The Innocents - an odd sandwich

The Innocents by Francesca Segal (Vintage: 2013) Following the lives being lived in a Jewish enclave of North London, centred around Adam and Rachel, a young couple hurtling towards marriage until Ellie (Rachel’s prodigal cousin) comes on the scene and threatens to turn everything upside down.

Hmmmm, ok. I went on a bit of a turnaround with this book. I was pretty sold on it for a long time. I was humming along quite nicely, entertained by the story and the people and the world they lived in. And I’d pretty much decided this was a book I was going to enjoy; another high score for 2013, and a deserving winner of the Costa First Novel Award.

But then something pretty unprecedented happened. About three quarters through., I completely changed my mind. That’s pretty rare, no matter what you’re talking about – books, food, tv, whatever.

It’s like I had this great sandwich. A real piece of work that I was loving. I’d finished half of it and I picked the second half up with dripping mouth and wide eyes. I even continued to enjoy it, right up until I had about a quarter left.

Then it got all rubbish, and I spat the rest out. And I wondered what on earth I could have seen in the first half of the sandwich that got me going so much.

I know. That doesn’t happen, right? That’s complete make-believe. Good sandwiches are good – all the way through. But with this book, it happened.

I enjoyed it. A bunch. Then I didn’t.

I look back on the bits I enjoyed, and I see the flaws now. The plotting seems contrived. The protagonist is a twerp. Most of the supporting cast are cartoons.

But let’s give credit where it’s due. All of this was hidden from me for a while. Why? I think it’s because the writing is so good. Segal is talented, no doubt. Like mad talented. The writing is so tight and easy to read. I’ve heard time and again that the best writers make you forget they’re there, and that’s what Segal achieves here. She writes so well that you just experience the story, and don’t get distracted by anything else.

Also, the stage is pretty good. It’s a window on a whole community that I know very little about, and seeing how it works and the characters that drive it got me hooked for a while.

But then it all fell apart. The plot is driven by the ongoing moral dilemma of the protagonist who, (and I’m giving nothing away here that you won’t get from the dust jacket), is faced with a choice between a safe, lovely life and rocking the boat by running off with his wife’s cousin. It’s an interesting dilemma, but not one that I want to hear too much about. I found myself bored of it and of him. I wanted to tell him to get something done already. All the hmming and harrring – I really stopped caring. And once I stopped caring about that, all the other cracks started to appear as well.

Where does that leave us? Well, I’m not going to tell you this is a bad book. It isn’t. It’s well written. It has a good premise. And if you have a bit more patience than I do for the emotional dilemmas of others, then you could probably convince yourself it’s got a good plot as well. But I tripped towards the end of it, and all I was thinking during the last few pages was what I was going to read next.

In my mind, I was book-cheating on it already.

6 GBR

Above average, but only just.

Next week, well I’m not sure. What am I, a fortune teller? Get away from me.

Young Stalin - history, no matter how you slice it

Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson: 2007). Never has a blurb been less needed. Never has a title described a book so completely. This is a book about Stalin, when he was young. What more do you need?

I said I was going back to the Man Booker Prize shortlist this week. Then I got an interview with the author lined up. So you’ll have to wait for the review. It’d be rude to post a review before I post the interview, right? I mean, there are rules, surely?

Instead, I thought I’d go for a bit of non-fiction. It’s been a while. Part of the reason is they’re usually so bloomin’ long, and I know how restless you trouble-makers get if you don’t get a weekly GBR hit.

So I decided to take one from the shelf. There was a time a couple of years ago when this book was on a billboard in every tube station. And you can see why. It’s got such a romantic premise (is that the right word when it’s non-fiction? Is it a premise, or just a starting point? I’m not sure I care).

Even the cover screams out romance. This glassy eyed, revolutionary figure. It’s Che Guevarra, but more. Here’s a chance to get to know a guy who came from the gutter (quite literally) and rode an idealistic wave all the way to the top of the world. And because this book focuses on Stalin - the early years, we can even keep all the future evil-acts and genocide in the pleasantly blurred distance. We are left to get to know Stalin more as a human being. Allowed to at least begin to try understanding how he got to where he got, rather than simply denounce him as evil in a black-and-white, unthinking sort of way.

The back cover hardly stops this romance taking root. We’re treated to photos of Stalin at every stage of his rise, from urchin to commissar, with pauses at poet and pirate in between.

Here, no doubt, is the material for a historical biography that can grab the attention of the masses.

Well, you’d think so, but you’d be wrong. Don’t misunderstand me; as historical biographies go, this is pretty darn neat. In the context of its genre, it’s exciting and it’s important. It goes some way to explaining one of history’s all time formative personalities. It fills in a huge amount of general knowledge gaps, and it makes you feel entirely unworthy for wasting your life reading and blogging.

But I can’t help but feel the marketers have over-reached on this one. I’m all for bringing history to the masses, but we have to be honest as well. This is not a thriller. This is not a love story. This is not a fiery politically driven piece of literary fiction. This is a historical biography. For all the promised rushing glamour of the cover, and for all the posters that lined the tube at the time of release, and for all the awards this book won, it remains, at its heart, a history book.

