Hux

The Late Mattia Pascal (1904) Luigi Pirandello The story of a man who, after a dead body is found and assumed to be him, takes the opportunity to start a new life without the necessity of doing anything himself. It's a nice idea for a novel and, given that Pirandello deals with identity in One, No-one, and One Hundred Thousand (a book I loved), I thought this might explore similar ideas in the same way. To some extent it does but not as much as I would have liked. The book is more comical in tone, more interested in plot developments, distracted by the intricate qualities of his old life, his new life, and his ultimate failure to start again (leading to his return to his previous life). I would have liked the book to have lingered a little more on the philosophical aspects of identity, of defining who we are, who others think we might be, what constitutes a person. It never quite accomplishes that and, as such, I started to lose interest somewhat. The first third of the novel focuses on Mattia Pascal's background, the book giving us a great deal of information regarding his family, his upbringing, and his eventual marriage. His family are rich but the money is controlled by a family friend who squanders the wealth. When his mother and daughters both die, he leaves and goes to Monte Carlo where, without any noticeable strategy, he manages to win a huge sum of money. On the train back to Italy, he learns of his own apparent death in the newspaper, another man's body having wrongly been identified as his own. At this very moment, somewhat influenced by grief and life regrets, he sees an opportunity to start a new life somewhere else (his casino fortune adding weight to this possibility). So that's what he does, wanders Europe, before finally settling in Rome under the new name Adriano Meis. He moves into a new apartment and falls in love with the daughter of the landlord. After trying to make this life work, he again realises that he is still unhappy and must fake his death (again) before returning to his (now remarried) wife and previous life. Like I said, it's a great idea for a novel, especially if you want to explore themes of self, identity, even the nature of reality. There's an element of wanting to know, when you arrive at the fork in the road, what life might have transpired had you chosen differently. But as I said, it never truly commits to the premise and I really wished it had played with these ideas a little more and focused less on the relationship drama and intrigue. This was such a good but wasted opportunity. I loved the first third but was ultimately getting bored as it went along. There is a theatrical quality to it that I didn't like and it never quite became what I wanted it to be. 6/10

The Last Samurai (2001) Helen DeWitt This is the story of an American woman named Sibylla and her son, Ludo (Ludovic) living in London and his curious development as a child prodigy as well as his growing desire to know the identity of his father. As such, the book explores the issue of intelligence, plays with notions regarding the essences of its development, its source, meaning, and what constitutes genius. In turn, the related question of education, genetics, and the best method to raise a child with these nuanced abilities (fundamentally reminding the reader that children are people too, not just convenient appendages). There's a worthwhile story somewhere in amongst all this but it was a struggle to find. What's interesting is that I enjoyed the first two chapters but then, when the book acquires its experimental framework, I started to find it irksome and self-indulgent. The book interrupts the narrative passages with dialogue from the film The Seven Samurai as well as other unnecessary digressions. Nonetheless, as I continued reading I found, to my surprise, that I was actually getting into it, enjoying the premise, and was slowly starting to care about the two characters despite the fact that neither of them were especially realistic to me (it all felt rather perfomative). But still, I was gaining momentum only to have it dwindle in the final third as the book (and it's presentation technique) became slightly tedious again, the trick having worn off, the spell broken, the averageness concealed by the book's presentation and framing device revealed to be dull at best and inane drivel at worst. It almost had me but ultimately my spidey sense was tingling. In the past, I have made the point that the vast majority (I would say at least 90%) of stream-of-consciousness writing is nothing more than an exercise in mediocre authors hiding their mediocrity behind style and presentation; it is, after all, a style of writing which can easily manipulate the reader into thinking something more interesting is going on. I'm amazed how many fall for it. DeWitt at least endeavours to try something different, her writing somewhat prosaic and obvious but wrapped in the contrived framework of stuttered paragraphs interrupted