Reviews: One big ol’ pile of ’em

13-01-1821-01-18 / Lisa Guidarini / 1 Comment

I’m tossing several reviews together, like a reading salad. This saves your inbox (or web visit) the agony of separate, multiple posts. It’s out of love. Don’t say I never do anything for you.

Resuming formal tracking of my reading has had the unfortunate side effect of inspiring me to read more. I KNOW. Awful. My determination to fill this journal is a 2018 goal.

Because it SMELLS LIKE VICTORY!

Here are the first few I’ve recorded:

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

Hardcover
Publisher: Raven Books; 1st edition (2017)
Purchased via Amazon.co.uk

Where did I hear about this book? I don’t know. In some UK publication, probably. In that case, why didn’t I just buy it there? Was it not out yet? Did I not have time to beg a freebie?

Does it matter? Why am I asking so many questions?

I love creepy gothic books as much as darkly psychological portraits of murderous psychopaths. Makes you wish you could spend a night in my spare bedroom, doesn’t it? Don’t be silly. You wouldn’t wake to find me looming over you.

BECAUSE YOU WOULDN’T WAKE.

I relish the dark and brooding. Heathcliff is my ideal romantic hero, which explains the irresistible attraction I have to a certain type of man. I pursue the troubled ones, the mentally unstable. I can save you, angry man with a violent past!

Alas. Sorry, no one can save you but yourself. Seven years of therapy taught me that. Come back once you’ve graduated from therapy, balanced with help of medication. But then, I may not like you as well, because you’d be normal and – GASP – possibly kind.

It’s not me, it’s you.

In literature as in life, the grim attracts me. A very dark stripe runs through my soul – or the empty space it should be, where no sound is heard save the sinister creaking of an empty rocking chair, the tell-tale beating of a disembodied heart. But then, a lot of people must be similarly afflicted, because books like this fly off the shelves. Which makes me normal. Which I resent.

I didn’t enjoy The Silent Companions at first. For at least the first quarter, it irritated me I’d paid across the pond shipping, and an inflated exchange rate, to get my grubbies on it. A haunted house, a woman who’s lost her mind, strange and shifting wooden figures that resemble people she’s known …

Yet, I just wasn’t feeling it.

Tossed to the side of my bed in a huff, I read a couple other books while it lay there, gathering dust. Then I decided dash it! I’ve paid for it, I’m going to give it a few more pages. And you know, I enjoyed it a lot more after letting it sit and stew. Still far from the best gothic I’ve read, it got one hell of a lot better.

The wooden figures – the “silent companions” of the title – are ghoulishly creepy. It’s their shifting around that does it. You know how in horror movies every time a main character works up the courage to jerk open a door, hearing a noise in the hallway, it’s guaranteed as soon as the door closes the monster/killer/icky thing will be RIGHT THERE? That, but in a surprising enough way it’s not as cliché as it could have been. Still a bit predictable, but done well enough.

The heroine develops more fully as a character through the last half of the book, enough that I’d stopped hoping for her swift death, just so the book would be over. It bothered me the plot seemed lifted from Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, done less gracefully. If I hadn’t just watched the Netflix exclusive series, I’d have been blissfully ignorant of the similarity. Purcell is no Margaret Atwood.

If you aren’t familiar with Atwood’s novel, at its center is a woman in a mental asylum. Charged with murder, her mental instability and a lack of firm evidence are enough to keep her locked up, the prospect of execution looming. In The Silent Companions, the main character is unable to speak. Interviewed on an ongoing basis by a man determined to get at the truth, she communicates her story in writing. In Alias Grace, Grace is able to speak, spinning tales like Scheherazade. Grace is completely unreliable as a narrator, the story much more suspenseful. And the ending?

HOLY HELL.

The Silent Companions isn’t the smoothest book. The dialogue tends toward the stilted. The attempted replication of a 19th century writing style comes off cheesily fake. As a lover of Victorian literature, I’m far less inclined to forgive missteps as huge as this.

It was, as you see often in reviews, “readable.” I finished it; that says a lot.

The ending irritated me. Again, picking it up so soon after my experience with the phenomenal TV adaptation of Alias Grace, it did not fare well. The power of Atwood’s novel, compared with the slow fizzle of The Silent Companions, did it no favors. I wonder if Purcell’s read Margaret Atwood’s book, if the similarities were intentional. If so, my opinion drops further.

I don’t hesitate throwing books aside. It’s ridiculous feeling you owe a writer anything. They owe you, the reader. It’s their job. They’ve produced a product, and you’ve paid for an anticipated experience. The writer needs to deliver as promised.

Not a ringing endorsement, I realize. But if you’re into gothics and aren’t looking for something either too heavy or terrifying, this may be it. And if you haven’t read Alias Grace, and aren’t an afficiando of Victorian literature.

Sorry, this just went even further South. The more I wrote, the less impressed I became. Go figure.

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Catapult (October 3, 2017)

Holy lyrical and technical perfection. No wonder many lovers of hard-core literary fiction felt this short-listed novel should have won the Man Booker. I own a copy of the winner – Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders – but have yet to give it a proper read (as opposed to skimming pieces). Which deserved the win, I don’t know. All I do know, this one’s a beauty.

The trouble so many readers express is nothing much happens. It’s about perfection of writing, not a story that progresses in the traditional sense. A young girl in a remote English village goes missing. For years, residents search for her. Clues are tossed in occasionally, but they’re so few and far between the trail goes cold.

In place of a suspenseful plot, there are stories about everyday people, human experiences and the drama of everyday life in the space of time a tragedy becomes a distant memory. The parents of the girl are silhouettes on the edge. Hard details about the investigation aren’t well-defined.

If you’re looking for another Gone Girl, this isn’t your book. It’s a novel to be read slowly and savored, appreciated for the beauty of writing executed with perfection. It’s the kind of book you can pick up and put down without loss of continuity. I read it at a snail’s pace.

Every word is a treasure.

Miss Jane by Brad Watson

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (July 11, 2017)

Another beauty, this one with a plot not fast-paced but progressive. And the lyricism, just breathtaking.

