Hux Posted January 2 Posted January 2 (edited) January Review posted January 2 - 1982 Janine (Alasdair Gray) 7/10 Review posted January 3 - Camera (Jean-Phillippe Toussaint) 5/10 Review posted January 6 - Brian (Jeremy Cooper) 9/10 Review posted January 10 - The Obscene Bird of Night (Jose Donoso) 3/10 Review posted January 13 - Far North (Marcel Theroux) 4/10 Review posted January 18 - Hopeful Monsters (Nicholas Mosley) 8/10 Review posted January 21 - The Man Who Watched The Trains Go By (Georges Simenon) 6/10 Review posted January 25 - Dr Glas (Hjalmar Soderberg) 8/10 Review posted January 26 - Aqua Viva (Clarice Lispector) 3/10 Review posted January 31 - Mothwise (Knut Hamsun) 6/10 February Review posted February 3 - Paradise Rot (Jenny Hval) 7/10 Review posted February 9 - A Book of Memories (Peter Nadas) 3/10 Review posted February 14 - The Last Temptation (Nikos Kazantzakis) 8/10 Review posted February 16 - Severance (Ling Ma) 4/10 Review posted February 18 - Harassment Architecture (Mike Ma) 4/10 Review posted February 21 - The Evenings (Gerard Reve) 4/10 Review posted February 22 - Man in the Holocene (6/10) Review posted February 24 - Separation (Dan Franck) 6/10 Review posted February 26 - The Waiting Years (Fumiko Enchi) 6/10 March Review posted March 1 - In Love (Alfred Hayes) 7/10 Review posted March 8 - The Gorse Trilogy (Patrick Hamilton) 7/10 Review posted March 10 - The Crying of Lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon) 4/10 Review posted March 14 - The Panopticon (Jenni Fagan) 6/10 Review posted March 16 - The Piano Teacher (Elfriede Jelinek) 5/10 Review posted March 20 - The Glamour (Christopher Priest) 10/10 Review posted March 23 - The Edges (Angelo Tijssens) 8/10 Review posted March 27 - Akenfield (Ronald Blythe) 7/10 Review posted March 31 - An Instance of the Fingerpost (Iain Pears) 6/10 April Review posted April 4 - Seiobo There Below (Laszlo Krasnahorkai) 3/10 Review posted April 8 - A Canticle For Leibowitz (Walter. M. Miller) 7/10 Review posted April 11 - Perfection (Vincenzo Latronico) 4/10 Review posted April 16 - The Hospital (Ahmed Bouanani) 7/10 Review posted April 21 - The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon) 6/10 Review posted April 25 - The Dice Man (Luke Rhinehart) 5/10 Review posted on April 30 - The Seven Madmen (Roberto Arlt) 6/10 May Review posted May 4 - And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie) 8/10 Review posted May 8 - Lanark (Alisdair Gray) 8/10 Review posted May 10 - A Short Stay in Hell (Steven L. Peck) 8/10 Review posted May 13 - The Rachel Papers (Martin Amis) 4/10 Review posted May 17 - The Savage Detectives (Roberto Balano) 6/10 Review posted May 21 - The Magus (John Fowles) 9/10 Edited Wednesday at 03:41 PM by Hux Quote
Hux Posted January 2 Author Posted January 2 (edited) 1982 Janine (1984) Alasdair Gray A man named Jock McLeish is alone in a hotel room ruminating on his life. He is suicidal, contemplating his past, his lovers, his wife, his parents, his failures. Sometimes he fantasises about a variety of women (Janine being one of them), and he tells stories about these women and their sexual adventures in between telling stories of his actual life. The first third of this book was just magnificent, so unique and inventive, so clever and entertaining. Gray brilliantly interweaves reality and fantasy making the reading experience a joy, the narrative vibrant and alive, full of intrigue and originality. He manages to make you want to know more about both his real life experiences and, very successfully, his made-up stories too -- you are enthralled by both and the switch from one to the other makes the book an absolute joy to read. There's a story, for example, about one of his fictional women (named Superb) where she is cheating on her husband and going to meet a man. She is stopped by the police and taken to the station in a surreal arrest that combines sexual fantasy with comical farce. But then Jock returns to his real life story for a while and we take a break from that narrative. Then he goes back to it but this time instead of being stopped by the police, she meets her lover and we get an entirely new, improvised story that goes in a completely different direction than it did before The whole thing works effectively to make the piece always feel fresh and interesting. You get sucked into his life and his fantasies. Like I said, the first third is just fantastic. But then, sadly, as the book goes along, it starts to outstay its welcome. The very premise of the book is somewhat abandoned. The deeper you get, the less frequent these fantastical stories become and by the halfway point, Gray has essentially focused most of his attention on Jock's parents, his work life, his ex-wife, his first girlfriend, Denny, and the countless other aspects of his real life. I kept getting bored and waiting for Janine to return, or Superb, or any of the other fictional creations he might conjure but their presence becomes increasingly sparse and the book starts to drag. Eventually, it even begins to feel a little self-indulgent as Jock (or is it Gray?) continue to tell you rather banal things from his own life which are very rarely interesting. A lot of writers seem to fall into this trap; they become a little solipsistic and self-serving, failing to realise that what they're saying is only interesting to them. Sure, a story about THAT man going to the shop for some milk isn't very interesting but a story about me - a great writer who can make his life fascinating with sublime prose - going to the shop for some milk would be mesmerising! Gray gets sidetracked by the real life elements of Jock McLeish, and the memory of Janine and Superb gradually begins to fade. I wanted more of them both (or even the less developed Big Momma character). I wanted Gray to follow through with the idea more fully and break the narrative up with these entertaining interludes, these flights of sexual fancy, but he chooses instead to focus more on Jock's real life which, in truth, isn't that interesting at all. His time working as a security installation man, his failed marriage, or an especially dull part of the book where he is working in the theatre (I think... I was tuning out by this point) all slow things down to a standstill. I wish Gray had stuck with the premise. It was fun and original, had a unique perspective, almost surreal and magical (momentarily very reminiscent of Andrew Sinclair's wildly unique book 'Gog'). But the book loses momentum as it goes along and gets a little bogged down in the mundane qualities of Jock which left me a little bored. Why start with such explosive concepts if you intend to defuse them? By the halfway point Janine is an afterthought, a dissipating character with little involvement in his fantasies or his mind. In fact, Superb probably gets more attention as the most prominent of his fictional creations. But she too is gradually left by the wayside in favour of the real women in his life. The book had the potential to be amazing. But it loses its way. Gray is patently a writer I need to learn more about and hopefully his inventive style and voice will resonate with me more in his other works. I'll probably read Lanark at some point but avoid Poor Things until after the film stuff has died down. The man is clearly a great writer and worth investigating. This book had me for a while (really HAD ME) but then, unfortunately, it lost me. Nonetheless, this is still very highly recommended. Unique and different in a world that is often tediously predictable. 7/10 Edited January 2 by Hux Quote
Hux Posted January 3 Author Posted January 3 Camera (1989) Jean-Phillippe Toussaint Here's a crazy idea: how about a novel about the trivial banalities of living, the day-to-day mediocrity and smallness of things. After all, what could be more existential than a novel about the very boring and mundane, the dull and ordinary? On paper, this ought to have appealed to me. And I did enjoy a lot of the book (I especially liked Toussaint's writing when he allowed his prose to flow), but after a while, you need something... anything... to give the piece a little more meat on its bones. But the tone remains the same throughout. The narrator tells us about meeting a woman at the drivers ed office, then he tells us about going to get groceries. Then he tells us about the car breaking down, needing some propane, trying to find the Metro, what the weather is like. Then he and Pascale (the woman) go to London for a trip and eat in a restaurant, and look at things, and say things, and do things. It's all very minimalist, the insignificant aspects of life we all endure, with no discernible plot and no desire to waste any time introducing one. It's just an average man, living an average life. And THAT'S where we acquire the existential qualities of this novel. Because what could be more existential than merely existing? It's a nice idea and the book has a gentle feel (some may even be tempted to describe it as charming). It reminded me of a few things. Autumn Rounds, The Sundays of Jean Desert. But those books had different qualities when it came to the existential themes (the latter in particular being more thought provoking in my opinion). This book is, at face value, a very quiet novella about a man meeting a woman and doing dull, normal things. That's it... that's your lot! While that does indeed cover the basics in regards to a reflective novel exploring existential ideas, it ultimately was a little too lightweight for my liking. There were periods where the writing was really fluid and crisp, and I would have liked more of that, but the book is too busy offering tedious aspects of an average life, the classic humdrum of western existence, that it doesn't get to dwell too long on those beautiful sentences very often. Which is a shame because that's the book's best feature. Fundamentally, I don't think I will ponder this one for very long. Short and sweet. Easy to read. An odd little book to be sure. But ultimately underwhelming. 5/10 Quote
