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willoyd

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  1. A trio of books recently read: Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life by Claire Tomalin *** An interesting follow-up to the book group read of a collection of her (superb) short stories. However, unusually for a Tomalin biography, I never really felt fully involved or engaged with her subject, for whom the description 'reckless' seemed wholly appropriate. It helped to explain much though, and I will certainly, and unusually for me given my usual disinterest in short stories, see me reading more of Mansfield's work. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ***** Both a book group read and the Columbian contribution to my Read Around the World. A 'big' book in more ways than one, this was an anything but easy read, even if very readable (if that makes sense!). A saga of seven generations of a family responsible for setting up a remote village in Columbia, reflecting the history of the country and its people's experience. Being anything but an expert on Latin American history, I spent much of my time wondering what on earth it was all about, and was grateful at the end to read a number of critiques, but the themes of colonialism and the human inability to apparently learn from history were all too clear! The strength and centrality of the female characters were prominent as well. Rich, colourful, unrelenting, this was a rare book that left me mentally exhausted (and wore out most of the book group - only 3 of us finished in it in the timeframe available, although several said they would continue with it) - although well sated. Needs a reread though, although I need some recovery time! Monumental. Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto **** A thoroughly enjoyable murder mystery from 1957, with an intriguingly complex plot, that provided a very nice, and very welcome, contrast to the Marquez. Written in what was for me 'typical' Japanese style - slightly cold, clinical, removed - which on this occasion was well suited to the narrative in hand (all too often I don't really get on with Japanese novels). The age of the book took me slightly by surprised when the author talked about "the recently introduced" passenger plane service, and explained one or two small questions I had around the book (nothing negative). Very much a book I just happened onto in my local independent, and very glad I did too. BTW, just love the cover (Penguin Modern Classic edition), taken from a 1937 Japanese Railways poster - superb artwork.
  2. Book #25: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez for Colombia ***** A book group read as well as a read for this challenge. A 'big' novel in more ways than one, this was an anything but easy read, even if very readable (if that makes sense!). A saga of seven generations of a family responsible for setting up a remote village in Columbia, reflecting the history of the country and its people's experience. Being anything but an expert on Latin American history, I spent much of my time wondering what on earth it was all about, and was grateful at the end to read a number of critiques, but the themes of colonialism and the human inability to apparently learn from history were all too clear! The strength and centrality of the female characters were prominent as well. Rich, colourful, unrelenting, this was a rare book that left me mentally exhausted (and wore out most of the book group - only 3 of us finished in it in the timeframe available, although several said they would continue with it) - although well sated. Needs a reread though, although I need some recovery time! Monumental.
  3. Just finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. A humungous read - found it very demanding and very rewarding. My book for Columbia in my world tour. 5/6 stars.
  4. The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield ****** I'm not a great short story reader, all too often finding them rather unsatisfying, but i have to make an exception for these. I think that's because Mansfield focuses so much more on character and place than on pure plot. They are more vignettes that tell us something about lives, even about ourselves. No more so than in the first, and longest, story At The Bay, which consists of 13 different 'episodes' spread over a day at or near the bay in question, building layer upon layer. The language is concise but rich - both places and characters come vividly alive in a very short space. One can see very quickly why she's regarded as one of the leading developers of modernist writing - these stories have a very strong affinity with, for instance, Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse and I can certainly see why Woolf so respected Mansfield's work. Perhaps the first short story writer whose work I'm going to definitely read more of - and have acquired a really nice second-hand copy of Constable's The Collected Stories in order to do so! I immediately followed this with Claire Tomalin's A Secret Life; it doesn't tell us much (if anything!) about the generation of her work, and, unusually for a Tomalin work, left me a little bit unsatisfied, but provides some interesting insight into the difficult, fractured life of someone who, to be honest, I found it rather hard to warm to (maybe that's why I was unsatisfied?). I also have a copy of, and plan to read soon, Claire Harman's All Sorts Of Lives, which hopefully will provide more insight into the stories themselves as well, as well as possible alternative perspectives.
