ALL.

Stephen C. McQueen (no relation) is a struggling actor. His ex-wife and young daughter think he's a loser, his agent can't remember his name and he is currently playing the part of "Ghostly Figure" in a West End hit, which requires he be on stage for fifteen seconds of the entire production. David Nicholls is good with the one-liners, but they're relentless and a pathetic band aid for the failure that Stephen's life is.

The problem with the humour is that nothing funny actually happens in the novel, just amusing descriptions of seriously depressing events. Thus, although you want to throw yourself off a bridge after reading this, you will be compelled to do it in an ironic fashion, with a jaunty parting line to the mocking crowd. Unfortunately, there will be a protruding ledge which will hamper your death fall and instead leave you crippled for life. The wheelchair you will be compelled to use will be bought for you by your best friend with the inappropriate sense of humour and thus will be equipped with flashing multi-coloured lights, a siren and streamers on the handles. As a get-well present, someone will buy you this book to cheer you up and start the whole tragic cycle all over again.

Rating: 3/10.

The 19th Wife (David Ebershoff)

There are three Richards in my life.

One is my father.

The second I shall remain semi-coy about for privacy's sake.

AND THE LAST IS ONE HALF OF THE WORST MARRIED COUPLE POSING AS LITERARY CRITICS IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE.

If there is ever a book with a "Richard and Judy bestseller" sticker emblazoned proudly on the front cover, do not read this. Put it down and walk carefully away.

This is what I should have done with The 19th Wife. My fascination with polygamists is in the same vein as my fascination with the Amish. Sort of. I don't want to be a polygamist but I suspect I would like to try being Amish. For a very short while. Maybe I just really like the show Big Love and that's where my FLDS interest stems from. Regardless, I feel that if I were either I would be a far more interesting dinner party guest than the usual line-up of atheists, agnostics and humanists.

ONWARDS.

Thus I ignored Dick and Judy on the front cover and paid actual money for this novel by David Ebershoff. It switches back and forth between the story of Ann Eliza Young who was the 19th wife of Brigham Young (if you don't know who that is you're clearly lacking some serious grounding in FLDS history) and BeckyLyn Scott, a modern-day 19th wife who is on trial for murdering her husband.

I have two main issues with this novel. In the historical segments set in the 19th century we never get a clear narrative because the author is insistent on including excerpts from diaries, newspaper articles, the encyclopaedia... it goes on. I understand mixing up the format a bit, but these chapters feel like you're reading the bibliography the author used to research the novel. BORING.

In the modern segments, BeckyLyn's arrest and trial are narrated by her son, Jordan Scott, who was thrown out of the community when he was fourteen, a common fate as it means there are more wives for the old guys. He is now in his early twenties, gay and severely disillusioned with the religion in which he was raised. Jordan speaks with the most annoying 'modern' voice I can think of. It is so obscenely forced it is very hard to take him seriously.

All authors (including you, Geraldine Brooks) please take note. If you want to learn how to write in a 'modern' voice (I understand this is hard as a lot of you spend most of your time creating historical prose), read Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace. These short interviews/stories are insane in their brilliance, searingly honest yet totally original. It feels like you're meeting one Caulfield after the next, each more disarming than the last.

It's short, so you won't have to leave your typewriters for long.

If you have a bit of an interest in Utah polygamists you could, I suppose, give this book a gander. But there has to be a better novel about them out there and when I find it I will get back to you.

Rating: 5/10.

Disgrace (J.M. Coetzee)

Much as I would love to join the almost universal, prodigious admiration that surrounds J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, I find my feet dragging somewhat.

This concerns me. Structurally, linguistically, the novel is beyond reproach. It tells the story of David Lurie, a professor of communications at a university in Cape Town. He is forced to resign when an affair with one of his (very) young students becomes public. He leaves Cape Town and finds refuge on his daughter's farm in Grahamstown. Set in a post-Apartheid South Africa, Coetzee uses this as a backdrop for Lurie's growing awareness of his own character as a terrible event befalls the family.