I like history, by the way. I love reading it. But the mis-match between what this book promises and what it delivers irks me. It’s long. It has an index at the back. When you’re bang in the middle of it, you’re acutely aware you’re reading something scholarly rather than an entertainment. No matter how much I enjoy history, no matter how much I can become embarrassingly absorbed in the high brow, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone somewhere picked this book up expecting it to excite at every turn of the page, and felt incredibly let down.

This leaves me with a dilemma. This is a good book. Approach it in the right way, and it’ll deliver what it’s supposed to. Yes, it’s a little frustrating the story stops just when you know it’s about to get global. Yes, it fails to deliver on the excitement of the premise (I’m using the word). But it feels harsh to give it a low GBR score simply because of a marketing flaw. Simply because its over-inflated promise and its reality don’t match up.

6 GBR

Thus ends our string of high GBR scores. I’m going to sit on the fence instead. Right in the middle of it.

If you enjoy reading history every now and then, go get this, quickly. If you’re expecting it to be as fast moving and arresting as fiction, don’t bother.

Next week, back to fiction, and back to the Man Booker Prize shortlist. I promise, this time.

Umbrella - wonderful confusion

Umbrella by Will Self (Bloomsbury: 2012) A novel spanning the century, following an outbreak of encephalitis lethargica in 1918, and the lifelong impact it has to a group of patients in which it has been misdiagnosed. Self uses the disease and its aftermath to explore the destructive capacity of technology and machinery on the human condition.

I have almost zero idea where to start. I really don’t. This is Booker Prize shortlist stuff. I'm getting book review stage fright, and I don't know where to begin. But it seems I have, so I’ll try to go on.

I’ve never read anything like Umbrella before. Which I mean in an entirely positive way. That must be the foremost and loudest piece of praise for this book - it’s original.

Underneath that, it’s a bunch of other things as well, positive and negative. In the pro column we should scribble words like ambitious, beautiful, energetic, intelligent, brave. Our con column should include words like confusing, disjointed, hard-work.

No doubt Self would have a few things to say about these judgements. He probably would balk at Umbrella being labelled brave or hard-work. But it is. It takes an idea he believes in strongly, and sets it out in a form that he is no less committed to. By staying true to both idea and form, he runs the risk of the whole project being drowned in confusing modernist prose. To the normal writer, it’s a huge risk. Letting your great idea into the world in such a fragile form. It’s likely to wither.

But not Self. If I learned anything from hearing him speak in Edinburgh, it’s that he’d simply shrug his shoulders at such risks. He wouldn’t even see it as a choice. The reader experience is not his problem. As far as he’s concerned, this is the true way to represent human experience, so why on earth would he do it any other way.

The result is a book that’s both vital and difficult to untangle. It jumps from character to character, time to time, setting to setting - all without warning or sign posts. He doesn’t even start a new paragraph when he shifts his voice, will go from 1918 to 1971 in the same sentence, leaving it up to the reader to figure out what’s going on.

Not "Umbrella" - it's "For Gavin"

To begin with (and for most of the book in fact) it's utterly confusing. You never master it (at least I didn’t), but I did gradually become comfortable with the it. Persevere, and it has a strange effect. It begins to achieve a feeling of the “continuous presence” that Self harps on about. You slowly begin to see all parts of the story at all times - not as a list of events, but as a whole tangled up confused ball of experience. A bit like the Tralfamadorians, for those Vonnegut fans amongst you (of which I’m sure there are tons).

So that’s the style. But what about the content? I’m totally certain that I missed a lot of the content. I’m sure there are major parts of the story that flew right past me as I was sweating with furrowed brow trying to un-pick the style. But some bits came through. I got the gist of what was happening, and there were some vignettes of experience that shone out.

It may be because I was just so pleased to be understanding a bit of the plot. Will Self has that effect on you. He makes you rejoice in any brief seconds when you feel you're starting to understand him. He makes you feel you're spending a moment or two on equal terms with an elite brain. But whatever the reason, when a section struck home, it did so brightly and beautifully and terribly.

And the ideas that Self explores are worth the struggle too. They become clearer as you get towards the end. Self allows himself to explain them more overtly, and when you put the book down, your mind is racing with thoughts of machines and people and life and death and family and meaning.

I feel I’ve just explained all the pro column. I haven’t really gone into the cons. I don’t want you to think this is a rewarding book which just needs a little effort. That’s not true. It needs a lot of effort. It needs the same commitment that Self has to the style. Yes, the rewards are there. But are they worth it? Do you have the time to earn them? When push comes to shove, would you rather just curl up with a bit of Grisham instead?

Gah! I’m torn. I think you should go read this. I think it’s important and it’ll introduce you to new ideas and styles. But I also think that all of that comes at a price, one that most of you probably don’t have the time or energy to pay.

How do I put all of that into a score between one and ten?

6 GBR

That’s how. Sit right on the fence. Just north of the fence really. But that feels about right.

Next week, something less dense. I promise.

Planet Hulk - big green crusader

Planet Hulk by Greg Pak (Marvel Comics: 2008) The Incredible Hulk is banished from Earth and Time to go swimming in the deep end again. Give something else a try. Not entirely new if I’m honest. The whole GBR adventure has taken me here before. To graphic novel territory. The first time, it was in a sort of literary way. Then in a pseudo political way. Now into more classic territory. Doesn’t come much more classic than a bit of Hulk.

ends up shipwrecked on an alien planet with plenty of its own problems. Hulk becomes embroiled in a Civil War, leading a rebellion against a repressive emperor.

