Hux

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Freshwater (2018) Akwaeje Emezi Tricky one to review because I loved the first half of the novel (when a more literal interpretation was available) but began rolling my eyes towards the end (when certain banal metaphors were being played with). The story is essentially a coming-of-age tale about a Nigerian girl called Ada who has gods (ogbanje) living inside her. At first there are lots of them and they are represented by the pronoun 'we' (you can see where this is going, right?) but then one of them (Asughara) comes forward and becomes more dominant. Like I said, I was really enjoying it, the intriguing notion of these beings having some not insignificant influence over Ada and being a spiritual protection against the world (reminded me a little of 'Discovery of Heaven by Mulisch). It was an interesting idea and one which, with some subtlety, hinted at an obvious mental health allegory. But then Asughara comes forward and 'forces' Ada to start having promiscuous violent sex with a variety of (bad) men and you get the distinct impression that Ada (or is it Akwaeke) wants you to believe that this isn't her doing... it's the Asughara's doing. Then along comes another god (St Vincent) and he wants to have sex with the same gender, you see. And that also isn't Ada's doing. Because nothing is. And then she wants to get her breasts removed and she wants to have more promiscuous sex and... oh for Christ's sake! I remember reading Normal People by Sally Rooney and wondering why women kept writing books about pursuing aggressive sex with men but moaning about the consequences as though they were not entirely involved in the process. Well, this book made me wonder again. It's all such self-indulgent nonsense. Nothing is my responsibility and I am the result of trauma and blah blah blah. I am special, a unique lifeform that has never been seen by humanity before. Please notice my specialness. I am neurodivergent. There's something different about me. Look, young people. I'm gonna tell you something now that might shock you. You know how there were people slopping about in the mud in the 12th century. Well, guess what: THOSE PEOPLE ALSO THOUGHT THEY WERE SPECIAL. Anyway, I don't want my ranting to sound like I disliked the book, it was well written and quite engaging. But Christ, spare me this identity garbage. It's so unutterably boring. 7/10

Babbitt (1922) Sinclair Lewis There have been many books that explore the banality of modernity, the repetitious slog of capitalist existence, the ennui and boredom that comes from living in such a comfortable environment of security and status quo. Usually they involve a mid-life crisis or a sweeping change in worldview. Well, this book covers all that ground but has the added distinction of being one of the first to address any of these issues. And what's more, Lewis also has the foresight to predict what's coming for the rest of us, the relentless march into a dull, poetry-less swamp of regurgitated consumption and numbness and the (dead behind the eyes) mediocrity of modern living. That being said, he does all this with a rather whimsical and even comic tone. Had he gone for something a little more weighty and bleak I might have enjoyed it significantly more. As it is, the book always skirts around the edges of its own themes and plays things for laughs. Lewis gives us a mercurial man (George F. Babbitt) living a standard middle-class life and infuses the narrative with joviality and silliness. Admittedly, this is due to Babbitt's own personality and demeanour (so it makes sense) but the fact remains it reduces the story's impact a little and makes everything somewhat comical and trivial (too much for my tastes). George is married with three kids and works in real estate. He is a Republican and a member of various well-to-do clubs. It's only with his breakdown that he questions any of this and (briefly) descends into chasing girls and embracing (equally conformist and performative) radical politics. The fact that his friend Paul Reisling has experienced a similar (but more consequential) breakdown is also a triggering factor. He begins to question his life. He begins to feel the weight of a cold and empty modernity on his shoulders. The book feels very contemporary. By which I mean it feels like it was written in the '50s. All of the capitalist trappings of that particular time, the kitchen appliances, cars, movies, fast food, and straight-laced culture. But this book was published in 1922 and you can see that Lewis is not only crticising that period but also (quite accurately) pointing out what is to come. This might be how upper middle-class Babbitt lives his life now but it's also how we will all live in the future. Yes, the torment of nothingness he endures will be everyone's in the future. We will all stare at our partners with boredom, grow tired of the repetition, wonder what any of it amounts to, and grapple in the dark for any kind of answer. We will ALL be so thoroughly bored by life. Anyway, I feel sad now. So I'm off to McDonalds. Then work. Then blah blah blah blah. A great book. 8/10

Loved The Midnight Bell. The Siege of Pleasure gave some background to Jenny but wasn't as good. And The Plains of Cement was a nice (albeit sad) conclusion.