Drawn from the story of his great-aunt, native Mississippian Brad Watsons’s Miss Jane is about a woman born malformed, neither her female parts, digestive nor urinary systems intact or functioning normally. She could control neither her bowels nor bladder, her life made painfully difficult.

Participating in normal society required pre-planning, and the constant worry she’d have accidents. From childhood, she was ostracized. Always on the outside looking in, her yearning to be normal, to go to school and live the carefree life of a child was heartbreaking. Forced to wear a diaper, she starved herself to avoid humiliating accidents. She wasn’t always successful.

Eventually dropping out of school, she’d learned enough rudimentary basics to allow her to read and perform basic math functions. As she got older, the dawning realization she could never have a romantic relationship in the traditional sense was a slap in the face. A strong woman, she not only endured but made a satisfyingly full life for herself, not that she never regretted what she couldn’t have. It would have been abnormal not to.

Start to finish a beautiful book, it does have lagging moments. I’m not sure I’d edit them out, though. That’s the thing. I had to pull my way along for brief periods, but overall, very worth it.

Miss Jane has literary prize written all over it.

It’s All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree

by AJ Jacobs

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (November 7, 2017)
Courtesy of AJ Jacobs, because friend.

I’ve put off talking about this book because I knew it would be both very personal and time-consuming. I wanted to go into the whole back story of how I’d gotten involved in AJ’s project from the beginning, our personal friendship, and the ways I’d supported him throughout.

Flying out to Manhattan for the Global Family Reunion – the event that is the crux of this book – right around the time my divorce was finalized, it was a defining experience. I hoped to throw in pictures, too, because I went to NY and it was cathartic.

Oh, what the hell. Here are some of the pictures.

9/11 Museum at Ground Zero, Manhattan – a child stares in wonder.

I’ve known AJ at least a decade. His book The Know-it-All, about his experiences reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica, helped bring me out of a deep depression following the loss of a soul-mated friend. Written in short bursts of his thoughts on specific entries, it was both funny and interesting enough to suit my all but non-existent attention span. Losing a friend similarly passionate in his devotion to books, I’d lost the will to and interest in reading. AJ brought me back.

I wrote a deeply personal review of The Know-it-All, which AJ had seen. Meaning to find and get into contact with me, he just never did. Years later, I wrote asking him for an interview following publication of another book. He knew me immediately, telling me then how much my review had moved him.

By the time he started his world genealogy project, we were friends who communicated regularly. An editor of Esquire magazine, a very big deal, he’s still a reference on my resume. I have his personal cell number. AJ is good people.

He described his vision: what if the world traced its roots and realized we’re all cousins. I was hooked. I joined Geni.com, the site virtually hosting the project. Genealogy began to consume me. The problem: once you start, it’s hard thinking about anything else.

My then-husband was furiously jealous of the amount of time it took up in my life, manifesting in hostility toward anything I tried sharing. The rift already there after decades of a terrible marriage, we’d be divorced by the time I attended the Global Family Reunion.

No, I don’t blame that on genealogy.

One World Trade Center.

Long story short, I followed AJ through what turned out to be a tortuously difficult project to get together this real-world family reunion, held in the summer of 2015. Though his friendliness never faltered, I could see the toll it took. He was still AJ, still kind and caring, frantically busy, but never so much he didn’t return my emails. This one nearly got away from him.

The book itself went months overdue. Intending to finish sometime around March of 2016, publication didn’t happen until November 2017.

The resulting book shows the strain. He doesn’t shy away from admitting he’d gotten in over his head, that pulling together a virtual campaign getting people to join Geni and dig into their roots enough to connect with him, plan an actual event with celebrities and publicity and all that goes with it, and gear up to write this book came dangerously close to breaking him. Normally a jovial writer with a sharp edge of self-denigrating sarcasm, the style of It’s All Relative comes off almost depressing.

This book doesn’t sound like AJ to me.

Ultimately, he drew together thousands who traced their ancestry far enough they realized he was right: we are all interconnected. Real life friendships were formed between total strangers of different races and ethnic origins, small celebrations were held around the world. People who couldn’t make the official reunion held their own.

Though it rained torrentially the day of the actual, mostly outdoor reunion, feet and chairs sinking into inches of mud, he pulled it off. Sister Sledge was there, singing “We Are Family”. I saw the celebrities backstage. That part was semi-amazing.

When I saw AJ that day, met him face to face, he was so distracted it didn’t register who I was. It didn’t help I was an unrecognizable drowned rat, caught in the deluge in Manhattan while tracking down a cab. By the time I caught up with him, the strain from all that had gone wrong had him so near distraught he shook my hand absently.

Leaving the event, I couldn’t find a taxi to take me the staggeringly expensive and long route back to Manhattan. In a shady area of Brooklyn, I wandered for hours. My feet were so sore from a poor choice in footwear – fashion over function – I walked the sidewalks barefoot, lost beyond hope. Returning to the venue, I tearfully asked for help. My phone dead more than an hour, the volunteers kindly ordered my taxi.

Times Square

Back at my hotel, I threw things around, irate I’d paid a tremendous amount of money flying out and staying in Manhattan just to have it turn into a virtual shit show. I tossed my backstage pass lanyard in the garbage. I couldn’t wait to leave New York City.

A few weeks later, once I’d cooled a bit but not completely, I fired off an email to AJ. It was a little ranty. And god, he was sorry. So sorry we set up a Skype call so he could talk to me, apologizing as face to face as technology allows.

Fences were mended.

I guess I did wind up writing a personal review about the book, after all. It was a life experience I won’t forget – not a completely great one, but all’s well that ends friendship intact.

So ends a quick summary of the first few books I’ve finished thus far in 2018. I’m close to finishing more. Hopefully I’ll have time to discuss those singly. We’ll see. Lots of other book-related thoughts, but time has been kicking my arse lately.

Either way, I’ll be back soon. Until then, happy January reading.

why i’ve made a podcast i won’t post: an anne tyler man booker screed

01-10-1501-10-15 / Lisa Guidarini / 5 Comments

Anne Tyler fan? You may want to look away.

