Hux

Yearn

The Sandman (1817) E.T.A Hoffman A wonderful, albeit very short story from 1817 which, along with Mary Shelley and Poe, is very much part of the gothic tradition. The story begins with three letters concerning the childhood incident of a young boy called Nathanael who experienced a genuine fear of The Sandman. Later he attaches this personality to a business partner of his father's called Coppelius who disappears from their life after his father's death. As an adult, Nathanael encounters a man named Coppola and believes that he is the same sandman. His friends and family suggest this is merely a creation of his own mind. Then Nathanael meets Spallanzani, his teacher, and falls in love with his daughter Olimpia. What follows is a genuinely creepy discovery that is both ancient in its eerie nature but also curiously modern. It involves Olimpia and results in some sincerely interesting notions about the individual, the self, the human. I found this very notion both profoundly disturbing but also very much ahead of its time. It's hard to explain without certain spoilers but ultimately it concerns what it means to be human and how we define these traits and know (if we can ever know) who is genuinely conscious and who is merely... a puppet. A fun and fascinating little read. 7/10

Flights (2007) Olga Tokarczuk I've written several reviews where I criticise authors who throw their vignettes and short stories together and pretend it's a novel. Just write a damn book of short stories for Christ's sake! Anyway, here we go again. This time the 'theme' is travel (and maybe the human body) and some of the stories are mildly diverting but not much more. Between each story, there is a woman narrating in the present about her own trips around the world. She is presumably the thread keeping this narrative together. The best story by far is the first one about a husband and wife and their young child on holiday on a Croatian island. The mother and child get out of the car to go for a pee in the bushes but go missing. What follows is an intense and gripping page turner about the husband and the police's search for them. Then were done and move on to the next one. There's one about Philip Verheyen, the Dutch anatomist, which focuses in his relationship with his amputated leg. One about a sailor. A professor. A woman who hangs about with a crazy train gypsy or something (I'd lost interest by this point). I really don't care for this stuff at all. It's maudlin and glib. And there is something tediously pretentious and self-indulgent about it. The books only saving grace is that Tokarczuk's writing is always very accessible and easy to read. I actually liked the first half but once it becomes clear that it's just her attempt at being Sebald, the novelty wears off very quickly. Again, the writing's good but it's only in service of the banal and the forgettable. I liked 'Drive your Plow' quite a lot but was never that impressed and this book has only further confused me. I guess anyone can win a Nobel prize these days. I might need to read her earlier works to grasp the hype. Anyway... I would recommend it because the writing is fluid and clean and the subject matter is worth exploring but it wasn't for me. 5/10

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race (2010) Thomas Ligotti A non-fiction piece which ostensibly focuses on the work of Peter Zapffe, a Norwegian philosopher who belived that consciousness was an evolutionary blunder which took the human species away from being part of the natural. As such, Zapffe belived that we, as a species, should explore the possibility that non-existence is preferable to existence; that the whole human race should consider antinatalism, allow itself to leave, to end the cycle of birth and death, that we should simply opt out of existence. The book is superbly written and very enjoyable to read. Ligotti looks at the ideas of various philosophers and writers (mostly those who write of the supernatural) and does so with a deft touch that makes the reading experience very entertaining. He identifies thinkers who, via philosophy, psychology, or fiction, have addressed the issue of being alive and whether or not it is, for want of a better term, worth it. Despite his even-handedness, it seems clear from the outset that he does not. While I enjoyed the book, there was nothing in it that I wasn't already familiar with and, should you want a greater, more in-depth analysis of the subject matter, I would recommend the writers and thinkers he refences more so that this book. Zapffe in particular. In essence this is a simplified version of complex ideas which, understandably given Ligotti's horror fiction background, he makes a little more accessible via their relationship with horror and the supernatural. Existence and consciousness are, after all, a horror story. As a means of producing an easy to digest and easy to understand exploration of these ideas I would highly recommend the book. Very interesting stuff. But ultimately nothing too deep or heavy. 7/10