  5. It's just a variant on the same theme - making books more accessible to children. I'm sure some editing has been a bit OTT, but do we really want children to be reading books that include racism, physical stereotyping etc etc.? It's different when dealing with adult books - theoretically they should be mature enough to differentiate and adjust for different attitudes at different times. It's rather different when dealing with children's books. And, as I said, Penguin always intended to continue publishing the original versions - it's not as if Penguin were censoring, just allowing parents/teachers to have a choice depending on the maturity etc of the reader (and attitudes of parents/teachers!).
  6. Two more world tour books completed in the last couple of days: History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsdottir for Iceland, and The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield for New Zealand. Both 5 star (excellent) reads, no mean achievement by the latter given my normal lack of connection with short stories.
  7. Yes, mine is rather large too! This challenge (and the American one) just makes it worse as well - I'm finding all sorts of authors whose work I want to explore more!
  8. Book #24: The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield for New Zealand ***** I'm not a great short story reader, all too often finding them rather unsatisfying, but i have to make an exception for these. I think that's because Mansfield focuses so much more on character and place than on pure plot. They are more vignettes that tell us something about lives, even about ourselves. No more so than in the first, and longest, story At The Bay, which consists of 13 different 'episodes' spread over a day at or near the bay in question, building layer upon layer. The language is concise but rich - both places and characters come vividly alive in a very short space. One can see very quickly why she's regarded as one of the leading developers of modernist writing - these stories have a very strong affinity with, for instance, Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse and I can certainly see why Woolf so respected Mansfield's work. Perhaps the first short story writer whose work I'm going to definitely read more of - and have acquired a really nice second-hand copy of Constable's The Collected Stories in order to do so! I immediately followed this with Claire Tomalin's A Secret Life; it doesn't tell us much (if anything!) about the generation of her work, and, unusually for a Tomalin work, left me a little bit unsatisfied, but provides some interesting insight into the difficult, fractured life of someone who, to be honest, I found it rather hard to warm to (maybe that's why I was unsatisfied?). I also have a copy of, and plan to read soon, Claire Harman's All Sorts Of Lives, which hopefully will provide more insight into the stories themselves as well, as well as possible alternative perspectives.
  9. History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsdottir ***** I've recently taken out a subscription to Peirene Press, as their books look particularly up my street, and this is the first of those. It's also my choice for Iceland in my Read Around the World tour. There seems to have been a flourishing of independent presses lately, with the likes of Peirene, Pushkin, Peepal, Fitzcarraldo (along with the longer established Persephone) appearing to receive a higher profile, and going a long way to revitalising my reading of late. Penguin, and their modern classics, seem to have brushed up their act too. It all may just be my imagination, or just a delayed awareness (probably this, given the length of time these presses have actually been going!), but whatever the reality, it's a while since I found reading quite as exciting as in the past few months. A young, female post-grad student studying a 400-year old diary trying to see if she can link the author to a famous portrait artist of the English Civil War era, finds a series of clues that suggest that not only is there a link, but that the artist is female, the first female professional artist in Britain. Her thesis is based around this premise, yet just as she's due to finish and submit, she finds an overseen entry that looks like it blows her work out of the water. What to do? This is the central premise for a plot that sees our protagonist (I don't think she's ever named) come under increasing strain as she tries to come to a conclusion, returning to her native Iceland with her husband, Hans, and struggling to retain her equilibrium and sanity. I was intrigued, increasingly so as I continued to read. The book is written from the perspective of the central character, and we see the world as she sees it. As a result, things become thoroughly increasingly disjointed as our subject starts to struggle mentally, imagining what people are saying, flashing back to and reliving remembered incidents (is her memory reliable?), becoming increasingly confused, even hallucinatory (early on, she contemplates a door in her sitting room that she doesn't ever recall seeing before!) as she struggles to hold on to reality. Tjhere are moments of real concern, but also of some humour. It's a book which I can't pretend I understood all the time. Quite a few reviewers completely lost it, and a fair number reported giving up, but every time I though I might be losing it altogether, things seemed to resolve themselves again, and the mystery, quality of writing, and interest in the main character, kept me reading all the way to the end. I needed those moments of clarity though! I'm glad I persisted - the last dozen pages or so produced an ending that not only left me really pleased I'd made it, but also looking forward to going back and exploring the book further (it's only 170 pages long) to try and get to grips with elements I failed to grasp first time round. This was not an easy read (well, the reading was easy, it was comprehension that wasn't always!), but one I found ultimately worth the effort. I'm certainly looking forward to the second of the author's books to be translated, Embroidery, due out soon, and also to my next Peirene volume!
