Category: Books

No, this not an Asimov book review, but a curiously titled book from the mysterious and deceased German expatriate W.G Sebald. He is one of the few writers that when reading I find myself subconsciously slowing down to make it last longer. It surprises me that he is so popular in the literary world since he writes quite simply, includes plenty of photos in his books and is translated from his native German, something in my experience often adds a dry quality to the work….not that I am any expert. His books combine some of my favourite themes over the last few years…history, travel and memory, all of which are woven into an anthology of strikingly diverse topics. You really don’t know what you’re about to discover next. I sometimes think he Sebald is the person I would like to become when I retire from work one day. What he shame he died so tragically of a car accident in 2001 at the age of only 57.

 

 

This time around he walks south through Suffolk (UK) exploring its history and forgotten places, visiting an enviable series of colleagues. I found myself getting out an old Readers Digest A3 sized Atlas and charting his course in East Anglia. It seems I like each of his books more than the last, enjoying the photos which breathe mystery and mood into the text. Can’t wait for his next one already – going to try The Immigrants this time. The Times review on the cover calls him a 21st century Joyce which I found surprising since the 50 pages of Ulysses I struggled through were baffling and because he died 1 year into the 21st century. Guess I should give Joyce another shot. 4.5 stars.

 

 

I don’t know what inspired me to pick up this book; it certainly wasn’t the title, but what an amazing recollection it is. In other hands this story could have been portrayed completely differently;  the unbearably simple puritan values of Romulus derided and his stubborn eccentricities blamed for all the misery that seems the surround the family and their friends. But amazingly his son Raimond seeks to write an overwhelmingly accepting novel, completely engrossing and able to be read in a single sitting.

It portrays the Australian migrant experience of a former time; of forced life in rural backwaters, and the brutality of isolation. The simplicity of the life described is a revelation and is a big part of the work’s effectiveness and emotional impact. How Raimond turned out ok is anyone’s guess! 5 stars.

I’ve have always felt underdone on the earlier Aussie authors, and maybe it’s just that point in life where I have the time and mood to fill out some literary gaps, but I’m starting to get through them, with some big names to come.. Last month it was David Ireland and this month it was reading David Marr’s massive Patrick White: A Life. I always knew White was our only Nobel prize winning author, and that he was difficult, but this biography really laid him bare. What a miserable, cruel prick he was! Most interesting for me was the way his politics changed quite radically over the years, the insistence on regular extended trips to Europe for real culture, and on his chronic asthmatic condition and hospitalisation over 50 years. Not a great deal was said about partner Manoly, however given White’s famous self-hatred and the uneasy dinner parties squabbles he seemed to relish, the man can only be regarded as a masochist for sticking around. He certainly didn’t have much of a voice in the book.

 

 

I thought it was fantastic that White refused to accept pretty much every prize or award offered him, except the Nobel prize, sending friend Sidney Nolan instead to Stockholm to accept it in his place. Other prizes sent to him, he binned. He could not abide other artists bathing in the intellectual or monetary glory of their fame, and would viciously cut them down for doing so. Also a surprise to me was his love of theatre, and the number of plays he would work on seemingly as ligh relief, as he found writing novels more torturous and became an even more difficult human being to be around during them. I thought it was a magnificent character study of White, if a little harsh, though White himself was said to be harsher on himself than anyone. He had literary agents buy back copies of his early works from shops and refused requests to reprint them as he considered them substandard. A long book which achieves it’s aim. 4.5 stars.

 

 

Out of curiousity I tried another from Halldor Laxness- Under the Glacier, and was again a little underwhelmed, You know you’re perhaps not quite on track when one reviewer labels it as the funniest book they’d read in a long time, and I’d barely done more than smirk occasionally. I was aware I was reading the book at quite a superficial level, but I ploughed on, and I’m not even sure what happened at the end really! 3 stars.

Also finished A Pint of Plain by American Bill Barich who had the luxury of spending years gallivanting around Ireland looking for authenticity in the local pubs, and getting fooled by old props and memorabilia. Still, it was hard to put down and made me want to meet some of the fiercely independent proprietors who, usually to their disadvantage, had held out against the blaring digital widescreen TVs and video-games invading other pubs. His quest for the real craic – gifted musicians drifting in to hotels and playing spontaneous tunes, or for the literary Ireland of Joyce and Yeats left me disinterested, but this was still a great read. 4 stars.

There is something uncollectable about the design of last years Text Publishing “Classics” series of books. They don’t have the rich maroon grandeur or the humble olive green simplicity of the two Classics series by Vintage, and the paper quality is very poor, even for the price of 12.95. The font is also suspect (!) however, I couldn’t get David Irelands’ book from 1972 any other way, aside from a lucky find secondhand maybe.

