Category Archives: Current Affairs

Dances with Wolves – Michael Blake – 7/10

Current Affairs March 6, 2013 Leave a comment

“He had geared himself for criminals, a gang of lawbreakers, burglars who needed punishing. What he found instead was a pageant, a pageant of action so breathtaking that, like a kid at his first big parade, the lieutenant was powerless to do anything but stand there and watch it go by.”

dances with wolves

Lt. John Dunbar voyages west to take up a post at the western frontier, his life’s ambition. Finding the fort deserted and himself the only white man within a week’s travel, he sets about restoring the fort to appropriate standards and surveying the nearby lands. When he encounters the local Indian tribe, his diplomatic attempts are a little more open-minded than most soldiers of his time, and he slowly drawn into the Indian camp…

The overall arc, the idea, is a strong and beautiful one, and Blake went out on a limb to write a book which is overwhelming positive about the Native American tribe (assumed to be Sioux), particularly in comparison to the US Army. The novel is gentle; the writing is not complex or particularly literary. The reader is lulled into the huge expanse of the plains, Dunbar’s solitude at Ford Sedgewick, and equally the excitement of the buffalo hunt, the repeated attempts to steal Dunbar’s beloved horse and the conflict with the Pawnee grips the reader. I found the book easy to keep reading but also quite easy to put down and pick up again.

Faults? Lt. Dunbar is too good a man. It’s too easy for him to move into the Comanche world – Kicking Bird comments on it very directly (I can’t find the quote now). He never seemed to do anything selfish, foolish, or wrong. I felt this novel didn’t really know what it was, and that feeling lingered throughout. Was it an Army v Indians frontier adventure? A romance (there was more than enough gentle romantic language for it to qualify)? A social commentary?

The film made from this book (which originally started life as a speculative screenplay, which may explain the fairly simple style of writing) won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture (first Western film to win since 1931), Best Director and Best Sound. Sounds like I need to add that to my LoveFilm request list!

Additional information:
Copy from Bookmooch.
Publisher: Anchor Books, 184 pages (paperback)
Order Dances with Wolves from Amazon*
* this is an affiliate link – I will be paid a small percentage of your purchase price if you use this link, which goes towards give-aways and site hosting

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Dai Sijie – 6/10

Current Affairs February 26, 2013 1 Comment

“Years later I learnt that the translator was himself a great writer. Having been forbidden to publish his own works for political reasons, he spent the rest of his life translating French novels.”

balzacThe Book Accumulator raves about this book. I’ve seen him buy copies to have on hand to give away to people, just in case he gets the chance. Normally in German. So when this came up on Bookmooch in English, I was pretty excited.

Two city boys are sent to a mountain village for re-education during China’s Cultural Revolution. They encounter the beautiful daughter of the local tailor and manage to steal a stash of Western classics in translation; as they gorge themselves on the forbidden writing, they are released from their grim everyday lives.

I have to say, I was a bit underwhelmed by this book.

I can see why it appeals – all that French literature, the idea of secretive, reclusive, covert education, these two boys suddenly released from their academically cloistered existence into the classics of Western literature. The humour of the pranks with which they release themselves from their dire situation is spot-on – the violin ditty called “Mozart is thinking of Chairman Mao”, the alarm clock on which they change the time so many times that they lose track of what the actual time is and their cruel treatment of the village head man during his dental operation.

And yet, it lacked bite – there was no grand climax, no overarching fight against anything. In fact, it was probably the last few chapters that put me off. The sad conclusion of the love affair is somehow not in keeping with the rest of the book, when the Little Seamstress has been so graceful, delicate, gentle all along. There is no triumphant release from the village; instead, the boys seem to surrender to the re-education, their spirits broken.

Worth a try – my grumbles are quite specific. And I still think it’s a 6/10 read overall.