  10. Who Among Us? by Mario Benedetti **** Read for my Read Around the World project - my choice for Uruguay, my first South American book on the tour! This is a very short novel (novella), telling the story of a three-way relationship, with all three protagonists contributing in their own way. The primary narrator, telling his story through a series of entries in a diary/notebook, is the husband, Miguel. HIs wife, Alicia, contributes barely half a dozen pages, in one letter. The 'lover', Lucas (and also Miguel's best friend) provides the final element, his side told through a short story, written for personal not public consumption ( he is a writer), and footnoted as the story is fiction based on the reality, and the footnotes explain the differences. Complicated? Yes, it is, although for the most part I found the reading reasonably straightforward - it was just those footnotes; I could read the story, or I could read the footnotes, but the latter disrupted the former too much to read in parallel. Maybe that was the point? It's an odd relationship. Miguel pretty much wills on Alicia's and Lucas's relationship - they are initially pretty antipathetic, and it's only because of Miguel's actions that they ever come together. Love manifests itself in very different ways - and, as with so many love stories, misunderstandings abound, as we find out once we see things from more than one perspective. To a considerable extent, the plot is really rather trivial. What this is, is a study of 3 characters and their triangular relationship. The plot is the relationship. The book is brief, and very much to the point. It may be less than a hundred pages long, but it feels it's worth more.
  11. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa **** Having thoroughly enjoyed the author's more recent book A General Theory of Oblivion as a book group read, I was keen to try him again for my Angolan stop on my Read Around the World. This was the one generally recommended! A interesting quirk of this book, and one that instantly attracted me to it, is that the story is told by a gecko (lizard) whose mobility around the house of the central human character, Felix Ventura, makes him a realistic omniscient narrator. Felix is an albino native of Angola, one who sells clients reinvented/imagined pasts. He is approached by someone who wants to create a completely new, documented, identity, the implication being that they are on the run (but who from?), and far harder core than Felix has been involved in before. Events start to spiral out of control (but not necessarily in the way that one might have imagined!). A lot of (most?) reviewers suggest that the book has really been misnamed - the narrator is a gecko after all, not a chameleon, but I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the title is referring to - it's not the narrator, but the human characters - adopting new identities, adapting to those identities, camouflaged by them, identities that become more real than their original ones, although these start to break through.... Actually, we find (fairly early on; it's not a spoiler) that our gecko was once human - perhaps the ultimate chameleon of all, now absorbed into the background of Felix's life and work (and regarding Felix as a friend). It's an intriguing story, told in very short chapters (including a number of dream sequences when the gecko - Eulalio - recalls his human existence) that give a rather staccato feel to the reading at times (deliberately I'm sure, and sometimes rather disconcerting). I'm not sure I really got everything from it first time through, so it's now added to the lengthening queue of books on this tour which I want to reread. I need to find time for them!