Hux Posted January 6 Author Posted January 6 (edited) Brian (2023) Jeremy Cooper I've always had a soft spot for a particular genre of book and that genre is... 'oddball men with poor social skills who fixate on a thing whilst allowing their lives to pass them by.' It's a very specific genre and yet one which, more often than you'd think, comes along quite frequently. And thank goodness because they always speak to me in some way. And so here is another entry, this time about a bloke called Brian. And I loved it. The writing really appealed to me, was so easy to read, and insightful, and the subject matter was extremely engaging. The book begins by sparing us the banal details of his youth and early adult life; instead we jump straight into his life when Brian is in his late thirties. Because this is the point in his life when he begins to take an interest in films (especially arty, foreign language films), an interest that will gradually become an obsession. He visits the BFI every day after working another dull day in his office job which only briefly gets fleshed out. He has colleagues but only casually knows (or cares about) them. His family are non-existent; and he has, despite being open to the possibility of either gender, no sex life to speak of. It isn't explicitly declared but there does seem to be a potential for Brian to be autistic (cliched yes, but often accurate). And so he works, reads, travels by bus, eats at the same restaurant, watches the football, and consumes new films each day at the BFI. Understandably, there are other oddballs like him, equally nerdy and obsessive, who also regularly watch films at the BFI, and he comes to know most of them, even regarding them as (albeit distant) friends. Jack (a connoisseur of film scores) in particular becomes a confidante. Brian develops a specialist interest in Japanese cinema whereby he becomes the groups resident expert. As the book goes along, and Brian ages, into his fifties, sixties, seventies, you're essentially given a catalogue of views and opinions regarding works by all manner of disparate filmmakers (all excellently done). There is something appealing in the way Cooper mirrors Brian's intricate and obsessive knowledge by offering these film (and actor) criticisms throughout the book. In fact, it's hard not to conclude that this is precisely what the book is about -- male isolation and the fetishisation of things. None of the film buffs are women of course. Why would they be? This kind of solipsistic love of stuff seems to be a uniquely male experience. There are subtle hints to this at various points in the book: "He had joined a book – reading club, mostly of women, jolly, middle-aged, who ridiculed his proposals of novels to read, listened in silence to his halting comments on the book-of-the–month and moved promptly on the topics of their own concerns." It's also hard not to conclude that Cooper is celebrating this male world of fixation, especially if it possesses some degree of artistic merit. I tend to disagree here and consider Brian's love of film as inconsequential as anything else. Brian has wasted his life. But then... who doesn't? Even as he ages and begins to develop physical ailments (including poor eyesight), he takes refuge in his life choices which, from an outsider's perspective, can seem rather trivial. But the best existential novels always leave you wondering why. What was the point? Did any of it matter? There seems to be a spate of novels these days (presumably due to women's dominance of publishing) that focus on female oddballs. But these books always focus on feelings, attitudes, and mental health. In such times, we are reliably told that men should deal with their mental health more like women, by talking and exploring emotions, and looking inward. But I think this is awful advice. Men need to do things, fix things, obsess over things -- books, football, sex, war, anything. If you know a man who is depressed, don't ask him to talk about it. Ask him to fix the fence in your back garden. Things are important. Things matter. Fences always need fixing. Men understand things. Brian's life is unquestionably a pointless waste of time. But it's his life to waste (and he does so in an appropriate way to him). And the bottom line is... I like oddballs who waste their lives (without all that mental health narcissism and blubbering). Brian is more discerning, and definitely worth getting to know. 9/10 Edited January 6 by Hux 1 Quote
Hux Posted January 10 Author Posted January 10 The Obscene Bird of Night (1970) Jose Donoso Where to begin? I suppose with the fact that it's extremely difficult to enjoy a book when there's nothing to latch onto, nothing solid that you can grab, with both hands, and ingest in a way that makes the thing come alive. It's like trying to grab hold of a piece of air. I think there was only one chapter (towards the beginning) where I did get a momentary glimpse of sanity and could actually cling to something tangible but this vanished almost immediately. The structure is chaotic from start to finish and any logic or coherency you might find is either accidental or located in madness. As far as the story is concerned the only meaningful narrative I could find (and I'm still not entirely certain about this) revolved around a man called Mudito (who occasionally has other names and other physical forms) who lives in a weird little enclosed square of witches and orphans and these witches are either controlling him (or vice versa) and he is their child or creation (or vice versa) and he is potentially a monster (an imbunche in Chilean culture) or at least turning into one, and there's a girl called Iris who gets pregnant and he is both the father and the child but also... he isn't. And there are other characters who come and go (but I really didn't know who they were) and then there's a guy called Humberto (but he's also Mudito). Then there's Jeronimo who has a deformed son and wants him to be raised in this same place of misfits so that his son feels less weird. Oh and Jeronimo and Mudito might also be the same person. So yeah... things are happening... it's a fever dream of incoherent madness and even when you momentarily know what's happening and who people are, the very next chapter morphs them into something, or someone, else until everything is a blur of static and white noise. These people seem to be trapped outside of time and exist only in the minds of the narrator (who himself only exists in someone else's mind) and nothing is ever remotely stable or fixed. Got that? Good then I shall continue... It's all over the place. Even when the book is weirdly compelling (such as when the old lady pretends to be Iris's baby and suckles on her tits before they massage her old-lady vagina??) the book is hard to stay focused on. It's so difficult to maintain eye contact with this thing. But then, I suppose that's the point. And Donoso admits as much in moments of lucidity... Old women like Peta Ponce have the power to fold time over and confuse it, they multiply and divide it, events are refracted in their gnarled hands as in the most brilliant prism, they cut the consecutive happening of things into fragments they arrange in parallel form, they bend those fragments and twist them into shapes that enable them to carry out their designs. It's all very interesting stuff but as I said at the start, it's very difficult to enjoy any of this when you can't latch onto anything. I never had a strong sense of what was happening or who these people were. Without that, it's extremely difficult to care. Why would I invest in such a (long) book if I get so very little back? Reading and watching some of the positive reviews of this book is eye opening; people will admit that they found it a slog, that it could have had hundreds of pages removed without losing anything, that it was impossible to follow, but then they'll finish their review by saying.. it's a masterpiece!! Do these people not know what the word masterpiece means? They sound like battered wives defending their husband's violent behaviour because he happens to be wearing a really nice suit. It's bizarre. People are so desperate for literature to matter beyond mere reading experience that they will imbue books which, by their own admission, are unpleasant to get through, as magnificent. Plus the fact that Donoso can clearly write is a factor. But so what? If I go to a urinal and see some beautifully written and profound graffiti on the wall, it doesn't change the fact that I'm surrounded by shhhhhhh and wee. That Donoso can write only makes this worse (like all those talented writers who, having read Joyce and seen how much respect he commands, choose to waste their talents on banal stream-of-consciousness drivel. Some may even tell you that it's playing with themes regarding the novel and what constitutes plot, character, etc, challenging those expectations. But again, that's like me making you eat a turd and telling you that I'm challenging the bourgeoisie expectations of what food can be. In the bin with that pretentious crap! This might be a good time to confess that I absolutely despise magical realism. I mean, I just utterly despise it. I remember reading Pedro Paramo and thinking... well, at least this ethereal weirdness is short. But this one is NOT short. It never ends. It's like Donoso read Sabato's On Heroes and Tombs and ignored all the reality and said, I'm gonna focus on those parts of the book where obsession spirals into an incoherent mess of nightmarish surrealism and drag it out until the reader loses their fudgeing mind. Its's a book worth investigating but one which, I assure you, can only ever disappoint (even if you like it). As such the only people I can recommend this book to are people who genuinely love magical realism (you sickos!) or hipsters (so they can impress their wife Susan and their boyfriend Steve all at once). Otherwise, for me, it's a book that I just couldn't find any love for. If I read this for a thousand years (a form of hell no doubt), I would still never enjoy it. I might understand it better. But I still wouldn't like it. 3/10 Quote