Moriarty!

Just as an FYI, my beef is as much with the Man Booker judges as with Anne Tyler the writer. Sure, I dislike her books. Quiet tales about domestic American life have been done far, far better than in her own novels. And sure, she’s a sweet lady who’s managed to make a crap ton of money while thumbing her nose at the “authors must promote themselves” modern truth. She barely missed that train. By the time publishing companies began their slide into despair, she was already a Very Big Name in women’s fiction. She had no need for exhausting signings, granting interviews and answering the same questions over and over. She was grandfathered in, so to speak.

And I say women’s fiction because I cannot imagine many men would find her books of interest. There are no murders, no car chases, no sports (that I know of) and nothing which would require full-frontal nudity in a film adaptation. No testosterone, basically.

There’s a difference between these mid-range books written for a female audience and those written for males. No cries of sexism! It’s considered sexist to speak what’s obvious truth, a ridiculously politically correct notion. Is there some cross-over? Sure! Is it the norm? No! There is male writing and female writing, neither is better or worse than the other but the differences are mostly clear. But that’s a topic for another day; I can’t argue that now.

My podcast about Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread was ad hoc, unrehearsed and frankly made me come off like a crazy cat lady cornered in an alley. To Anne Tyler, it was unfair. I dismissed her with one brushing motion, letting my anger over the unfairness she made the Man Booker shortlist while Marilynne Robinson did not (though she’s a far, far superior artist, have I mentioned that?) get the better of my judgment. It’s not on her that she was chosen, not her decision to bump Robinson from the Shortlist.

@$*%&Q$*%

I self-censored myself, for better or worse. Perhaps I’ll come at it again, with a cooler head. Or maybe this post is enough. But I refuse to go back on my assertion Tyler’s works are not prize-quality writing. They are geared toward an audience eager to read fuzzy, warm and reassuring stories about generations of families, all their ups and downs and dramas. While it’s true every life tells a remarkable story, not every story is worthy of turning into a novel.

I find Anne Tyler mind-numbingly dull. She’s the sort of writer who tells every single action her characters make, whether it advances the plot or not – usually not. Here’s an example of my life, written by Anne Tyler:

She woke at 8:30 in the morning, sunlight streaming through her cheap, brown Walmart curtains bought because their color was neutral and, besides, she was getting divorced after 25 years and had no energy to think much beyond the fact she needed to find her own place to live. The curtains were those ring-top ones, or whatever you call them. The texture was nubby. Overall, the effect was somewhat masculine but dreadfully dull. However, the curtains were room-darkening, allowing her to sleep almost endlessly, should she so desire. Though, sleeping almost endlessly is not good for those with depressive personalities, which she had.

Reaching for her phone, a Samsung Galaxy 6 – way too expensive and not worth the money, leading her to question why on earth she did such a stupid thing – her arm brushed the white, Egyptian-cotton sheets she’d purchased from Amazon, back when she realized she would need them, along with the cheap, brown curtains previously mentioned. Kicking aside the down comforter from Ikea, covered with a miniature rose print by a duvet cover, also from Ikea, she turned on her phone, saw what time it was, rolled back over the white sheets and went back to sleep..

pseudo-Anne Tyler

FASCINATING ISN’T IT.

Sadly, I included nowhere near the detail Anne Tyler would have. I neglected to mention how my hair looked, what I was wearing, the fact I sleep with roughly three books, a notebook and two pens every night so I can reach for them directly every morning – or at night, if I’m fighting insomnia. I could have included so much more, as she would have.

I am angry, impotently angry, not a damn thing I can do about it but rant and rave. Makes no difference as far as the Man Bookers but it does help me feel better, by a small measure. Life isn’t fair and literary prizes are political. Shock horror. But then, if no one points a finger it all slides without notice, a much worse eventuality. Anyone who cares about literary fiction should fight for what’s right, not ignore injustices such as these. When it is so blatant, so brazen how could a serious reader not notice?

At this point, I need to do one of two, things: 1). Forget Anne Tyler, ignore her completely, swallow my indignation and move on, or 2). Read more of her work, in a vain attempt to ascertain what about her is so noteworthy.

She’s driving me mad. When a thing drives you mad it means you care enough to allow it to bother you. It has power, growing into a towering force that pokes you in the night, annoys and irritates. I can’t let the topic of Anne Tyler and the inordinate amount of praise she receives bother me anymore. It’s unhealthy, not to mention a waste of time.

To read or completely obliterate from notice. That is the question. I’ll sleep on it, along with my three books, notebook and pens. On my Egyptian cotton sheets.

man booker 2015: what a difference a few hours make

15-09-15 / Lisa Guidarini / Leave a comment

Unbelievable. While I slept, from behind my back emerged this wee bitch of a Shortlist:

Man Booker Shortlist 2015

Hello, political component to the Man Bookers. Ha, what am I saying. Welcome back. We hardly missed ye; never had the chance. You can’t miss what hasn’t had the courtesy to leave.

Analysis of the analysts:

Judges 2015

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey (48)

Granta, Jonathan Cape, Random House, Telegraph, Guardian

Guardian Books podcast: Political fiction

Verdict: Holy fuck, with political bent, though probably least prejudicial on list.

John Burnside (60)

Scottish poet, T.S. Eliot Prize, latecomer to the literary game, hell of a learning curve but he smashed this one.

Prof, St. Andrew’s University, novelist, list long as my arm.

From his university page:

“John’s main interests are in American literature, poetry, ecocriticism and the language of environmental activism.”

Verdict: Respect, with an American bent.

This is your Anne Tyler.

Michael Wood (67)

Historian/broadcaster

Born Manchester, working man’s town.

Verdict: Respect.

Marley?

Frances Osborne (46)

One novel, two biographies. A Sackville by birth. Silver spoon. Lives next to freaking P.M.

Verdict: No respect.

Fuck all.

Sam Leith (41)

Journalist, author of several works of nonfiction.

Young; resume growing nicely. Not there there.

Verdict: Judge in training.

Wild card man.