by various intellectual excursions. But still, the objective and the effect is the same. Now I know I'm wasting my breath with this (again) but the fact remains this is a very easy and convenient way to obscure average prose without being detected. I only bring this up because occasionally a writer will try something similar but instead of utilising stream-of-consciousness writing they will play around with form and presentation in other ways (but with the same goal in mind). Such is the case here. DeWitt basically presents her story in a very uninteresting manner, with dull, functional prose, and somewhat forgettable characters. But she will interrupt this dull prose with sections from the Seven Samurai, with dialogue from the film, with vignettes designed to add colour, with diary entries, with mathematics and history. She will go off on tangents (between paragraphs) that tangentially relate to the subject matter in question (genius/child prodigy) but which, in reality, contribute very little to the piece. It's a trick. And one I ultimately had little time for. There is never any sense of sincerely addressing the issue of genius and how to define it. Ludo is simply smarter than everyone and, on the many circle line journeys he makes with his mother, is in receipt of bewilderment and condescension from startled passengers (as he reads The Odyssey). DeWitt is occasionally funny but it's all in service of a story I didn't really care about. The limits of intelligence mean very little when presented in gibberish masquerading as something more profound or convoluted. It felt like a Fast Show sketch stretched over 500 pages, the final third becoming tiresome to the extreme, my initial intrigue at the two characters having dissipated, and my interest in the mystery of who Ludo's father might be having dwindled from not that fussed to... couldn't give a fudge. I would still recommend the book because there's enough to justify calling this an interesting but failed experiment. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that it was...MEH! And I'm sorry but no amount of hocus-pocus and playing with the form was going to trick me. It's an average book trying a little too hard, often very smug and pleased with itself, but with only a modicum of authenticity and value. Good enough to warrant a lecture but not enough to make me attend the lecture. Despite the middle section gaining my interest, I was left cold and unimpressed. One of the main reasons that slight of hand is so compelling to an audience is because they know that the exciting thing they just saw, can't explain, and gasped at... is difficult to fathom. But once you explain how the trick is done, their face drops and they shrug with disappointment at the sheer banality of it. 5/10

Martin Birck's Youth (1901) Hjalmar Soderberg Soderberg is fast becoming a favourite of mine, the way he weaves a simplistic narrative with crisp prose, always drenched in melancholy and loneliness, always with a mature eye for the complexity of human emotions. And this subtlety is all achieved at a time when the subject matter he focuses on was avoided or frowned upon. There's a moment towards the end, for example, when Soderberg is reflecting on female desire and the way it is perceived as unpleasant outside the context of marriage, sullied by an unnatural abnormality which, unlike in men, is not to be encouraged or condoned. He recognises the double standard and the stupidity and was way ahead of his time. He is both nostalgic for the little things, the traditions and family life, but aware of the hypocrisy and stifling nature of many other dominant conservative values. I dunno... it's just a lovely world he inhabits (despite all its sadness) filled with adult opinions and romantic thoughts. That being said, this book isn't exploring anything too remarkable and is rather lightweight. While Dr Glas had darker, adult themes, this is a simple story, a (heavily biographical) roman-a-clef, telling the tale of Martin Birck from his very young childhood up until his early adult life begins. He is bullied as a child, confused by other children, and Soderberg tells the story in a slow and delicate manner. As Martin gets older, he encounters darker aspects of life, prostitutes and adult responsibilities which often reveal, again, the hypocrisies that lie beneath these layers of society. Even when the book is gentle, as it is, there is always that powerful stream of melancholy and loneliness. Fundamentally, Soderberg appears to be a contemplative soul, sensitive, pensive, preoccupied by human frailties and loneliness, his writing reflecting this, his characters too, and there's a lot to be said regarding the limitations which culture places upon an individual who wishes for a life other than the one he got. Then we have all the meditations on God, on the importance of religion as well as its limitations when it comes to providing satisfying answers. The bottom line is Soderberg is, like everyone else, interested in the fragile qualities of being alive. His books are filled with reflection and intelligence. It's difficult not to fall in love with his writing. And this was possibly his most gentle offering, a book quietly looking at the reserved formative years of a man. I'm looking forward to reading his other books (if I can gain access to them that is). Probably starting with The Serious Game. Starting to love his writing. 7/10