The Virgin Suicides (1993) Jeffrey Eugenides The story of five sisters who commit suicide. This is not a spoiler as the book opens by telling us this (and the methods used). But really the story predominantly deals with Lux (the second eldest) as she becomes the focus of the narrator's attention (which appears to be a boy (or a group of boys) looking back on the events). Once the youngest, Cecilia, has attempted suicide (cutting her wrists) but fails, and later jumps off the roof (succeeding this time), the narrative zooms in on Lux as the central character despite all the other sisters (Bonnie, Mary and Theresa) also commuting suicide. Make of that what you will (given that she also becomes very sexually promiscuous, it felt clear to me that some insinuation of sexual abuse was evident in the family but this is never made explicit). Regardless, the book is very much about Lux and it seems silly to ignore the fact that huge chunky chapters are dedicated to her and her experiences while the other girls (save for Cecilia) essentially become background characters, footnotes. Again, this feels very intentional. I found the writing to be perfectly entertaining but never anything more. But I found the ethereal nature of the girls (like they were beautiful ghosts) a little tedious (and presumptuous). Eugenides fetishises these young girls as other worldly beings, sexualised without being too overt, turning them into non-humans who merely exist to be fascinating creatures to others. And again, I would say that was deliberate but I still didn't really find it especially ground breaking or original. As pleasant as the reading experience was (it zipped by), I never really found anything meaningful in the book beyond the potential exploration of our need to otherise pretty girls (and even that was never entirely convincing). But it was okay. I would mostly recommend it. 7/10

Spider (1990) Patrick Mcgrath I can't recall where I first heard about this book but a brief glance at the synopsis (a man wandering the streets struggling with his mental illness) appealed to my natural inclination for nihilistic literature. But the book wasn't quite what I thought it would be. Yes, the main character (Dennis Cleg or Spider) is a man with mental health issues who regularly takes walks by the canal but the book is more about his reminisces regarding a traumatic childhood incident than anything else. The story he tells about his mother and father, however, is enormously engaging and quickly sucked me in. But then halfway through the book, we begin to discover that Spider might not be the most reliable of narrators. The story switches from the one he is telling us about his parents and becomes more focused on his twenty years in an asylum. This is all well and good but the problem I had was that I was actually enjoying the story of his childhood and was frankly fascinated to discover what happened next. As such, I was not that interested in his current mental state or the asylum he was living in. But it becomes clear that the reason for this sudden change of pace is to reiterate that Spider's version of events (the story he is telling us) might not actually be very accurate. You can see the twist coming a mile off and part of me hoped McGrath would subvert my expectations (but he didn't). I wanted the story of his parents to continue but once we get the reveal, there's very little point in doing so. And that's part of the problem. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and found the prose both inventive and fluid. But I really don't care for books with plot twists of this nature. Not unless there's something a little unique about it (something surreal or creepy or ambiguous). I couldn't help but feel a little short changed. That being said I really liked the book but simply found my interest waning once it becomes clear that Spider's memory of events couldn't be trusted. Definitely worth a read though. 7/10