Hux Posted January 13 Author Posted January 13 Far North (2009) Marcel Theroux Whenever I am oppressed by reading a particular book, or just drained by life in general, I often like to return to my guilty pleasure of post-apocalyptic fiction for some cosy, escapist nonsense. And for me, that's usually post-apocalyptic stories about loners surviving in some isolated wilderness (preferably with a dog). This book seemed like the perfect candidate for that kind of thing and for the first third, it was indeed exactly what I had hoped for. The book is set in the Far North (in this case Siberia) and takes place after some kind of global catastrophe that we don't get much background on (possibly nuclear war but unclear). The book opens with an ambiguous narrator who turns out to be a woman (but Theroux keeps this vague for a few chapters) who is is surviving alone in this frozen wasteland, scavenging, hunting, occasionally trading with the native Tungus people, and sometimes even having to kill them if need be. Then she meets a young Chinese boy called Ping who also (later) turns out to be a woman (women making themselves look like men is understandable during an apocalypse); and for a while their quiet lives become very stable and happy (though this period is very quickly dealt with before we move on). This first third of the book was hugely enjoyable to read and it was precisely what I had hoped it would be, hunting for food, exploring the barren landscape for food, building a home, etc. I was completely on board. But then, after a traumatic event occurs, the protagonist (Makepeace) decides to leave to see if she can find some sign of civilisation. Eventually she does come across others but, as you might expect, it's not very pretty or what she had anticipated. This was basically the point in the story where I was quickly starting to lose interest; it all just becomes very samey and repetitive and involves a great deal of slavery, abuse, and tyrannical hierarchy. She gets locked up by a community and this is pretty much where the book stays until the very end. From this point on, the book abandons the cosy catastrophe element (what is what I most enjoy) of surviving and travelling and switches instead to a rather dull series of beatings, solitude, and abuse which slows the whole thing down. I just wasn't very invested or entertained. It all became a little boring and obvious and frankly, I just wanted it to end. The knowledge we acquire towards the end does add some colour to her background (and the reasons Ping's story affected her so much) but I was already done by then. Ultimately, it was a tad disappointing. Theroux does a pretty good job of convincingly writing a woman but, in my opinion, he only achieves this because he keeps her personality very mannish and aloof, especially making sure to avoid any form of sexuality. Truth be told, if you want a woman surviving the apocalypse by pretending to be a man, I would recommend The Book of The Unnamed Midwife instead. This was just a bit... meh! 4/10 Quote
Hux Posted January 18 Author Posted January 18 Hopeful Monsters (1990) Nicholas Mosley The novel of ideas has always appealed to me. But it requires one of two things to be entertaining. A unique voice and perspective which ponders (often on behalf of the reader) the ideas being explored, or, more strategically, a plot which builds and feels that it is arriving somewhere. Mosley slightly fails on the latter but (initially at least) has more success with the former. The book takes place between the wars and follows Eleanor (a German girl growing up in Berlin) and Max, an English boy growing up in Cambridge. The book alternates between them, Max and Eleanor taking turns to narrate their own story (all while seemingly aware of one another's presence) until they, inevitably it seems, come into contact with one another. They live through these great moments and the changes of this period, are touched by the events and experiences, and regularly give their own thoughts on the ideas and technologies being brought into the world at this time. Sometimes, they are literally touched by these events and people, Eleanor's mother being a friend of Rosa Luxembourg while Max's father is a friend of the disgraced biologist Paul Kammerer. Other big names are involved in the narrative; Einstein, Schrodinger, Hitler, Darwin, Franco, you name it. Both Eleanor and Max internally contemplate these ideas and changes, and they discuss them together (or with other characters) to an almost fetishisitic degree (it's all very heavy and sincere and not once does anyone talk about anything trivial). When Mosley is focused on these big ideas, it's actually very engaging and I found these parts of the book immensely enjoyable. When he's focused on pushing their lives along (adding some semblance of a plot) it somewhat drags in my opinion. And the longer the book goes on, the more he abandons the heavy subjects and spends more time on character interactions which, gradually, I found a little dull and slow. The first third of the book was gripping but it loosens up as it goes along and becomes a little bloated and scruffy. There are huge sections where Max goes to Russia and Eleanor goes to Africa which adds nothing and only slows everything down. You get the distinct impression that Mosley is simply filling their lives with something before the Nazis push the continent into war. This is often the trouble with books that take advantage of knowing the past while their characters don't. Speaking of characters, Mosley has them both narrate their sections in almost identical fashion. While I'm open to the idea that Max and Eleanor are essentially meant to be the same person, it felt a little off that they both spoke and thought in the same way (Then I thought, Then I wondered). This is also not helped by Mosley's dialogue tags where he has all speech start with 'he said or she said.' It becomes rather repetitive and tiresome after a while. I really loved the first third and, despite losing interest as we went along, would say that the book is actually superb and beautifully written. I like listening to smart people discussing the great changes and ideas of the century, debating them, examining their consequences etc. The plot (or developing relationship between Max and Eleanor) was less interesting, their love affair somewhat aloof and detached; I never felt that these two ever truly fell in love. It's a very middle-class relationship of convenience with no meaningful passion or commitment. They both write to each other about their various love affairs (people sleep together willy-nilly) despite apparently being soulmates. It's very Bohemian and smug (I thought). But given Mosley's background, that makes sense. I was especially irked by the section where Max goes to the north of England and Mosley describes it like it's some kind of post-apocalyptic hellscape where people haven't yet acquired civilisation. Mosley was, of course, a privately educated son of a fascist Baron (he makes a point of celebrating the Jews a little too often in the book -- almost winking at the reader) and you can certainly understand why. But his understanding of the world is profoundly privileged and it always has the feeling of the observer rather than someone actually living it (even when he forces them into Franco's civil war or other momentous periods of upheaval). They (Max in particular) are always outside of it. Like protected angels commenting on events that they will forever remain safe from. The book is a mammoth achievement and I would highly recommend it. But, much like many other large tombs, it outstays its welcome a little and fails to follow its own established rules. After all, is it a book of ideas or a story about love? I mean, it's clearly the former so why bore me with Russian peasant girls who like a roll in the hay or queer students who like to be beaten up? None of that felt like anything other than a forced attempt to include some normal people in these great historic experiences. But otherwise an excellent novel albeit one, I would say, which has many many flaws Monsters (1990) Nicholas Mosley The novel of ideas has always appealed to me. But it requires one of two things to be entertaining. A unique voice and perspective which ponders (often on behalf of the reader) the ideas being explored, or, more strategically, a plot which builds and feels that it is arriving somewhere. Mosley slightly fails on the latter but (initially at least) has more success with the former. The book takes place between the wars and follows Eleanor (a German girl growing up in Berlin) and Max, an English boy growing up in Cambridge. The book alternates between them, Max and Eleanor taking turns to narrate their own story (all while seemingly aware of one another's presence) until they, inevitably it seems, come into contact with one another. They live through these great moments and the changes of this period, are touched by the events and experiences, and regularly give their own thoughts on the ideas and technologies being brought into the world at this time. Sometimes, they are literally touched by these events and people, Eleanor's mother being a friend of Rosa Luxembourg while Max's father is a friend of the disgraced biologist Paul Kammerer. Other big names are involved in the narrative; Einstein, Schrodinger, Hitler, Darwin, Franco, you name it. Both Eleanor and Max internally contemplate these ideas and changes, and they discuss them together (or with other characters) to an almost fetishisitic degree (it's all very heavy and sincere and not once does anyone talk about anything trivial). When Mosley is focused on these big ideas, it's actually very engaging and I found these parts of the book immensely enjoyable. When he's focused on pushing their lives