Here is where we start with the problems. We know he's really into women, that he's in his 40's yet still bedding 20 year olds. But when David starts to lust after a young teenager I lost all feelings of empathy for him. In fact, I felt I couldn't have any confidence in him anymore. Admittedly, he's a character in a book, not someone I'm walking down the aisle towards, but still. You know you have serious trust issues with a character when you wonder if he's hitting on Lucy.
Who is a lesbian.
Oh, and his daughter.

The characters lack definition, humanity. After tragedy strikes and they are attempting to deal with the aftermath, soft spots begin to show, hidden traumas appear not as easily dismissed. Yet nothing resonates, it still feels cold. The characters felt like they were all cemented in place, with no room for growth or change.

The idea of animals as the canvases on which a person's humanity becomes imprinted is continuous throughout the novel. I understood this, I got the connection. I certainly didn't need to be slapped around the head with the symbolism when David graphically imagines castrating himself. I did feel a swelling of emotion when Lurie describes how the men at the incinerator beat the bodies of dead dogs to break their bones so they fit properly in the furnace. Although, again, definitely something I could have lived without.

At the novel's denouement David is composing an opera, based on Lord Byron's life. Coetzee takes pains to draw the lines of parallel between Lord Byron, his Theresa and what has occured in David's own life, but this doesn't solve of the problem of where David, a communications professor, suddenly felt he had the gumption and talent to write an opera. This seems a ridiculous, overly-romantic end to what is a very bleak novel.

Boyd Tonkin of The Independent states that Disgrace is "...perhaps the best novel to carry off the Booker in a decade." I have feelings of self-doubt, anxiety. Clearly, I'm an ill-educated moron who doesn't understand the subtle nuances of Coetzee's writing. But then I remember The Remains of the Day, The English Patient and The God of Small Things.
Yeah, whatever, BOYD.

At just 220 pages in length, I doubt there are many novelists who could pack so much intensity and detail into what is a very short novel. I understand that I am speaking from the point of view of someone who has never lived in South Africa, never experienced Apartheid and its after-effects. I completely agree that Coetzee is a masterful creator of prose.

None of this means I had to like it.

Rating: 7/10.

Of Cheese and E. Bronte

First off let's get the preliminaries out of the way, this is an Emily Bronte-free zone. Or, to be more exact, this is a Heathcliff-free zone. Cathy we take issue with as well, but we hold a much larger chunter with Mr. H.

It is almost, almost the same issue I have with those ridiculous people out there in the virtual world who find Severus Snape compelling/sexy/misunderstood, (Les Francais, bien sur.) Except that Snape redeems himself somewhat, (ack, hope I'm not ruining some tortoise's Harry Potter experience here. Really though, slow and steady will only leave you disappointed), and Heathcliff NEVER DOES. He is the most hideous, selfish reprobate, without any of the gorgeous maverick connotations that often come with the latter term.

I think perhaps some of my hatred of Heathcliff (and Cathy) is an extension of my dislike of the layout of the novel. Wuthering Heights is no structural masterpiece. Cathy's early death means that the reader never actually gets a chance to emotionally invest in her relationship with Heathcliff. (And Emily, Heathcliff talking to her ghost and planning to exhume her do not count as relationship progression.)

Of course, we then come to Bronte's complete inability to think of names for her characters. Seriously, she came up with 'Heathcliff' and then had a complete and utter mental block and had to use the same names of the original characters in part 1 for all the other characters in part 2. I know the importance of lineage and family in the story, but when I can't work out if one of the Lintons is courting his sister or his cousin or his niece it's VERY disconcerting.

Hailed as one of the best love stories of the period and in fact IN THE WHOLE HISTORY OF LITERATURE if you listen to certain misguided fools, I put forward another argument. This is melodramatic drivel. Twilight and Romeo and Juliet at least attempt to toe the line of decency, although they do overstep it on occasion. The line is not even VISIBLE to Wuthering Heights.

If you're going to do cheese, do it well. Make a minimum of one of the characters in the relationship likeable, relatable or at least believable. Make the sexual tension appealing rather than abhorrent. I do not want to read about greasy-haired leers from the corner or fever-soaked hallucinations that lead to death rather than a romp in the bedroom.

The best part of this novel is at the beginning, with two very choice quotes from Mr Lockwood's narration.. the first being when "Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm"... hah. The second is when he asks Mrs Heathcliff if her favourite animals are what he assumes to be a pile of sleeping cats on a cushion. "Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits."