  12. Book #23: History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsdottir for Iceland ***** A young, female post-grad student studying a 400-year old diary trying to see if she can link the author to a famous portrait artist of the English Civil War era, finds a series of clues that suggest that not only is there a link, but that the artist is female, the first female professional artist in Britain. Her thesis is based around this premise, yet just as she's due to finish and submit, she finds an overseen entry that looks like it blows her work out of the water. What to do? This is the central premise for a plot that sees our protagonist (I don't think she's ever named) come under increasing strain as she tries to come to a conclusion, returning to her native Iceland with her husband, Hans, and struggling to retain her equilibrium and sanity. I was intrigued, increasingly so as I continued to read. The book is written from the perspective of the central character, and we see the world as she sees it. As a result, things become thoroughly increasingly disjointed as our subject starts to struggle mentally, imagining what people are saying, flashing back to and reliving remembered incidents (is her memory reliable?), becoming increasingly confused, even hallucinatory (early on, she contemplates a door in her sitting room that she doesn't ever recall seeing before!) as she struggles to hold on to reality. Tjhere are moments of real concern, but also of some humour. It's a book which I can't pretend I understood all the time. Quite a few reviewers completely lost it, and a fair number reported giving up, but every time I though I might be losing it altogether, things seemed to resolve themselves again, and the mystery, quality of writing, and interest in the main character, kept me reading all the way to the end. I needed those moments of clarity though! I'm glad I persisted - the last dozen pages or so produced an ending that not only left me really pleased I'd made it, but also looking forward to going back and exploring the book further (it's only 170 pages long) to try and get to grips with elements I failed to grasp first time round. This was not an easy read (well, the reading was easy, it was comprehension that wasn't always!), but one I found ultimately worth the effort. I'm certainly looking forward to the second of the author's books to be translated, Embroidery, due out soon!
  13. Penguin's plans were to publish 2 versions - the altered one, and the original. This sort of thing has been going on for years. There were children's versions of books around when I was a child. Far worse is censorship of the type we're ever more frequently seeing, especially in the States (as in the recent case of Michelangelo's 'David'), where a a small minority's views are being allowed, indeed encouraged, to prevail. 'Woke' simply means 'racially aware'. I don't regard that as a bad thing, and am immediately suspicious when it is used as a perjorative.
  14. Two books for my world tour back-to-back: first of the two, The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualuso (for Angola), followed closely by Who Among Us? by Mario Benedetti (for Uruguay - my first South American book of the challenge). Both good, thought provoking reads.
  15. Book #22: Who Among Us? by Mario Benedetti for Uruguay **** My first South American book on the tour! This is a very short novel (novella), telling the story of a three-way relationship, with all three protagonists contributing in their own way. The primary narrator, telling his story through a series of entries in a diary/notebook, is the husband, Miguel. HIs wife, Alicia, contributes barely half a dozen pages, in one letter. The 'lover', Lucas (and also Miguel's best friend) provides the final element, his side told through a short story, written for personal not public consumption ( he is a writer), and footnoted as the story is fiction based on the reality, and the footnotes explain the differences. Complicated? Yes, it is, although for the most part I found the reading reasonably straightforward - it was just those footnotes; I could read the story, or I could read the footnotes, but the latter disrupted the former too much to read in parallel. Maybe that was the point? It's an odd relationship. Miguel pretty much wills on Alicia's and Lucas's relationship - they are initially pretty antipathetic, and it's only because of Miguel's actions that they ever come together. Love manifests itself in very different ways - and, as with so many love stories, misunderstandings abound, as we find out once we see things from more than one perspective. To a considerable extent, the plot is really rather trivial. What this is, is a study of 3 characters and their triangular relationship. The plot is the relationship. The book is brief, and very much to the point. It may be less than a hundred pages long, but it feels worth so much more.