Moravagine (1926) Blaise Cendrars On paper I ought to have loved this. But for some reason, I just didn't care about any of it. I think this might be partly due to the fact that I've read three very similar books recently, with similar styles, themes, and characters. Interestingly, all three of these books (this, A Posthumous Confession by Emants, and Fog by de Unamuno) featured a chapter where the author inserted himself into the story as a character (which gives you a clue as to the kind of book you're reading). Additionally, I'm not entirely sure I'm a fan of picaresque novels that substitute any semblance of realism in favour of melodramatic adventure. But mostly I think it was a slight case of fatigue. I've read too many of these types of books recently and in quick succession. This one starts with a psychiatrist (our narrator) working in a prison for the criminally insane. Here, he meets the titular character Moravagine, a nobleman with a history sexual violence and murder. At first glance, this appears to be the foundation of the book (and why I thought it might be fun) but as it goes along the narrative kind of leaves that salacious stuff behind (as a motivating theme at least) and instead turns into a travelogue and philosophical treatise. The narrator (Raymond) helps Moravagine escape and together they go on a global adventure, starting in Russia, back through Europe and England, across the Atlantic (this was one of the few chapters I enjoyed because it involved an Orangutan), around America, into South America, and back to Paris just in time for the invention of the aeroplane and the start of the First World War. As I was reading all this globe trotting stuff, I definitely felt a strong sense of Celine's Journey to The End of the Night and I can't imagine he wasn't partially influenced by this. Likewise, I suspect A Posthumous Confession by Emants (confessing to outlandish behaviours, social ineptitude, and general unpleasantness ) was, in turn, probably an influence on this. But I thought Emants writing was frankly more impressive. Anyway, this book is part derring-do adventure, part psychological exploration of madness, part misogynistic rant. The introduction to my copy does make a point of reminding the reader that Mort a vagine = death by vagina / death to vagina could be interpreted to mean birth inevitably leads to death or more specifically be a reference to his hatred for women. I don't know but it's not really that important because as I said at the start... I just didn't care for any of this. It was fine, it was plodding, a dark comedy that seemed to want to be more but which never quite got there. I wasn't bored but I wasn't enthralled either. I would definitely recommend it as a fun romp, a distraction, but, in truth, it never really excited me at any point, my experience of reading the book a somewhat meandering and uninspired event. Worth a look with some intriguing transgressive qualities but a little too goofy for my tastes. 6/10

Unfinished Business (2023) Michael Bracewell Having recently read and loved Perfect Tense, I was keen to read more of Michael Bracewell. This particular book might have been a poor choice, though, given that it was his first book since Perfect Tense was published in 2001 (so a gap of 22 years). Might have made more sense to read one of his earlier pieces. But anyway, I did not really find this one as captivating. For me, the major problem is his use of third person narration. It doesn't entirely make sense for a book like this. What I loved about Perfect Tense was that you got to hear the single voice of the author, have access to his opinions, his worldview and insights. For any book detailing the more mundane aspects of life, a single voice is required, one which allows the writer to transform the banalities of normal life into something special, even beautiful (though they might not succeed). In this book, however, which is also exploring the dull existence of everyday life (the protagonist Martin in particular) we get a third person narration which just doesn't make sense to me. This isn't a sweeping epic looking at the lives of many characters across decades, it's a small peek into the life of a very ordinary man. Yes, he has some noteworthy experiences -- divorce, heart surgery, sudden death of a loved one -- but again, these are not extraordinary experiences, they're par for the course in most people's lives, dramatic but mundane, excellent fodder for someone writing about the tedium of normalcy. It doesn't make sense to