Two women, three judges under 50, two extreme heavy-hitters, a broadcaster, a political toss-in for my personal irritation and an in-training youngling. Typical cast of characters, though generally there’s a John Sutherland who really really pisses me off, ivory tower up the arse, anti-public opinion blow-hard.

Fuck everyone but me

Had a run-in with him once. Doesn’t show. Maintain neutrality.

Eliminations:

No Marilynne Robinson, no Anne Enright, who’s won already so there’s that; never expected her to repeat. She’s obviously no Hilary Mantel, right? No repeat offender?

Sitting on the survivor’s list is Anne Tyler, audible gritting teeth. Quit making me say this: not a terrible author, no talentless hack but no Man Booker caliber writer either. Adding injury to Obamacare, bumping two far superior female writers, so far superior should be ubiquitous. Words almost fail but not quite. Once I stop talking the idiots win.

Nice person

And no I’m not. Angry, yes. Out to piss off, yes.

Robinson and Enright bumped for Tyler. Many times as I say it sounds no less farcical.

If she walks off with the prize with that goes the last shred of relevancy for the Man Bookers. And I do mean s-h-r-e-d, gossamer thin, not fine. The award’s gone so far Left it’s rendered itself almost moot. SEE: Nobel Prize, category of any. Stick a fork in it and twist. HARD.

Aha! Wait! She’s one of the two Americans. Tyler and Yanigahara. Phew! I thought they were serious!

Nice person

Ignoring that wee epiphany, A Little Life is there, the fuck me this is fine A Little Life. A Brief History of Seven Killings, called it. The rest don’t even speak to me: bad year, bad read on the judges.

Top of this heap: A Little Life, A Brief History of Seven Killings. The former, because I’m reading it now and it’s slapping me upside the head, the latter for its subject matter and how nearly universally praised it’s been, normally not a great thing but this time there’s the clever plot, hipster Bob Marley thrown in for good measure.

Marley & Me

No: Satin Island and sure as hell better be A Spool of Blue Thread.

Wild cards: The Fishermen, The Year of the Runaways.

At this point I would rule out a damn thing. This is a jury of rogues out to make a statement. But which statement. A Little Life is probably too mainstream well-written, left standing because something needs to hold that spot. Satin Island gives me a bad vibe – prize-wise only.

Narrow again: A Brief History of Seven Killings, The Fishermen and The Year of the Runaways. If I’m really lucky, A Little Life. If there’s a swing vote.

A Little Hope, diminishing

Which political statement are they looking to make?

Nice person

Find it and there’s your winner.

man booker 2015: i’m fucked

14-09-1514-09-15 / Lisa Guidarini / Leave a comment

Things were going along well, so tidy, so well-kempt, all picket fences and Sunday afternoon lawnmowers pushed by men in white shirts with cut-off jeans, baseball caps protecting dear, shiny heads. All signs pointed to Marilynne Robinson for the Man Booker 2015 win. God was in his heaven. I sat on the front porch sipping lemonade and waiting for autumn to bring the Shortlist so I could laugh my knowing laugh, toss my head back and sneer at the world with my smug I may be a bitch but I’m a correct bitch face.

Bitch face. Suits me.

Assuming the judges weren’t planning to go to the dark side and be all let’s not give the prize to the writer who deserves it but, rather, to some unknown writer who’s produced a book whose politics are timely, themes ripped from the liberal headlines of the moment, it was a shoo-in. I could get away with skimming the other books, reading reviews and crunching the numbers with my patented prize winner crunch-u-lator. Because come on. Marilynne Robinson, writer of prose the angels sing while lounging languidly on fluffy while clouds. And pitted against what that could even come close?

Well, fuck and blast. Pitted against this:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Jesus Holy Granola Christ on Greek yogurt.

Encamped at Barnes & Noble for the duration, computer open, headphone and charger wires sticking out like nasty, nasty spider legs in all directions and hogging all available outlets I wasn’t going anywhere, Jack. Armloads of books plopped on chairs I’d screeched across the floor to my cave like a magpie gathers shiny things to her nest, a token coffee purchased to justify my whole-hoggishness, I read the first few pages of what I presumed would be an oh so lovely book.

It would be a good read. I knew that. People liked it, Amazon reviews were effusive, critics waved their arms above their heads, spittle flying in their hurry to get out pretty words about a pretty book before their peers could get anything in edgewise. I’d read a few chapters, smiling smugly as I put it back on the shelf for the next person to buy, a perfectly enlightened person who’d read a good thing or two on Goodreads, no idea it had nearly swiped the Booker.

Propped on the table in front of me, it hit like a typhoon bitch-slapping me with a palm leaf, causing me to laugh and feel all sadly desolate and empty and what’s the point of life within the space of half an hour’s read. My hands started to itch. Then my face. I scratched where imaginary feathers tickled me, like I was allergic to incredible prose. I was there in Barnes & Noble without adult supervision and I had my debit card. Like a sex addict stuck in a hotel room with a ready whore, pockets bulging with money and happy-to-see-you, I was sunk.

I bought it – along with a few others but that’s not important right now. I bought it.

I took it home, resumed reading it in bed, sinking feeling triggering the realization this isn’t going to be a book I can merrily skip through, finish and pronounce upon with my usual speed and cocky know-it-all manner. (My once upon a time speed, I mean, since I haven’t done anything quickly in months but that’s not quite the point.)

Like Marilynne Robinson’s novels, the book’s packed with prose you can’t rush. It’s beautiful, at times reaches poetic but with a cast of characters bigger than Lila, another thing slowing me down. I need to catch the nuances of each, dig into his or her motivations, separate one from the other despite their fierce desire to cling together.

This is a very long novel, 736 pages densely packed with small print and those slick, thinner pages I can’t turn very quickly without having to lick my finger, and I hate when people lick their fingers. Thick, textured paper tends to have a larger font, is quickly read, turning pages eased by deckle edges giving something to grasp. The reader feels accomplishment much more quickly, these thick pages forcing the left hand to secure more and more strongly as the balance tips from pages to read to have read, left to right left to right in rapid succession.