 

Unless you’ve kept up with Hulk’s story, you (like me) will probably not recognize a lot of Planet Hulk. Gone are the mindless rampages, the monosyllabic monster the good doctor tries to keep in check. Instead, we’re given a coherent superhero, nevertheless consigned to exile by his well meaning superhero buddies.

The set up gives Hulk a different kind of adventure. An epic which takes in new worlds and crusades. It’s a compelling context, a clever new stage on which to set Hulk loose. It allows the rise of new legends. It allows parody of some familiar human struggles. It allows a deeper, more thoughtful Hulk to emerge.

Don’t worry, the rage is still there. The “you won’t like me when I’m angry” is still there. But so is a softer side. A more contemplative side. One that can grasp the nature of a societal struggle; make an informed decision on which side to support and how to support it.

I found a lot of this entertainingly new. It was a brave turn by Marvel, and one that works. It revitalised Hulk for me. Made him more interesting. The newness of it, the imagination at work, helped this go by in a hurry. I had to consciously stop every now and then to actually look closer at the art, be careful not to let the half of the story the pictures told pass me by entirely in my hunger for the plot.

So yes, this engaged me and it entertained me. But it wasn’t without its eye rolling moments. There was a handful of twists too many. There was an implausible (and relatively pointless) guest appearance from Silver Surfer. There were elements of the story and of the character reactions that were crow barred in with no finesse. In fact, there was a general lack of subtlety to the entire thing.

Having written that, I’m immediately aware how stupid it is. Criticizing a Hulk graphic novel for its lack of subtlety? Dickhead. 

Got to get over myself. Got to look at this dispassionately. Got to ignore the fact it’s a book I’d never have picked up if it wasn’t for my GBR adventure and a strong recommendation from my brother. Did this entertain me? Did it leave me wanting to find out what happens next? Did it create characters that I liked and disliked in the way I was supposed to? Yes, yes, and yes.

But it’s a matter of degrees. They’re not yes/no questions. Yes, it entertained me, but only a little. Yes I want to know what happens next, but not enough to Amazon one-click the sequel. Yes I found the characters interesting, but also ridiculous in places, and none of them ever took on the shape of fully formed, complex personalities.

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I’m glad I tried it, and I’ll probably try another graphic novel at some stage. But I’m a long way from being a convert. This genre is still more likely to make up a small corner of my book shelves than overtake them completely.

6 GBR

I came. I tried. I mildly enjoyed.

Next week, an author I fear I could become as obsessed about as I am with Glen Duncan. Worrying times.

Touching the Void - devil in the detail

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson (Jonathan Cape: 1988) The pretty harrowing account of the very nearly fatal attempt by Joe Simpson and his climbing buddy Simon to climb the Siula Grande mountain in Peru.

I went on a walk in Thornley Woods once when I was a kid and got lost. For like a whole hour or something. Even started getting dark. Had to get a lift back home with some random farmer in the end. It was pretty scary stuff.

That’s about as close as I’ve ever got to frontier peril. So reading about Joe Simpson’s ill fated trip up a mountain somewhere in South America was a world away. He (and his climbing buddy Simon) faced disaster after catastrophe after calamity on their trip. They stared death in the eyes on numerous occasions, and often assumed the other had perished, never to be seen again.

This book has all the virtues of a real life disaster adventure. If it was fiction, the eyes would roll at pretty much every turn of the page. You’d throw your arms up and say “come on now, get serious, this would just never happen.” But it’s not fiction. It’s the opposite. It’s non-fiction. So all you can do is sit back and be amazed at the recollections of Joe and Simon.

And what recollections. They go to town with some of the detail.

My brother (and regular GBR commenter) writes the odd report for his rugby club in Gateshead. It’s a feat that impresses me. I can barely remember the score of a game ten minutes after I leave the pitch, never mind recall enough details to write a report with any accuracy. But my brother plays in the game, and then manages to recount all the major instances in sequence hours (sometimes days) later.

These guys though, these climbers, they’ve got down on paper every single thought, feeling, impression, technical detail…you name it, they’ve put it in here with painstaking care. And I’m guessing this was written at least a few months after the fact. It’s mind boggling.

In a lot of ways, this detail really helps. It livens up the text, and helps it go from simply being a literal telling of events into being a compelling account of how the experience effected the two climbers. The way they felt and the way they reacted, the thought that went into their decisions, the agony of the accidents and how they quantified it at the time. It’s all detail that adds richness to the text.

But the detail has two fairly annoying draw backs too. First, the climbing jargon in here is fairly heavy. I’m sure it makes sense for climbers, but there were entire scenes that I found it hard to picture as I have no idea what a “crampon” is, or a “moraine”, or even a “crevasse” is (though that one got pretty obvious after a while). You learn to skip past the jargon, but I can’t help but think the book would have been more translatable and have a more powerful visual quality without that sort of heavy detail.