The story itself was a series of vignettes based around events in a pub in southern Sydney in the rough and tumble 70s, so simply written but menacing in a Wake In Fright way (and more) and gloriously celebrates the working class drinker and his tribe. I was completely caught up in the mood of the pieces, gasping at the casual savagery shown to outsiders, the silent body language and hierarchy of the men, the ease with which the outrageous became acceptable. In my view it’s a bit of a masterpiece of seemingly simple writing that captures the time perfectly. 4.5 stars.

I sometimes wonder whether I continue to read books because it’s what I’ve always done; the lovely simplicity and satisfaction of having stuck something out from the beginning, despite the distractions of television or the online world. As a teen, to be known as “a reader” seemed like such a noble thing to aspire to. Fact is that I seem to be reaching a turning point nowdays; fiction is not as magical and consuming as it once was. More and more I am looking back to older works, bored with the latest sensation. What worries me is that this time it happened with a Pulitzer Prize winner from 2011, no less.

I’m not going to say anything very original or positive about “A Visit fron the Goon Squad” – because I admit I skimmed it a little, annoyed by the snappy density; the disregard for the slower reader (hi Daz); the way it made me feel inadequate for not knowing the links between characters. The sheer American-ness of it!

Once I’d given up the possibility of enjoying it, I was further mystified and then enraged that 74 continuous pages of the book (a full fifth) was a series of cartoons which I deem a lazy contrivance. I don’t even remember how it ends now, a couple of books removed. Flicking back through it now a second reading would work wonders, but I am still angered by the cartoon bit. Starting to doubt my lifelong allegiance to the major prize winners now. Then again I remember feeling similarly about Vernon God Little a decade ago. Perhaps I am going through a bad patch..3 stars.

I am pleased to say that in 2012 I have passed my reading total of last year, which wasn’t very hard at all. I am trying to not just buy books on a whim and slowly work down my modest pile of 20 or so, but it is as if I can no longer relate to purchases from 4 years ago. Might as well throw them in the recycle bin I reckon.

This month I finished books by lauded Australian authors Murray Bail and Gerald Murnane. Both write in a deceptively simple style, and were hugely compelling (especially the Bail one) but in both I felt I regularly missed the point. They have a lot going on under the surface.

The Pages by Bail is an original and voyeuristic story which just whizzed by. I felt disappointed that the dead philosopher at the heart of the book didn’t really have anything of genius to say, and yet somehow the mild revelations about his uneducated farmhand brother weren’t much of a triumph either. I suspect I have been watching too much simplistic crime TV lately and seem to want clean endings somehow. Bail also probably deserves a more attendant reader really. 3.5 stars.

A History of Books by Murnane was his usual circular, confessional, fiction but not really fiction stuff. I found myself getting irritated by the continual use of the word “image-” as a prefix to anything imagined and the self referential writing was sometimes disappointing to me. The 3 smaller pieces towards the end of the collection were just wonderful though, and saved the day. I still think he is a national treasure, but I would never recommend him to anyone. 3 stars.

Always a sucker for a Booker Prize winner, I let Wolf Hall sit on my shelf for a year or more, probably a bit scared by the thickness and theme. I hadn’t read anything very substantial in years and let’s face it, it has a dull cover. Once I got over the indirect language, the multiple names and titles for people, and the slow, relentless style of the plot, I became captivated. Knowing it was the based on true life events during the reign of the infamous Henry VIII (which I am far behind my wife in understanding and remembering) made it even more enthralling – I really didn’t know what was going to happen; an impact on the world which is still felt today. I watched Game of Thrones shortly afterwards and it felt trite and shallow somehow. I could feel my brain being stretched to comprehend the large cast of characters in book and TV series (both being period dramas of a sort), and found I mingled the two briefly in my mind in my temporary confusion.

 

                           

 

Because I’d waited a year or so before reading the first, the second book of the trilogy came out just after I’d finished Wolf Hall. It killed me to have to buy the large softcopy instead of the paperback (don’t ask), but I couldn’t wait 6 months for the profiteering to be over and grabbed a copy. It was more of the same – and I say that in a way that you feel about sliding on a soft pair of slippers, or opening a favourite beer. It was delicious to sink back into the writing, so distinctive that it is, and continue on from what was a slow burn first book to something I knew would have a dramatic finish thanks to Kim’s brief history lesson. Somewhere along the way, my admiration for Thomas Cromwell turned to respect and then to dislike. Hilary Mantel had taken a feared and hated King’s advisor and given him a voice, and the books were completely that voice. Everything he did was rational, decent, and out of loyalty to the King. Trouble was, the King was a whimsical prick really.