A Little Life was designed differently, to keep it from weighing 20 lbs. and saving the wrists of its readers. Because did you read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Morrell? The wrist snapper? Who didn’t learn a lesson from that? Yanagihara’s novel is heavy but looks so innocent, what with its thin, slick pages. It’s frustrating, the left hand sitting there all hurry up stupid while the right hand flips and flips, getting nowhere fast.

All this to say holy god, this book has a shot. IT HAS A SHOT! It doesn’t espouse an irritatingly liberal agenda that’s all politics, no substance. It shows how one life is important, how all the little life things add up to one Very Big Thing, indeed. Seven hundred thirty-six very big things. Lila‘s no slouch but

A Little Life

has…

a…

shot…

Right now, I could use a shot.

Unravel all I said about how easy this was, how eye-rollingly stupid, guttural expression of disgust stupid, the idea of putting anyone above or on par with Marilynne Robinson. Because

A Little Life

has…

a…

shot…

Fuck me, it does.

man booker 2015: one expert’s flawed opinions

22-08-1522-08-15 / Lisa Guidarini / 4 Comments

Lo, these many years I have participated in the largely futile game of guessing the Man Booker winner. I’ve had successes and failures but mostly it’s a maddening exercise in literary addiction, tinged with galloping insanity. Nevertheless, I am always happy to offer an opinion totally devoid of actual research or, really, much effort at all.

I’m always happy to do the least I can do. ™

This year’s crop of Long-Longlisters is particularly compelling. From reading the synopses, there’s only one book I would not willingly pick up and read. That book is A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James, reason being I have no interest in Bob Marley or Jamaica. Rave reviews aside, it simply doesn’t appeal.

As for the others, if you know me at all you’ll expect my ejecting Anne Tyler straightaway, sending her spinning into the atmosphere. Don’t care for Anne Tyler. Don’t feel she deserves a Booker. How did she make the list? Not for her Serious Literary Qualities. Rather, because she announced she’s hanging up her pen after this last novel. And she’s beloved, for some reason or other I haven’t been able to grasp. Nothing against her personally, mind. I’m charmed by the idea of the Reclusive Writer. Unfortunately, to me her books have always been soporific, their droning sameness lulling me into a near-coma. Her quality maintains a steady pace, churning out novel after novel featuring characters whose quirks I’m supposed to find endearing. Supposed to. Plots are fine, nothing too upsetting or too simplistic. Very mid-line. But prize-worthy? Dear God no. Compare her with, say, Margaret Atwood and it will give you screaming fits.

Marilynne Robinson, however? Yes. Yes.

Laila Lalami: know of, haven’t read. Arundhati Roy, Tom McCarthy, Andrew O’Hagan: ditto ditto and ditto. Roy, McCarthy, O’Hagan: reputations quite high. Lalami, lesser but not to be discounted; up and coming. Her growing stature edges her up a notch or two.

Anna Smaill, Sunjeev Sahota, Chigozie Obioma: totally new to me. Can’t yet opine.

The Short List will consist of equal parts famous, peripheral and unknown. I expect Robinson, Lalami and James will be shoo-ins. From there, it’s anyone’s guess. Really, there’s no logic here, just personal tastes of the judges. I’ve learned it’s impossible to gauge the wildcard spots, save by blind luck.

Once things have been narrowed down, pay attention to the press. Read the book reviews, the jacket blurbs. Try and put your finger on what about each book stands out, how timely it is and how well-received the author has been. Add unicorns and pixie dust, sacrifice a virgin, poke a voodoo doll with pins and spit over your left shoulder: the answer will soon become muddled but you’ll have something for Instagram, so there’s that.

I’ve no doubt it will come down to Marilynne Robinson v. currently unknown contender. Why Marilynne Robinson? Well, have you read her work? Her prose is mesmerizing, her plots languid, her characters deep and dark and complex. Just stunning. The buzz about her is correct; she is a genius. She deserves the award based on her collected body of work, plus Lila hit it out of the park. She’s a sure bet.

BUT… And it’s a big but, the judges become irritated when onlookers shout at them for being too predictable. That is the rub. Will the judges rule according to merit or will a wildcard overtake Robinson, just at the finish? Depends on the image they’d like to project of themselves, “they” being the judges.

That’s another thing, who are the judges? Very Seriously Literary Judges will be more apt to choose by merit alone, regardless of convention. Young and Less Stolid Judges will veer toward the wildcard, the up and comer; they long to defy the literary canon. And I haven’t looked them up, for no other reason than I’m just plain lazy. Toddle off and form your own opinions. What am I, a machine?!

If Robinson is upset, justice will be served only if the winner is a writer whose innovation adds measurable depth and breadth to literature with a capital L. In this case, we’re to consider Robinson so much a given as to have already honored her with the virtual award, handing the actual title to THE OTHER. Translation: she gets screwed and not in a fun way.

This, loves, is how the Man Booker Prize works: when it doesn’t go madly off the rails, careening to and fro like a ping pong ball smashed by a body builder, that is. All my years of following its progress, added to experience having judged other literary awards, have taught me This Big Lesson. I am now imparting it to you, anointing the Next Great Generation of Man Booker Supposers.

When the Short List’s out we’ll see how the chips fall.

Then there will be two.

Marilynne Robinson and fill in the blank…

[curtain falls] [exeunt]

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

24-10-13 / Lisa Guidarini / 2 Comments

Hardcover: 848 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; First Edition edition (October 15, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316074314
ISBN-13: 978-0316074315

“Reason is no match for desire: when desire is purely and powerfully felt, it becomes a kind of reason of its own.”

– The Luminaries

“It’s a lot of fun, like doing a Charlotte Brontë-themed crossword puzzle while playing chess and Dance Dance Revolution on a Bongo Board. Some readers will delight in the challenge, others may despair. I went both ways: always lost in admiration for this young New Zealander’s vast knowledge and narrative skill, sometimes lost in her game, wishing at times for more warmth, delighted by her old-school chapter headings (“In which a stranger arrives . . . ” “In which Quee Long brings a complaint before the law . . . ”), puzzled by her astrology, Googling everything twice and three times, scratching my head, laughing out loud, sighing with pleasure at sudden connections, flipping back pages and chapters and whole sections for rereadings, forging ahead with excitement renewed.”