  16. Book #21: The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa for Angola ***** Having thoroughly enjoyed the author's more recent book A General Theory of Oblivion as a book group read, I was keen to try him again for my Angolan stop on my Read Around the World. This was the one generally recommended! A interesting quirk of this book, and one that instantly attracted me to it, is that the story is told by a gecko (lizard) whose mobility around the house of the central human character, Felix Ventura, makes him a realistic omniscient narrator. Felix is an albino native of Angola, one who sells clients reinvented/imagined pasts. He is approached by someone who wants to create a completely new, documented, identity, the implication being that they are on the run (but who from?), and far harder core than Felix has been involved in before. Events start to spiral out of control (but not necessarily in the way that one might have imagined!). A lot of (most?) reviewers suggest that the book has really been misnamed - the narrator is a gecko after all, not a chameleon, but I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the title is referring to - it's not the narrator, but the human characters - adopting new identities, adapting to those identities, camouflaged by them, identities that become more real than their original ones, although these start to break through.... Actually, we find (fairly early on; it's not a spoiler) that our gecko was once human - perhaps the ultimate chameleon of all, now absorbed into the background of Felix's life and work (and regarding Felix as a friend). It's an intriguing story, told in very short chapters (including a number of dream sequences when the gecko - Eulalio - recalls his human existence) that give a rather staccato feel to the reading at times (deliberately I'm sure, and sometimes rather disconcerting). I'm not sure I really got everything from it first time through, so it's now added to the lengthening queue of books on this tour which I want to reread. I need to find time for them!
  17. #30 New York: Another Country by James Baldwin ****** Another masterpiece - this project is really producing the goods! It took me a while to decide on which book out of a rather large number I would read for New York. I eventually plumped for James Baldwin simply because I'd never read any of his work, and yet had heard so much about him. I was delighted I did. His style is definitely not on the lean side - it's full, rich, detailed, and digs deep into the mind of his characters - we are directly privy to their thoughts and feelings. So there's a lot of tell rather than show, which usually puts me off, but his telling shows things that are even deeper, resulting in some really strongly developed characters, far richer than many even good writers achieve. I found it hard to tell whether 'Another Country' referred to race, or, as one part of the novel suggested, love. Probably a combination of both, because at the heart of this were the relationships between several mixed race couples. and the tensions created from the differing viewpoints these differences led to. There again, the title could have been referring to literally the influence of another country, Eric (almost entirely absent in the first half of the book) returning to the US after an extended stay in France a very different person to the one who had left, and one whose relationships are thoroughly effected by that change. Or, perhaps, the 'country' was gender, with a lively mix of homo-, bi- and heterosexual characters and relationships? To be honest, it was almost too rich in places, and I was in danger more than once of getting lost in the dense weave of all four of these threads. It wasn't perfect. I found the first half utterly engrossing, but after dramatic events at the end of the first half, the narrative seemed to take a while to get going again at the start of the second. I'm sure this was deliberate - the pace and intensity changed so dramatically it couldn't have been anything other, but it took me rather longer than I wanted to regain the sense of reading rhythm and level of immersion that I had earlier achieved - a bit like coming out of a particularly vivid dream, desperately trying to hold on to it, but finding it slipping away. Fortunately the new characters (the transition between the two halves of the book sees a dramatic shift in character focus) are quickly well established in their own right, the two halves are stitched together, and the book starts to gather pace again, none too soon! Overall, this was an intense, rich, immersive, big book (over 400 pages) - a thoroughly rewarding read that will not let go easily, an excellent 'representative' read for New York. Another writer of whom I need to read more.
  18. Another Country by James Baldwin ****** Another masterpiece on this Tour of the USA (book 30/51) - this project is really producing the goods! It took me a while to decide on which book out of a rather large number I would read for New York. I eventually plumped for James Baldwin simply because I'd never read any of his work, and yet had heard so much about him. I was delighted I did. His style is definitely not on the lean side - it's full, rich, detailed, and digs deep into the mind of his characters - we are directly privy to their thoughts and feelings. So there's a lot of tell rather than show, which usually puts me off, but his telling shows things that are even deeper, resulting in some really strongly developed characters, far richer than many even good writers achieve. I found it hard to tell whether 'Another Country' referred to race, or, as one part of the novel suggested, love. Probably a combination of both, because at the heart of this were the relationships between several mixed race couples. and the tensions created from the differing viewpoints these differences led to. There again, the title could have been referring to literally the influence of another country, Eric (almost entirely absent in the first half of the book) returning to the US after an extended stay in France a very different person to the one who had left, and one whose relationships are thoroughly effected by that change. Or, perhaps, the 'country' was gender, with a lively mix of homo-, bi- and heterosexual characters and relationships? To be honest, it was almost too rich in places, and I was in danger more than once of getting lost in the dense weave of all four of these threads. It wasn't perfect. I found the first half utterly engrossing, but after dramatic events at the end of the first half, the narrative seemed to take a while to get going again at the start of the second. I'm sure this was deliberate - the pace and intensity changed so dramatically it couldn't have been anything other, but it took me rather longer than I wanted to regain the sense of reading rhythm and level of immersion that I had earlier achieved - a bit like coming out of a particularly vivid dream, desperately trying to hold on to it, but finding it slipping away. Fortunately the new characters (the transition between the two halves of the book sees a dramatic shift in character focus) are quickly well established in their own right, the two halves are stitched together, and the book starts to gather pace again, none too soon! Overall, this was an intense, rich, immersive, big book (over 400 pages) - a thoroughly rewarding read that will not let go easily, an excellent 'representative' read for New York. Another writer of whom I need to read more.