Additional information:
Copy from Bookmooch.
Publisher: Anchor Books, 184 pages (paperback)
Order Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstressfrom Amazon*
* this is an affiliate link – I will be paid a small percentage of your purchase price if you use this link, which goes towards give-aways and site hosting

The Fault In Our Stars – discussion post

Current Affairs February 18, 2013 Comments: 7

So, people, Mini-Me basically ordered me to read this book, and The Book Accumulator had me order it for him so he could get it in English without stupid postage charges, and then I forgot to give it to him. So clearly my stars were telling me to get my act together and read it.

tfios

First impressions: these kids are witty, and I love their conversation, but so far, so another teenage cancer-ridden love story. See similar misery novels: My Sister’s Keeper, Elsewhere, Before I Die.

I like the humour, the conversations are funny, but then I had An Issue With This Book: Augustus. He talks like no 17-year-old I’ve ever met. He talks like no man I’ve ever met. I know some quite humorous (can’t believe I just tried to spell that humourous and I had to rely on WordPress to tell me it was wrong) young women who can get about that many words per minute in amusing streams of consciousness out, but no men. I’m not trying to generalise here, find me an erudite loquacious teenage boy, never mind teenage cancer-surviving boy, and I will eat my metaphorical hat. Or an actual one, if you find me a hat made of chocolate. (melty).

And when I cannot believe the conversational talent of one of the main couple, things are Not Going To Go Well.

Or so I thought – I’ve read another 70 pages and have sort of accepted it but it’s still bugging me. But now they’re in Amsterdam and drinking the stars and falling in love but it’s cute and complex and not totally sugar-laden because Hazel thinks of herself like a grenade and… stuff. Themes. Things that English teachers like to discuss.

 

Also, in unrelated news, today I finished the audit that would not die.

highest of fives

For those reading this on an email – I request the highest of fives. Funnier with the accompanying clip of Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother requesting the five.

 

Dead Man’s Land – Robert Ryan – 8/10

Current Affairs January 16, 2013 Leave a comment

“He half expected to hear a nagging voice in his ear, telling how he was looking but not observing.”

dead man's land

John Watson feels called to serve humanity as best he can – in the support effort to the trenches in Flanders, employing once more his medical knowledge in the field. In between the criminal understaffing, the treacherous mud and the deadly attacks by the other side, there seems to be a murderer about with intent – but who would bother going to all that trouble when the men are falling about them anyway?

Plot wise this was top-notch; it took a little while to get going and there were plenty of red herrings, but solid ones. For a few awful pages I thought Mrs Gregson was the killer! Couldn’t have that. Ryan steers us inexorably through a succession of treacherous half-clues and crazy motorcycle chases, gas attacks and sniper attacks from church towers towards the front line to have the drama play out in no man’s land.

Ryan writes Watson very well*; he’s getting on a bit, a little old-fashioned, concerned with chaperones and propriety and stuff, but also willing to throw all that to the wind to solve a murder. Mrs Gregson is a great character and I loved the development as the plot went on, mixing the politics of the suffragettes and a touch of 1910s English life into the desperation of the trenches. Oh yes and Sherlock makes an appearance – but he’s old now and has a bad back.

I found the setting overly graphic (silly me – it’s set in a hospital, in a war), but also surprising in that behind the front lines, often it was quiet. Watson and Mrs Gregson don’t have too much trouble travelling around to Bailleul and the Big House, which surprised me, so I suppose I learnt something about World War I!

Niggles? I ended the book not quite understanding the motive of the killer. A lot of time was spent on the German side of the trenches with little effect, I felt, and the German soldiers were given no humanity at all; it’s this sort of attitude towards Germany, still commonly encountered in Britain, that really bugs me. Also nearly everyone seemed to be dead by the end; a little overcooked.

In summary, a clever whodunnit set in tragedy and gore.

*my only acquaintance with Watson to date has been in the form of Martin Freeman to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes, and to a lesser extent, in the form of Jude Law to Robert Downey Jr’s Holmes.