attempt to make this into a page turning novel of gripping suspense and third party description. It needed one voice, preferably Martin's, to turn these normal moments into something poetic and profound. Anyway... The set-up is very similar to Perfect Tense in that it deals with a man, another plodding office worker, who is ageing, looking back on his life, accepting the pitfalls of mortality, his broken relationships, the loss of his youth. It's all permeated with a nostalgic sadness and an unforgiving inevitability. A plot doesn't really exist, and again it's merely a man reminiscing, looking back, trying to find ways to look forward. But it just never grabbed me. It's nicely written but I found my attention wandering, and struggled to care about his ex-wife Marilyn, his ex-girlfriend Francesca, his daughter, his work colleagues. Again, I really feel like the book would have massively benefited from a more personal narration -- from Martin. I wanted to know what HE thought, not what the omniscient narrator passing through his life was casually describing. Bracewell has a neat touch when it comes to the mundane, a knack for recognising the petty trivialities of modern existence, all things which appeal to me, but this book felt slightly off. I couldn't entirely put my finger on why (beyond the choice of third person narration). But I still want to read more of his work. I think I might need to go back to his earlier ones. I definitely like his style and his preoccupation for the existential. But this one fell flat in the en. 5/10

Fog (1914) Miguel de Unamuno Well, this was a curious little thing. It's the story of a man named Augusto Perez, rich, intellectual, refined, but a little mercurial. One day, strolling down the street, he sees a woman (or more precisely, he sees her eyes) and comes to the conclusion that he is in love with her. He follows her, speaks to the building's concierge about her, and decides to woo her. He discovers that she is called Eugenia and he writes her a letter, then gets invited into her apartment by her uncle and aunt, doing his best to ingratiate himself into their lives. He discovers she has a lover but pursues her nonetheless. Meanwhile, he meets another woman named Rosario and decides that he might also be in love with her; like I said, he is a very mercurial man, prone to flights of fancy and introspection. His cat and mouse pursuit of Eugenia continues while her cat and mouse rejection of him becomes more convoluted. Is she is a psychological experiment to him or is he a psychological experiment to her? It's hard to describe this book. It felt trivial and silly at times, full of frivolity and light-hearted humour. Augusto is a man without a care in the world, his pet dog, Orfeo, his companion, his servants Liduvina and her husband Domingo, ever present and willing to humour him. Then there's his friend Victor with whom he pursues philosophical conversations which often spiral into curious notions of what constitutes the self or reality. There's a lot of this between them, explorations of reality, identity, all written in a manner that is very entertaining, playing with themes of the self, of love, of identity and reality. Then, towards the end of the book, things really get interesting as Augusto, now wanting to commit suicide, meets de Unamuno himself, the writer of this very novel, and is told by him that he doesn't really exist, that he is merely a fictional character and therefore cannot choose to be alive or dead. Augusto implies that the total opposite is, in fact, true, that de Unamuno is a character dreaming of a self which has conjured a new reality for them both. Despite this, it never gets heavy-handed, and always maintains its charming, soft touch. The book is a bizarre yet fascinating exploration of ideas that become provocative and thoughtful. I remember reading Breakfast of Champions and thinking it was rather original when the character meets Vonnegut but now I realise it was done long before this by other writers (de Unamuno wrote this in 1907 and published it in 1914). This book is very inventive in so many ways but all the while, remains very fun to read. It's magnificent. I really enjoyed it. And I especially liked the final chapter, narrated by the dog, Orfeo, because he too can dream of his master and by doing so become conscious and by doing so became real. Maybe he was the only one who existed all along. 8/10

Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964) Hubert Selby Jnr "Hey big daddio, you wanna be a square, honey, or get hip with the queers on the down low, dig the marijuana, and hang with the seamen and the doggies, shhhhhhh and shake on the scene, the big man, the fairies, in the big house, until we get to crazy-ville." Yeah, look, I think I hate this stuff. I really think I just utterly hate this Yank drivel. It's all so tiresome to me, the street talk, the queers and drugs, the hustlers and negroes (are you shocked by such transgressive language!!). No, of course you aren't. Because you're not twelve. I really do loathe this type of Americana, the beatnik hipster prose, the idea that rebelling against normalcy is some great act of enthralling provocation and revolution. And then there's the fact that the writing is painful to read. I mean, this isn't as repugnant as Naked Lunch, or as incoherent, but it's not that far off. The more I read it, the more I conclude that modernist American literature is abysmal and performative nonsense, trapped by the influence of cinema, the constant need for visuals, with scenes and vignettes, anti-writing, with an inability to shake off the desire for a visual medium, or worse, just puerile language designed to shock or amuse but never with any meaningful artistry or finesse. It's all so Americana, so try-hard, and I hate it. The book looks at several characters in a part of Brooklyn in the 1950s, prostitutes, hoodlums, transvestites, queers, (are you shocked?), and Harry, a machinist and union member (if he sounds dull, don't worry he's a closeted gay so it's suddenly exciting again). There's swearing, gay sex, violent rape, and two-bit criminals (are you shocked?). The prose style is as demonstrated above, juvenile and exaggerated, as though a drunk is talking to you at a bar, using tedious slang and dated phrases, all the while making sure to be naughty and sweary and dirty and yawn. I hate this stuff. I hate this writing. I hate this beatnik crap. If you've read any of the transgressive Americana stuff from the 50s, 60's and even the 70's, then you've essentially read this. It's nothing new, just more of the same. And I hate it. Bleurgh!! I just f**cking hate it. Banal. 3/10

Tamarisk Row (1974) Gerald Murnane I generally like to read at least two books by an author before making any concrete judgements about them. Having read The Plains, I found it to be frankly bloated and self-indulgent, a book where the prose was overdone and often ludicrous, to a laughable degree, endless nested sentences that, when more closely scrutinised, revealed themselves to be meaningless drivel (albeit deliberately at times). The whole thing felt overwrought and performative and, a few moments here and there aside, I was not impressed by it. So here is my second stab at Murnane. And this was very... different. So much so that it's difficult to come to any hard conclusions regarding his writing especially since here, it's not remotely the same prose at all (possibly due to this being his first book) and I'm pleased to note (because it seems to be increasingly rare) that his style has clearly changed over the years. Either that or he simply chooses to write in different styles each time (hard to tell since I've only read two of his books). But this was nothing like The Plains where the writing was a swirling madness of overdone lyrical sentences, this being more blunt and hard edged, often a little detached and cold. But the fact remains I liked it a lot more than The Plains (not that this one doesn't still have issues). The book begins after the war with a man named Augustine Killeaton who is interested in horse racing and, more specifically, in gambling. Augustine even manages to buy his own horse (Clementia) and has a big first win before the horse is sadly put to death. This win almost sustains Augustine for the next several years of his life, becomes a beacon of hope for a future fantasy which, in and of itself, is rather pathetic. The first third of the book essentially focuses on him leading you to believe that it's his story. But once he's older and married, and has a son named Clementine, the son, and his own version of the fantasy world, becomes the primary focus of the novel. Clementine creates his own brand of reality in the back garden using marbles to create an imaginary environment of small farms and race courses. Alongside these loner-like behaviours, he also becomes interested in girls and what might be between their legs. There are tangents upon which several threads are attached (a school bully called Barry Launder, the violent neighbour Mr Glasscock, the Australian landscape as an ongoing theme) but no real plot to consider, only the curious upbringing and formative experiences of Clementine against the backdrop of his family life. I can't say that I loved it but there was something here that definitely appealed to me (certainly more than The Plains). But it's strange because where The Plains was overly flowery, this, as I said, is blunt and cold, an entirely different style of language. It's more interesting but still didn't necessarily speak to me. There's a lot of ambiguity and oddness to it (close third person narration but which isn't omniscient etc) which I'm tempted to interpret as first novel naivety. Nonetheless, I'm always ready to praise any writer who's willing to try something different and doesn't just stick to one voice, one style, one isolated note for the rest of is career (even if, as the case appears to be, Murnane does stick to the same themes of Australia and desolate landscapes). This was a clunky novel at time but with some genuinely impressive qualities. As such, I am intrigued to turn reading two of Murnane's books into reading three at some point. 6/10