The other problem with the detail is you have to start wondering where it all came from. These guys were dead on their feet. For days. Going through hell. Then months later they remember with perfect clarity the song that got stuck in their head at a particular moment, or the exact amount of screams they heard in the night. Even getting the sequence of events straight must have taken some doing. I imagine they put a bit of research in. Looked at maps and stuff like that to jog their memories. But still, the detail is at such a level that its authenticity remained a nagging doubt for me all the way through. I’m not saying any of it is untrue, just that elaboration and assumption may well have been co-writers.

To be fair though, there was enough good in this book to overcome the rest. It is inspiring in a pretty real way. Whilst the constant set-backs take on a bit of a repetitive quality, you can’t help but be amazed at how they’re conquered. (And no, that’s not a spoiler. The guys got out to write the book, so it’s fairly obvious they survived. Idiots).

And whilst a little distracting, the detail did help create a real atmosphere. I’d sit there reading this and be properly transported to the bottom of that freezing crevasse (that’s right, I’m using the word now). This book does a good job of putting the outside world on the outside.

It’s a little clichéd, but it does put things in perspective a little. Any real-life book that involves near death experiences will do that. My train may be ten mins late and the coffee shop may have short changed me this morning, but at least I’m not half way up a mountain with a broken leg and no hope of escape before I freeze to death. So, you know, suck it up.

How about a score then? Finger in the air, and it comes down with a…

6 GBR

Good and bad aspects to this. But it’s definitely worth a pop. It’s a bit different from stuff I’d usually read, but there’s enough inspiration there, and enough raw emotion to make me recommend it. Also, it’s only like 200 pages, so if you don’t enjoy it, it’ll be over soon. And there’s always the pictures to look at if you get bored.

Next week, something from my wife’s book club (if I finish it in time).

Anna Karenina - big biscuits

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1878). Nearly a thousand pages of love, intrigue, disgrace, politics, philosophy and farming. Set in nineteenth century high society and spanning Moscow, Petersburg and a raft of unpronounceable Russian districts, the novel follows the title character as she falls in love with Count Vronsky, and follows that love as it takes her away from her husband, her son and her sanity. Anna Karenina’s story is balanced by that of Levin, a man more comfortable on his farm than in the city, but whose life and loves drag him into society and forces him to ask the big questions and come up with big answers.

Apparently this is the best book of the 19^th century. How they can judge that before it’s been given a GBR rating, I’ll never know. But there you go. They had a chat and decided it. Best book.

It’s not universally loved though. On seeing I was reading it, one family member (who shall remain anonymous, dad), simply pointed out “that’s a bit of a girls book, isn’t it?” I guess that’s not necessarily a put down, but it definitely was.

I do kind of feel like my thoughts on this are fairly irrelevant. I mean, this is a book that broke moulds. Girly or not, there’s no doubt it’s a “great book.” And from a “great author” too. You might not know much about Anna Karenina, but you’ve heard the name. It’s one of those that has a permanent place in literary history.

But a book can’t be read with that weight on it. It’s words on a page, like any other. And for it to be a great book now, it needs to be judged against the same criteria as everything else.

I loved a lot about the book. There’s a bunch packed in. Some of the characters are really and truly amazing. And there are big themes too. A bag full of them. From the introduction of modern farming methods in nineteenth century Russia at one end of the scale, to the meaning of life at the other. Some hit the mark better than others, but when Tolstoy hits the nail on the head it stays hit. The last hundred pages or so in particular are dynamite. One of the central characters, Levin, spreads out his thinking on the meaning of life, the “what’s it all for then?” question, and it’s amazing. It’s amazing because it’s clever and complex, it’s amazing because Tolstoy tackles the question within the confines of a novel, but most of all it’s amazing because Levin has become a real person over the course of 800-odd pages, and so by the end you really care what he thinks.

There are some fairly significant down sides too though. This is a massive book, which is fine. Massive books can succeed, often spectacularly. But they need to remain tight. I found a lot of Anna Karenina fairly loosely packed. There were big sections that I really didn’t care about. There was a lot of scene setting and a lot that I didn’t see the point of. I’m sure there was a point, but I often had to work too hard to find it, and regularly failed.

And the sketching of the characters was hot and cold. Some of them were skipped over and melted into a fairly large and interchangeable cast of extras. And the central ones sometimes got squashed under the weight of literal explanation. Their every thought and reaction and feeling was explained overtly and loudly. You got to know them and understand them because you were told about them, rather than being given the opportunity to watch them.

It’s possibly a harsh criticism – I’m sure it’s a characteristic of nineteenth century writing, and I can’t blame Tolstoy for leaving one or two moulds unbroken. But I’ve been brought up in the twenty-first century, on a diet of novels where the author is at pains to stay in the background and let us get to know the characters in the same way as we’d get to know real people, by watching them and drawing our own conclusions from what they say and do. When Tolstoy spends a hundred pages loudly explaining the thought process of someone and exactly how they feel about every little thing, it jars.

Oh, and I wanted to mention the “love” aspect a little. Anna Karenina is known as a love story. And love is definitely a big presence. But it’s such a teenage love that it sometimes trips into ridiculousness. The jealousies and dramatic emotion too often comes off a bit Hollyoakes. Not always. There were bits that got me. Bits that hit home and made me take a minute. But they were in the minority.