– Review: Bill Roorbach, The New York Times

I made it through this year’s Booker Prize winner but it was exhausting. The book’s a brick, packed with characters, the plot twisting and turning on itself so many times I didn’t even try to keep count. I didn’t keep all the plot lines straight, a fact that may make other readers feel a little better. The reviews I read revealed the major relationships to watch and I heeded their advice. Aside from that, I managed to follow a couple others and that’s as well as I could do without keeping a score card. If you can honestly say you made it through this book without nearly losing your mind, I salute you. In my case, I highlighted passages madly, thinking I could always come back to them, trying to make sense of things. Trouble was, things weren’t conveniently truthful nor linear.

In short, my method didn’t work so well.

The Luminaries is set in New Zealand, during the late 1860s gold rush, similar in many ways to the California rush of the 1840s which I suppose makes sense. One gold rush in a largely unpopulated and wild area is equivalent to another, I imagine. I find the gold rush era compelling and it’s certainly a fantastic setting for all manner of depraved and troubled characters. Catton took full advantage of that, creating such a cast of characters I’ve personally never encountered outside the novels of Charles Dickens.

What a wild, wild ride…

The setting of the book is unrefined, populated with prostitutes and prospectors, bankers and opportunists. Chinese workers perform the hard work for a tiny percentage of the profits. Murders aren’t uncommon and jailers are so busy prisons are in desperate need of expansion. Back-stabbing, suspicion and any vice you can name run rampant, including very high-profile drug addiction.

As the tale opens, a new arrival named Walter Moody enters the scene, finding a group of twelve men gathered in a hotel for the purpose of trying to get to the bottom of a murder, as well as a disappearance, of two local men. As for the rest, I can honestly say it’s far too complicated for me to dissect, as stories are told and disproved, alibis declared and found to be lies. In the end there is a trial. Witnesses testify to things the reader could never have guessed, while in the midst of it all everything is confused, turned on its head. I couldn’t explain it all if you paid me.

The very heart of the book actually contains a romance, if you can digest that. The young whore, Anna Wetherell, is in love with… No, I won’t tell, not that it really gives much away, in the grand scheme of things. I could reveal a few dozen plot points that would still have no chance at all of spoiling the plot of this book. It’s just… Oh good God. It is what it is.

The question remains: was it a worthwhile read? Tough to say. Had it not won the Booker, and had NetGalley not provided me with a copy, I wouldn’t have finished reading it. As it is, I picked it up and put it down innumerable times, when it’s a book best read in long sessions. Note taking is highly encouraged. I don’t know how one can keep track of anything, otherwise. I don’t have time for such extensive scholarship, not when it’s a modern novel. A classic, okay. But The Luminaries isn’t time-tested. It just exhausted me.

If you enjoy 800+ pages worth of convoluted puzzles – and unreliable characters – you may find this the god of all such books. It isn’t without merit, by any means. It contains lots of fun passages, many tongue-in-cheek humorous moments, as well as some which are poignant. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, etc. The characterization is staggering, the handling of so many plot lines impressive to the extent I can’t even think of a word to describe it. Masterful, that does the trick.

The fact the author was 22 when she wrote this book will make your head explode. If you’re a writer, it will send you away sobbing. It’s just unnatural what Eleanor Catton managed to pull off. No one should be able to create such a symphony from this wild cacophony. But she did. I bow to her, while at the same time I admit it was all far too much for me or my enjoyment.

As author Jay Parini puts it:

“All really good books shatter their generic origins, becoming a thing unto themselves. But rarely has this axiom held more firmly than in Eleanor Catton’s thrilling – in every sense – second novel. The sheer weight of the narrative might seem daunting; but dismiss that. She is among the finest of storytellers, drawing us forward through a labyrinth of lives, all of them converging in ways you could never easily imagine. I didn’t want this novel to end.”
—Jay Parini, author of The Last Station

Unlike him, I wanted it to end, before my brain exploded. My mantra: please let it end, please let it end… It’s a singular experience you can only understand if you attempt it. Let’s leave it there.

I’m a bit befuddled as to why the Man Booker committee chose it, and still think the honor should have gone to the incredibly spare prose of Jim Crace, but there’s no accounting for it. I guess it was the mammoth accomplishment of the book, which I still maintain was far, far too much. Earlier I compared the work to Dickens but I love Dickens and find his complicated plots satisfying. The Luminaries? Not quite so much.

But congratulations, Eleanor Catton. You managed something that will keep the literati busy a long time. Well done for that.

Man Booker 2013. The winner is: Eleanor Catton

15-10-1315-10-13 / Lisa Guidarini / Leave a comment

Congratulations, Eleanor!

Seems my guess was the kiss of death for Jim Crace and NiViolet Bulwayo. Sorry about that, you two. Especially to Jim Crace. That man should not stop writing, almost as much as I should, in order to protect the innocent. I’m upset with him for his insistence he’s done. He wants to fish, he says. To relax and fish. Well, maybe he’ll change his mind one day.

Speaking of, have you read a book by him yet, have you? We had this discussion (I did, at least) a few weeks back. Everything he’s written is touched by God Himself. Read all his books, write reviews of him in all the places and maybe he’ll see them and feel all nostalgic and weepy about the terrible feeling of facing the blank screen (or notebook, I can’t recall offhand what he said). I would email him again and instruct him to get back to work but I’m afraid he’ll develop Sebastian Barry complex and begin to look at me askance. Truth is I am the most innocent thing. A bit excitable (only about books, otherwise I pretty much just stare into space) and passionate (ditto) but not at all scary.

Convincing? Should I revise?

Lots and lots of copies of the book I couldn’t get through.

But the point – lost long ago, in a fit of wildly careening writing – is the Big Prize went to the one novel I tried to get through and couldn’t! Huzzah…?

What’s wrong with me? It’s not a bad book. Not bad bad, I mean. The fault was in not giving it enough undivided attention, I’m almost certain. I’m sort of bad, that way. It’s well-written and about the intriguing and new-to-me subject of the gold rush in New Zealand:

It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky.