Belt

Apple

Got the cat by the tail

Midwife

Ice (1967) Anna Kavan This was intensely boring. If I had to describe all the literary genres I most dislike, this book might encapsulate them all. There's elements of stream-of-consciousness (more like stream-of-narrative), slipstream, magical realism, and what I would describe as nextism adventure (then I was on a boat going to a new country, then I was in a castle, then I was fighting in a war). All things that I find utterly tedious and unrewarding to read. The story is a dreamlike scenario which sees the narrator existing in a word where ice sheets are slowly devouring the planet while at the same time, he is obsessed with finding a girl with blonde silvery hair. If you've read books like 'The Blind Owl' or "if On a Winter's Night a Traveler' you'll get the gist of what kind of narrative were dealing with here. It's all rather magical and weird and surreal yet presented in a very matter of fact and standard prose manner. This, for me, is the main problem with the book. If you're going to inflict your dull story on me then it needs to be exquisite experimental writing that elevates the material and makes the plot (if there is such a thing) entirely redundant. Alternatively, if you're going to use very basic (but entirely decent) writing (as Kavan does) then you need to make it a lot more dynamic and intriguing. But we get neither. And thus, I am immensely bored. It seems clear that Kavan is exploring several ideas and themes in the book (predominantly I felt she was criticising masculine concepts of romantic love and possessiveness and perhaps using the encroaching ice as a metaphor for her drug addiction) but I was so unengaged by the writing that I just didn't care. There's just something about these books, this style, that makes me roll my eyes in utter despair. It's such navel gazing indulgence and it so thoroughly bores me. That being said the writing is fine (even occasionally great) and if you like this sort of thing (magical realism, slipstream, nextism adventure in the vein of 'If on a Winter's Night etc) then you might find something wonderful in it. I found almost nothing. 3/10

He's being sarcastic when he says it, I suppose. He's reiterating that we're only human. And humans are flawed and inflict their traumas onto each other. It's a hard book to review because I think Carpenter is trying to say a lot of things. It's both romantic and bleak.

Golf

Wonder

If you post after me, the cat will cry...

Hard Rain Falling (1966) Don Carpenter This might be the most romantic book I've ever read which is strange given that it's a love story between two men, neither of which are gay. But they connect, albeit under unique circumstances, and in way that is deeper than a mere sexual convenience. The story focuses on Jack Levitt, an orphan hoodlum who, as a 17-year-old, hangs out at pool halls and engages in pretty crime. As the novel progresses, it jumps ahead in time and we follow Jack as he bumps into one of his old friends, Denny, and hangs out with (what turn out to be) two underaged girls. Next thing he knows, he is in prison for rape and dealing with the ongoing hardship of a life without any power. In San Quentin Prison, he meets Billy Lancing, a black kid he briefly knew from the old days and they share a cell. They become good friends and, after wrestling with the implications for a while, eventually agree to provide each other with sexual release. The arrangement is a purely logical one and neither men feel any particular sense of shame or regret. Once Jack gets back into the real world, he meets Sally and they get married and eventually have a kid. Like I said, romantic. Jack accepts and acknowledges that he and Billy had a meaningful connection. He doesn't regard himself as a homosexual and this isn't a story about latent desires or a suppressed sexuality. Two men just happened, via circumstance, to connect in a way that, ultimately, one would have to describe as involving love. The book isn't about that so much as it is offering us a window into a genuine moment of happiness amid an unhealthy norm that is being culturally undermined. There is still beauty to be found in the relentless nihilism. Because, if anything, I felt like the book was more about female sexual liberation and its terrible consequences than anything else. Sally has NO desire to be a mother and finds it to be a tedious chore. But what else could she view it as when raised by a world that reiterates this? Jack has naive notions of a world getting better by one generation raising its kids better than the last and so on but how can that happen when raising children is increasingly sold to us as a prison. Raising a child was to Sally what San Quentin was to Jack and, at his more lucid moments, he knows and even sympathises with this. So what chance did either of them have?

FA

yes

Hmmm.