This is all sounding a bit negative, isn’t it? I don’t mean it to. Like I said, there were some glowing patches of brightness in here. Some lightning bolts. Some flashes of brilliance. Especially that last hundred pages. But there were plenty of troughs amongst the peaks too.

This is a massive book in a hundred different ways. I didn’t study it. I read it. Like I’d read any other book. I’m sure there are levels it should be appreciated on that I was entirely blind to. But in the GBR world, it’s all about enjoyment. Not literary merit. Not importance. Not historical significance. Enjoyment.

6 GBR

Ouch. That’s Tolstoy, and he just got a six. Time to start re-evaluating a few things.

Next week, something completely different.

Next World Novella - a sparrow of a book

Next World Novella by Matthias Politycki (Peirene Press: 2011) - A German Novella following Hinrich who suffers the loss of his wife thanks to a stroke. On going through her papers (with her still lying dead in the room) we’re treated to his internal monologue as he starts to reassess the nature of their relationship and the promises they’d made to each other about the next world.

I’ve ‘fessed up to a few things on this blog before. I’ve revealed (probably inappropriate) feelings for Matt Smith. I’ve admitted to enjoying a book written for kids (or “Young Adults” as is the preferred term). I’ve even laid open my complete inability to understand some sciencey stuff.

So time to drop another bomb. I’ve succumbed to a little tactical reading.

I had a 900-pager staring at me on my book shelf. But I knew reading it would mean not having new things to tell you lovely people about week after week. I know how you love new things. So I got down with some tactics - a few short books that I could finish quick, thus stockpiling some treats to spread over the weeks that I’m otherwise engaged with the overweight distraction.

It started last week with The Farnsworth Invention - which was aces, and short.

So this week’s little morsel is a German novella (translated of course, I can’t speak foreign). It was recommended as one of the best books of 2011 by some article I happened on in the Guardian (I like to read what the hippies are thinking sometimes).

I think the biggest indictment on this book is that I’m struggling to work out what to say about it. Yeah, it was nice enough. It had a few interesting twitches to keep you engaged. It explored a perspective and a character that was, if not unique, then certainly pretty rare. It was quirky and it created a distinct atmosphere diligently and with consistency.

The novella’s greatest attribute is Hinrich, the protagonist, and the portrayal of his shifting emotions. It is done expertly, allowing us to go through the spectrum with him without ever feeling contrived. Hinrich comes off as a bit of a ridiculous man, but believable all the same.



But it lacked a bit of explosion. And by that, I don’t mean action. I mean that moment or quality in a book that hits home, that makes it into more than just words on a page. It could be a quiet raw emotion, or a thread of effective comedy, or a stunning backdrop faithfully explored. It could be (and has been) any number of things. But I didn’t find any of them here unfortunately.



A fat sparrow. Because fat animals are funnier
 than normal sized ones, obvs

If this book was a bird, it would probably be a sparrow. (Stay with me on this one, it’ll make sense, I promise). Perfectly viable as a bird, the sparrow. It’s got all the right parts, and has a few tricks up its sleeve (wing) that the other birds don’t (I assume). You could find beauty in it if you really studied it, really put some effort into some dramatic nature photography, but it’d be hard work. It doesn’t have any of the more overt majesty of a golden eagle, or the obvious comedy of a flamingo. People don’t trudge out into the wilderness in waterproofs or safari gear to catch a glimpse of a sparrow. They want rarity and excitement and beauty - which are the same things I want when I read.

But sometimes, all you get is a sparrow.

6 GBR

Perfectly pleasant. But nothing more.

Next week, finally that graphic novel I’ve been promising you. And a proper one this time. I daren’t leave myself open to the criticism I got after the last graphic novel review, where I satisfied myself with the first one I found in Waterstone’s.

The Hound of the Baskervilles - stealing a march on the BBC

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (George Newnes: 1902). A classic Sherlock Holmes novel, in which Dr Watson narrates his experiences with perhaps the world’s most famous detective as he faces peril, mystery and the English countryside in his efforts to get to the bottom of the Baskerville family curse.

I absolutely did not do this on purpose. Cross my heart. I was genuinely interested in reading a Sherlock Holmes novel, and then spotted this good looking copy in the book shop by work.

The result is a suspiciously well timed GBR entry. This evening, BBC1 have their second instalment of series 2 of Sherlock. Probs the most anticipated BBC series of the last few years. And the story they’ve reinterpreted? Hound of the Baskervilles.

Boom! Me and the BBC, totally on the same wavelength.

Of course, that means absolutely no spoilers, promise.

What did I think of it? Well, to be honest, it was exactly what I thought it’d be like. Which I’m not sure is great thing. It struggled to be any different from the picture I had in my head before I turned the first page. Which is unsurprising I guess.

Because how foten do you have an excuse
to include a picture of Oompa Loompas?

Everyone knows Sherlock Holmes and his world. It’s like Robin Hood or Mr Wonka – you don’t have to have read the stories to know all about the merry men or the Oompa Loompas. Holmes is the same, which is exactly why every modern representation of him relies on injecting something other. The Robert Downey Jnr films rely on Hollywood action scenes to freshen it up. The BBC series sets the whole thing in modern day London, changing the context and allowing that to alter the characters a little as well.