  19. Not been on the site for a few weeks, so a bit of a catch-up: completed The Ice Palace (Tarjei Vesaas) earlier this month as part of my Read Around the World (for Norway) - a slim but massively intense novel about a young girl coping with the loss of her best friend who goes missing playing truant. A book that demands rereading and more thought. However, have moved on to one of my Tour of the US books, Another Country by James Baldwin, another powerful piece of writing. Both books in an utterly different league to the very disappointing Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, read for a book group in between these two. Slung aside fairly early on: characters devoid of interest steeped in superficiality. One of those books where the rave reviews are incomprehensible (Gone Girl was another - and several reviewers drew parallels, so perhaps not as surprising as might first appear). I did enjoy The Monsters of Templeton though, and will soon be trying Matrix, which I already have on my shelves. It looks a completely different prospect though.
  20. I need to catch up with some of my reviews, but in the meantime, this is the latest read, my 20th book in Reading Around the World - 10% there! The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas ***** Another slim Scandinavian volume, regarded as a literary classic by many, this was my book for Norway. It's hypnotic, highly poetic in style, very lean, even simple, in its language, using a range of techniques that appear to upend many of the norms of 'good' writing (eg deliberately repeating words or phrases, multiple times sometimes, in sentences, really focusing the reader's mind). It's one of those books that is a captivating read even if not sure I fully understood everything going on; it cries out to be reread, probably several times. There's so much packed in here, that even though it's only 140 pages long, I felt at the end as if I'd read a book at least double the length, and that was not due to boredom! I also find it very hard to describe my reaction - almost too complex, and much easier to talk than write about it - but perhaps it's sufficient to say for the moment that I've immediately ordered a copy of Vesaas's other major work available in English, The Birds.
  21. Book #20: The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas for Norway ***** Another slim Scandinavian volume, regarded as a literary classic by many. It's certainly hypnotic, highly poetic in style, very lean, even simple, in its language, using a range of techniques that appear to upend many of the norms of 'good' writing (eg deliberately repeating words or phrases, multiple times sometimes, in sentences, really focusing the reader's mind. It's one of those books that is a captivating read even if not sure I fully understood everything going o; it cries out to be reread, probably several times. There's so much packed in here, that even though it's only 140 pages long, I felt at the end as if I'd read a book at least double the length, and that was not due to boredom! I also find it very hard to describe my reaction - almost too complex, and much easier to talk than write about it - but perhaps it's sufficient to say that I've immediately ordered a copy of Vesaas's other major work available in English, The Birds.
  22. Completed Jonathan Smith's Summer in February, historical fiction based around the triangular relationship between Alfred Munnings, Gilbert Evans and Florence Carter-Davies, all involved with the pre-WW1 artists of Newlyn. Really engaging read, fascinating characterisation. Dealing with events that are not recorded, so one man's interpretation, and not everybody agrees (surprise, surprise)! Makes for great fiction reading though. 4 stars out of 6.