The Tenant (1964) Roland Topor This was fantastic. A man named Trelkovsky is looking for a new apartment and comes across one that is available due to the attempted suicide of the previous tenant. She didn't die but is bandaged and speechless in hospital after coming out of a coma and he visits her there, meeting one of her friends, Stella, in the process. After moving into the apartment, he discovers that the woman (Simone Choule) has sadly died. As soon as Trelkovsky moves in, it becomes apparent that his neighbours (and landlord) are a bunch of unctuous curtain-twitchers who love to moan about the excessive noise he makes. He becomes increasingly paranoid and cautious about their judgements and snide whispering. At the same time, he becomes more fascinated by the death and apparent suicide of Simone Choule and ruminates on what might have caused it. What follows is a curious obsession and mania which culminates in one of the most disturbing and creepy endings I think I've ever come across. It's difficult to speak about this book without giving away important spoilers. Suffice it to say, Trelkovsky's obsession takes him over and his descent into madness is wonderfully realised, a slow process that builds cleverly through character relationships and discoveries. The little details are sublime and the writing, always concise and clear but occasionally profound, is a joy to read. The chapters fly by and provide a pace and structure that is almost too perfect for words. All the way to the end, I couldn't be certain if what was happening was actually happening or if it was something else entirely. Only the epilogue offers any definitive answer to this and while it's monstrously creepy, it is, ultimately, a conclusion that comes entirely from Trelkovsky's own perspective. So we still don't really know what was going on. I loved the way Torpor maintained a simplistic approach and grounded everything in reality. The story, events, and writing, are all very matter of fact. It allowed for the spiraling uncertainty, the eerie fog, to be more convincing and more perverse. The moment when Trelkovsky wakes up 'looking different' caused a shudder to go through me without ever taking me away from that feeling of everything being very down to earth. It's hard to explain. Certain books are just very good at keeping their toes in the water of reality even when things become bizarre and unnatural. This was an amazing exploration of paranoia and a pleasure to read. 10/10

Guignol's Band (1944) Louis Ferdinand Celine A wounded first world war soldier (Ferdinand) is traipsing around London sometime in the mid 1910s (maybe around 1916/17) and doing his best to get by. He associates with pimps and prostitutes as well as other French exiles, and goes from one nihilistic encounter to the next, always aware, in some capacity, that he must eventually leave (even if it means going back to the war). I'm not sure how many writers change style as violently at this. You can certainly see the progression from 'Journey' to 'Death on Credit' in regards to his prose but here, from the very off, there is a definite stream of consciousness manner to it all; but it's uniquely Celine, a scatter gun approach that is relentless and rapid and never lets up. I'm not sure others would necessarily describe it as stream of consciousness but I don't see how it could be anything else given how internal and personal it is. The language is a ceaseless onslaught of immediacy and reaction. There is no narration, only a gushing of thought and action. And the truth is, I actually quite liked it, certainly more than the precursor of 'Death on Credit' which is a kind of halfway house between 'Voyage' and this. Ultimately, I found it rather effective and strangely enjoyable to read. The book is filled with all the usual nihilistic and cynical experiences associated with Celine. The part of the book where he tracks down his friend Borokrom at the pawnbrokers (Claben) and the four of them (including the maid Delphine) get high on booze and 'funny' cigarettes until they're out of their minds and committing atrocious acts upon one another is especially bleak. Celine turns what is essentially a grim series of actions into a ludicrous farce and apathetic nothing. The whole encounter is toxic and vile yet weirdly absurd and surreal. Then comes the house fire to obliterate the entire episode with an utterly cold and heartless conclusion. And off we go again, back into the sewer of the London streets. When Ferdinand goes to the consulate and demands to be sent back to the war, I was genuinely moved by Celine's description of his dead pals, describing them all stood there in front of him, pale and miserable, guts pouring from their stomachs, disemboweled chunks of flesh and man. I couldn't help but think this was the ultimate purpose of the narrative, the motivation behind both the character and real life experiences of Celine. Essentially, this book takes place between the war and going to Africa in 'Voyage' and you can certainly understand why Celine would want to revisit this period. Never has London seemed so seedy. 8/10

All the best.

Pedro Páramo (1955) Juan Rulfo I never fully got to grips with this one. There is an element of magical realism (a genre I have little time for) and the book is an an almost ethereal journey into an obscure dream which floats without form until you lose its thread. The book begins with Juan Preciado arriving in the town of Comala after his mother's death to search for his father Pedro Páramo. The narrative then jumps back and forth between the present time and the past where we learn about the life of Pedro Páramo. In the present, the book is a first person narration by Juan Preciado as he encounters a ghost town. In the past, it is a third person narration where Comala is a thriving community. In both periods, there is the addition of characters who are possibly dead, spectres and ghosts, who tell tales and narrate the story themselves, leading (certainly in my case) to quite a lot of confusion and uncertainty. It's difficult to keep track of everyone and their place in the narrative, to know how they connect and what relationships they have. As such, the whole book has a quality of dreamy otherness that conjures up a haze, a sense of delirium and shadows, of emotional phantoms. It was both beautiful but unclear. The book was very easy to read but I was always left with a feeling of being lost, like I'd stepped into a mystery, long forgotten by others. It reminded me a little of 'The Blind Owl' but while that book never entirely grabbed me, this one did. It was more enjoyable but, ultimately, still not something that ever blew me away. I would definitely recommend it though. It might be one of those books you need to read more than once. 7/10