Penfold - see previous
caption



The original though is the original. It’s the source material, and so was incapable of holding any real surprises. Holmes was exactly the character I’ve heard about forever, as was Watson (though I was mildly surprised at Watson’s athleticism, having previously pictured him as a portly sidekick – more Penfold than Robin).

 

The result is a book that relies more on the writing than any surprise ingredients. And it’s good. There’s a reason these books took off and survive more than a hundred years after they were first written. It was fluent and fast paced, well plotted with the key spikes in activity expertly timed. Action is a difficult thing to achieve in a book, much easier on film, but it’s done well by Arthur Conan Doyle. He mixes in fast paced scenes with tension building passages expertly, and it makes for exciting reading.

The first person narrative from Watson also helped give it a tinge of reality, avoiding the very real danger of the book descending completely into fantasy.

And my disappointment at the lack of new stuff (as stupid an expectation as that was) was softened a little by the sense of nostalgia and comfort that grew as the book raced on. I felt closer to Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson than ever. They’re disappointing familiarity gave way gradually to the feeling that I was reconnecting with old friends.

 So in all, I enjoyed it in a fairly mild way. I’ll definitely read another. It was fun and comfortable and exciting in places. But it suffered from its own fame a little. Don’t expect surprises around many of the corners, or anything that really raises the eyebrows.

6 GBR

Next week, a review of Cormac McCarthy’s first ever book. The guy that wrote The Road and No Country for Old Men first started churning books out in 1965 apparently, so I thought I’d go find out how that all started.

Hopefully the BBC will be showing a Cormac McCarthy film adaptation next week.

Making History - high risk reading

Making History by Stephen Fry (Hutchinson: 1996) A young historian and a jaded physicist meet in the corridors of high education, discovering an unlikely common interest. Their curiosity leads them to developing a machine that poses more philosophical questions than they first realised. They use it unquestioningly, and the results are the stuff of high entertainment.

This is high risk reading. Danger at every corner with this one. First, it was a birthday present. Who goes on-line and disses a birthday present? Gits, that’s who.

Second, it’s by that delightful Stephen Fry. I (like most of you I’m sure) really like that guy. True, the last few years have given us perhaps a bit too much Fry, but he’s got a lot of credit in the bank from Jeeves and Wooster, credit that I can’t imagine him ever really exhausting.

Third, it was a bit big, which put some stress on my ability to try and finish a new book for you guys every week. On the plus side, the writing was real large.

So you can imagine my relief when the book started well. One of my main worries was that all I would hear is Stephen Fry talking to me. When the author is so famous, there’s the danger that the book itself will fail to speak. That the story won’t get a chance to really live under the weight of the author’s character. That didn’t happen here. The protagonist (and narrator of large passages) was lively and separate from Fry. He had his own personality, and Fry stayed diligently in the background.

And it was (as you’d expect from Fry) well written and well paced. It was very easy to read. The sentences and the paragraphs and the chapters were structured so effortlessly that you could just strap in and enjoy the ride. The book didn’t ask much from me, but equally I didn’t feel short changed. There was just enough to make me feel I was into something meaty, but not so much that I had to wade through it with furrowed brow.

So far, so good.

But then the plot kicked in properly. About half way through, or maybe three quarters, the plot really woke up. And I’m not sure I liked that.

Of course, it’s difficult to go through exactly why without giving away the ins and outs. Suffice to say that it all went a bit fantastical. It had its good points. It posed some interesting hypothetical questions. But I couldn’t help feeling I had leapt from a tightly woven narrative into some sort of contrived Back to the Future sequel.

And before you get on my back, I of course love Back to the Future. Love it. But I didn’t really feel it had a place here. It’s like watching Inspector Morse for an hour and a half, and then Doctor Who suddenly landing and waving his electric screwdriver around. I love them both, Morse and Who, but for different reasons, and I think I may cry if ever they were to trample on each other’s ground.

So yes, that spoiled it ever so slightly. But I continued to fly through the pages, continued to be entertained by the subtle wit that Fry dropped in wherever possible, continued to enjoy the characters her created, continued to race towards the 572^nd page and the grand conclusion.

So in all, a good book. An enjoyable book. But one with flaws.

6 GBR

I’d read it again. And again. But maybe not again after that.

Next week, I give the latest Man Booker Prize winner a shot.

Cream Teas Traffic Jams and Sunburn - a bit of a surprise

Cream Teas, Traffic Jams andSunburn, by Brian Viner (Simon & Schuster: 2011) Brian Viner blends his own experiences with those of his family, friends and acquaintances to explore the cultural phenomenon of the British on holiday. Using anecdotes, history, and his own keen observations, Viner shines a light on why we do what we do when we're at leisure, from Bognor Regis to Beunos Aries.

Choosing books to read is a minefield. One which, with a bit of time and the odd lost leg, most of us like to think we can navigate fairly well. As much as we’re urged not to judge a book by its cover, most of us do to some extent. Not literally, but we usually let a handful of initial signifiers dictate whether or not we pick a book up.

Genre. Author. Reviews. Recommendations. The title. The blurb on the back. Tick one or two of those boxes, and you’ll probably pick it up.

Which is why I was fairly sure I was going to hate this book. From all I could tell, I thought it’d essentially be the book version of one of those painful TV shows where they get a bunch of tv “celebs” to talk to camera about how mad the ‘80s were. I thought it’d be full of “aren’t we crazy” moments. I thought it’d rely heavily on having a reader who is prone to chuckling internally with a “that is so like my Aunt Ida” thought. In short, I thought it’d be pretty vacuous.