– The Luminaries

Sounds lovely when you put it that way, doesn’t it? Well, as far as I know it’s still on my Kindle (I have a free eBook from the publisher, which will disappear when they decide to “archive” it), so I’ll get back on it or die trying. With Moby Dick still ongoing. And that doorstop Tudors.

At least Henry’s dead now, (the VIII, not some random Henry) finally, and Elizabeth’s primed for crown and sceptre, once that pesky Edward gets out of her way. I’d grown tired reading about Henry and his sadism. What an @$$hole, really! Boiling people alive? Dismembering, chopping off heads, hanging and burning? Not to mention the destruction of all those beautiful churches and the illuminated manuscripts. Did you know they used those gorgeous works for toilet paper? Turns my stomach. Ten centuries destroyed in one fell swoop, Ackroyd wrote, and I wanted to weep.

Why the fascination with the Tudors? Shame on us all. While the kind, caring rulers are gathering dust in their marble sarcophagi we’re lusting after the Tudors, because a hot little minx or three and a few messy beheadings make a good story, I suppose. Better we should forget the ulcerous old bastard and look to Elizabeth I. She had her own moments but she is a female role model, of sorts.

Because who needs a king? Not that one, that’s who.

This one, that’s who.

Back to the Bookers, sorry. I get prattling and things go awry, then I don’t feel like working on segues and here we are.

I knew I was off my game this year, as I told you in my last post. My prediction for either Jim Crace or NoViolet Bulawayo didn’t materialize but I had an unsettled feeling I wasn’t quite getting it. My intuition didn’t sense it as strongly this year. Something was off-kilter: my Karma or what-not. For so many years I’ve been nailing it. Not so 2013. Sigh.

I’ll get back to the Catton, with a dose of Melville and Ackroyd on the side. And, well, okay a dash of Joyce Carol Oates’s My Sister, My Love, my creepy pleasure of the moment. It’s based on the JonBenet Ramsey case, if you remember that child murder from years and years ago, about the beautiful six year old whose mother whored her up like a slutty Barbie doll, entering her in beauty pageants (do not start me on that rant). Still unsolved, unbelievably. And just now I read this article, from two days ago saying the slaying indictment, which was never prosecuted (?!), may be unsealed.

You can’t hear it but I’m making a disgusted sound at the thought of how wrong the world is right now, for JonBenet and so much else. Now my forehead’s hitting the desk. You can’t see my desk – THANK GOD – but it’s very 1990s and I want to burn it. The drawers tend to fall out when you open them. It’s an optional feature I chose. In another 100 years it will come back into style, complete with a charming patina of coffee cup rings and stray ink marks.

This would be it for this time but I didn’t direct you to my review of Nicholson Baker’s Traveling Sprinkler, published on the New York Journal of Books website. It’s a little rambling but they took it, so phew! Relief making the deadline is all I can say. Strike that. I could say much more but I have to go start dinner. Plus, if you’ve read this far I feel badly on your behalf.

Now my work here is done, for this time. I’d meant just to talk about my Man Booker fiasco but then things got away from me. Woe is you!

Ta, loves. And keep reading.

Man Booker Shortlist 2013

11-09-1313-09-13 / Lisa Guidarini / 1 Comment

And then there were six…

Eleanor Catton – New Zealand
Jhumpa Lahiri – UK/US
Colm Toíbín – Ireland
Ruth Ozecki – Canada/US
Jim Crace – UK
NoViolet Bulawayo – Zimbabwe

From The Telegraph:

The Books:

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

The only debut novel on the shortlist. The 31-year-old Zimbabwean author tells the story of Darling who lives in a shanty called Paradise.

Judges said: “In the course of our epic readathon we met many, many child narrators, an exhausting number of child narrators, but none stood out quite like Darling.”

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

New Zealander Catton, 27, is the youngest author on the shortlist. Her debut novel, The Rehearsal (2008), was longlisted for the Orange Prize.

The book features Walter Moody, who is drawn into a mystery when he attempts to make his fortune in New Zealand’s goldfields.

Judge Natalie Haynes, a classicist and critic, added: “When an 823-page book turns up in a parcel, a sinking sensation could occur to a person who is trying to read a book a day while doing the things that pay their mortgage, but within about six pages of the book I felt like I’d got into a bath.”

Harvest by Jim Crace

Hertfordshire-born Crace, 67, the oldest author on the shortlist, has been writing fiction since 1974. Quarantine (1997) was previously shortlisted for the Booker.

The book charts, over the course of seven days, the destruction of an English village and its way of life after a trio of outsiders put up camp on its borders.

Crace has said the book will be his last work of fiction.

Judges said Harvest continued to “haunt” them after months of reading, adding: “When you think about the eruption of strangers into this enclosed world, the resentment caused by these outsiders, you begin to get a glimpse of some of the troubling debates in modern life.”

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

London-born Lahiri, 46, lives in the US and holds UK and US citizenship. She has written four works of fiction including The Namesake, which was adapted into the film of the same name.

The Lowland, featuring the lives of two once inseparable children raised in Calcutta, is a novel about entangled family ties.

Judges said: “This is a novel about distance and separation … a novel about the impossibility of leaving certain kinds of past behind.”

A Tale For The Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Canadian-American writer Ozeki, 57, was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest in 2010 and is the author of three novels.

A Tale For The Time Being, which features cyberbullying and a 105-year-old Buddhist nun, centres around a mystery that unfolds when the protagonist, Ruth, discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her beach home.

Judges said: “It’s a Zen novel if such a thing is possible. It’s about dualities at every level – East to West, cruelty and kindness, forgetting and remembering, and releasing and enclosing.” The book is “incredibly clever, incredibly sweet and big-hearted”, they added.

The Testament Of Mary by Colm Toibin

Irish author Toibin, 58, is the author of five novels, including The Blackwater Lightship (1999) and The Master (2004), which were both shortlisted for the Booker.

“A woman from history (is) rendered now as fully human” in the book, which features Mary, “living in exile and fear, and trying to piece together the events that led to her son’s brutal death”.