Balcony in the Forest (1958) Julien Gracq I remember reading The Opposing Shore and thinking that one paragraph was the most exquisite prose I'd ever read but the next was the worst bloated fart I'd ever come across. The whole book was just relentless baroque language, overly verbose, neatly executed nested sentences, which at times produced genuinely magnificent language but at others was overwrought and self-indulgent. Anyway, I wanted to read him again at some point but I was slightly put off by that initial experience. So I finally got round to this, and I must say, by comparison, it's delightfully understated (at least as far as the prose is concerned). The language here is more restrained to say the least but, interestingly, covers almost identical ground when it comes to themes. Because this, just like Opposing Shore, is about a man waiting for war to happen. But this time, it's not a fictional landscape, it's the Belgian Ardennes region at the start of the Second World War in 1939, the forests of this area, a small, seemingly insignificant location of little apparent strategic interest to the Nazis but a place, nonetheless, that must be guarded, mined, and manned. Our protagonist, Grange, is, along with his men, lost in a dripping wet woodland of fairies and mystery, a misty landscape of ambient uncertainty, all the while waiting for the war to eventually find them. The book creates a beautiful atmosphere of both anxiety and magic, of being hidden from the world but knowing that it will come crashing into their lives any day now. And all this is done with very understated language, nicely curated prose, restrained, thoughtful, and even a little cautious. I'm not sure if Gracq read The Tartar Steppe (1940) but he seems to be equally fascinated by the idea of waiting for a conflict as Buzatti was. Waiting for something. For life. For death. Who knows, but it's wonderful. That all being said I thought the lack of action or progress in the narrative made the piece a little dull at times. And then, as if to fill the book with something, he throws in a bizarre romance with a girl called Mona which, to me at least, came across as slightly false, redundant, and mostly pointless. I guess the book couldn't stay in the woods forever. The relationship started well, with a rather erotic explosion of promiscuous sex (the best kind) but after this initial intrigue, their relationship was essentially a background noise of little consequence and added very little. Yet despite this treading of water which the book engages in for long periods, I really did like it a lot. There is something beautiful in it, something sad, stoic, eerie, something which is very human. His writing is always superb albeit in service of a story that is wafer thin and very precarious, especially when you consider he already covered this ground in The Opposing Shore. But it's another great example of this particular genre, the wasted years, the wasted life, the sensation that life is being experienced by others, elsewhere, in more dynamic fashion, but not here, where we are simply waiting. Always waiting. Not without its flaws, but highly recommended all the same. I wonder if Buzzati and Gracq ever met, perhaps in some room with magazines, just sat there in silence with each other, waiting for the other to say something. 8/10

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956) Yukio Mishima I generally enjoy Yukio Mishima's books, the stark prose, the terse, matter of fact language and structure. But this one slightly left me a little... numb. I mean, I thought it was fine. Totally... fine. I can't really say much more than that regarding both the language and the story. It's functional and good but I can't imagine this will live long in the memory. I seem to like his work less with each new book but that could be pure coincidence. This one is about a young man during the war named Mizoguchi who, as a boy, is told stories about the beauty of the temple of the golden pavilion by his Buddhist priest father and is, as a result, in awe of its (imagined) beauty. Mizoguchi has a stutter and struggles to make friends, focusing his attention on his own spiritual journey. He eventually becomes an acolyte at the temple (somewhat underwhelmed by the real thing when he sees it), and befriends a young man named Tsurukawa. But later, at university, he becomes friends with a more cynical young man named Kashiwagi who has a clubbed foot and seduces women by making them pity him (Byron?). As the book goes along, Mizoguchi has experiences that seem to compel him to become more isolated and bitter, fantasising about the destruction of the temple, and his own potential suicide. By the end of the book, he plans to burn