But it was free. And I try to keep an open mind. So I gave it a try.

And it proved me wrong.

The main thing it had going for it was the wit of Brian Viner. Wit can take you a long way, and Viner has it in spades. And he uses it to good effect, carefully avoiding too much of a “isn’t it funny when…” tone by telling his anecdotes with genuine good humour. That I did end up accidentally feeling an affinity for his experiences (and those of his seemingly hundreds of interesting friends) is testament to how well this is written. I opened the first page determined not to succumb to what I though would be a sickeningly chummy narrative, and I closed the last page wanting to go round his house for dinner.

And it’s not just his wit that turned me around. He brings some good history into the book as well, charting the course of the holiday as a phenomenon and introducing the pioneers who, through the centuries, have defined how we spend our leisure time (that is, once the world’s workers had some of it to spend).

There are some genuinely interesting facts and figures in here. Just ask my wife. She suffered through a week of me starting sentences with “did you know that…”. She smiled sweetly throughout, (she’s a trooper like that), but I know it’s annoying when someone keeps bugging you about stuff they’ve just read in their new book. Again, the fact I ended up feeling compelled to share what I was reading then and there goes some way to show just how much this book won me over.

But, to be fair, I had a long way to go. I started convinced that I was going to hate this book. Its wit and its history meant that I didn’t. But not hating it and actively liking it are two quite different things.

The wit can only take you so far. It took me to about two hundred pages before it started to wear thin. If he’d stopped the book there, I probably would have scored this pretty darn high. But he didn’t - Viner went on for another 100 or so pages. And (I’m sad to say) it just got a bit sameish after that. I’m not sure if the best anecdotes are packed in at the start of the book, or if I just got a bit bored. Either way, the book rather peaked and then declined fast.

And there were one or two aspects that I didn’t really notice at the start of the book, but that started to bug me by the end. One was the unfeasible amount of holidays Viner seems to take. I know this is a man who, through his job, has the opportunity to travel a fair amount, but he seems to pack in a dozen breaks a year to various destinations. True, they’re not all far flung and exotic, but they are numerous. By the end, all I could feel was slight depression that I don’t get away anywhere near the same amount.

The other slight annoying aspect was the sheer number of “close friends” Viner references. Every page details the story of another set of “close friends” and their experiences, more often than not whilst on holiday with Viner and/or his own family. The cumulative impression is of a man who spends all of his time on eventful holidays with hundreds of his closest friends. And that isn’t a man I can really identify with, which is important when it’s his voice you’re listening to throughout the book.

So, to the score. How does a…

6 GBR

…grab you?

A rollercoaster of emotions for the week. Hating it one second, loving it the next, then bottoming out at something just above indifference.

Next week, something a bit more established. The second young adult book of GBR history, though of a different era than the first. Intrigued? You should be.

A Million Little Pieces - forgetting the debate

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (2003: John Murray (Publishers)) The author writes of his experiences when, aged 23, he entered one of the most expensive and exclusive rehab centres in the USA. James Frey had brought his life to within seconds of the end through years of drug abuse. He details his time in rehab, during which he gradually takes back control of his life, though not quite in the way he’s supposed to.

Book recommendations come at all sorts of times. Drunken taxi ride home with a team-mate after an end of season curry night out? Alright then, let’s talk books. That’s just the kind of high life I lead. As I was settling back in the car seat, all smug at successfully navigating a night of carefully controlled revelry without embarrassing myself, BAM! – out of no-where, here comes a book recommendation from my fellow Bec Old Boys player.

Cue Amazon one-click and my iPhone, and I bought this one there and then, before I even commenced my usual dance outside my front door as I fished around for my keys with the ticking clock of a need for the toilet counting down perilously.

I eventually got around to reading this whilst on holiday in the Lakes a couple of weeks ago.

So what did I think of it? If you know one thing about this book, it’s the controversy that surrounds it. Internationally lauded at the time, the author has faced massive criticism since details came out which made his version of events questionable at best. Presented as a memoir, most now agree that A Million Little Pieces is fairly loosely based on the facts, though it’s still pretty unclear as to what is real and what is not.

Knowing this before turning the first page does make you read it in a curious way. It takes a while to stop analysing the events of the book. It takes a while before you stop wondering “did that bit really happen” at every turn, and start just reading it for what it is. As much as I tried not to let it, the context this book does get in the way a little.

But eventually, it does melt away. This is a long book, so there’s plenty of time for you to hear it properly. And when that happened, I liked what I heard.

No doubt about it, Frey writes in a compelling way. The pain and the trauma draws you in. The ordeals Frey describes and the emotion that feeds on the back of them hit home in a big way. The whole book (well, most of it) is spent in the confines of a rehab centre – not a lot actually happens, but Frey finds enough action to explore to ensure the 500-odd pages go by without any real hanging around.

Frey’s style is also a massive plus. It’s not quite conversational, but it works to convey a thought process that you can instantly understand. Frey lets you into his head in an incredibly effective way, and he uses a distinctive writing style to do it.

All of which is to say this is a hugely enjoyable and emotional read.