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches (1998) Gaétan Soucy A very curious story narrated by a young girl (perhaps seventeen) who wakes up one morning (along with her brother) to discover that their father has committed suicide. The book then details that not only are these two children essentially feral (having neve gone beyond the grounds of their estate) but also that their father was an abusive and somewhat disturbed individual. The girl has also been, for unknown reasons, raised to believe that she is in fact a boy (who lost genitalia when very young). She walks with her horse into the village in the hopes of buying a coffin but, understandably, piques the interest of some of the villagers, one of whom she is attracted to and who provides her with some small details regarding her father's wealth and background. I really enjoyed her voice and found it very convincing. She is somehow both feral yet fiercely intelligent, ignorant of the world (and how it works), but equally sharp and resourceful. Her narration is always fascinating and thoughtful but occasionally bogged down in colloquialisms created by her own unique experiences which gives the book the occasional feel of being post-apocalyptic. It reminded me a little of Riddley Walker but was, significantly so, a lot more accessible and more enjoyable to read. You can sense the twist coming but never entirely know what it's going to be. I actually found it to be rather tame compared to what I had been conjuring in my own mind. And I didn't entirely enjoy the way Soucy spells it all out at the end by having the story continue beyond its point of purpose. It was all rather unnecessary if you ask me. I would have preferred more ambiguity regarding the ending, perhaps leave things so that they were a little more open to interpretation. That being said, I was very impressed overall. A unique work. 8/10

Thanks. Books being a major disappointment is all part of the fun.

Heaven (2009) Mieko Kawakami The story of an unnamed 14-year-old boy with a lazy eye who is mercilessly bullied at school. He begins receiving letters from a girl called Kojima who is also bullied for being scruffy and poor. They meet and develop a friendship that is predominantly lead by her, and, as such, she proffers a philosophy that weakness is good and that the beatings and cruelty they suffer are a necessary experience. As the bullying continues (often bordering on torture porn), the book culminates in the bullies discovering their friendship and a final showdown. I found this easy enough to read with very straightforward writing. There are occasional moments of beauty in the prose but mostly it's standard stuff, as such, you're relying on the story and the characters to keep you interested. For the most part, they did but I wasn't really excited by anything until chapter six when Momose -- essentially second in command of the bullies -- meets his victim in the hospital and they discuss why he and his friends bully him. His argument is interesting (and even convincing to the bullied boy) and essentially revolves around a principle of 'might is right.' People either do what they want or they don't. It's not a question of right or wrong. They do what they can get away with. People are hypocrites who would be appalled if their daughter were in porn but will just as happily masturbate to someone else's daughter in porn. You either do what you want or you don't. Regardless of any sense of morality. And so on... It was an interesting idea and one worth looking into but the book barely scratches the surface of its implications. Plus, it's difficult to believe that a 14-year-old boy would possess such a cynical worldview or articulate it so effortlessly. The speech would have made more sense in the mouth of an adult and, as such, could have allowed for greater exploration of the idea itself. Ultimately, I interpreted the ending as the boy accepting the fundamental truth of this argument. He agrees to get his lazy eye fixed (a thing which Kojima is explicitly against) which suggests the he has given in to the notion that strength, no matter in what prosaic form it comes, is a requirement for happiness. A decent read but nothing exceptional. 7/10

Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

Omon Ra (1992) Victor Pelevin A bildungsroman novel about a young Soviet boy named Omon Ra who has dreams of becoming a cosmonaut. He meets a fellow space obsessed boy called Mitiok and together they bond over their shared ambitions and interests. As the story goes along, they both attend an academy for cosmonauts and begin their training for a mission to the moon. I was enjoying the book is as a rather straight-forward story about a boy's dreams coming true amid a satirical landscape of soviet incompetence. But as it builds, there is a sense of the bizarre and surreal, culminating in an experience at the reincarnation test which results in (what appears to be) a drug induced rant form Mitiok where he reveals that, among other things, he was a Nazi in a past life. From here on in, the strangeness continues and the increasing sense of uncertainty is palpable as Omon Ra prepares for the final stages of the moon mission where he (and a handful of others) will have a leading part. All the while you can sense a blind devotion to the cause and a bleak, over romanticised craving for the heroic. The ending contains what most certainly would be described as a twist but which was not entirely unexpected. It's the manner in which it's presented that gives it more impact, the stark, almost blunt conclusion leaving a bad taste in the mouth. Perhaps a metaphor for the magic bean socialist experiment gone wrong that the USSR so strongly represents. 7/10

Memoirs of a Good-For-Nothing (1826) Joseph Von Eichendorff A charming picaresque novella about a young man who, on being told that he is a good-for-nothing by his father, decides to go wandering. He arrives at a great palace near Vienna and acquires a job as a gardener then a toll keeper. Here, there is a countess who he falls in love with but on discovering that she is betrothed to another, he again leaves and, with two painter companions, travels through the lush countryside to Italy. It's hard to describe the book as anything too demanding. It revels in the romantic language of the era and contains lines of poetry that add further to the notion of ideals regarding love and courtship. The book very clearly provides an early 19th century interpretation of the world, a straightforward adventure and romance, a pleasant melodrama with interesting characters and themes. I kept expecting a twist, a disappointment, but it ends exactly as it is supposed to... happily and without cynicism. I don't think it will live long in the memory but it's worth a look. 6/10

Life: A User's Manual (1978) Georges Perec If you're someone who thinks great literature is rooms being described then boy... do I have the book for you. Perec has written about an apartment block in Paris and tells you about the current inhabitants, the previous inhabitants and, most exciting of all, the many, many objects in those rooms. At first glance, this is an interesting idea and, somewhat surprisingly, I zipped through the first half of the book fairly quickly and found Perec's writing fun and engaging. But I kept waiting for something to happen, for the cleverness to kick in but it never does. Instead, you get a banal puzzle of sorts, a jigsaw of rooms and people that, due to its own expectations, never amounts to anything. The entire content and structure of the book exists purely to satisfy the rules Perec has established (like inventing the plaster then realising you now need to invent the cheese grater to justify it). His attempt to do something original inadvertently corners him in a room (a very boring, over described room). The first problem you have is that you never really get to know any of the characters in any meaningful way as they all come and go without ever being properly fleshed out. Bartlebooth is probably the only exception with a smidgeon of intrigue to his puzzle making but the rest are far too abstract and foggy. Meanwhile Perec throws more pointless vignettes at you (because he has to fill this crap up with something) with other characters that only add to the tedious confusion. For example a story about Henri Fresnel who appears purely because he has a tangential connection to one of the rooms. He left his wife to become an actor. Then he became a cook. Then he hooked up with a woman named Twinkie. Anyway, we're done with that now, so let's move on... It's very difficult to care about characters when you know they are pointless, have no further role to play, and contribute nothing to the overall narrative or the other characters. As such, you endlessly feel justified in skipping ahead. Because you're missing nothing. But the puzzle, I hear you cry. The amazing clever puzzle. Yeah, it's people occupying rooms. That's it, mate. Calm down. That's your astonishing piece of genius puzzle. That's it. It's really not that impressive. Fine, it took work to accomplish but it says NOTHING about the human condition. NOTHING!! Now back to describing rooms. Okay you've finished. Great. Now what? Oh, you're going to describe a painting and spend so much time on it that I can't remember if your talking about the characters in the rooms or the characters in the paintings. Great. What's next. The book on the bedside table. Well, I guess you should describe half the plot and characters in that for no apparent reason. And maybe a list. Yeah, let's have another list. Can't get enough of those. Look, I'm sorry but this is a cheat. Books that are nothing more than vignettes masquerading as novels in order to force a theme. I understand why writers do it. I've read enough of them to get the message. You throw your vignettes together under some contrived roof and hope it looks clever and original (certainly enough to have a seemingly cohesive thread). Essentially, I think the thing you're supposed to be impressed by is that Perec manages to keep track of all these things (hence the utterly pointless appendices at the back). But it's just immensely boring. I don't have a problem with difficult books. If you don't have a story, fine, give me amazing characters and events. Don't have those either, then impress me with experimental writing that's fluid and exquisite. Don't have that? Then I guess I'll settle for a mundane puzzle that isn't really a puzzle at all. This book might appeal to some (so I'd still recommend it) but, to me, it was contrived ball-baggery of the most heinous kind. (And a truly horrible title too while we're at it). Fundamentally, Perec forgot the primary purpose of a puzzle. To alleviate boredom, not induce it. 4/10