along (adding some semblance of a plot) it somewhat drags in my opinion. And the longer the book goes on, the more he abandons the heavy subjects and spends more time on character interactions which, gradually, I found a little dull and slow. The first third of the book was gripping but it loosens up as it goes along and becomes a little bloated and scruffy. There are huge sections where Max goes to Russia and Eleanor goes to Africa which adds nothing and only slows everything down. You get the distinct impression that Mosley is simply filling their lives with something before the Nazis push the continent into war. This is often the trouble with books that take advantage of knowing the past while their characters don't. Speaking of characters, Mosley has them both narrate their sections in almost identical fashion. While I'm open to the idea that Max and Eleanor are essentially meant to be the same person, it felt a little off that they both spoke and thought in the same way (Then I thought, Then I wondered). This is also not helped by Mosley's dialogue tags where he has all speech start with 'he said or she said.' It becomes rather repetitive and tiresome after a while. I really loved the first third and, despite losing interest as we went along, would say that the book is actually superb and beautifully written. I like listening to smart people discussing the great changes and ideas of the century, debating them, examining their consequences etc. The plot (or developing relationship between Max and Eleanor) was less interesting, their love affair somewhat aloof and detached; I never felt that these two ever truly fell in love. It's a very middle-class relationship of convenience with no meaningful passion or commitment. They both write to each other about their various love affairs (people sleep together willy-nilly) despite apparently being soulmates. It's very Bohemian and smug (I thought). But given Mosley's background, that makes sense. I was especially irked by the section where Max goes to the north of England and Mosley describes it like it's some kind of post-apocalyptic hellscape where people haven't yet acquired civilisation. Mosley was, of course, a privately educated son of a fascist Baron (he makes a point of celebrating the Jews a little too often in the book -- almost winking at the reader) and you can certainly understand why. But his understanding of the world is profoundly privileged and it always has the feeling of the observer rather than someone actually living it (even when he forces them into Franco's civil war or other momentous periods of upheaval). They (Max in particular) are always outside of it. Like protected angels commenting on events that they will forever remain safe from. The book is a mammoth achievement and I would highly recommend it. But, much like many other large tombs, it outstays its welcome a little and fails to follow its own established rules. After all, is it a book of ideas or a story about love? I mean, it's clearly the former so why bore me with Russian peasant girls who like a roll in the hay or queer students who like to be beaten up? None of that felt like anything other than a forced attempt to include some normal people in these great historic experiences. But otherwise an excellent novel albeit one, I would say, which has many many flaws. 8/10 Quote
Hux Posted January 21 Author Posted January 21 The Man Who Watched The Trains Go By (1938) Georges Simenon This one didn't quite grab me. It starts well and throws you right into things, the protagonist, Kees Popinga, finding his boss at the pub and being told by him that, due to bankrupcy, he intends to fake his own death and run away. For some reason this seems to trigger Popinga into his own bizarre meltdown leading him to essentially conclude that he has been wasting his life (married with kids, decent house and job) to the extent that he feels compelled to just leave his life behind. First of all he visits his boss's former lover, Pamela, in Amsterdam (a woman he has always craved) and then, due to her laughing at him, kills her. After this he heads off to Paris where he wanders the streets, receives help from underworld criminals, and writes letters to the newspapers and police (specifically Inspector Lucas) to criticise their investigation into him. It was easy enough to read but I just never really cared about what was happening; which is strange because this book has everything I like. A protagonist who descends into madness, recognising the lie of his mundane existence, and who, in a moment of abrupt clarity, embraces the carnage of... doing whatever he wants. Simenon is exploring the very thing I find most interesting to explore, the mediocrity of life when properly scrutinised, the daily endeavour of kidding ourselves that we are who we want to be, or are living a life that we want to live. Simply, at the age of forty, I have decided to live as I please, not worrying about conventions, or laws, because I have found out, rather late in the day, that nobody observes them and that, until now, I have been duped. I have spent forty years being bored. For forty years, I looked at life like some street urchin with his nose pressed up against the window of a cake shop, watching other people eating pastries. Now I know that the pastries go to the people who take the trouble to grab them. Nicely put. And yet despite all this, again, the story just never excited me very much. Parts of it felt unrealistic (why would a gang of underworld thugs agree to help a murderer based on nothing more than... he's a criminal like us so we should help him?). Plus, his breakdown is all too sudden. Sure, he was a man who clearly had a sexual problem (he never sleeps with any of the prostitutes he encounters) and he clearly has issues (touched on by the psychiatrists) but his actions remain inexplicable. This is the third none-detective novel by Simenon I've read and I'm starting to think he begins them as detective stories then abandons them when he realises they're a bit thin, turning them into little oddities that nonetheless retain a criminal theme. This one just never made an impact (despite being mostly fun to read). Interesting premise and character but ultimately forgettable. 6/10 Quote
Hux Posted January 25 Author Posted January 25 Dr Glas (1905) Hjalmar Soderberg Very good. I knew little of this book (one of those that pops up here, on BookTube etc) and went into it cold, the first thing I noticed being the very modern prose and themes. Dr Glas talks about the need to legalise euthanasia, abortion, and discusses sex in a way that feels very contemporary. So I checked and was surprised to discover that it was published in 1905. Dr Glas is written in the form of a diary and the doctor has little concern for expressing his opinions freely and honestly. He ruminates on several aspects of life, predominantly his own loneliness (this explained somewhat by his youthful experience of heartbreak) and his dislike of many aspects of (what was to him) the modern world. He also dislikes patients and has a series of amusing and judgemental opinions about them, these moments feeling very reminiscent of Celine's Journey to the End of the Night when Bardamu is a doctor making house calls. Then comes the main plot point, the arrival at his surgery of Helga Gregorius, the wife of the local priest, a woman who confesses to the doctor that she needs an excuse not to sleep with her husband. She happily admits that she finds him repulsive and, without needing to, that she is also having an affair. The doctor agrees to tell her husband that she has lady troubles but this only works for a while and so he then tells the priest (who already has heart problems) that he must abstain and go away for six weeks. It's during this period that Dr Glas wonders if he should kill the priest with cyanide. If he can't be happy then at least Helga can be, at least one person on the planet won't be alone and miserable. He also seems to recognise his developing feelings for her but accepts they are not reciprocated. Her being free to experience love becomes an obsession for him. There's an excellent part of the book where he debates with the part of himself that thinks yes, do it, and the part of himself that thinks no. It's a nice bit of foreshadowing because the voice saying yes is being answered by a vague version of the doctor, but the voice saying no is being answered more obviously by Dr Glas himself. His decision has clearly already been made. A wonderful little novel about loneliness, regret, human frailty, and an uninterested universe which is beautifully written and ahead of its time. "Nothing diminishes a man and drags him down so much as the consciousness of not being loved." 8/10 Quote