Trick

Shuggie Bain (2020) Douglas Stuart Another piece of contemporary fiction which is entirely readable but not necessarily much more than that. The prose is very much what you'd expect and the story and framework are what you've seen before from countless other modern novels. This one also has all that misery porn which people (women) seem to love but which, to me, is only a distraction from the writing and tends to become rather repetitive. I will say, however, that it was very authentic. Reading the book instantly transported me back to my own childhood, growing up on various council estates with a single mother who put her own needs ahead of her children's. Stuart does a great job of setting the scene and detailing the cliched intricacies of working class life. I recognised so much of it. Especially the mercurial mother who neglects her children whilst positioning herself as the victim, something which led me to boil with anger at my own memories. Ultimately, your being asked to sympathise with Agnes but, based on my own experiences, I just couldn't do it. She has responsibilities and I don't care if alcoholism is a disease. I just don't care. Protect your damn children! That aside, it's an entertaining read (for the most part) and definitely worth a look. The story is about young Shuggie (Hugh) and his alcoholic mother Agnes. Living in Glasgow with Agnes, her parents, and his two siblings, Shuggie is a quiet, softly spoke boy (the book strongly hints at him being gay) who adores his mother. Agnes was married once before to a seemingly nice yet boring man and had a daughter and son with that man. She then left him for the more exciting big Shug (Shuggie's father) and yet seems to have developed a taste for alcohol that only exacerbates. They move from his grandparents' council flat to a house on an estate where, almost immediately, big shug leaves her for another woman. There follows a series of men (referred to as uncles) and one man in particular called Eugene who, for a while at least, seems to provide some happiness for Agnes. This is also the longest period of sobriety for Agnes, lasting roughly one year. But again, it ultimately fails. The book is well written but gets a little repetitive and drags at the half way point. More than once, we get the aforementioned misery porn more than is actually required. It adds nothing new given that we already know what is happening and what to expect. That aside, the story is very basic and it essentially spirals towards an ending that's sad but pretty predictable. That it's based on Stuart's own life obviously adds weight to the material but as a piece of literature, it's left wanting in my opinion. I enjoyed it overall but found the story a little too close to home to really like it. And from a purely prose point of view, I thought it was quite average. Good but (as always) not worth the hype that came with it. 7/10

Closely Watched Trains (1965) Bohumil Hrabal Short and sweet coming-of-age story about a boy who, during the final stages of the second world war, works as a station guard at an isolated train station with his two colleagues. He details the comings and goings of various trains, those including goods, cattle and people. He tells us about his life in sporadic bursts and usually out of chronological order (which can occasionally be jarring), especially relating his trials and tribulations regarding losing his virginity and the failed suicide attempt that followed his premature ejaculation. Like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, he endeavours to find a way to avoid working for a living and though not as successful as his forebears, he feels that he is ultimately doing a pretty good job of it. The writing is crisp and clear, never too flowery or dense, and it goes by at a pace. The final chapter detailing his encounter with a German soldier has a great deal of pathos to it and leaves us with a feeling that Milos has never really been given a chance to live. Finally losing his virginity to an older woman who, more than anything, is simply doing him a favour, does, at least, give him a sense of becoming a man. I would class this very short novella as more charming than profound. It's definitely worth a read and explores various themes such as war, loss, wasted potential, and heroism but never anything more than that. It's a gentle and thoughtful window into a time that's long gone. 7/10

Pigtales (1996) Marie Darrieussecq An easy to read (it breezes along) but mostly forgettable satire that adds nothing new in regards to the issue of gender. Had I read this in the 90s (when it was published), I might have been more impressed but, in the current climate, I would say the book has actually aged quite badly. What is being satirised isn't always clear but there seems to be an obvious attack on men using women as meat which, in better hands, might be worth exploring but here, is somewhat undermined by the fact that the main character also uses herself as meat. Again, this might be the implied criticism but it's never overt and it all feels rather obvious and unoriginal. People are animals. Men are predators. Women are meat. Yawn. So the general method for exploring this idea involves a story about a young woman who becomes a sex worker then, as the novel goes along, begins to transform into a pig. To the background of this we have a kind of dystopian political landscape in France where totalitarians take over and, further along, an implication that others also become animals but can switch back to human when necessary. Yvan, one of her many lovers, for instance, becomes a wolf but has trained himself to do it only at full moons (pulling that particular myth into the narrative). Stories like this have been done before and done much better. As far as the theme of exploring our animal nature is concerned, Lady into Fox by Garnett is a superior book that looks at the issue from the husband's perspective; he suffers by having to watch the woman he loves descend into a visceral existence that cannot include him. There is more subtlety and romance, more heartbreak and charm. But here, it's all rather self-pitying and devoid of awareness (hence aged badly). But hey, there's more sex and innuendo so that's something. Ultimately, when the protagonist is a self-indulgent narcissist who treats her own body as a disposable pleasure unit, it's hard to condemn or make judgements about anyone else doing the same. So all you're left with is a story about a 'lady of the night' feeling sorry for herself in a world where people don't treat each other very nicely or with respect. You don't say? 6/10