the temple down and poison himself but, at the last minute, changes his mind and chooses to live. Like I said, it was fine. I can't really say much more about it. It's well written and explores interesting themes but I just didn't find much here that excited me. It plodded along. Maybe it's the fact that Mishima has taken this story from real life (a monk named Hayashi Yoken burned down the Kinkaku-Ji temple in 1950) and Mishima appears to have researched this thoroughly and based the book on this event. As such, it felt like it lacked something to me, like it was a little underwhelming and without his usual touch of the artistic, the usual personal aspect not quite there. Writers often do this, take a real event and fictionalise it, and frankly, I've never really known why (especially when it's done so coldly and methodically). This one just kinda passed me by. I haven't much more to say about it. 6/10

A Posthumous Confession (1894) Marcellus Emants I dislike books that open with something spicy then expect you to wait as the author goes on a tangent about other things before we get to it. That being said, I didn't mind it here because the opening revelation (he murdered his wife) isn't all that important to the quality of writing nor, for that matter, to the content of the piece (which is the book's weak point but we'll get to that). So, as I said, our narrator, William Termeer, begins by confessing to this murder and proceeds to tell us how he got there, became that man, by taking us back to his youth, his defining experiences, his formative years. I read the first third of this book and was convinced it was going to be a new favourite; it's everything I love in a book, beautiful prose, full of creative language, nested sentences, with a misanthropic protagonist burdened by antisocial tendencies he doesn't fully understand, and a bildungsroman narrative that develops slowly. The book has so much in common with others that came later such as The Stranger and No Longer Human, novels examining the life of the outsider, people who don't know how to be human. Termeer admits that he is performing, mimics the normalcy of others, and laments his shyness and inability to be confident and interesting. He has no hinterland, no personality, and is essentially an unpleasant and cold individual who, unsurprisingly, has few redeeming qualities. At school he didn't care about anything, and this continues into adulthood, his only noticeable vice, or feature of humanity, being that he wants sex with women -- something beyond his means because he didn't know how to communicate with them. There's a rather wonderful part where, in Switzerland, he meets a woman and tries to ingratiate himself into her life. But as soon as more impressive men arrive, bigger, louder, more fun, more overtly social, she immediately drops him as though he never existed. He is a dour and emotionally distant man by comparison. But is this entirely his fault? What can he realistically do to become someone else? The book takes us through his early years into adult life, into his continued inability to become a person. And all of these experiences are brought to us with prose that is just sublime, even when it is filled with self-pity and vitriol. It's rich, decadent prose, luxurious and full, with creativity and humour, often self-deprecating, and best of all, always introspective. Despite being an awful person, you listen intently, even sympathise with Termeer, and wonder how he will find a way to portray himself as the victim in his next experience. There was also a nice little meta moment when Termeer goes to see a play (which he loved) by a playwright called... Marcellus Emants. And as I said, I thought this was going to be a new favourite of mine because I was loving every inch of it. But then the book starts to outstay its welcome slightly; Emants focuses (perhaps understandably given the premise) on Termeer's relationship with his wife Anna. It stands to reason that he wants to pay off the opening confession with some context but the book gets bogged down here, and loses its way. Their courtship, relationship, and marriage is uninteresting even when Emants throws in the death of their child (which Termeer is openly glad of), and even the flirtatious potential affair between Anna with De Kantere offers little more than an opportunity for Termeer to feel sorry for himself. It's all a little dry and has the detrimental effect of stopping Emants from writing his fluid introspective prose, this now replaced with standard story telling, dialogue, events. It's still very good but the magnificent self-centred ruminations of Termeer are now somewhat interrupted and reduced to a melodramatic soap opera. Even the ending (he gets away with it) can't save it as he returns, rather beautifully, to his selfish and cowardly ways. Nonetheless, I mostly loved this and would definitely recommend it. 9/10

Carrie's War in middle school. It put me off reading for a long time.