Hux Posted January 26 Author Posted January 26 Agua Viva (1973) Clarice Lispector There are certain writers I deliberately avoid because, despite their universal acclaim, I intuitively worry (perhaps even know) that I will utterly despise them. Faulkner is one of them and Lispector is another. Well, wouldn't you just know it, I absolutely loathed this book (as anticipated). I'm not sure if this is a good place to start with her work (I hope not) but examining the book purely on its own merits (outside of any influence of other works), it was everything I hated. I shall begin with a quote (this may become a theme): What colour is the spatial infinity? it is the colour of air. Wow, profound. But seriously, this whole book reads like a teenage girl's diary, full of wafer thin axioms and self-indulgent navel-gazing. It really is everything I hate, just endless pixie dreams and flabby meandering thoughts on the nature of now, this moment, the present, the is -- oh, how I danced upon the shadows and stars as they melted like lifebeams into the shimmering moonlight and the blah blah blah... it really is just relentless gushing of emotion and self-absorbed nonsense attempting to reflect or investigate a human being's naked existence and the concept of being alive. But there's only so much unfiltered gushing I can take. At the very least books like this need an element of hardness to balance the watery gibberish, something solid and (dare I say it) masculine amid the overflowing sentiment of a feminine perspective. I've read books where there is a contemplative aspect, a deep meditation of the human condition (Book of Disquiet/Dissipatio H.G) but those books are saved by a severe melancholy and bleakness that is sorely lacking here. This is just insipid flim-flam. I want to die with life Well, of course you do, dear. But not right now, I'm watching Big Bang Theory. Maybe after supper. I mean, I don't mind fluffy pastel coloured bedwetting literature (each to their own) but I was in desperate need of something more than what I got here and I'm slightly worried that I'm being unfair. Maybe this was a terrible place to start with Lispector and this one is just for the hardcore fans or something -- I don't know. But it truly was appalling. I think I'm going to have to ask for permission to die. Okay love, but make sure to empty the bins before you do. They won't empty themselves, you know. Honestly, there were parts of this book where I laughed out loud at the whimsical nature of it, the deliberate obscurantism and muddy language. If you're a young girl madly in love with a boy at school called Zach (he's so dreamy), this might be something you'll like otherwise I'd be perplexed to grasp who this might appeal to. I guess you could argue it's well written but then... so is a dictionary. What of it? Normally, when I hate a book, I rant about it but this one was too funny to rant at. Instead, I just want to point at it and laugh. Now suddenly at three in the morning I woke and met myself. Good for you, now that you've met yourself can you tell yourself to make me a nice cup of tea. Much obliged. So yeah, I think we can safely say this wasn't for me. Now I'm going to go stare at my copy of 'As I Lay Dying' until something happens. 3/10 2 Quote
France Posted January 27 Posted January 27 Thanks for the first good laugh of the day, Hux! 2 1 Quote
Madeleine Posted January 27 Posted January 27 Well at least it made you laugh! Perhaps you could start a new genre of "bed-wetting literature"! 1 1 Quote
poppy Posted January 27 Posted January 27 Hux, please read more books like this so you can make these kind of hilarious reviews! I know it'll take immense fortitude ... but you can do it! 🤣 (I think the author's name may have given you something of a hint of what was to come. To quote Aunt Dahlia ... 'You sit there and tell me you haven’t enough sense to steer clear of a girl who calls herself Gwladys? Listen Bertie,’ said Aunt Dahlia earnestly, ‘I’m an older woman than you are – well, you know what I mean – and I can tell you a thing or two. And one of them is that no good can come of association with anything labelled Gwladys or Ysobel or Ethyl or Mabelle or Kathryn. But particularly Gwladys.’) 1 Quote
France Posted January 28 Posted January 28 (edited) 10 hours ago, poppy said: To quote Aunt Dahlia ... 'You sit there and tell me you haven’t enough sense to steer clear of a girl who calls herself Gwladys? Listen Bertie,’ said Aunt Dahlia earnestly, ‘I’m an older woman than you are – well, you know what I mean – and I can tell you a thing or two. And one of them is that no good can come of association with anything labelled Gwladys or Ysobel or Ethyl or Mabelle or Kathryn. But particularly Gwladys.’) My nail lady is called Gwladys - but she's French so it's permissable! Edited January 28 by France 1 Quote
Madeleine Posted January 28 Posted January 28 I wondered the same thing about her name! I'd have thought Gwladys looked like a Welsh name? 1 Quote
Hux Posted January 31 Author Posted January 31 Mothwise (1904) Knut Hamsun This book appears to be called Dreamers in most translations but for some reason the English version I bought has the bizarre and slightly awful title of Mothwise. I can only speculate on why it would be called that (is it an old term with some long-forgotten yet poetic meaning?). Not sure. Anyway... As is the case with everything I've read by Hamsun (possibly excluding Hunger), this had a fairytale quality to it, a communal warmth and charm, the environment (a fishing village) full of mountains and forests, fjords and lakes, and an ever present sense of simultaneous falling winter snow and bright summer evenings. Likewise, the characters are staples of this period, the priest, his wife, the butcher, the local (and successful) businessman, the housekeepers and the various mercurial young lovers. Hamsun has a way of taking the picturesque and making it both old-fashioned and enchanting as well as modern and real. Amid all this is our protagonist Ove Rolandsen, a hulking giant of a man, a romantic womaniser and drunk who, despite being engaged to housekeeper Marie Van Loos, flirts with every other woman in the village, often to their shame but equally to their pleasure. A new priest arrives with his wife and she, along with Elise (Daughter of Mack, the dominant local businessman) and Olga (another villager) becomes the new inspiration for his romantic attention. Meanwhile, Mack has his money and insurance policy stolen and is willing to pay a reward for the name of whoever did it (even the culprit himself is free to receive this reward). The plot essentially sees Rolandsen confess to the crime only for it to be discovered later that it was someone else. While the book is called Dreamers (not mine, obviously), I think a better tittle might have been The Romantic or The Charismatic because while Ove is certainly a dreamer, his dreams are all rather whimsical and romantic, tinged with juvenile ambition and, perhaps, an immature desire to never stand still or be caught by meaningful adult commitments. What could represent that better than a yearning for new love? To be fair, he's not the only who shares this capricious nature and the book (more specifically Hamsun) identifies that we humans have a natural aversion to responsibility and commitment, in fact, for anything that reiterates the ageing process and its dull consequences. The young, meanwhile, can always entertain fantastical dreams, and exciting notions of adventure and romance. Hamsun is always good at exploring these little human foibles, especially at a time when it was not readily done. After all, why shouldn't Rolandsen have romantic or sexual dalliances with these many women? And why shouldn't they reciprocate with breathless excitement? Social conventions, I suppose. Then again, maybe this is just the story of a drunk with dreams (he does eventually come to a business deal with Mack). Even the ending suggests that his flirtatious nature has been successful in seducing the many women he encounters. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it but as always with Hamsun, a little mystery is always part of the experience. Not quite as good as his other books but, as ever, still wonderful to read. 6/10 Quote
Hux Posted February 3 Author Posted February 3 Paradise Rot (2009) Jenny Hval This was a curious one. A young Norwegian woman named Jo moves to England (the fictional town of Aybourne) to study Biology at university. The Novel begins with her at a hostel before she goes to several places to see if she can find a more permanent residence. Eventually she meets Carral and moves in with her, into what was an old brewery warehouse that has been turned into modern apartments. The plot never goes beyond their shared living arrangement, a few characters coming and going, but essentially the landscape and the two women being the focus. Jo being a virgin is important but only in the sense that she is exploring these things with a certain innocence. Meanwhile, the home they share becomes an almost gothic mansion, a curious labyrinth of uncertain spaces and mezzanines, prone to rotting (a strong theme in the book) and spurts of vegetation and growth. Everything is described in terms of living organisms, of things being and growing and rotting and dying. The book is very sensual and captivating, perversely drenched in fungi (growing in the bathroom) and spiders (appearing on skin and seeking out mouths) and decaying fruit and sweat and (quite a lot of) urine. Jo and Carral become entwined, as though merging into one being, sharing the same feelings, desires, even memories. It's a wonderfully mesmerising reading experience. And yet... I wasn't entirely enamoured with it. It felt a little dry and slow despite its curious nature. I liked what Hval was doing, I just think I've seen it before. There are so many comparisons to make here. First of all, the Tenant by Topor is an obvious place to start, the slow burn of a mundane existence being gradually twisted into something surreal and slightly unnerving. Then there's the film Persona by Bergman where two women seemingly begin to merge into one another (this was also facilitated by the presence of a man which Paradise Rot also utilises, a man named Pym who becomes a focal point for both women). We've seen this done before often with greater skill. But it's still very effective. The book is visceral and immediate -- the beauty and disgust of the human body being explored in equal measure. Books like this are always interesting, full of weird atmosphere and dark, eerie sentiment, like warm treacle being poured down your back. It very successfully becomes a tangible experience, one that is enormously influenced by the raw sensation of touch, sight, sound, taste. All through the book Jo references the taste and smell of things, the sounds (she has hearing that an eagle would envy) and the perceptible feel of things. The human experience is informed by our five physical senses but then is interpreted by a mind that is more ethereal; like an imaginary hammer trying to hit a corporeal nail. There are references to Adam and Eve, the snake, the apple, the myriad temptations at the heart of living. I rather liked her description of the apple rolling away between Eve's legs, turning black and transforming into a vulva (the greatest temper there is) and developing labia and scent. That was certainly a defining image to take away from the book. I also notice a lot of reviews fixating on the LGBT angle but I really don't know why. Both women are straight, their sensual connection more existential (even philosophical) than sexual. But hey, everything has to be sold through the queer prism now. The book was extremely thought provoking and easy to read. I liked it but it just never quite pulled me in entirely for some reason. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it always felt a little too gentle and safe, with too many short chapters that often felt trivial and slow. Can't quite put my finger on it. Something was missing. For all its wonderful creepiness and effective slow-burn development, I was never gripped, never turning the pages with mad anticipation or enthusiasm. But it was good, and definitely worth reading. Highly recommended. 7/10 Quote