But if you’ve skipped ahead already to check out the GBR rating (don’t act innocent, I know most of you do it), you’re probably asking yourself “well, if it’s good, why not a higher score?”

Well, a couple of reasons. The main one is the way in which Frey presents himself. True, he’s incredibly open about his battle with addiction, and he’s quick to describe himself as a loser who’s sunk about as low as someone can go. But between the lines, he’s kind of up himself. The dialogue he gives himself, the way he tackles confrontational situations, the philosophy he develops – it all just drips of self congratulation. Frey is presented as the smartest, wittiest, most bad-ass, loyal, mature, deepest person in the world. The black and white words on the page are pretty humbling, but it’s incredibly clear that Frey thinks a lot of himself. He ends up coming off as a lonely hero, a great man flawed by addiction. And I don’t buy it.

So where does that leave me? A book I really enjoyed. A book that has a lot of merit in it. A book that deserves to be read and understood. But one that asks you to jump a pretty significant fact-or-fiction hurdle. And a protagonist that is way too cool for school for my liking.

6 GBR

This is a great book. A sure fire 9 GBR if it was a novel. But it’s not. It’s a memoir. Whether it’s 100% fact or not doesn’t bother me a huge amount. What does is the way Frey writes about himself, especially  between the lines. Which may be a bit harsh, but I prefer my heroes a little more humble.

Deep breath. Next week, something completely different.

The Knife of Never Letting Go - an attempt to get over myself

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (2008: Walker Books Ltd). In a world where everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts, a boy starts to find out that most of what he’s been told about his town and its history has been a lie. The truth puts him on the run from those that would hide it. The chase brings him into contact with people and places he never even knew existed.

In an attempt to get over myself this week, I said yes to a challenge.

You see, my wife is a big fan of what she calls “young adult” books. Harry Potter is probably the best example, but then it was Twilight, then the Hunger Games, and now it’s a series called Chaos Walking.

Now, my assumption has always been that these books are not targeted towards me. Their audience is designed to be teenagers. I assumed that, if I spent some time reading them, it’d be wasted time – that they’d miss the mark with me.

And that was fine. It wasn’t an indictment on the quality of the books themselves. Just an acknowledgment that they weren’t designed for me. And everyone was happy.

Except, of course, my wife. She insisted these were worth a read and that, by being so closed minded, I was missing out.

To be fair, she probably has a point.

So one of my wife’s good friends challenged me to read her latest recommendation. She’s good a good line in recommendations, this friend. She’s a children’s librarian, and is always a step ahead of the curve when it comes to the latest craze in the genre. (She’s also got a highly entertaining blog of her own that’s worth a visit).

So, challenge accepted, I picked up The Knife of Never Letting Go, the first in the Chaos Walking trilogy.

And I found that I’d been wrong, though not entirely.

The book is good. Let’s get that out there right now before there’s any misunderstanding. It took me a little while to give it a chance, but by the end of it I realised that it had a number of good points. It’s an interesting premise. It’s got a breakneck pace that sees the pages speed by. It’s written cleverly. And it’s set in a highly original world.

All in all, high above what I was expecting. But then again, I was expecting it to be rubbish.

It did though (and my wife’s going to hate me for this) live up to enough of my prejudices to spoil my enjoyment of it a little.

I just couldn’t get over the fact that the protagonist is 14 years old. I know, I know, I’m a cold-hearted git. But when the strongest voice coming off the pages is that of a child, then I find it tough to take it too seriously. At times, the writing was so good that I forgot that this guy was 14, but it never lasted long. And every time I remembered, I disengaged a little.

Also, I had a bit of a problem with the plot. There was so much of it. The whole book is one long plot. Non-stop action. A chase that lasts nearly 500 pages. As a way of catering for the short attention span of its intended teenage audience, it works. But for me, it felt like there was no room to breathe. There was no room for the characters to grow. For meaning to appear between the lines. Everything we learn about everything is right there in black and white. I just didn’t have to work hard enough to pull my own conclusions out, and that meant I never really had to engage fully in this.

Perhaps most damning was just how little I cared at the end. Fairly horrific things happen to the heroes of this book, and mortal danger is always around the next bend. But I only ever half cared about their fate. I was only ever faintly interested to find out if they all got out alive. And a large part of that is because the characters never really had the time to come off the pages for me. They stayed resolutely pinned to the black and white of the plot. They didn’t become real people in a way that made me care.

Apart from maybe the dog. The dog, I cared about.

But, and I’ll say it again, the book is good. For all the nit picking I can do, I cannot deny that I enjoyed parts of it, that the writing was both clever and creative, and that I’ll probably go see the film once it’s inevitably made. Patrick Ness has made me realise that “young adult” fiction has far more good points than I gave it credit for. It has its inherent down sides, but they are often overshadowed by imagination and energy.

As for a score, well that’s difficult. As a young adult book, this would score pretty darn high. As a book that I’d recommend to you guys, I’m struggling.

6 GBR

When all’s said and done, I would recommend you go pick this up. Give young adult fiction a chance. If you’re like me, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised. If you’re a better person than I am and are able to get over your pre-conceptions of the genre a little more successfully, you might even end up enjoying it enough to pick up the second and third books in the trilogy.