Heaven and Hell (2007) Jon Kelman Stefasson Set around 1900 in an Icelandic fishing village, the book focuses on a boy who joins one of the fishing expeditions with his friend Bardur (or that weird squiggly letter Nordics use instead of a d). Before departing, Bardur insists on reading one more line from his Icelandic translation of Milton's Paradise Lost. This particular book (and its Christian contents) become a recurring them in the book often dwelling on aspects of divinity and death (plus the general power and beauty of Milton's poetry). When they are out at sea, Bardur has forgotten his waterproof clothes and this proves costly leading to his death during a bad storm. Returning to land, the boy is distraught and confused by the disinterest of the others, of the world, and he seeks to return the copy of Paradise Lost to the man that gave it to Burdur, seeks to find meaning in life and literature. All of this is set amid a cold environment in a bleak existence. Gotta say... I really did not like this. It started well, the first third was okay, capturing the cold, hard life of these men making their living from such a dangerous and isolated occupation. The language was a little cliched if you ask me but saved by short sentences that reiterated the importance of life, the power of literature, and, later, the terrible significance of grief. But as it went on, it became more contrived, with a lot of deliberate pretension in the prose, a sudden slew of run-on sentences (annoying given that I hate them) that refuse to engage with the possibility of a full stop. Then, in total contrast, terse language which was a little dull and blunt. The two combined to irritate me but for very different reasons, mostly, however, it was the Cormac McCarthy-esque (and presumably inspired by) drivel about the ageless sky and the weeping moon and the crimson horizon. The endless reminders that the sea is a vast creature which is alive. Is it really? You don't say. That he keeps referring to 'the boy' also felt like a nod to McCarthy. I just loathe that stuff. This is one of those books that wants to explore the profundity of life, wants to be existential and bleak, but instead it wallows in predictable platitudes and adjectives designed to suggest an austere view of life that feel false and forced. I didn't buy any of it. Much like McCarthy, it felt too painstakingly deliberate, inauthentic, as though Kalman wanted to write about a subject matter that he isn't actually qualified to properly grasp. I wouldn't say it's a bad book or anything but the amount of praise heaped on this thing is bewildering to me. It's fine. It's not my thing though. There are only so many cliches I take. This is a book that is trying too hard. I'm sure this will upset a lot of people (because the book appears to be universally loved) but I just don't like this kind of writing. There's something very phoney about it. It's definitely worth a look but ignore the (inexplicable) rave reviews and make up your own mind. 3/10

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) Shirley Jackson As children, we all knew of houses nearby that had rumours attached to them, creepy places with stories about the eerie occupants, places best avoided. So here we get the perspective of those very people, the ones inside the house. The opening chapter of this book really does tantalise the reader, a young 18-year-old girl (Mary Katherine... Merricat to her friends), is grocery shopping in her local village and seems to get stared at by various people, her own internal monologue suggesting that she hates these people as much as they hate her, before, finally, she encounters a man in a shop who very passive aggressively insinuates that she, and her family should simply leave their community. It's all very mysterious, unnerving, and does a good job of making you want to learn more. Fortunately, the very next chapter fills in the gaps: Merricat and her (very rich) family live in a large mansion away from the village and six years earlier several members of the family were poisoned to death with arsenic that had been put in the sugar bowl. Constance, the older sister, was accused but acquitted and so now, the remaining family members -- Constance, Merricat and uncle Julian (plus the cat Jonas) -- live alone here, wonderfully secluded, eerily remote, peacefully content in their little corner of the world. They have become shut-ins, local oddities, and the villagers increasingly view them as curious at best, nefarious at worst. But they are happy, for the most part, and all is well until Charles, a cousin, arrives and causes some degree of upheaval. I really enjoyed this, the first two thirds in particular, the cosy atmosphere it creates with these three people isolated from the world on their large estate and increasingly viewed by the community as disturbing, unpleasant, even dangerous people. Merricat has a strong sense of other worldly innocence, even delusion, but she also craves the cosiness of this familiar world, to the extent that she eventually barricades the sides of the house, almost cocoons them into their little corner of existence. Jackson really does create a tangible atmosphere of both uncertainty but also warmth. I'm not sure if the twist in the story is actually considered a twist given that you can see it coming a mile off, but it never really felt especially important to the general theme or character of the piece. This is a book which is more concerned with otherness and individuality, with the delicate safety blankets we acquire either by trauma or just daily living. These are where the ghost stories about certain local houses and neighbours begin. I was slightly losing interest in the final third when the 'twist' is revealed (rather unnecessarily if you ask me) but overall, the book is superb and highly recommended. 8/10