Hux Posted February 9 Author Posted February 9 A Book of Memories (1986) Peter Nadas Bleurghh!! So unbearably dull. Look, I like a meandering novel in the Proustian style as much as the next man. But this was just so painfully awful, tediously executed, and appallingly dry. If you're going to write this kind of book, where the narrator reminisces relentlessly and goes on wonderful digressions and tangents (often for many pages) then you need to be a much better writer than this. You need to give the reader some exquisite prose and lyrical beauty, the likes of which it is very difficult to compose (or ignore). Sadly, Nadas simply doesn't have the skill to do that and so you end up with a very slow, boring, and thoroughly dry experience. I mean, Nadas can write, but there's a difference between writing and artistry. And for me, that's what's missing here. The story (not that it matters) concerns a nameless male narrator in Berlin engaged in a highly unconvincing love triangle with a man named Melchior and a woman named Thea. A straight man writing about gay love is a tad inauthentic at the best of times but the narrator also takes us back to his childhood in Hungary where he also fell in love with a boy called Kristian. None of this feels sincere, none of it is entertaining, and none of it is memorable. I struggled to maintain any interest or care about any of these characters; and it goes without saying that there are also large parts of the book that I didn't really follow because my heart wasn't in it (I think the narrator is an author and one of his characters narrates at some point - and i think Kristian narrates at the end too - but honestly, I just wasn't paying attention). It was all I could do to keep reading. I kept waiting for something but it never comes. And aside from the failed Proust impression, there's also a lot of cliched flowery language that feels phoney too. For example: The garden was huge, like a park, shady, mildly fragrant in the warm summer air; pungent smell of pines, their resin dripping from green cones that snap quietly as they grow; firm rosebuds resplendent in red, yellow, white and pink hues; and yes, a single, ruffled, and slightly singed petal that could open no further, now almost ready to fall; and the tall, rearing lilies with their wasp-enticing nectar; violet, maroon, and blue cups of petunias fluttering in the slightest breeze; long-stemmed snapdragons swaying more indolently in the wind; and along the footpaths, great patches of foxgloves luxuriating in the flaming brilliance of their own colours; opalescent shimmer of dewy grass in the morning sun; clusters of.... I could go on (and he does... resplendently, indolently, opalescently) but you get the picture. So even when Nadas isn't aping Proust, his prose is hackneyed and obvious, the kind of thing you'd expect a hipster called Lance on a creative writing course to come up with between Lattes. I'd be willing to forgive it if the story was captivating but it's tiresome in the extreme; or if those flights of fancy where he digresses until you forget where you are were magnificent examples of supreme invention and creativity. But they never are. If you're going to have a character ask: 'what time is it?' then digress for 75 pages about how his nostrils remind you of the housemaid who, when you were ten, often spoke about the works of Kant and made delicious apple pies that sat cooling on the window ledge, before another character finally says: 'it's 7:30pm,' then great, go for it. But it better be utterly wonderful to read. And it just never is. The book is too dry. I mean, I have very little respect for Susan Sontag already (she appears to be a left-winger who never did a day's work in her life) but why I'm supposed to care that she considers this greatest work of the century (says so on the cover) is anyone's guess. She clearly isn't that credible. Perhaps she read the dry Proustian imitation language, saw how long the thing is, and concluded... well, it must be good, books like this (with all those boxes ticked) usually are. And that's true, books like this usually do get enormous amounts of praise by ensuring they meet the criteria required for such an accolade. Thank God those days are dying. Because it's nothing but a bloated mess of self-indulgent cliches and forgettable waffle. Walls of text that mean nothing. Walls of text that take you nowhere. Walls of text that crave applause. I tried coming at this from various angles. It just never took. 3/10 Quote
Hux Posted February 14 Author Posted February 14 The Last Temptation (1955) Nikos Kazantzakis So, there's this fella, right? And he's called Jesus. And you'll never guess who his dad is. It's obviously difficult to write a review of a story most of you (if not all) are already familiar with. For the most part, Kazantzakis sticks to the basics and merely provides colour to events we already know. But he also takes the opportunity to add his own interpretation and, more specifically, to deepen and flesh out characters who are often two dimensional and almost caricatures at this point. The story starts, for example, by telling us that Jesus is a cross maker. At first, you're like... that seems a bit distasteful. But then you think: he was a carpenter and there were crucifixions every week. Of course he must have built a few crosses in his time. Jesus begins the book as a pious individual but never someone who thinks of himself as the son of God. In fact, it's others who are seemingly looking for new messiahs at every available opportunity (this part of the book did remind me of Life of Brian). Everyone is a new messiah. Everyone has a message from God. Everyone is eager to interpret things so that they can identify the next great prophet. It was during this period where Jesus is seeking God and leaves his home where his relationship with Mary Magdalene is explored. She is presented as a sinful 'lady of the night' but one who is in love with Jesus. He also has feelings for her but must resist temptation and, if possible save her. What follows is his realisation (more precisely others realise it) that he is the son of God. Jesus always comes across as a real person but one who is unequivocally devout. Meanwhile his apostles all slowly emerge and the most interesting, by far, is Judas. The book presents him as an angry hothead, a man who wants Jesus to lead a revolution against the Romans but instead all he gets is talk of love, peace, and brotherhood. Judas, for me at least (given what little I know of him beyond being the baddie) is the most complex of all the characters in this book (save for the ending and the imaginary life Jesus lives - but we'll get to that). Judas is enraged at most things, especially Jesus, but all of his ferocity comes from a profound sense of injustice. In many ways, he is the only character, the only apostle, pushing Jesus forward (sometimes against his will). Then we have the parts of the book where something spiritual is happening. Kazantzakis keeps things on the ground for the most part, allowing the reader to interpret the moments where Jesus heals people as both real or allegorical. Instead of seeing Lazarus come back from the grave, for example, we simply get Melchzedek's retelling of the event. Later, however, there are miracles performed that are impossible to deny, almost (for me) spoiling the narrative a little as it takes away from the book being set in reality among real people. Another part of the book that was interesting was John writing a chronicle of what is happening. Angels (so we are told) are dictating to him and they tell him to say that Jesus was born in Bethlehem rather than Nazareth. Even Jesus is perplexed by these lies but later concedes that the angels must have a purpose for doing so (the narrative of his life being more important than the literal truth of it). The only truly controversial part of the book is the ending. When Jesus is crucified, an angel takes him away and allows him to live a normal life. In this life he marries Mary Magdalene and has children. He grows old and experiences life the way others would experience it. I can understand why Christians might have issues with this (Jesus being an old man is weird -- Jesus having sex is even weirder) but it's clearly Kazantzakis simply highlighting that Jesus had human desires like everyone else but, ultimately, and despite their immense temptation, chose to sacrifice himself for humanity instead. When he realises he's still on the cross, that it was all an illusion, he is, despite all the pain and suffering, relieved that he sacrificed himself, that everything has begun. I must say, the book feels profound and meaningful all the way through, It feels like it is a weighty piece of literature. That being said, it isn't always easy to read. Sometimes it can be very dry and meandering, sometimes there are large swaths of relentless text. But then there are moments of levity and fascination, chapters that utterly pull you in and keep you reading. It's capable of both. And then there are little bits of prose that are either exquisite or comical in their descriptive power: Outside, the male waters poured out of the skies with a roar and the earth opened its thighs and giggled. Nice! So yeah, not an easy read at times, and often prone to large portions that slightly drag, but overall a piece that is in service of a masterful attempt to explore something very difficult to explore; and more so, a book that is clearly written with passion and respect for the subject matter. Kazantzakis is clearly a man who loved and took his faith seriously, but who also recognised the importance of reminding everyone, believers especially, that Jesus was one of us. A man. 8/10 Quote
