Sexing the Cherry (Jeanette Winterson)

Oh I really don't know Jeanette. This was just a tad too over the top for me.

Hark? What's this you say? You LOVE magical realism Alcott. You adore it. How will you NOT be citing this novel as a sublime source of inspiration when you finally have an oeuvre to call your own?

I didn't read it in one swift gulp. Perhaps that is why I wasn't completely enamoured with this trip of a novel. It's hard to read something called Sexing the Cherry when you work with children. I had to hide it between the covers of a Where's Waldo. The unanimous verdict is that I SUCK at Where's Waldo.

This is a highly theatrical novel. The characters of Jordan and The Dog Woman are not quite sculpted enough to be real, which adds to the ethereal nature of their journey. I say ethereal, but that doesn't sound quite right. That word is so beautiful, filled with light and music. These characters are dark and putrid and flea-ridden and grotesque. They are without softness, which makes their struggle towards gentleness that much stranger. Essentially, this is the story of a mother and son moving towards a discovery of themselves, with some hilariously bizarre humour, disgusting anecdotes and a fairytale thrown in for good measure.

Something about this novel made me think of Russell Brand. I can imagine him on stage, flinging out lines of prose from the story; scurrying to and fro imitating The Dog Woman's misconception of fellatio, Jordan's quest for Fortunata, the twelve dancing princesses slowly but surely annihilating their husbands. Brand, for all his curmudgeonly ways, has a likeability and empathy about him which would bring joy to the words. As they are now, Winterson's story reads as though it has no sympathy for human frailty. I feel like the book is waiting to swallow me whole if I am not strong enough to read it. To be scared of the book you are reading is entirely unsettling.

Alternatively, the other setting where I can see the prose from this novel fitting admirably is a group of players, waltzing down a street on market day in a parade, loudly declaiming the lines, entirely naked. The words they shout draw the crowds and then, one by one, the players pick off the weaklings and eat them. The bones they throw to a pack of salivating Shar-Peis.

Unsettling.

I THOUGHT I had a friend back in Australia who told me with glee she got most of her sex education from this book. I profess myself worried, although I suspect that maybe she said The Passion, also by Winterson.

I bloody hope so.

Rating: 7/10.

Hashish, Wine, Opium (Charles Baudelaire and Theophile Gautier)

Do we not all think that Theophile is quite an amusing name? And what a difference the end of a name does make:

Theodore: cute, teddy-bear like person, could be English, definitely wears a waistcoat.

Theophile: drives a white van, drinks vodka from a syringe, sweats a lot.

HIGHLY intellectual musings aside, I quite enjoyed this little homage to narcotics and alcohol written in the early 19th century. Baudelaire and Gautier both wrote extensively on their experiences with hash and opium in particular and both were members of the Club of Assassins. Detailed sketchily in the book (everything is a bit sketchy, most of it was written while they were stoned or drunk), the Club of Assassins was a little group of men who used to meet on Ile St Louis in Paris and get stoned together. They then used to go home and write or paint about the effects they had experienced.

I picked this up for the title and who wouldn't? I am well-versed in the effects of wine, but opium has never been offered up at any of the parties I've gone to (actually most of the time the most potent thing offered up is a vodka watermelon, and that's on a REALLY wild night) and I giggled to think of 19th century philosophers in knickerbockers smoking joints, thus I felt this was a necessary purchase.

The book was informative as well as amusing... I learnt that these dudes used to cook the hash with butter, pistachio nuts, almonds and honey to form a kind of jam "similar to apricot conserve". YUM. Sounds delish, I could even do without the hallucinogen to be honest. It's like... baklava jam! GENIUS.

I also learnt that the word 'assassin' is actually derived from the Arabic 'hasishin', which means to be under the influence of drugs. Assassins in Persia were fed drugs before they killed. Interesting non?

Last lesson I learnt from this book- If you work with children (sigh, as I do), do not leave this lying around your place of work. The only thing worse to leave around is Dead Babies.

Rating: 7/10.

Dead Babies (Martin Amis)

Quentin and Celia Villers are hosting a weekend party at their country home: Appleseed Rectory. As well as the bright young things gadding down from town, a group of Americans are expected and they have ensured there are enough drugs and alcohol to fuel the debauched few days.

The term 'dead babies' refers to those periods of ennui that the characters experience when they are without chemical stimulation and are forced to face reality. Fortunately for us, these periods are few and far between. The weekend takes a turn for the dramatic when, after a day of topless sunbathing and philosophical discussion, one of the guests overdoses. The situation is worsened with the plying of the young man with more narcotics in an attempt to revive him. This coupled with the anonymous, threatening letters everybody has been receiving all weekend from 'Johnny' darken the mood somewhat, although provide good acceleration towards the bloody, brutal and chilling end.