Judges said the book was a “beautifully crafted, passionate story that most people think they already know”, which the author “turns into something wonderfully fresh and strange”.

Judges admired “the power of Mary’s voice” and said it was a short novel but one that “lives long in the memory” with a narrative that ranges over a lifetime in just over 100 pages.

My take:

I’ve read The Harvest and pronounce it positively masterful. It’s very dark and grim, a sepia-toned portrait of Medieval Britain and the conversion from an agrarian economy to the wool trade. Sound dull? Oh, no. The plot is menacing and riveting. More about the loss of livelihood of former serfs, narrated by one living amongst them but shunned for being born “outside,” it draws a picture of the basic inhumanity of man when faced with impending poverty and homelessness.

It is anything but dull.

I’ve reviewed the book, then interviewed Crace and was impressed with his candor and the cut of his jib. He says this is his last novel of his writing career. Read all his books to understand what a travesty this would be. A Booker win could change that. Part of me pulls very strongly for Crace.

I’m currently reading The Luminaries. It’s a sprawling, many-charactered novel set during the gold rush in Australia. It’s a HUGE tome and it’s difficult keeping the characters straight. Fortunately, Catton knows this and repeats who each one is, from what profession and how s/he relates to the story frequently enough the reader can rest a bit easier. It starts slowly but builds very well. Its Booker potential lies in its entertainment factor, partially. I’m finding parts of it funny, in a low-key way. It has the quality of being a sort of comedy of errors at times. And then there’s the mystery element, who killed whom for gold and how will the whole thing come together? In more than 800 pages.

Knopf/Random sent me a copy of The Lowlanders, bless them! Haven’t had a chance to even open the cover yet but I’m reading as fast as I can…

The others I don’t own but can remedy easily enough. Well, save the $ issue. Can’t take that lightly.

Remember how I said I wasn’t going to get sucked into the Booker race this year? I’ve been sucked into the Booker race this year. ‘Tis a pity she’s a book whore.

Particularly tight race this year. I’m torn between believing the committee wants Jim Crace to keep writing, and the quality of his book is stellar, but competition is fierce. I am pleased by the diversity, though, and happy to see writers of partial US citizenship in the running. Toíbín, The Telegraph fails to say, is currently Mellon Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, right here in the U.S. So I’ll claim him, just a little.

The winner? Still leaning toward Crace. What can I say? But I’ll keep reading.

Booker Book: Kate Grenville – The Secret River

28-08-0623-08-16 / Lisa Guidarini / Leave a comment

secretriver

Paperback: 334 pages
Publisher: Canongate U.S.; First Trade Paper Edition edition (April 10, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1841959146
ISBN-13: 978-1841959146

Just put me out of my misery and hand Kate Grenville her Booker Prize now, please.

Though the other Longlisters I’ve read have been fantastic, some almost stratospherically so, I would call The Secret River approaching a masterpiece of contemporary fiction. This is the story of William Thornhill, a man transported to Australia for a crime he merely intended and never managed to carry out. His wife, Sal, and their children are transported with him, and it’s a minor miracle he didn’t wind up swinging from the end of a rope, instead.

Australia is presented as a forbidding, harsh place, but also a land of opportunity. Thornhill puts his nose to the grindstone, determined to see his way to buying a pardon, and then sets his sights on settling the wild land. They begin scratching out a farm in hostile land, constantly under threat from the very forbidding aborigines. Facing hardship, intense weather, sickness and constant setbacks, they hope to prevail and make their fortune. Sal hopes to return to England one day, and pins all her hopes on it. Her husband sees a very different reality, and hopes she can reconcile herself to the fact they’ll never see their homeland again.

Kate Grenville is a brilliant writer. I’d say she reminds me of a modern day, Australian version of George Eliot. Her prose is dense and lush as well as lyrical, and her themes universal and humanistic. She presents the story without judgment, setting down the very brutal reality of the situation without presenting anyone as complete hero or villain. It’s a very fair and balanced portrayal of the struggle between the white settlers and the black aboriginals, portrayed warts and all. No one is condemned, and no one given amnesty. There are no innocents here, but neither is there a single guilty party. All fare equally in Grenville’s treatment, illustrating how incredibly powerful she truly is.

It’s hard to see how any other book can be deserving of the Booker after having read The Secret River. It’s a rare book that achieves the heights this one does, and if I find any of the others as deserving I’ll be surprised.

Booker Book #4: M.J. Hyland – Carry Me Down

28-08-0623-08-16 / Lisa Guidarini / Leave a comment

Carry Me Down leaves you with a lump in the throat after you’ve closed the cover. It’s such an authentic portrait of what it is to be a lonely adolescent who’s an awkward misfit, though thankfully not every lonely adolescent tries to smother his mother.

The focus of this book is on the brutality of childhood, as well as the huge impact parents play in forming the psyches of their children. Though not an abused child per se, John Egan is raised by somewhat unstable parents who don’t always provide him with the emotional and financial stability he so desperately needs. He becomes a compulsive liar who’s convinced he has a preternatural ability to detect lies in others, and as such he’s somewhat an unreliable narrator. The reader can read between the lines and get a good general idea of the truth, by knowing the reactions of the other characters, so the occasional delusions of John are easily seen through. He is a liar, but not a sophisticated one. There’s a lot of innocence in him, through it all, and this is what gets our sympathy. He’s a child who needs a lot of love and who gets precious little, and that’s what breaks the reader’s heart more than anything.

After finishing this book last evening I cannot get it out of my head. It’s dark and sometimes depressing, but in the end redemptive. No wonder the Booker committee chose it. It illustrates a very good instinct for picking out another up-and-comer to watch.

I expect Hyland may not have the visibility to actually win the prize, but this is one of the most heart-rending books I’ve read in a while, and it definitely deserves making the Longlist. It’s so worth making the effort to fit this one into your reading schedule.

In other Booker news, at the half – 3/4 point in Grenville’s The Secret River. It’s still fabulous, staggeringly so, and I know I’ll be torn when making my official final prediction for the prize after I’ve finished this one.

They’re all just so dratted good!