Additional information:

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine – Alina Bronsky – 5/10

Current Affairs January 10, 2013 Comments: 2

“As my daughter Sulfia was explaining that she was pregnant but that she didn’t know by whom, I paid extra attention to my posture. I sat with my back perfectly straight and folded my hands elegantly in my lap.”

tartar

Rosa’s mentally hindered daughter Sulfia announces a pregnancy. Despite Rosa’s best folkloric efforts, Aminat is born, and from that moment Rosa employs every fibre of her cunning, strength, effort and money into wrestling her away from Sulfia, claiming Sulfia is an unfit mother. When a travelling German writer becomes fixated on Aminat, Rosa sees her escape to the West.

Wow. Just wow. Rosa is a seriously devious, evil character. Can understand why she makes it onto a few villain lists (to quote Literate Housewife: “Rosa Achmetowna makes Scarlett O’Hara look like a Girl Scout and perhaps even Mother of the Year. Her story should be compulsory reading for every teenage daughter who thinks her mother is the worst mother in the world. Very few mothers will retain monster status in comparison”). But I had to keep reading as the horror of the situation spiralled further, while Rosa believed she still has it all totally under control. She does remind me of a much less pleasant Emily Gilmore.

We never really establish what’s wrong with Sulfia, which I found frustrating; not being able to escape Rosa’s psychotic brain does leave quite a few puzzles unanswered. Similarly, Aminat is an interesting character and I would have liked to have spent more time with her. A dual approach would have been interesting here – alternating chapters written by Rosa and Aminat? The men are pretty dire – which is a trend I’m finding in my reading at the moment. Although in this case, the women are dire too so it’s not poor writing of male characters… What I couldn’t understand was the fact that every man tolerated Rosa’s bizarre behaviour!

Plot wise? There’s no great rush – it’s the tension and movements in the power struggle between the three generations of women that propel us towards the end. Thus the plot feels haphazardly timed; for a long time nothing really happens, then suddenly there’s a rush for Israel. Then nothing happens again for a long time, then Germany. I suspect that I didn’t get on with this because the humour didn’t do anything for me; the blurb suggests that it is “told with sly humour and an anthropologist’s eye for detail… women whose destinites are tangled up in a family dynamic that is at turns hilarious and tragic.”

All in all – odd. Definitely a book I’ll remember for a while, and unlike anything else I read this year. However, not a pleasant experience – the humour fell short for me.

Additional information:

Before I Met You – Lisa Jewell – 6/10

Current Affairs December 20, 2012 Leave a comment

“I am living in Zone Three,” she said with a grim smile. John winced sympathetically.

before I met you

Having looked after an Alzheimer’s-riddled step-grandmother for five years, Betty can’t wait to dash off to London when a will mystery needs to be resolved. She finds herself in 1990s Soho struggling to make ends meet, dealing with a mad neighbour, falling in love with a rock star, and slowly solving a mystery from her grandmother’s heyday.

I love these back-and-forth through history books (e.g. Russian Winter, Blackberry Winter, The Sandalwood Tree). It feels like two stories for the price of one; although, in this case, the two stories felt unrelated for quite a long time – Betty takes ages to get anywhere with her search (which is, perhaps, for plausibility). Both Betty and Arlette are strong, gutsy women with cracks in their veneer; both girls go to London to make their fortune and fall on their feet, but trip over a fair amount. Jewell writes realistic women who screw up their lives, who don’t live perfectly, who don’t always get their happy ending. The men were stronger than in other such books I’ve read (particularly Blackberry Winter) but still mostly boorish and minor; Godfrey is very much the exception, and the racial/social politics was a good serious note to a fairly fluffy read.