On Heroes and Tombs (1961) Ernesto Sabato Really wanted to like this but it was such a struggle. I got through the first third fairly unscathed but gradually, and with a growing sense of deja vu, I began to lose momentum. The writing is fine, especially at the beginning, but the story is just immensely dull. And more importantly, it's a story that Sabato already told me (with greater brevity and wit) in the Tunnel: young man (Martin) becomes obsessed with a girl (Alejandra) who shows no real passion or interest in him yet, presumably as a convenience (such is the privilege of being a woman), chooses, nonetheless, to pursue a relationship with him despite her obvious boredom. In turn, as she treats him with aloof disdain, the man becomes possessive and paranoid to a point that is incongruent given how bland the girl in question is. He pines and squirms, begs and pleads, he follows her, he fixates, he demands to know where she's going, who she's with, and, the final nail in the coffin, he repeatedly asks if she loves him (that's usually the point when women start to roll their eyes). And then, because it's a Sabato novel, she dies tragically, because... well, because that's what happens to beautiful girls it seems. I think it's safe to say that Sabato had his heart broken by some hot piece of ass when he was young and never really got over it. That's fine but why tell the same story again when you've already done it so brilliantly? All this book did was make it more dense and self-indulgent when there was no need. This girl was admittedly more unpleasant but the themes are very much the same but simply overplayed and a little more bloated. By the hallway point I was turning pages with the enthusiasm of Sisyphus pushing his boulder. It was a slog. Then comes part three, a bizarre exploration of Alejandra's father, Fernando, back in the days when he was young, days where, apparently, he was seemingly obsessed (to the point of fetishisation) with blind people. This whole section only added fuel to the fire of my already waning interest. I could not get onboard at all and was bemused, bored, and begging for it to end. The book just never grabbed me or excited me, never made me relish the next chapter or ponder the wider themes (of which there are many but I'd already given up by then). Sabato can clearly write and I would definitely recommend this book as it might be one of those books that just works for some people. But for me, after initially enjoying the first third or so, I just didnt care enough to keep investing. These characters never spoke to me. They never mattered to me. And I'm not sure anything could have been done to change that. Sometimes a book just isn't for you (for whatever reason). 7/10

“Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless." The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles

The Sheltering Sky (1949) Paul Bowles) If I wanted to be unkind I would describe this book as 'bored middle-class people get their comeuppance' but, given how much I enjoyed it, I am willing to put certain things I disliked to one side and focus on the positives. Firstly, it's wonderfully written with some delightful turns of phrase. "The wind at the window celebrated her dark sensation of having attained a new depth of solitude." And, more importantly, the book delves into the bleak realities of existential crisis and the banalities of having both to live in a meaningless universe and, via a myriad of actions and beliefs, deceive ourselves that we, in fact, do not. These two things combined made for a wonderful reading experience which, as we stumble to the end, becomes ever more blunt and unforgiving. It ostensibly deals with Port and his wife Kit who are traveling around Algeria, him for reasons of ennui and escape, her because she is his wife. They have both come to terms with the fact that they are bored with each other. To make matters worse, their friend, Tunner, is also travelling with them and patently has feelings (perhaps only sexual in nature) for Kit. As the story progresses, they keep moving from one town to another, one desolate landscape to the next, until Port falls ill and Kit, unmoved by his struggles, descends into a spiraling nightmare of madness and brutality. Never has a woman been forced to deal with the consequences of being denied the protection of her own civilisation quite so heartlessly. All in all, this is a book with very little sympathy for your loneliness, your dreams, your hopes, or beliefs. And it's quite magnificent. Here comes reality, here it comes... can you feel it. 9/10