Seriously, stop there. That's all you need to read. The rest is just AWFUL.

Rating: 4/10

Newbery not Newbury

For those not in the know: Neil Gaiman = Love.

And the good people who are in charge of awarding the Newbery Medal obviously agree seeing as The Graveyard Book was just announced as the 2009 winner. Can I get a hells yeah? This news made me breathe a sign of relief...perhaps not all is lost in the world of children's book awards. To elaborate...

For the past couple of years there has been a worrying trend in the winners of children's book awards such as the Newbery Medal, and the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Awards. The books being named as winners are often not books which are suitable (or enjoyable!) for children to read. Take last year's winner of the CBCA Picture Book of the Year award: Requiem for a Beast by Matt Ottley. While this book is indeed stunning to look at, and visually powerful, it was described by the CBCA judges themselves as 'neither a comfortable nor a happy read'. Now I am the last person who would ever say that picture books are just for children, there are numerous picture books, Ottley's included, which you have to be an older reader to understand. However, I feel that an award put out by the CBCA should honour books which are in fact suitable for children. Similarly, last year's winner of the Newbery Medal, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schiltz, has been described as 'a book most children would find inaccessible'.

Basically, who cares if kids are scared/confused/bewildered... the important thing is the book 'has a message'.

Ridiculous.

So...The Graveyard Book...

When he was just a baby, Nobody 'Bod' Owens managed to escape from the (sociopathic) killer who murdered the rest of his family. He wanders into the nearby graveyard where the local ghosts decide to take him in. He is raised halfway between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and educated by a nomadic vampire. This is Gaiman's answer to Kipling's The Jungle Book. Instead of Baloo the Bear, we have Silas the Undead. Told in a similar episodic manner to The Jungle Book, we get to see Bod slowly grow up, and come to the realisation that perhaps he isn't the most normal of children.

You have only to read Gaiman's profanity laden reaction to the news that he won the Newbery to realise that perhaps he isn't what most people would think of when they picture a children's book author, but his books are always right on target.

So go out and read it now, I promise you won't regret it.

8/10.

Costa Book Awards 2009

Let's just do a quick review of what the Costa Book Awards are, shall we? Named by wikipedia as one of the U.K.'s most prestigious literary prizes, they were originally called the Whitbread Book Awards. Most people may not know that Costa is actually a subsidiary of Whitbread, so essentially sponsorship has stayed within the company. So basically, they were sponsored by a hospitality giant and now are sponsored by a coffee chain. They often award the prize for best novel on populist terms, weighing the quality of the literature against the appeal it has to the masses. I like to think of them as the book award that caters (hah) to the lowest common denominator.

That being said, we shouldn't begin to judge the winner until we have actually opened the covers and had a bit of a read.

Just like we shouldn't assume greatness with the Man Booker or Pulitzer awards. I mean, what happened in 2006? The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai beat out several promising contenders, none more so than The Secret River by Kate Grenville. The latter had all the fixings of a modern-day masterpiece and Grenville's predigree to back it up. Instead, the award went to Desai, who wrote a well-written, nicely thought-out story.

Period.

No X-factor = no award in my mind, but I'm not on the judging panel.

Don't even get me started on the PUH-LEASEitzer. I'm not suggesting Geraldine Brooks isn't a wonderful author. However I've only ever seen this wonderful authorship in one novel: The Year of Wonders. It's always a bad sign I feel when everyone considers your first novel your best. Better to stop right there and be a one-hit wonder than slowly peter towards the pedestrian. March, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer (maybe it was something about that year) was nothing more than glorified fan fiction. And People of the Book was interesting in the historical sections, but ruined by the interspersing of the most annoying 'modern' woman Brooks could conjure to tie the story together.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry has just been announced the winner of this year's Costa Book Awards. It was actually nominated for the Man Booker last year, which is why I realised it sounded so familiar, yet was also sure I hadn't read it. I'm not sure the actual award is a consolation prize for missing out on the Booker, (COFFEE award people, it's a COFFEE AWARD), but I'm sure the 25 000 pounds will help.