Things I loved? 1920s London. 1990s London. London London London. This book knows where it’s set. Oh, and Guernsey too, but I don’t know Guernsey. The London of this book is not quite my London (2010s London), but I know it pretty well and Jewell writes it so enthusiastically – she clearly knows the city very well. Also – Arlette’s glamour – her perfumes, her wardrobe, her friends – she embodied the 1920s London so well. Things which irritated me? The rock star side plot. Betty behaved a bit stupidly on several occasions for no reason that I could discern except that the author wanted to fit some romance into the modern story (the old story had romance aplenty, and well written). 6/10 feels a bit harsh, but the novel lacked something – substance? Grit? I’m not sure, but I came away feeling a bit unsatisfied.

Oh, and that quote at the top? I chose it because I live in Zone Three. And I love it. No sympathy needed (although a little travelcard subsidy wouldn’t go amiss).

Additional information:

Copy kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review – quite some time ago.

Publisher: Random House, 456 pages (paperback)

Order Before I Met You from Amazon*

* this is an affiliate link – I will be paid a small percentage of your purchase price if you use this link, which goes towards give-aways and site hosting

The Penelopiad – Margaret Atwood – 8/10

Advent with Atwood, Current Affairs December 5, 2012 Comments: 2

“Now that I am dead, I know everything.”

200px-ThePenelopiad

My first foray into Atwood (planned as part of Advent with Atwood) was the simplest of hers that I own – a retelling of The Odyssey from Penelope’s point of view. Atwood imagines Penelope in the Underworld thousands of years later (in our modern day), telling the story of her life, with interjections from a Greek tragedy-style chorus. Penelope airs her thoughts on her cousin Helen, the gods’ fickle and mischievous interventions in human life, and sets us straight on some parts of her story. It’s not a long novel, with barely 200 small pages of largish print.

While there were certain aspects of the myth that I had forgotten (Odysseus’ long stay with Calypso being one of them) and others that I did not know as they were a little gruesome for the children’s book of Greek myths I read as a child (the hanging of the twelve young maids), the story was mostly familiar to me. Atwood throws in asides and remarks which reference other myths or characters from the myths, such as Clytemnestra, which make the reader quite smug with recognising them!

Atwood’s characterisation of both Penelope and Odysseus is consistent with my memory of the myth – both wily, fairly quiet, greatly in love and never forgetting a grudge. Penelope’s father is set up as a buffoon and Eurycleia as a meddling but loving old crony. A suspenseful ending was always going to be prohibited by the widespread knowledge of the story, but the dread and fear as the suitors eat up more and more of Penelope’s resources is real.

Somehow there’s not much to say about this. It’s faithful to the original although clever and witty in its own capacity; the characters started by Homer are consistently and congruously transferred, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I read the first hundred pages without interruption; it is perhaps the fact that I was returning to it rather than already being engrossed that made me feel the second half was weaker. In any case, the whole thing is a very quick read as it is both short and captivating.

Additional information:

More recent DNFs

Current Affairs October 24, 2012 Comments: 7

I’ve realised the blog has become a bit DNF heavy over the last few weeks – which is a reflection of at least one of the following:

- I’m becoming less patient

- I’m less captivated by reading and want to do other things

- the books I’m reading are terrible

- I’m trying to clear some books off the shelves and am not giving them a fair shot because I just want to be rid of them

- I’m reading too many review books in a row and not enough books that I want to read.

In any case, a quick roundup:

Island of Wings

A Casual Vacancy

The Girl on the Stairs

The Slaughteryard – Esteban Echeverria – 5/10 (DNF)

Key short story by Echeverria, political activist in 1830s Argentina, in a new and very complete edition by The Friday Project containing a long and helpful-for-context foreword by translator which set the historical context (without which I would have been lost), text, glossary, original text with note, further poetry by Echeverria, and translation of foreword to original posthumous edition.

The story is barely 30 pages long, and there is no doubt about its gore and grisliness. The political satire/parody is very extreme – portrays bleak and bloody events and then says they show the glory of the regime. 5/10 awarded because I find it very difficult to award any sort of mark – so short and bizarre.