Compared to Money or London Fields it may not seem as intelligent or visceral a comment on society. But it's freaking hilarious and Amis' style is racier, more exciting than in his later work. The characterisation is particularly sublime although it is Keith Whitehead who is the most entertaining and richly described. I am not going to bother paraphrasing Amis' brilliant words; here is Keith's introduction for you to read for yourself:

"Whitehead is an almost preposterously unattractive young man- practically, for instance, a dwarf. Whenever people want to say something nice about his appearance they usually come up with 'You've got quite nice colouring', a reference to his dark eyebrows and thinning yellow hair. That granted, nothing remained to be praised about his unappetising person, the sparse straw mat atop a squashed and petulant mask of acne... The more clothes you took off him, the more traumatic the spectacle became... As he entered the Wimbledon municipal swimming pool two teenage girls spontaneously vomited into the shallow end."

The book was made into a film a few years ago. I will pass no judgement on the film but merely quote Paul Bettany who starred as Quentin: "It's an amazing novel... it's a less amazing film."

The poor PR team probably already had the job from hell promoting a film called Dead Babies and after that they would have curled up in the foetal position and sobbed.

This is not a book for people who are easily offended or who entertain politically correct notions. It's a bit of a liability, being so laugh-out-loud funny yet having the title Dead Babies. You will get some strange looks on the tube, but for a select few of you who can stomach the disgusting and hilarious cruelty of this novel, it will be worth it. Martin Amis is polarising... he is the Vegemite of authors.

Rating: 8/10.

The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)

If you have a spare fifteen minutes I would seriously recommend reading this short story. Written in 1892, it is the story of a woman suffering from depression (I suspect post-partum) who is taken to stay in a large country house with her husband for three months in order to recover. Husband John is a physician and his cure for his young wife is to keep her away from her child and any 'stimulating acquaintainces'. She spends most of the three months in a room at the top of the house, decorated with a psychedelic yellow wallpaper.

For the first few weeks the woman is able to talk about her confinement logically, although she has an irrational hatred of the wallpaper. Gradually she begins to see a woman in the patterns of the paper, a woman who is trying to get out. Husband John and the housekeeper Jennie become concerned at her fixation with the wallpaper. Suddenly, the woman is convinced that it is she who is the woman in the wallpaper. She ties herself up with rope and walks around the room in constant circles, carving a groove in the wall with her shoulder because she is pressed so tightly against it.

Husband John comes in and faints to see her like this.

THE END.

Teehee.

I know I've just told you the plot, but that's not the attraction of this story. The writing is fantastic: honest and whimsical prose give way to an unbelievably creepy denouement. The text seems to become faster, the pages turn a lot quicker at the end as the woman's mind speeds towards and then overtakes the line of sanity.

If you can get over the fact that Husband John is a patronising chauvanist and the woman, (even before she goes completely bonkers) is kind of whiney and immature, go sit in a room with bad wallpaper and shot this down like a Patagonian Black Bush.

Rating: 7/10.

The Castle of Otranto (Horace Walpole)

I've been perusing the brick 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Some of the titles seem bizarre to say the least. I mean, we're on this earth for a very short time. Surely one should steer clear of such books as Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (John Lyly)?

I noticed with some amusement that The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole made it onto the list. We studied this book in school and after reading the first chapter aloud my English Lit teacher was faced with a classroom of stony-faced students.

"We're studying this as a bad example of the gothic." she assured us.

Considering the good example was Wuthering Heights (and it is well-documented how we feel about that), I have been left with a relatively healthy disregard for the entire genre.

I doubt there is another book that begins as ridiculously as Otranto does: the villain Manfred's son is killed when a giant helmet falls from the sky and crushes him.

Honestly.

Then we of course have the token virgin, the lusty pursuer who clearly mutes his television during the advertisements ('No' means 'No' Manfred), a blood-red moon, baying wolves, water-logged dungeons and breathless chases at midnight. A smorgasbord of gratuitous ludicracy that should leave all lovers of the gothic satiated, if not stuffed.

Is it ridiculous?

Yes.

But, I suspect that, given half a chance, I would derive great pleasure from reading this again, sufficiently sloshed of course. I might even spill some red on the carpet and pretend the moon is bleeding, to REALLY get me in the mood.

Rating: 6/10.