So chocolatey, it even turns the milk round.

I don't know. Perhaps because sometimes, as I said, I actually do enjoy it. But more often than not, I dislike the way it manipulates the reader into A) reading at a certain speed or in a certain manner (as opposed to your own choice) and B) into thinking something profound is being said when it isn't (as I've said many times before, I think a lot of very bad prose hides behind stream of consciousness writing). But ultimately, I can still recognise good writing even when I don't enjoy the reading experience (such as Krasznahorkai). Similarly, I can thoroughly enjoy reading a book (Piranesi/Secret History) but not regard it as being of any literary significance.

War and War (1999) Lazlo Krasznahorkai A man named Korin has discovered an ancient manuscript and has become obsessed by it. He wishes to secure it for prosperity by writing it down on a website before intending to kill himself in New York, a place he believes to be the nexus of the known world. There, he meets a fellow Hungarian, an interpreter, and ends up living with him and the interpreter's lover. What follows is a curious descent into madness. This is the third time Krasznahorkai has managed to write a book that explores something fascinating to me but in a style which, to a painful degree in this instance, I found utterly draining. In fact, this was probably the least pleasant experience I've had reading his work which is strange given that he finally beaks up his chapters instead of smashing me over the head with walls of text. The problem is, however, that he is now gushing with such a relentless flood of stream-of-consciousness writing that I actually found myself craving the stolid, dense writing of his previous works. The parts that focused on Korin were fine (for the most part) but once he starts telling his temporal tale regarding the ancient manuscript (four refuges named Kasser, Bengazza, Falke and Toót, escaping war and travelling through Europe), I was so thoroughly bored that I can't even describe the feeling (such was its intensity). Again, Krasznahorkai is talking about interesting things here, dark and profound things, but the delivery of them is always my issue. I've always had problems with stream-of-consciousness writing (it can achieve such levels of banality that it will make your nipples spin) but, occasionally, I actually, often to my surprise, find that I enjoy it. But not here. It just wasn't compelling or exquisite enough to make me shudder. It felt like a tedious chore. I suspect Krasznahorkai was aiming for a sense of the swirling madness of Korin's mind, the scattergun mania and excited anxiety, which is all well and good but, like his other works, it left me mostly unengaged and frustrated. The ideas are always intriguing and, as such, I'm willing to trudge through the mud of his style (to the detriment of my own sanity) because it feels like there will big rewards when you do, I just wish the rewards were bigger than this. Even the amusing (or is it heartbreaking?) discovery that Korin's work, his glorious sacrifice, was utterly fruitless (google http://www.warandwar.com) doesn't quite save it. I will keep reading him. But I might need a break before I go back into the trenches. 5/10

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