Additional information: copy courtesy of publisher via Twitter with no expectation of review; Friday Project, 170 pages, order from Amazon here.

Over the Rainbow – Paul Pickering – 2/10 (DNF)

Bizarre story set in Afghanistan now (i.e with war and chaos); Malone and his wife are young aid workers. Malone meets and is captivated by Fatima, Oxford-educated daughter of the former head of Pakistan intelligence services. When she films a cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and it is leaked, she and Malone have to go on the run – and what’s Kim up to in Kandahar.

This felt like it was written on an acid trip. On the one hand, the portrayal of aid worker life in Afghanistan is interesting, gritty, bleak but appears well researched; on the other hand, filming a cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow in downtown bombed-out Kabul? Everything in which Fatima was involved was incredible. The whirlwind romance between Malone and Kim and the fundamentalist religious aspect of their marriage didn’t really make a lot of sense either.

Additional information: unsolicited review copy; Simon & Schuster, 303 pages, order from Amazon here.

Shogun – James Clavell – 4/10 (DNF)

Old-timey shipping adventurers end up in Japan (which is where they were aiming) after storms and shipwreck etc. So they land very much on the wrong foot. That is all that has happened in the first 110 pages (out of 1200).

This was borderline as to whether I continued or not, but another 1100 pages of every pirate on the crew saying his bit in what was a fairly straightforward argument, and random and unnecessary violence, was too much.

If you like shipping adventures and new lands and don’t mind ridiculously convoluted conversations, go for it.

Additional information: part of a big box purchase; Coronet, 1244 pages, order from Amazon here.

Island of Wings – Karin Altenberg – 4/10 (DNF)

Current Affairs October 22, 2012 Comments: 4

“At last the firm ground of Hirta, our lost Eden!”

Neil McKenzie is a minister, called to serve the people of St Kilda, the most remote part of the British Isles, in 1830. His new and pregnant wife Lizzie follows him, despite speaking no Gaelic and having no company when her husband is away. Can they ever be happy in such an abandoned place?

The writing about nature is undeniably beautiful and skilful; I cannot imagine writing like this in my first language, never mind a second (Altenberg is Swedish). However, the book is so, so bleak and dreary. No end of childhood births, no particular plot progression within 120 pages (at which point I stopped); everything is as grey as the sky and sea which surrounds the island.

The political environs of the time were somewhat alien to me and not explained at all, so I think you need a decent background in Scottish and church history around 1830, as well as an understanding of missions.

Other reviews: Iris on Books, Vulpes Libris, Cornflower Books, Lizzy Siddal, Farm Lane Books, Cardigangirlverity (mostly all positive)

Additional information:

A Casual Vacancy – JK Rowling – 4/10 (DNF)

Current Affairs October 20, 2012 Comments: 9

“Krystal’s slow passage up the school had resembled the passage of a goat through the body of a boa constrictor, being highly visible and uncomfortable for both parties concerned.”

 

Nothing I write is going to change your mind on this book. People are going to read it because they want to read the new JK Rowling, not because reviews have said that it’s particularly good or bad. However, I would say don’t read it.

There are very few likeable characters in this novel; as a number of reviews have pointed out, the best developed characters are the teenagers that Rowling has had so much practice writing. A significant number of the adults are actually repellent. While every book needs the odd repellent character (Filch, anyone?), these ones are caricatures.

What stopped me from carrying on with this book was the way that the writing is not only adult, gritty, dark etc… it was as if Rowling was deliberately inserting adult content simply for the sake of it, to make the book not suitable for under-18s. “Hmm, this sentence is missing any mention of an R-rated body part. Where can I squeeze one in?” Yeurgh.

There is some funny writing (see quote above) and Rowling has a knack for the petty-minded empire-builder. But with a huge cast and vocab from the gutter, it’s easy to turn away.

Additional information:

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 554 other followers