Hux Posted February 16 Author Posted February 16 (edited) Severance (2018) Ling Ma After a couple of heavyweight books, I retreated back into the safety of an easy-to-read, post-apocalyptic novel. Sadly, it's another one that falls flat. The book's primary failure is that very little of it actually takes place in the post-apocalyptic environment but rather in the life she, Candace, was living just prior to the end. As such, it just wasn't very interesting to me. Why would I care about her boring life in New York working at a publishing company? Her boring boyfriend? Her boring Mormon parents who came from China to settle in America? It felt like Ling Ma probably wanted to write a story about her own experiences but knew they wouldn't be very appealing so she crowbarred them into a post-apocalypse story. In the end, I'd say only about 20% of the book is about the apocalypse and 80% of the book is a rather dry satire about New York yuppie, office politics. The apocalypse stuff itself is okay, but it doesn't get fleshed out enough to be truly worthwhile, probably due to the fact that she focuses more on the life she was living before the fever arrives (from China as it happens). As far as the fever stuff is concerned, there are some unique elements; namely the fact that people don't die or become murderous zombies, instead they simply become catatonic people, unthinkingly repeating behaviours from their dull, routined lives (walking around the kitchen table, setting the plates, walking around aimlessly etc). But while this is fairly original (unless you view it as 'capitalism made us all zombies' which would be banal), it also sucks all the tension out of events. There's no threat from these docile creatures, there's no sense of needing to escape, survive. So why does she join up with a group of people (lead by Bob) that are heading to Chicago? There's no danger, she could literally go anywhere she wants, safe in the knowledge that there is an abundance of food available in the supermarkets (the real answer is because Ma is obviously making a point about Bob being another cult leader like the ones her parents bought into). But in the real world, it doesn't add up and seems entirely futile. The front copy of my book has the quote: 'a New York Times notable book of the year.' Notable? LOL. That's the best you could do? It just isn't very good. Dry and unremarkable writing (albeit readable) and a dull story that doesn't dwell on the post-apocalyptic aspect as much as it ought to. The book seems to want to be a satire on modern, middle-class office life rather than a story about the apocalypse. Fine, but that's just not very interesting to me. Sometimes, I get the impression that Millennials thought life was going to be all sunshine and roses and when they discovered otherwise, they somehow came to the conclusion that this was unique to them, and not literally the same for every other generation that came before them. Internet really did convince these people that they were special. Very mediocre stuff if you ask me. Never mind. 4/10 Edited February 16 by Hux Quote
Hux Posted February 18 Author Posted February 18 (edited) Harassment Architecture (2019) Mike Ma I can't remember where I first heard about this book but I had a feeling it would be some kind of modernist manifesto decrying the progressive decay of western civilisation (which it was). As such, I thought it might appeal to me. Sadly, after some initially enjoyable pages (nearly halfway), it really began to get on my nerves. The problem is format, it's essentially a book where a misanthropic man sporadically gives his opinions on the state of the world. Fun to begin with, full of cynicism and volatile hatred for the banal niceties of the modern world, full of entertaining transgressive thought that would be deemed (by the very dull) as outrageous or shocking content. This is essentially a polemic by a man whose distaste for the blandness of an ever left-leaning civilisation vomits onto the page. Like I said, I was enjoying it for a while. But then it just gets very repetitive and self-indulgent. The male equivalent of Agua Viva by Lispector but more... chronically online. Everything about this book screams... here is my internet assembled philosophy. It's like reading someone's edgy blog about Ted Kacynski. He hates hipsters who go to thrift stores to buy books but then five pages later starts telling you about the books he bought from a thrift store (because his hipster tastes are more valid). It would be tempting to say this is deliberate but I don't think so. Because later, after lamenting the mediocrity of a western existence permeated with ennui and routine, he will whine about some band that he loves (Homeshake -- they're not that good). Or he'll criticise political correctness and the late stage capitalist nightmare of soulless human interactions. Or he'll fantasise about and celebrate mass killings. Then moan about women and blacks. But fundamentally, he will fixate on the lack of beauty in the world, this especially demonstrated by brutalist architecture which (more by design than accident he implies) is purposely meant to crush and defeat us, turn us into self-hating automatons. I don't disagree with a lot of his opining (especially regarding architecture) but it's all presented in a very dull and obvious way. There's no plot or characters to hang any of it on, just relentless teenage angst and whining. To be fair, he does include a warning at the beginning: If you came here expecting coherent plot or structure, you bought or stole the wrong book. Fair enough. But none of this changes the fact that the book drones on. If you're into this kind of incel rebellion, or a book that posits that the left have ruined civilisation (and I am), or you like misanthropic characters of the American Psycho variety, who crave saying the N-word, and find the trappings of modernity to be repugnant, this might have something for you. But I doubt it. The book just doesn't have enough meat on its bones. Occasionally, it can be fun to read, even offer up some intriguing truths about modern life. That we secretly like it when there's a mass shooting or terrorist attack, for example, because we're so bored of our tedious routines, of MacDonald's and Netflix, of Steve from accounts who just had a baby and won't shut up about it, that we crave a disturbance, a crash, a reminder that life can be more than this, more visceral and authentic, more immediate, more akin to the word ALIVE! All true, and yes, sometimes you will stand on a train station and think: "what if I pushed that woman onto the tracks. What would that feel like?" But these little moments are all lost in a rather dense format that, after a while, begs to be more coherent or just significantly more entertaining. You just feel like you need a break, some dialogue, a plot point, an event, anything -- but it's just one blog post after another. Honestly, you'd be better off reading Catcher in the Rye. At least that book has some heart. Alternatively, you might try Houellebecq. Because it felt to me like this guy was just... tying too hard. 4/10 Edited February 18 by Hux Quote
Hux Posted February 21 Author Posted February 21 The Evenings (1947) Gerard Reve Occasionally, I like to read books about the mundane, the banal, the everyday; books which explore the repetition and ennui of existence. If they're good, they will almost certainly become favourites. If they're not, they will infuriate me. In most cases, it's usually the latter because, in my opinion, books about this particular subject matter (the boredom of everyday life) are very difficult to pull off, and very often make the mistake of assuming that a book about boredom should also be boring itself. As such, this book goes nowhere, invites no development, offers no excitement. The author makes the mistake of thinking the book must be a mirror for the subject matter. If it's about life being repetitive then the book must be repetitive. If it's about the tedium of bureaucracy then the book must also demonstrate dry bureaucracy. If it's about nothing then the book must exemplify a certain nothingness. It's an easy trap to fall into. Because, in truth, boredom can actually be very interesting if you explore it with a sense of purpose and creativity. Sadly, that doesn't happen here. Reves has a nice style of writing, or at least the English translation does, and I think it was this style that kept me going longer than I normally would before noticing... it just isn't very fun. The protagonist, Frits, is a slightly charmless individual with a penchant for mockery and pretension. He lives with his parents and they sit and eat potatoes, or they smoke a cigarette, or they listen to the radio. He visits friends, goes to dances, gets drunk, makes fun of his brother's balding hair, or he just takes walks in the cold winter streets by the frozen canal. There are ten chapters representing ten days over Christmas. Oh, and there's a lot of dream sequences too, almost every chapter (at the day's end) concluding with one. I'm tempted to believe that Reves included these because what could better represent boredom than having to listen to another man tell you about his dreams? It is the