  23. Finished Captain Hazard's Game by David Fairer. Excellent historical adventure/crime read for book group, set in the early years of the 18th century. Cracking read, highly immersive, and unanimously acclaimed by the group. The third in a trilogy (although stands alone quite comfortably according to those coming to this first). A full 6/6 for the series, which got better with each book. Followed by Beryl Bainbridge's According to Queeney, read as a follow-up to John Wain's biography of Samuel Johnson, and reading Johnson's own Rasselas. Given the subject material and the writer, I was surprised to be rather underwhelmed. Superb character studies, but found it dragging as a narrative, and needed to work to finish it off. 3/6.
  24. The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk **** Read for one of my book groups, this is eighteenth century historical fiction set initially in London, then transferring to Constantinople for much of the second half. Zachary is the only son of Abel Cloudesley, a clockmaker who specialises in automata. Zachary's mother dies in childbirth, and he is jointly cared for his father, wetnurse Mrs Morley, and great-aunt Frances - with some rivalry between them. From his mother he acquires second sight, the ability to see another's thoughts and future events when in physical contact with them. This is a blessing and a curse. I have a soft spot for the 18th century, and am generally happy reading both fiction and non-fiction based on that era. This proved no exception - it was an easy book to settle down to, and I rapidly became immersed in the story. The first half was particularly engaging, but I did take a while to adjust to the shift to Constantinople. It's noticeable that a number of reviewers say that they felt the book lost its way and them here, and I can understand why, but personally I think it was just the shift from a tightly knit grouping, with all the main characters in close proximity, to a bit of diaspora. This inevitably led to parallel threads, and a common complaint has been about too many diversions, too many characters and a loss of focus. Perhaps, but I enjoyed the narrative complexity and the interweaving threads that this generated, and never felt there was such deflection from the main thrust. OK, he might have over-egged things slightly (but I'm not going to say with what, as I think that would spoil the narrative), and at least one thread could have been left out without affecting the central narrative, but there was something appealing about it that added texture for me. But then I'm not a fan of one track plotline novels, so characteristic of standard thriller/adventur/crime stories, and like a bit more variety and diversion - it's a story! Such complexity takes some handling, but, especially given it was a first book, I thought the author coped well, and gathered in the threads very effectively. I was certainly relieved that the 'magical realism' aspect, Zachary's second sight, wasn't overdone and, whilst playing an important role, didn't dominate to the extent that the title of the book threatened it might. All in all, this proved an enjoyable read, and I look forward to reading more from this author. BTW - loved the cover!
  25. Book #19: The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna for Finland **** A return to Europe, to Scandinavia, with a slim volume that is something of a cult read, although one that I didn't really expect to gel with. However, it's short, a mere 135 pages, so I reckoned I could hack it; the reviews are certainly mixed. In the end, though, I needn't have worried, as this actually really struck a chord, not least as I benefited enormously from getting more involved in nature when dealing with work-generated stress issues, even if my experiences were nothing like this! However, whilst this might have been written in the mid-70s, so much of what it's about resonates even more strongly today. At heart, this is almost pure social satire (which is partly why I didn't expect to get on with it much, satire often going right over my head!). The main protagonist, Kaarlo Vatinen, rescues a hare that his car hits. The act seems to trigger a major reaction in his mind, and he takes off in the the Finnish landscape, leaving job, wife and his whole lifestyle behind, in spite of their efforts to hang on to him. The book then becomes something of a picaresque, almost back to nature, journey, although this is nature that is distinctly red in tooth, claw and fire. In the meantime, the 'civilised' world keeps threatening to intrude, and however dangerous nature might be, the latter is in danger of threatening even more, often ridiculously so. The book's humour is often cited but, personally, it rarely made me more than smile. But it didn't need to - I still enjoyed the ridiculousness and the satire. As I so often find, I think the satire would be funnier, blackly so, on film, and I do intend to look out the film that was made of it in the 1970s (there are two adaptations apparently, with another French one made later in the 2000s). In the meantime, this proved to be a much more engaging and rewarding book than I expected, one I would recommend to others. even if just to decide for themselves what they think!
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