 

I hesitate to recommend the books because the language used is sometimes challenging, and there is a cast of thousands. But  I have rarely read something so satisfying, which makes me believe I really need to just read straight history books in future because that was a huge source of my pleasure. I found since finishing, I have been a bit down in mood – it really was a bit of a nasty end and Cromwell does not come out of it well. 5 stars.

I’ve been trying so hard to stay away from my phone whilst in bed, so books it has been lately, and I’m happy to report on a couple more beauties.

 

The Art of Fielding is this seasons acclaimed “World According to Garp” wonder, and my ever alert wife made sure I knew it had received a 5 tick review on 3RRR’s weekly show, but also mentioned the “flawed baseballer” theme and I was sold. I’m not really going to recommend it though. I went through a bunch of rural and small town America fiction 10 years ago, starting with Annie Proulx, Richard Ford and Kent Haruf and gradually realised that there was a sentimentality to much of it that I could no longer stand. Even after a 3 or 4 year break with U.S fiction, I battled with it in this book too. The sparse styles of other writers hold more appeal now.

 

Still, it is engaging and a big page turner with some strong characters. Compared to other things I’ve been reading, it just comes across as light and forgettable. 3 stars.

 

I had the worst reading year of my life in 2011 and I know what caused it. A sleek black Dell tablet-phone that became my daily tram companion, which always got preference in bed before I slept. Before I knew it, I’d only read an embarrassing 4 books for the year. My “reading” was probably even higher than a normal – WoW forums, blogs, Twitter, even plain old newspapers and magazines (The Monthly, Game Informer, Beer and Brewer), but what had happened to my love of novels?

 

I find it quite hard to enjoy a novel for the story alone without factoring in the language, awarding bonus points for complexity, and challenge. It mildly sickens me to read things that I just skim through, with vocab that a grade 5 kid could handle – like a lot of the thick novels in double-spaced font with an inch or more of white border that they try to sell for $30 today, read like. The words need to bite and I need to sense the intellect of the writer.

 

 

Two books I got for Christmas were Player One by Coupland, and Ready Player One by Cline. A childish sense of humour suggested I read them one after another. The first in starts, never failing to be shocked by the lazy, breezy style of today’s blockbuster writer, unimpressed until the last 50 pages or so where the true nature of author’s interest blossomed into an amazing flower – what have we as humans, really achieved? Why does everyone think their life has to be a story? Some of it was quite nihilistic and I completely reversed my opinion of the book, despite it finishing off with an unnecessary Addenum / Glossary which looks more like authors notes being used to fill the required 250 pages for the publisher. 4 stars.

 

 

Cline’s book reminded me again of being a teenager, when I would roar through 2 novels a day, consuming anything in my path. I haven’t read a book in years that I found as hard to put down, despite the slightly predictable outcome and saccharine style. Having lived through the 80’s and some early video game culture I find today’s obsession with it puzzling. As Woody Alan’s most recent film Midnight in Manhattan repeats – people of each era are enchanted by a previous era, convinced that it was better than their own. 2012 is a future person’s golden age believe it or not, and plenty of people seem to think the 80’s were too.  The book is a frenetic journey through virtual worlds that amazingly doesn’t feel like the author ripped off a few World of Warcraft experiences and added a retro front cover. There’s a fantastic amount of research and work in this novel and I’d be very surprised if they don’t make a movie out of it. 4 stars.

When a book is described as “a novel of stupefying ambition” and “the electrifying literary event of the year” and “the first great book of the 21st century”, I take notice. Add to the mix the fact that author died before it was completed, and that it is 898 pages in length, and I am curious.

So, I finished 2666 by Roberto Bolano this week, and I really don’t know what all the fuss was about. It reminded me of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas because of the 5 different sub-stories, but unlike that book, there were linkages between all stories – though with not enough continuity or closure to satisfy me. His writing is very direct and readable – I was rarely bored, but there were moments when I wondered what the point of it all was. It felt like he was throwing historical and literary references in over the top of a disjointed jalopy of a tome in the hope it would bring magic, but to me it just didn’t jell so well. It felt unfinished, or at least in need of some serious editing.

The first section was completely unexpected, but fascinating, the second intriguing, the third seemed a real mess – unfinished, the fourth – detailing nearly 300 pages of killings, a mile too long, and the last a reasonable attempt at bringing it all together.

I enjoyed it, but I probably shouldn’t recommend it really – or else I’ll get I’ll get a repeat dose of the ire I copped from a workmate of Kim’s for recommending Peter Carey’s Illywhacker to her. At least I’ll get 2 month’s head start this time though.  4 stars.