absolute embodiment of the tedious. But I'm not sure if that wasn't purely coincidental. Otherwise, not much happens (as you'd expect) and the book is nothing more than a brief investigation of a dull, normal life. That this takes place just after the war gives it a strange dimension. I mean, just how bored could people really be after such a dramatic conflict? Then again, maybe the immediate post war years were all the more dull precisely because everyone had just experienced something so visceral. But the book just never grabbed me. It's like someone putting up wallpaper. You understand why it's being done, might even like the pattern they've chosen, but do you really want to watch them doing it? Not me. Again, the themes are interesting but this is a tricky thing to do successfully. I was reminded of Camera by Toussaint, the mundane more curiously presented in that book, perhaps because it was an almost ethereal, heightened version of reality, or, even more so, Skylark by Kosztolanyi, a book which this feels eerily similar to. In fact, these two books could be related, the same book but from different perspectives; in Skylark we get the parents' version of events, here, the adult child's. Ultimately, I think Skylark did a better job of exploring the mundane (and did so much earlier in 1924). To me, this was the less interesting version while Skylark focused on the bored parents, people who had truly known tedium, blandness, and disappointment. Anyway, I struggled with this. It never remotely excited me. I had high hopes but was slightly let down. Its themes have been better dealt with elsewhere. The writing is pretty good, in fact I'm tempted to say it was actually quite contemporary, at least in the sense that it was easy to read with very standard prose. But otherwise, nope. It didn't succeed as a novel about nothing. It wasn't dynamic enough to be about nothing. Nothing is more interesting than this. Nothing is the most profound of all the human experiences. This was just dull. 4/10 Quote
Hux Posted February 22 Author Posted February 22 (edited) Man in the Holocene (1979) Max Frisch A 74-year-old man named Geiser lives in a valley that is currently experiencing torrential rains. There is some concern that a landslide might bury the village so he decides to pack some things, leave the house, and follow the path through the woods to safety; it doesn't take long, however, for him to abandon this idea and return home. His memory and physical health are not the best so he removes pages from encyclopedias and the bible and posts them on the walls to remind himself of what he's thinking about (these portions of the encyclopedia appear in the book with pictures). Having just read a book that purports to explore the existential crisis of man (The Evenings) but which, in my opinion, failed, I would have to say that this book (covering the same themes) is an example of a book that actually succeeds. Geiser ruminates on the flood myth in the bible, on the encyclopedia entries about the arrival and demise of dinosaurs, on man's trivial appearance during the Holocene. The erosion of the outside world, falling away and changing shape, represents his own personal erosion as well as that of mankind's. It's a very succinct method of looking at the insignificant ants we are (actual ants are also present in the book) and how quickly life can be formed and destroyed in equal measure. But it's hard for the human mind to grasp the massive time scales involved and so we struggle to see how we don't feature prominently in the life of this planet. Surely, we are the stars of this particular show, its greatest achievement. Frisch barely narrates this thing, he gives a very stark, even aloof third person narration interspersed with Geiser's thoughts, and encyclopedia entries which work as a way of fleshing out Geiser into a person with a full, rich life, this all despite not getting much in the way of details (probably his memories of his brother Klaus gets the most attention). Like I said, it's very effective and does a good job of exploring the existential nightmare of a transient life in a way that other books often struggle to achieve. It's very simple but it gets to the point. Everything erodes, everything changes. That all being said, the book is rather lightweight and you can essentially read it in one sitting so I wouldn't call it a masterpiece or anything. It's a solid entry into the existential canon, a lonely old man coming to terms with his smallness in the grand scheme of things. And the ending is rather brilliant, one last encyclopedia entry which Geiser presumably looked at before we, the readers, got to see it. Definitely worth a look. 6/10 Edited February 22 by Hux Quote
Hux Posted February 24 Author Posted February 24 Separation (1991) Dan Franck There's a meme. Several naked men are waiting in line to have sex with a woman. At the back of the queue is a man holding flowers and the caption reads: don't be the guy with flowers. Well, this novel is all about that man. And it's some of the most egregious ragebait (in book form) I've ever seen. The story is about a couple with two kids going through a separation. She no longer shows affection for him and he suspects an affair which she denies (her first lie) but then later she admits that she's in love with another man but hasn't slept with him yet. The husband wants to know if she still loves him and she says yes (another lie). He wants to know if she intends to leave him and she says it depends. This is the point in the book where I could no longer tolerate her as a character. It's one thing to cheat, to destroy a marriage, but it's another thing to deliberately torture the man and simply make him wait for her lover to decide if he wants her or not (that's what her decision depends on). From this point on, she really is just an awful monster with no redeeming features. Franck clearly doesn't want us to view her this way, doing his best to give her a few sympathetic moments, but it's utterly impossible not to. And that's my primary criticism of the book; this isn't literature, it's melodramatic nonsense designed to provoke the reader. Franck is a screenwriter and it shows. He is dealing with heightened emotions, unrealistic people, incomprehensible decisions, and deliberate provocation, all In the hopes of manipulating the audience into a response. It's effective (oh, how I loved to despise this woman!!!) but again... it's not literature. She is simply acting in a manner that is patently causing her husband (and eldest child) pain and does not seem to care in the slightest; meanwhile, he is a wet blanket, an emasculated coward who lets her walk all over him and tries to rationalise his pathetic weasel-like behaviour by pretending he's a good progressive feminist. Franck very wisely makes a point of letting us know that these people are PAINFULLY left-wing, presumably because he knows we won't buy this garbage any other way. Only that kind of insipid progressive would behave the way his characters do (and even that is a stretch). This whole book is an advert for the limp-wristed worldview of the self-loathing bourgeoisie. It's vomit inducing. This book is manipulative to the extreme. But it works. I got a kick out of hating both of them and their banal wine drinking friends. And the writing is quite compelling (a kind of stream of consciousness style) but ultimately, it isn't great work. It's just a fun way to waste a Sunday afternoon. It's a low-brow soap opera with the added steps of being about progressive middle class French people (and therefore more profound and meaningful). But don't fall for it, what you're reading is utter trash. 6/10 Quote
Hux Posted February 26 Author Posted February 26 The Waiting Years (1957) Fumiko Enchi So the book begins with Tomo being sent by her husband, Yukitomo, to go find a nice young concubine that can be brought home to live with them. With the help of an old friend, Tomo finds a fifteen-year-old girl called Suga who becomes part of the family. He regularly has ex with Suga (despite the fact that she has not yet begun to menstruate (this will come back later as an explanation for her inability to have children) and Tomo is somewhat sidelined (and growing ever resentful). Meanwhile, another concubine called Yumi is brought into the fold and Tomo has further resentments to deal with. As the years go by the women come to terms with their roles and Tomo even tries to find husbands for them so that they can leave the family. It's all very Japanese (at least late 19th century Japanese). Then comes the part of the book that really takes Yukitomo to new levels of acceptable behaviour. His young (and seemingly low intelligence) son, Michimasa meets and marries a young woman named Miya and, sure enough, Yukitomo begins an affair with her too. Eve Tomo finds this behaviour to be crossing a line. More years go by, the young women Suga and Yumi are now in her forties, and Tomo has grown immensely bitter regarding her husband. You can hardly blame her. I'm not entirely sure what this book is about. Japanese culture? Men being pigs? Dunno. But I've seen some reviews describe the book's title as something that refers to Tomo waiting for death so that she can be released from the humiliating life her husband has inflicted on her. The waiting years, those years when, in that time in Japan, women had little recourse to do anything other than what they were told. Her only escape is death and therefore life is, essentially, nothing more than a waiting room, a thing you have to endure before being released. Sounds about right to me. An intriguing book to say the least, one which explores an interesting world and characters. But I can't say I enjoyed the writing that much. Like a lot of Japanese literature it was very matter of fact, very succinct, and to the point. Not always fun to read. But a book worth reading nonetheless (if you can stomach the patriarch). 6/10 Quote
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